The first thing you notice is the impressive build quality. The casing is made of brushed black aluminum that allows it to be light yet also strong. The laptop felt sturdy with no flex. The screen is bright, vibrant and has a matte finish so you won’t be bothered by glare. The keyboard is responsive and has a good feel. I’m a software programmer and the layout of the keyboard seems good for both programming and for games. One problem I’ve encountered with the layout is that I keep hitting the F12 key instead of the Delete key. According to the utility CPU-Z, it comes with 16 GBytes of Hyundai DDR4-2666 in a single channel configuration. The utility CrystalDiskInfo indicates that the main OS drive is a 128 GB Kingston RBUSNS8154P3128GJ SSD and communicates using the NVM Express 1.2 interface with a PCIe 3.0 x2 transfer mode. According to the specs, it’s supposed to be using the slower M.2 SATA mode so this is an unexpected and nice surprise if true. Results from CrystalMark indicate a read speed of 1499.9 MB/s for the Seq Q32T1 test which seem to confirm it is indeed using the faster M.2 MVM Express 1.2 protocol since the M.2 SATA protocol’s maximum is about 550 MB/s. There is also a 1 TB Seagate FireCuda Gaming SSHD that helps offset the relatively small size of the main drive. This drive can be used to store most programs, games, and data. This is my first gaming laptop and it is actually more powerful than my desktop computer. I was surprised by how light and thin it was. Some reviewers have mentioned that they felt it was a bit on the heavy side, but my previous laptops were bulkier and about the same weight but much less powerful. So, for me, this is actually a pretty light laptop considering the beastly hardware inside that can play all my games better than my current desktop. The first thing I did was to install some of my games like Witcher 3 and Mass Effect Andromeda. In Witcher 3, the framerate was locked at 60 fps and Mass Effect had framerates that ranged from 150 to 80 fps. Very impressive. The built-in speakers was loud and very good from such a thin laptop. During gameplay, I could hear the fans rev up fairly loud but it wasn’t too distracting for me. When performing non-gaming activities such as web browsing, the laptop was very quiet with the occasional light whisper of turning on and off of the fans. It supports the newest wireless-AC standard which was able to maintain a strong 780.0 to 866.7 Mbps connection to my Linksys Velop WiFi Mesh router. Transferring files wirelessly from my NAS showed a solid transfer rate from 35 to 40 MB/seconds. Bluetooth comes standard and I was able to use my HP Touch Bluetooth mouse with no problems. This is really a great laptop. It’s more powerful than many desktops so it offers first rate portable gaming and can be used as a main desktop replacement. The only criticism I have is the relatively small 128 GB SSD for the main OS drive. The inclusion of a secondary 1TB 5400 spinning HD helps elevate this but some programs like Visual Studio will take up a lot of space on the C: drive even if you instruct it to be installed on the D: drive. For this use case, the 128 GB SSD is a little too small. Luckily, another reviewer has shown that it is possible to upgrade the internals of the laptop with a larger SSD and adding more memory (pictures show that there is another slot for adding memory). This upgrade might be too intimidating for a lot of users (you need a Torx screwdriver and you need to carefully pop the lid) and this includes me for the initial time. This laptop is just so beautiful that I probably won’t try upgrading memory or the SSD until I’ve had it for awhile for fear of damaging it while trying to remove the lid. But it’s nice to know that it will be possible to upgrade memory and replace the SSD with something larger if the need arises.

This Asus GU501 ROG Laptop is the one you want. It's got everything a gamer needs, and then some. It strikes a nice balance between elegance and gaming oriented, where style is concerned. It's got enough power to push through for the next couple of years. It's thin, and doesn't weigh much.The only overall drawbacks here are battery life, no G-SYNC tech, and big bezel. Like I said, almost perfect, but still five stars. For starters, this laptop is honestly a looker. Featuring only one big chrome logo (that lights up red) on top of a brushed aluminum case, it looks good. Like, really good. The full laptop is aluminum, save for the bottom of the case (for cooling reasons), and features a nice gold accent trip along the outer shell. The keyboard features four zone lighting areas, and all are RGB, meaning colors can be changed or turned off. It houses a full sized keyboard, that feel pretty good for the most part. Actuation is good, and typing was better than on my wife's chiclet MacBook Pro 2015. The only real non-looker areas here are the screen's bezel. On the sizes, it's about 3/4 inch thick, while on top measures in around a full inch. I understand why it's there (just due to the full size keyboard), but still could be distracting for some. The screen itself is a solid, 120hz IPS anti-glare, which I really like. It loses some of the shine that glossy screens provide with color content, but overall is better for strictly gaming. I found the screen to be goo Moving on, let's talk internals, because this is a gaming laptop. Featuring Intel's 8th gen hex (6) Core i7 processor, this thing is a beast. That's all that needs to be mentioned there. The RAM is adequate at 16 GB, but can easily be upgraded within the second DIMM slot. The SSD and 1TB HDD were sufficient enough, although my sleep boot times were a little wonky-every time I would open my laptop, the booting would take longer than expected to happen. Of course, the backbone of this system is the full-size NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 6GB. It handles games great, and can play pretty much any games at 1080p 60FPS+. Realistically, this can do it all, and you won't have issues with games. Older games like BF4 can easily do 100+FPS. and that's perfect performance here. You know what you're getting with a 1080p screen and a GTX 1060. All this said, the only things that really drag the system down are the overall battery life, fan speed and noise, and the lack of G-SYNC tech in the screen. The battery life, for me after 6 days of use, hovered around 3 hours, not gaming, unplugged. When gaming, I could hit around 1hr50min unplugged. This isn't terrible, but man it can be a drag. The power brick is bigger, and weighs about 1 lb itself, making it hard to cut the cord, so to speak. When under any heavy loads (or even just random times) the fans really crank the speed and noise up. This isn't an issue for me, especially when using headphones, but it could be for some. Knowing that going in is essential. Lastly, no G-SYNC (as the higher end models of this computer have) is a minus, but not a killer downgrade. There are far more expensive machines that don't have the same tech, so no biggie. All in all, I was truly impressed with this laptop. Asus did a very nice job of bringing sophistication and sharp, gaming roots into one computer. Everything works like it should, wrapped up in a lighter (5.5 lbs) and thinner (.78in thick) package than a 15.6" system could do. This has my approval, and is almost on par with my desktop at home now. Would definitely recommend.

Bought this to be able to edit large video files and for live stream video processing. It handles it all effortlessly. Sleek design and mobile. I see why people play games on this. Faster at everything and unbelievable.

I got y520 and went to best buy for G7 but picked up this gu501.y520 ran hot hovering at 90 plus so saw this baby added 650 and now its on my lap.I have always been lucky with Asus hardware but their software is nightmare. It took 3 days to upgrade to nvme ssd coz the drivers won't work at all. Finally epackage folder worked for me. Now my touchpad is iffy so maybe its software problem not the hardware. Thus runs while gaming at 70 after repaste which is way better than any gaming laptop right now unless you go above 2k.

I upgraded the SSD drive from 128 GB to 500 GB and anyone notices the difference. Any game flies! And my renders are quick and sharp. Excellent laptop for a great price!