Asus ROG Strix GL502VT

So I was looking for a new fairly light and portable 15" gaming laptop. Was dead set on the MSI GS60 but decided to check out Asus's offering one last time to make sure I wasn't missing out anything. Fair to say Asus's 15" gaming offering was not comparable to the competition. Sure enough they are cheaper but for those like me who are willing to pay more for performance there must be an option as well. The GL552VW was close but then it have the puny GTX960M....

Then I came across this model, https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-GL502VT/overview/. Went and did some searching and there isn't much info online, apparently it's just revealed by Asus recently at a small event in Indonesia. Not even sure whether that's an official launch. Probably why I shouldn't feel surprised there isn't a thread here as well.

Anyway back to the laptop itself. Preliminary specs seems very promising, listed below, extracted from Asus website

I also prefer the design compared to the GL552VW


If Asus price this well it can give the MSI GS60 and similar laptops in the segment a good run for the money. Assuming there's no other hardware or software related issues.

 

Hello,
Firstly, I'm not sure where you're from, but this laptop just arrived to the European market. In case you're from the US, you might have to ask ASUS, or your preferred retailer about the availability. I'm getting mine today (from Czech Republic), currently priced at ~1550€. These specs for this price was pretty much a no-brainer. I could let you know what the laptop feels like (build quality, performance), once I get my hands on it, if you want.

 

I'm in the UK, so far I haven't seen any retailers here bringing this model yet, but since it's available in the EU there's high chance it will launch in the UK, that's good news.

What specs are you getting for that price? And sure, if you could provide a first hand impression it would be great.

 

Yeah, I believe they should be available across all of Europe very soon. Try asking some bigger retailer of your choice about it.
I'm getting a config with FHD display,16gb RAM, 256GB pcie ssd, 1TB HDD, GTX970m.

 

Are you getting it from one of these retailers http://notebooky.heureka.cz/asus-gl502vt-fy032t/

I just took the highest price amongst the list and convert it to GBP, it's around £12xx for FHD, 16GB RAM, GTX 970M, 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD. If they don't hike the price too much here, maybe lower than 1.4k it's going to be a very good buy. Now I just need reviews on the performance and quality.

 

Yep, I ordered it from Alza.cz and the price after conversion to GBP would be ~£1208. Hopefully ASUS didn't skimp money on the build quality. But I'll be able to tell you in later today.

 

You're receiving it today? Do post your first impressions here once you have it.

 

wow gratz man, i think its should be 1st GL502 on these forum. would you mind to post some video for us ?

 

Hello and thank you,
Sadly, I don't really have much time right now to make a video or such, but I can give you some first impressions. So, to begin with the build quality, I'd say it's very good. Both the lid of the display and the front plate of the laptop are solid brushed aluminium and the back plate is made of sturdy plastic. Even though they did use plastic, I don't think that's an issue, since it's so sturdy, you wouldn't break it if you tried. The touchpad is also good (I believe it might even be glass, since it feels very much like it, but I'm not 100% on this), although it annoys me to no end that the two finger scrolling is inverted in my Win10 right now. I did install ASUS Smart Gesture and change the option there, but it had no effect.. but that's a software issue however. And I do love the design though. This thing is pretty. There is, however, one hardware issue, and that being with the WLAN adapter. My model seems to contain the Qualcomm Atheros AR956x Wireless Adapter, which I, after some research, found out to be a single band 802.11b/g/n adapter. I've, of course, also installed the drivers from ASUS's support page.
However, in the spec sheet on the ASUS product site, it says " Wi-Fi: Integrated 802.11b/g/n, Integrated 802.11 AC (WIDI Support), 10/100/1000 Base T". Does that mean this model has got 2 integrated WLAN adapters (and 1 LAN adapter, of course) and I've only managed to activate one of them so far? I sure hope so, since the adapter that I got working has a max link speed of 72Mbps, which would be unacceptable, if this was the laptop's only adapter. Should someone have an answer, feel free to post it, otherwise I'll contact ASUS support and let you know what I find.

edit: I've checked the sticker on the back plate of the laptop and it literally says "Contains Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 8260 Single Modular", so there might be something wrong here

 

Firstly congrats on your new laptop. Can you post some pictures of it?

Secondly regarding the WLAN adapter, did you check in Windows hardware manager? It should list all network adapters on it. It would be a real bummer if this laptop don't have wireless AC support. It's totally unacceptable at this price, even for a normal laptop, it's 2016!

