Asus ROG Strix G15 comes with RGB lighting all around.
The PC gaming industry has witnessed a boom in the past few months. Since desktop GPUs are overpriced, many people are investing in gaming laptops instead. This is why Asus felt the need to launch several new gaming laptops under their ROG lineup. One of the interesting ones in the range has to be the new Asus ROG Strix G15.
The ROG Strix G15 aims to offer a great gaming experience with a high refresh rate panel and desktop-like performance. At a price of Rs. 1,64,990, is this the gaming machine you should pick up? Let’s find out in this review.
Asus ROG Strix G15 Review: Specifications
Asus ROG Strix G15 comes in various configurations. The unit we received for review is powered by the AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU. It features a 15.6-inch Quad HD (1440p) IPS panel with a 165Hz refresh rate and a 3ms response time. The laptop packs in 16GB of RAM and 1TB M.2 NVMe PCIe SSD. For graphics, it relies on the Nvidia RTX 3070.
Asus ROG Strix G15 Review: Design and Build
Asus ROG Strix G15 shouts gaming from every angle. The ROG logo on the lid glows and there is also an RGB strip that goes around the base of the laptop. Besides that, the keyboard is also lit by RGB lighting. As soon as you boot the laptop, these lights welcome you and awakes the gamer inside you.
The lid is made out of aluminium.
As for the build quality, the Strix G15 is made out of plastic. It’s just the lid of the laptop that is made out of aluminium and the rest of the chassis is plastic. However, the laptop still manages to feel quite solid. I did notice some flex on the lid but that is not too concerning.
In terms of the I/O, the gaming laptop features two USB Type-A ports and a headphone jack on the left. While there is nothing on the right, the HDMI port, a USB Type-C port, another USB Type-A port, an Ethernet jack, and the charging port are all located on the back. I really liked the idea of placing the other ports at the back as it will help users keep a clean gaming setup on their desk.
One thing that Asus has been doing on their gaming laptops is the elimination of a webcam. While the Strix G15 does not come with a webcam, the company has bundled a USB webcam in the box.
Asus ROG Strix G15 Review: Display and Audio
Asus ROG Strix G15 sports a 15.6-inch Quad HD IPS panel with a 165Hz refresh rate and a 3ms response time. While having a 1440p panel on a 15/6-inch screen does not really show the difference, it sure is a great thing to have. On top of that, the 165Hz refresh rate really helps in elevating the gaming experience on the laptop.
Asus ROG Strix G15 comes with RGB lighting all around.
As for the panel itself, it is quite sharp and crisp. There are minimal bezels around the display providing an immersive content consumption experience.
On the audio front, the Asus ROG Strix G15 offers great sound output. The laptop even comes with a two-way AI-noise cancellation mic that helps a lot in dealing with background noise. While the speakers were good enough for watching movies and TV shows, I did feel the urge to connect a pair of headphones while playing games as the fans would crank up so loud that it would get a bit annoying.
Asus ROG Strix G15 Review: Keyboard and trackpad
Asus ROG Strix G15 has a great keyboard with a decent amount of key travel. The keyboard offers individually lit RGB keys and it does help the laptop feel more premium. Even while typing articles on the keyboard, I felt quite comfortable.
The keyboard features individually backlit keys.
As for the trackpad, Asus takes advantage of the Windows Precision drivers making gesture controls on Windows 10 seamless. The trackpad itself is smooth and it is one of the best I have used on a Windows laptop.
Asus ROG Strix G15 Review: Performance
Asus ROG Strix G15 is a powerhouse when it comes to performance. The gaming laptop is powered by the Ryzen 9 5900HX CPU paired with an Nvidia RTX 3070 mobile GPU. With such specifications, the laptop performs as good as some gaming desktop computers.
During the review period, I played a couple of games including Gears 5, Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Valorant, PUBG and Battlefield V. All of these games performed really well on the laptop without showing any signs of hiccups. Even with the resolution set at 1440p, Battlefield V managed to offer 65+ FPS.
As for the benchmarks, the laptop was able to achieve 12023 points on multi-core performance on Cinebench R23. We even ran 3DMark’s TimeSpy benchmark and it gave us a score of 9913 points.
It comes with the Nvidia RTX 3070 GPU.
In terms of the thermals, the laptop surprisingly did well. It did get a little warm after playing Gears 5 at 1080p for over an hour. However, it was not something unbearable. Asus has done a great job at managing the thermals with this machine.
As far as regular usage is concerned, I had no problems having three windows of Google Chrome open with at least 10-12 tabs on each window. I even had a couple of apps running in the background including WhatsApp, Slack, Spotify, Steam and Microsoft Word. Even with all of these tasks running, the laptop was running really smooth.
Asus ROG Strix G15 Review: Battery
It offers a decent battery life.
When it comes to battery life, I did not expect much from the Asus ROG Strix G15 given that most gaming laptops offer bad battery life. However, to my surprise, the ROG Strix G15 managed to do really well in this area. With regular usage, I was able to stretch it to around 5-6 hours of usage. My usage consists of using the web, lots of typing and listening to music at all times.
For charging, the laptop comes with a 220W power brick that can fast-charge the laptop rather quickly.
Asus ROG Strix G15 Review: Verdict
The Asus ROG Strix G15 is a great package for the price. It offers a great gaming experience and given that GPU prices are hiked up, you will have a hard time building a PC of this calibre at a price of around Rs. 1,64,999. Adding to the desktop-like performance, it does bring portability to the table.
In a nutshell, if you are looking for a Windows PC to game on, this could be the right choice.
