Review: Asus ROG GL552JX Is a Muscular Laptop With Rough Edges

This gaming laptop offers top-end hardware without exceeding your budget.

Asus ROG GL552JX gaming laptop. (Photo: The Quint)

Gaming is a passion. Some gamers prefer assembling their own rig while others would choose a gaming laptop, from the likes of Alienware and Asus.

Asus has been quite serious about offering gaming laptops that fall right in the middle of the budget you’d put into setting up a rig and an Alienware. The Asus ROG GL552JX is priced at Rs 80,990 and comes with Windows 10 out-of-box.

Asus ROG GL552JX gaming laptop has got mascular looks. (Photo: The Quint)

Pros:

• Glare-free matte finish Full-HD display
• Backlit keyboard
• Powerful all-round hardware
• CD/DVD writer

Cons:

• Trackpad isn’t intuitive
• Average audio quality
• Too heavy
• Mediocre battery life

What’s Good?

Off late, Asus has made some right moves with its laptops. You have the ZenBook series that offers MacBook-like looks for half the price. Much like it, you have the ROG GL552JX that meets a gamer’s hardware needs without exceeding their budget. You can even expand the RAM support up to 16GB (you get 8GB onboard for starters).

Asus ROG GL552JX gaming laptop gets a matte finish 15.6-inch Full-HD display. (Photo: The Quint)

The 15.6-inch display comes with a matte finish that offers you a glare-free gaming experience. And with full-HD resolution, you can enjoy playing popular gaming titles without worrying about its compatibility.

Asus ROG GL552JX gaming laptop comes with a CD/DVD writer. (Photo: The Quint)

You also get the evergreen CD/DVD writer that lets you install new games on the system’s onboard 1TB storage, along with multiple USB 3.0 ports that offer fast data-transfer speeds. Apart from all of this, we’re pleased that the ROG GL552JX comes with a backlit keyboard which offers a tactile response with crisp typing feedback.

Backlit keyboard on the Asus ROG GL552JX. (Photo: The Quint)

The laptop does its gaming duty with elan. It comes with a 4GB Nvidia GTX 950M card. This basically ensures that gaming frame rates get scored between 45 to 70 fps, depending upon the game. The laptop has vents positioned on the sides that ensure the laptop doesn’t heat up beyond a certain level.

What’s Bad?

Gaming laptops are heavy machines that are mostly confined to desks. The Asus ROG GL552JX is no different, weighing 2.4 kg, making it a task to carry. Then, you have the small matter of supplying mid-level audio hardware that’s nowhere close to the quality that a gamer asks for.

Asus ROG GL552JX gaming laptop comes with vents to control heating. (Photo: The Quint)

Also, make sure you’ve got a top-notch gaming mouse to use along with the laptop. This way, you won’t be miserable using the average trackpad.

And finally, the Asus ROG GL552JX won’t last a long session of Call of Duty. On an average, the laptop’s powerful hardware limits the battery life to 3 hours. Why even bother!

Why Buy It?

Asus ROG GL552JX gaming laptop doesn’t have a user-friendly trackpad. (Photo: The Quint)

The Asus ROG GL552JX is a hardware monster that’s got everything a gamer is looking for in a machine. The full-HD 15.6-inch display offers glare-free gaming, and the colours are in tune with the quality that one expects from a laptop at this price point.

It’s got a backlit keyboard with an average trackpad. The laptop is really heavy and the battery life could have been better. For Rs 80,990, this Asus laptop has some great specs but there is definitely room for improvement. We suggest that you wait for the next iteration of the ROG GL552JX.