ASUS ROG GL752VW review – unless you want a bigger screen, you’d better stick with the 15-inch GL552VW

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Following the success of the ASUS ROG GL552, the company apparently saw an opportunity with the 17-inch version of the model as well and just shortly after the launch, the ROG GL752 gained pretty big popularity. And why shouldn’t it? It offers pretty good price/performance value and comfortable keyboard but downgrades the display from IPS on the 15-inch version to a TN one in the GL752. We are eager to see if the change is really that noticeable. Yes, of course, it has some drawbacks like not so good build quality and a bit hefty chassis, but some users don’t mind that. And we understand, given the powerful CPU, GPU and the available storage options, including an M.2 SATA SSD.

Anyway, the ASUS ROG GL752VW follows the same design as the GL552VW, well at least for Europe that is, and judging by their regional strategy, ASUS might release the same rebranded GL752VW laptop with aluminum lid and name it ASUS ROG G772. But that’s more of a wild guess, of course. We suspect that the notebook will offer slightly shorter battery life, due to the bigger screen and the same battery capacity of 47Wh, but just about the same performance and cooling capabilities, both of which are excellent in the smaller 15-incher. We are mostly eager to see how the 17-inch TN panel will perform in our tests, though. So let’s dig in.

You can find out more about the price and availability of the notebook and all of its configurations here: http://amzn.to/1QBqnHD

Contents


Retail package

The notebook comes with the usual ASUS ROG box including the AC charger, charging cable, user manuals, a cleaning cloth, cable tie and the laptop itself.


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Design and construction

As we already stated, the ASUS ROG GL752VW is no different than its little sibling – the GL552VW. It adopts the same design language, choice of materials and, of course, inherits the practically the same build quality.


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The lid is covered in black patterned plastic with a silver-colored, aluminum-like plate in the middle accommodating ASUS’ ROG logo. Unfortunately, the same problem that we found on the 15-inch device is present here – the lid sinks in when pressed and if you go further, you can even feel the LCD screen. However, the hinges feel quite stable and tightened just about right – the laptop can be opened with just one hand. Dust is quite visible on the surface of the lid, but fingerprints and smudges don’t stick as much. And as for the bottom chassis, it uses hard plastic with interesting patterns, but features no additional grills for extra airflow, yet we suspect the presented cooling design will be sufficient enough and will not need the vents at the bottom. Instead, you will find a big maintenance lid that gives access to the RAM slots, 2.5-inch drive, and the 2280 M.2 SATA SSD.


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The sides again are quite thick – 40.29 mm but expand the range of ports offering a tad more than the 15-inch variant. The left side goes along with the DC charging port, mini DisplayPort, HDMI, LAN, one USB 3.0 and the USB 3.1 Type-C connector. There’s also the main heat dispersing grill as well. The right side holds two 3.5 mm jacks for external microphone and one for your headset along with the optical drive and two USB 2.0 ports and yes you’ve read that right – only one USB 3.0 port can be found on the laptop. This is rarely seen, especially in higher-end laptops like this one. You can still make use of the USB Type-C port, though, but there aren’t enough peripherals using this standard on the market for now.

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Opening the lid reveals the full-sized LED-backlit keyboard with decent key travel, spacing, and ergonomics. It’s comfortable not only for gaming but for typing as well. Nevertheless, the multimedia control buttons are still missing and that’s a small miss for a gaming/multimedia notebook. The touchpad, on the other hand, feels pretty solid, easy to click and quite responsive. We are pretty sure it uses the same one we found on the GL552VW, which is nice especially when compared to the wobbly trackpad on the old GL552JX. The surface around the keyboard is polished with some ornaments and front-facing speakers near the screen hinges but it’s a big fingerprint magnet, to be honest. Also, it doesn’t feel that stable, but it’s somehow better than the 15-inch GL552VW, and there are small gaps around the edges (where the base and the keyboard tray meet) that may collect dust over time. Frequent cleaning should do the trick, though.


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It’s clear that ASUS has taken the same approach here as with the GL552VW – quality hardware and excellent keyboard experience that come in favor of build quality and materials. We would have been happier if the laptop integrated a bit more future-proof materials, sturdier build, and lower weight. If you are planning to move the laptop on daily basis, the 3.52 kg weight and 40.29 mm height of the chassis will make you think twice before doing so. If you are looking for a lighter and thinner 17-incher, the new Acer Aspire V17 Nitro Black Edition might be the most reasonable choice although it costs a little bit more.