Did you try installing the Intel Wireless driver from here https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-GL502VT/HelpDesk_Download/ ? I assume you did.

 

I contacted my retailer and they've told me that the laptop should indeed have the mentioned Intel dual band WLAN adapter and that this sadly wouldn't be the first time a wrong WLAN adapter has been installed into a laptop by mistake and that they will replace the whole laptop with another one tomorrow. So it was all just a production mistake probably. I'll take some pics tomorrow if you like, once I've resolved this issue with my retailer..

 

That's really unfortunate but it's a good thing the retailer is willing to exchange a new unit.

I'll be waiting for the pictures and more impressions once you have a properly working model. I'm particularly interested in fan noise and thermals, as I've noticed the intake vents are located at the bottom, which I'm not really keen with, and the lid seems to cover the outtake vents when opened based on pictures. Next would be the battery life under normal usage.

 

I'll keep you posted. I just installed Project Cars on this thing so I could give you a very basic idea of thermals and gaming performance.. As for the game, it runs maxed out (including Anti Aliasing & FXAA) on 70-100 fps, depending on the map. After 20 minutes of gaming the highest recorded temperature (in HWiNFO) was 86° on the CPU (around 90% load) and 87° on the GPU (99% load), which is rather impressive with such a slim gaming laptop. So I'd say the cooling system is quite well designed. I was expecting something above 90°. Also, I had the laptop on a flat surface of course. Every part you normally come into contact with, such as around the touchpad or the keyboard is kept completely cool. The fan is completely silent under normal circumstances, actually being more silent than the HDD in the laptop (if you set to turn off the HDD after a while, when you're not using it, you won't hear a thing from this machine at all), and during gaming, I couldn't normally hear it over the game's audio, but when I paused the game, opened some sound meter app on my phone and put the mic to the vents, it showed 44-47db (which is of course not fully accurate, but could give you an idea). And you're correct, the edges of the display do overlap the vent exhausts a bit, but I've played a while (over HDMI to my TV, with a controller) with the lid open and then the lid closed and it had no impact on the cooling. What did have an impact on the cooling, however, was my cooling pad I bought couple days ago (Cooler Master ErgoStand III), which knocked the temperatures down to 80-81° on the CPU and 81° on the GPU after
I turned it on. So if you have/consider buying a cooling pad, I would say it's worth it with this laptop, as the intakes are located on the bottom, and therefore having the cooling pad effectively increase the airflow.

I also ran a quick SSD test with Samsung Magician (the SSD, at least in my model, is a 256GB NVMe SSD by Samsung, which I believe isn't mentioned in the specs), where sequential read was 2200mbps and sequential write was 1300mbps. So pretty damn fast.
As for the battery, I haven't used it long enough to tell you how long it lasts, but I can only tell you the specs, if that helps. It's a 60.7Wh battery, using a voltage of 15.2V. When you plug in the power cord, the battery charges to 97%, then completely disconnects from the power loop (so it doesn't charge or discharge), allowing power to go directly to the PSU, without going through the battery. This is a smart design and will save the battery's life.

 

Sounds very promising. How about the screen quality? Do you have any prior laptops to compare this to?

I'm still considering between this and the MSI GS60 6QE. Both offer the same specs, but the MSI being a bit more expensive with a smaller SSD (128GB). The keyboard and cooling seems better on the MSI, but I do find a few issues that is putting me of like limited USB 3.1 ports (only 2) and both of them are on the left hand side which means you have to route your wire behind the laptop if you want to connect a mouse, and several users report of wireless connection issues.

 

I've done alot of research, when I was deciding between the Gigabyte P35W v5, P34W v5, the MSI GS60 and GS40. Then, of course, this ASUS came along and it was a no-brainer. But back to the point. MSI has sadly always been notorious for poor build quality. They claim to use aluminium, yet it's too thin and weak, mostly weaker than plastic would've been (had they used the plastic like on this GL502VT, which is seriously sturdy). If you carefully watch some reviews of MSI GS60/GS40, you'll notice that it bends

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around the arm rests, it bends when you press down on the keyboard, the display bends when you grab the edges and so on. The display hinges are made of some weak plastic as well. My uncle used to own an MSI, one of the hinges snapped off. Same goes for 2 friends of mine. A hinge just snapped off after time, while opening the lid normally. Also the GS60 comes with a very tiny battery with poor battery life ( http://www.notebookcheck.net/Xotic-PC-MSI-GS60-6QE-002US-Notebook-Review.152667.0.html). And on top of that, MSI seals the back plate with a "Warranty sticker: void if broken" sticker, which is just ridiculous, as I personally, would definitely want to at least clean the laptop from the inside from time to time and so on. So my original decision was for the Gigabyte, but due to it's complete unavailability in my region, I ended up waiting for the ASUS.

