First impressions of ASUS N752 – Core i7-6700HQ, GeForce GTX and 4K screen in a beautiful enclosure

LaptopMedia.com Highlights First impressions of ASUS N752 - Core i7-6700HQ, GeForce GTX and 4K screen in a beautiful enclosure

From: LaptopMedia Team 23 March 2016 / 16:11 | 1

The machine is Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger than its predecessor and you have some good reasons to stay tuned for the in-depth review. It has an upgraded Core i7 Skylake processor, GeForce GTX 950M GPU (with DDR3 memory, though) and configuration with 4K screen for all your multimedia needs.

Being practical, we went for the Full HD option for our review, considering that ASUS has decided to sacrifice 14% of the battery capacity (56Wh to 48 Wh), in order to bring down the size. However, we hope that the energy-efficient Skylake chip will handle that issue.

Check the current price and availability of ASUS N752:
http://amzn.to/1T6itYn

Design

Although the notebook looks almost the same as before, there are a few things that ASUS has done differently this time. For starters, the most noticeable aspect is the weight. Last year’s version weighed around 3.4 kg and now the chassis’ weight has gone down to 3.17 kg, which is a huge step in the right direction. Still, the 17-incher feels a bit hefty, though. Also, when ASUS announced its new N552 and N752 laptops, they claimed that the new version will not only be lighter, but also noticeably thinner. Unfortunately, this isn’t exactly the case. While last year’s version was around 35 mm thick at its thickest point, now the N752 is 30 mm near the front and goes as far as 33 mm at the back, so yeah, it’s a few millimeters thinner but not necessarily noticeable.

Moreover, the new chassis doesn’t offer easy access to the battery, so it isn’t user-removable as before, but instead you will have to perform a full disassembly. The good news is that the service lid now gives access to the additional M.2 SSD storage option and you don’t have to go through the disassembly process to upgrade it. For the record, the N751 did have an additional storage option (half-size mSATA) but it was a bit hard to access.

As for the rest of the design, it’s practically the same with the elegant concentric brushed aluminum lid and hard silver plastic mimicking anodized aluminum for the interior. The keyboard and touchpad also seem carried out from the last generation and that’s actually a good thing since both input devices offer excellent usability and comfort.

Hardware

We are not exactly sure what configuration options ASUS is going to offer for this model, but the one we got (N752VX) offers the updated Intel Skylake processor (Core i7-6700HQ) compared to the last year’s Core i7-4720HQ. The GPU is the same – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M (2GB DDR3), which will be enough for some light gaming every now and then. The RAM chips have received a nice update – they are now DDR4-2133 compared to the N751JX’s DDR3-1600.

On contrary to these updates, ASUS has decreased the capacity of the battery from 56Wh to 48Wh and we are a bit disappointed as the 17.3-inch Full HD IPS panel and the demanding CPU will take a toll on the battery life. We hope the new 6th generation chip will compensate for the difference. Oh, and ASUS has announced that it will release configurations with UHD panels.

Check the current price and availability of ASUS N752:
http://amzn.to/1T6itYn

Specs sheet

ASUS-N552_6th-gen-Intel-Core-i7-CPU-and-NVIDIA-GTX960M-graphic

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Processor	Intel Core i7-6700HQ (4-core, 2.60 – 3.50 GHz, 6MB cache)
RAM	8GB (1x 8192MB) – DDR4, 2133 MHz
Graphics card	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M (4GB DDR3)
HDD/SSD	1TB HDD (7200 rpm)
Display	17.3-inch (43.94 cm) – Full HD (1920×1080), IPS matte
Optical drive	DVD burner
Connectivity	LAN 10/100/1000 Mbps, Wi-Fi 802.11ac, Bluetooth 4.0
Other features	3x USB 3.0 1x USB-C 3.1 (Support for Thunderbolt) webcam integrated microphone integrated loudspeakers (Bang & Olufsen ICEpower, Sonic Master) RJ-45 HDMI mini DisplayPort card reader (SD, MMC) backlit keyboard
Battery	4-cell 48Wh
Thickness	30-33 mm (1.18-1.30″)
Weight	3.17 kg (6.99 lbs)