Display and sound

Unlike its 15-inch brother, the 17.3-inch GL752VW uses a TN panel but keeps the Full HD (1920×1080) resolution with 16:9 aspect ratio and goes for 127 ppi (pixel density) and 0.2 x 0.2 mm pixel pitch. The model number is N173HGE-E11 manufactured by INNOLUX. The screen can be considered as “Retina” if viewed from a distance equal or greater than 69 cm.

MicrASUS GL752

Interestingly enough, the TN panel presented here has relatively comfortable viewing angles in horizontal plane compared to most TN panels out there, but it’s still nowhere near the IPS screen we saw in the 15-inch variant. You can see the viewing angles under 45-degree incline on the photos below.

Angles-ASUS GL752

With the poor viewing angles, however, comes a big advantage that the TN panels hold over the IPS ones. The response time is much lower, which is crucial to some hardcore gamers.

RespTime-ASUS GL752

The maximum recorded brightness is just 272 cd/m2 and the maximum deviation is 17% (still considered to be normal). The former would provide detailed images in a well-lit environment, but will struggle to provide near a big light source or a direct sunlight coming from the window. The average color temperature is 7940K – a bit colder than the optimal 6500K (D65).

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Color reproduction

To make sure we are on the same page, we would like to give you a little introduction of the sRGB color gamut and the Adobe RGB. Starting with the CIE 1976 Uniform Chromaticity Diagram that represents the visible specter of colors by the human eye giving you a better perception of the color gamut coverage and the color accuracy. Inside the black triangle, you will see the standard color gamut (sRGB) that has been used by millions of people in HDTV and the Web. As for the Adobe RGB, this is used by professional cameras, monitors and etc. used for printing. Basically, colors inside the black triangle are used by everyone and this is the essential part of the color quality and color accuracy.

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You can see the color circles below representing each color with 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% saturation while the white circles stand for the actual results. The profile we created uses 150 cd/m2 brightness and 6500K (D65) color temperature.

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We recorded a contrast ratio of 1200:1 before and 850:1 after calibration – both results are excellent, especially considering that this is a TN panel. Also, the sRGB color gamut coverage is almost full with 95% before and 97% after calibration.

Below you can see the results from the accuracy color checker with 24 commonly used colors like light and dark human skin, blue sky, green grass, orange etc. We illustrate the color accuracy before and after calibration.

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Pulse-width modulation (PWM, Screen flickering)

All levels of brightness (except for 100%) have that screen flickering effect. Also, the PWM uses a frequency which is considered to be aggressive to one’s eyesight – 1 kHz. It’s still a bit faster than some models that have PWM with frequency ranging from 200 Hz to 800 Hz, for example.

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Conclusion

Again we have some mixed feelings about the display properties and image quality. It offers excellent sRGB coverage and contrast ratio, with both being a tad better than the 15-inch IPS panel on the GL552VW, but still lacks the viewing angles and crisp image quality of the IPS display. It also has relatively lower screen brightness compared to most offerings on the market and can be considered more harmful to your eyesight compared to the GL552VW, due to the lower frequency of the PWM.

Buy our display profiles

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package is meant for ASUS ROG GL752VW configurations with 17.3″ INNOLUX N173HGE-E11 (FHD, 1920 × 1080) TN panel, which can be found at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2cnnq0b

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

[edd_item edd_id_1=’70049′ edd_id_2=’70052′ edd_id_3=’70055′ edd_id_4=’70058′]

Specs sheet

The specs sheet provided below is for the model used in this review. Hardware specification may vary depending on your region.

CPUIntel Core i7-6700HQ (4-core, 2.60 -3.50 GHz, 6MB cache)
RAM8GB (1x 8192MB) – DDR4, 2133GHz
GPUNVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M (4GB GDDR5)
HDD/SSD128GB M.2 SATA SSD + 1TB HDD (5400 rpm)
Display17.3-inch (43.94 cm) – 1920×1080 (Full HD), TN matte
Optical driveDVD burner
ConnectivityLAN 10/100/1000 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0
Other features
  • 1x USB 3.0
  • 1x USB 3.1 (Type-C)
  • 2x USB 2.0
  • built-in webcam
  • built-in microphone
  • 2x 3.5 mm jack for headphones and external microphone
  • LAN
  • mini DisplayPort
  • HDMI
  • card reader (SD, MMC, MS)
  • Sonic Master loudspeakers
  • keyboard LED backlight
Battery4-cell 48Wh (3200 mAh) Li-Polymer Battery
Thickness40.29 mm (1.59″)
Weight3.040 kg (6.7 lbs) for the plastic lid version and 3.52 kg (7.72 lbs) for the metallic lid version (unconfirmed)


Software

The notebook came with pre-installed Windows 10 (64-bit), but if you are willing to do a clean install of the OS, we suggest downloading all the needed drivers from ASUS’ official support page: https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-GL752VW/HelpDesk_Download/

Battery

Surprisingly, or maybe not so much, the GL752 runs on the same battery (4-cell, 48Wh) as the smaller 15-inch variant. We were expecting somehow the same battery life considering that the hardware is identical and the larger 17-inch panel, but more energy-efficient TN panel, will draw roughly the same energy. However, things turned out to be quite the opposite. It seems that the larger surface, which the backlight has to light up, draws a lot more energy and thus resulting in poor battery performance. You can see the results from our battery tests below, which are all ran with the same settings as always – 120 cd/m2 screen brightness, Wi-Fi turned on at all times and power saver mode active.