 

Thanks for your input. I guess that explains why the GS60 is so light, even lighter than the GL502VT.

I'm still curious with the battery life of the 502 since Asus claims 6 hours of web browsing on it, of course manufacturer's claim have to be took with a pinch of salt. Since I'm looking for a light and slim laptop I want it to last on the go as well, anything near to 5 hours normal usage on 50% brightness is good enough for me. Maybe you could let me know once you spend enough time with it.

Hopefully it won't be long before it arrives in the UK. I just contacted a major retailer here and according to them the supplier haven't added it to the newly launched list yet. I also did some searching around and it seems Asus is very quiet about this laptop, no press release regarding its launch although it's already on the website. Major review websites also seem to be not aware of it.

 

Yeah it seems like they only released it to the Czech/Slovak market, so far. Maybe we're their test environment to spot anything wrong with it before it goes global, who knows haha. Anyhow, I could give you an estimate of how long the battery usually lasts during normal loads, but it obviously won't be as accurate as submitting it to some script that simulates continuous browsing for hours like all the review websites do. The only thing I can guarantee at this point is that this powerhouse runs games on ultra as easily as knife cuts through butter. Oh and also, that Qualcomm adapters suck ass haha.

Also, I forgot to address the display. Well sadly I'm no expert, so don't expect me to list any color accuracy/response time numbers.. But from what I can tell you, it's a well balanced FHD 60hz matte IPS display, with great viewing angles (thanks to IPS) with no backlight bleeding from what I could see. It's also bright enough to use outside. The lid is made of one piece of aluminium, except for the top, which is plastic because of Wi-Fi antennas.
edit: oh and the logo and those 2 red lines on the lid are also LED backlit. looks cool

 

Yeah I'm aware the logo and lines are LED back-lit as with almost every gaming laptop nowadays. How about the ROG logo below the keyboard? Once I came across this laptop I knew I prefer the design over the GL552VW. I think it's the best design they've done since the stealth fighter design few years ago.

 

The logo below the keyboard is just a sticker actually. But yeah, I fell in love with the design the moment I saw it as well.

 

Too bad. Would've been a nice touch if it's illuminated as well. How's the speakers?

Did you get your replacement unit today?

 

Speakers are alright, I believe they're loud enough as well. And yes, I did get a replacement. However, this one also contains the Atheros trash. According to ASUS, the laptop ships either with an Atheros 802.11b/g/n OR Intel Dual Band 8260 802.11ac (which isn't immediately obvious while viewing the ASUS product page) and they say that this wasn't a production mistake. This is some real bullshittery on ASUS's part and you should be aware of this while ordering one. Make sure your retailer listed the correct specs on their product page. I have promptly purchased an Intel Dual Band AC 7260 adapter for around 20€ to replace this Atheros. Should work without problems, since ASUS doesn't whitelist hardware in their BIOS. For me, this little detail doesn't pose much of an issue, since I know how to change a WLAN adapter. Takes no more than 2 minutes.. but for a less tech-experienced person doing this could be a complication, in case their retailer provides them with the Atheros-equipped variant.

Some pics before I put my fingerprints all over the new one^^ :
http://imgur.com/a/n4KSr

 

That's really unfortunate, here's hoping the UK will get the Intel wireless... Maybe this is the price we pay for this cheap well spec'ed laptop

Would you mind taking some pictures of the innards once you opened it up? Just to see how easy it is to do self upgrades. And if you don't mind, do a step by step guide on changing the wireless adapter as well.

 

Sure, I can do that, once I got my hands on the adapter. You could also look it up on youtube, the procedure of changing the WLAN adapter is pretty much the same with every laptop. It's pretty much the easiest component to change in a laptop so no worries.

 

thanks in advance for your time to give us information abot the unit, but if you have another time please give us some video later, i hope this unit is very good, is it any throttling issue when full load ?