Web browsing

In order to simulate real-life conditions, we used our own script for to automatically browse through over 70 websites.

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Lower result than expected – 209 minutes (3 hours and 29 minutes).

Video playback

For every test like this, we use the same video in HD.

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Even lower result, but still enough for a full movie – 181 minutes (3 hours and 1 minute).

Gaming

We recently started using F1 2015’s built-in benchmark on loop in order to simulate real-life gaming.

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As expected, the gaming test took a toll on the battery with only 95 minutes (1 hour and 35 minutes) of play time.

CPU

Intel_Core_i7_logoIntel Core i7-6700HQ represents the Skylake H family and it’s considered a high-performance chip with high voltage – 45W TDP. This is a step down from its direct predecessor – Core i7-4700HQ, but matches its short-lived predecessor Core i7-5700HQ. The Core i7-6700HQ has four cores ticking at 2.6GHz and can go up to 3.5 GHz for one active core and 3.1 GHz for four active cores. The silicon supports the so-called Hyper-Threading technology that emulates one virtual core for each physical, thus establishing a total of 8 threads.

Furthermore, the chip is manufactured using 14nm FinFET process and integrates Intel HD Graphics 530 GPU with 24 EU (Executable Units) clocked at 350 – 1050 MHz. The memory controller supports up to 64GB of DDR3 or DDR4 RAM at 1600 or 2133 MHz respectively. The CPU is suitable for heavy applications and gaming.

You can browse through our top CPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-cpu-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this processor: http://laptopmedia.com/processor/intel-core-i7-6700hq/

Fritz

Fritz is a chess benchmark that tests the computing capabilities of the CPU with various chess moves. The Intel Core i7-6700HQ reached 12.467 million moves per second. By comparison, one of the most powerful PCs, Deep(er) Blue, was able to squeeze out 200 million moves per second. In 1997 Deep(er) Blue even beat the famous Garry Kasparov with 3.5 to 2.5.

GPU

geforce_gtx_960m_0The GeForce GTX 960M (2GB GDDR5) is located in the high-end graphics card niche, but is used mostly in budget gaming laptops. It is part of the Maxwell family of GPUs. It features 640 CUDA cores or simply – shading units, along with 32 ROPs and 53 texture units. It has 2GB of dedicated VRAM (GDDR5 in this case). The bandwidth of the memory is 80.2 GB/s and the bus is 128-bit wide.

The GTX 960M uses the same GM107 GPU core that we’ve seen in last year’s 860M, but this one is mainly aimed at bumping the notebook’s battery life and adding some extra performance, but that’s not stressed as much. However, the GM107 is clocked a bit higher than last year’s model – 1097MHz of base clock and boost up to 1176MHz. It also supports a resolution of 2048×1536 through the VGA port and 3840×2160 with DisplayPort and HDMI.

You can browse through our top GPUs ranking: http://laptopmedia.com/top-laptop-graphics-ranking/

Here you will find other useful information and every notebook we’ve tested with this GPU: http://laptopmedia.com/video-card/nvidia-gtx-960m/


Gaming tests

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Tomb Raider (1080p, Low)Tomb Raider (1080p, Medium)Tomb Raider (1080p, Max)
154 fps71 fps35 fps

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F1 2015 (1080p, Low)F1 2015 (1080p, Medium)F1 2015 (1080p, Max)
60 fps45 fps34 fps

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Thief (1080p, Low)Thief (1080p, Medium)Thief (1080p, Max)
55 fps47 fps31 fps

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GTA 5 (1080p, Low)GTA 5 (1080p, Medium)GTA 5 (1080p, Max)
95 fps42 fps12 fps

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Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (1080p, Low)Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (1080p, Medium)Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (1080p, Max)
74 fps49 fps32 fps

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Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (1080p, Low)Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (1080p, Low)Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (1080p, Low)
125 fps112 fps92 fps

Temperatures

The nature of this two-staged test doesn’t allow it to be associated with a real-life situation since the majority of users cannot reach 100% CPU and 100% GPU load for such long periods of time. Yet, it still a good way to assess the capabilities of the cooling system and the overall stability of the machine in the long run.

As usual, we started off with 100% CPU load for about an hour and unsurprisingly, the hardware held perfectly. The silicon reached temperatures around 80 °C without any signs of throttling while running at its maximum operating frequency for four active cores – 3.1 GHz. Also, the idle temperature was pretty low as well – just around 35 °C. You can see the red line below representing the temperature and the green line standing for CPU load.

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After turning on the GPU torture test things didn’t change as much as the chip was running at around 88-89 °C while the GPU was quite hot – 83 °C, but neither of those showed signs of thermal throttling. The CPU, however, lowered its frequency down to 2.6 GHz, which is the base operating frequency, in order to give some headroom for the graphics chip.

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The cooling system performed excellently on the inside and also kept things cool on the outside as well. You can see on the temperature map below that the surface around the keyboard was cool even under extreme conditions.

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Verdict

The ROG GL series notebooks are always a compelling choice when looking for powerful hardware at a reasonable price, but the 17-inch GL752VW doesn’t seem as convincing as its 15-inch counterpart due to several reasons. First of all, the battery life is considerably lower and secondly, the display uses a TN panel while other competitors, like the Acer Aspire V17 Nitro Black Edition, offer IPS displays. Yes, the TN panel presented here has some substantial properties like high sRGB color gamut coverage and high contrast ratio, although just a little better than the 15-inch IPS panel on the GL552VW. However, the panel falls short in terms of viewing angles, maximum brightness, and PWM frequency. It uses pulse-width modulation from 0 to 99% screen brightness at 1 kHz frequency putting it way behind the IPS display found on the GL552VW in terms of user-friendliness.

And again, we are somehow unimpressed by the build quality and choice of materials along with the dimensions and weight. Acer’s variant seems way more attractive while selling for about the same price. Anyway, there are other things in which the GL752VW excels and blows everyone out of the water – keyboard and cooling capabilities. The former is just awesome for gaming and typing while the latter proved to be sufficient even in extreme conditions. So in the end, it’s really up to you to decide whether you would opt for the larger 17-inch GL752 or for the smaller GL552 gaming laptop, which offers slightly better image quality, considerably lower weight and a lot longer battery runtimes.

You can find out more about the price and availability of the notebook and all of its configurations here: http://amzn.to/1QBqnHD

Pros

  • Excellent keyboard and touchpad experience
  • Extraordinary cooling system
  • Good performance/price ratio
  • The panel offers almost full sRGB coverage, high contrast ratio and low response time, which is desirable for smooth gameplay
  • Supports M.2 SATA SSD storage
  • Offers easy access to the most commonly upgradeable hardware


Cons

  • Hefty and bulky
  • Uses TN panel with poor viewing angles and relatively low maximum brightness
  • Underwhelming build quality and not the best choice of materials
  • Short battery runtimes
  • PWM from 0 to 99% screen brightness

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Marko
8 years ago

Thanks for the review. Can you tell me why is then in all specification of this laptop written that it has IP when it has TN panel :Display 17.3-inch (43.94 cm) – 1920×1080 (Full HD), IPS matte

Rossen Pandev
8 years ago
Reply to  Marko

Honest mistake. It was copy-pasted from a source, which claimed it was an IPS at that point, but when the device made it to our lab, it turned out to be a TN panel.

pedro silva
8 years ago

Hi people, one more outstanding review, i hope you continue with this top independent quality reviews , for me you deserve more audience.

sullivan max
7 years ago

sir…………….can we replace the tn panel with izgo or pls????………or oled????i just hate tn panel………everiything else frekkin superb for this laptop/price

Rossen Pandev
7 years ago
Reply to  sullivan max

Unfortunately no. Unless you find a 17.3-inch IPS display that’s compatible with the hardware of the notebook.

sullivan max
7 years ago
Reply to  Rossen Pandev

that’s compatible with the hardware???what u mean

they have to match very screw,bolt,cable on the bezel?

Rossen Pandev
7 years ago
Reply to  sullivan max

There are mostly cable and screw compatibility issues when changing screens in laptops.

Scott
Scott
7 years ago

will it run gta 5 email me at [email protected]

nema vlad
nema vlad
7 years ago

hi guys . v good review . i need to buy a high performance 17″ laptop . my budget is around 1500 . i don t actualy do gaming on it so don t need latest video card . if u can sugest a brand / model would be awesome cuz i m in big doubt and find it very hard to decide . i m thinking between this model and the lenovo model witch have more accesible prices but after seeing reviews i don t like this choices so much anymore . thanks a lot