 

Yeah I really like this model. In fact, I like it so much, that I'm willing to forgive ASUS for this WLAN adapter nonsense, as that was really my only complaint. I've submitted it to continuous stress testing with Intel XTU and wPrime at first. When you're doing CPU-heavy work, meaning the GPU is switched off and all of the CPU cores run at 100%, the CPU is being kept very cool, at around 70-75°. Once you run some demanding game and the GPU kicks in as well, the CPU goes up to around 80-85°, depending on the game and the GPU around 85°. ASUS has implemented thermal throttling when things go above 90°, which is not normally going to happen, but I managed to get 1 CPU core at 92° as I had the laptop on my bed and it had a hard time taking in air (and I was gaming, and even with less airflow everything else somehow managed to stay below 90°). On that 1 core HWiNFO then said Yes to thermal throttling. And as I mentioned already, if you have a decent cooling pad, it's worth it with this model. Makes quite a difference, as it took down the temps by 6-8° for me.

 

Hi.

I had a question. What is the GL502VT 's weight and does it have a thunderbolt connection?

 

Hello,
It weights around 2.2kg and from what I can tell, it features a standard USB 3.1 type C connector, not a thunderbolt. Thunderbolt will, however be compatible with this USB type C port as they share the same interface.

 

I was looking at the Asus ROG-G501VW which supposedly has a thunderbolt port.. I was hoping to buy it and hopefully use an external gpu at a later date to play more demanding games. However, once I saw the 970m on the GL502VT, I was hoping to get this instead. Will I still be able to use an external gpu?

 

Damn no ThunderBolt 3 port!
It's one of the reasons I was looking into this laptop but overall looks very nice.
Bummer.

 

As far as I know, the G501VW only has a Thunderbolt 1 port, which is a mini Display port at the same time. GL502VT also contains a mini Display port. Neither of these laptops, however, contain a Thunderbolt 3 port. And to be honest, for FHD gaming is the 970M excellent. I would only understand an external graphics card should you wish to connect it to a 4k screen at some point..

 

The G501VW did have Thunderbolt 3 over USB-C

https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-G501VW/

Maybe Asus didn't see the need to add it on GL502VT because of the Gtx970m, or to keep the cost low.

 

Hi,
about the "Warranty sticker" on MSI, yeah there is, but look here ( https://www.czc.cz/msi-gs60-6qe-019...50/produkt/8jq8gkmitijhb9ke1a16d520t8/diskuse) MSI CZ/SK says, that you can upgrade RAM without losing warranty, so they dont care about the sticker at all. It is little bit difficulty to upgrade or change it, but you can do it :-D

Ok, i am from CZ too and i was pretty sure that MSI Ghost Pro is actually the best choice. But now .... thanks Asus! I have to starts from beginning . I have few questions. Did you try battery yet? The battery time is better then MSI GS60, isnt it? Do you have Czech version of keyboard and what about highlited WASD, isnt it annoying? Last question is about accesories, i read the box contains some Asus headset, mouse, etc.

Thanks a lot for this topic.
Enjoy your gaming beast.

 

Hello,
I've also heard some people say that MSI did not mind them breaking the warranty sticker. It does, however say "warranty void if broken". As long as their stupid sticker says so, and you break it, you can never be 100% sure they're not going to use it against you once you RMA the product. Sure, they might accept your RMA claim, however, they're also legally authorized to tell you to go to hell, if they so decide.

From what I could gather over the past few days, the battery runtime on this ASUS is around 5 - 5:30 hours (50% brightness, WLAN surfing) so in comparison to the MSI GS60 it's miles ahead. And the layout of the keyboard is also very good, it naturally has the english layout, then the czech one and the slovakian one all at the same time. The highlighted WASD keys are not annoying at all, they actually look pretty cool, as if they glowed hot in the dark. As for the accessories, the box also contains the Cerberus headset, Sica mouse and an ROG backpack.

I also promised to show the internals once I've opened it up so here goes:


The backplate is held in place with 10 screws and can be removed quite easily (and does not change your warranty, as long as you don't damage anything inside - confirmed by the retailer). I've mentioned that this backplate is made of sturdy plastic, but also turned out to be reinforced with aluminium plating on the inside.

 

The internal seems to be well laid out, I think I've spotted the WLAN card and everything in place. The only problem I see now is the single DRAM slot, but I guess there's gonna be a compromise somewhere for the price. I wonder how much the performance difference is between single channel and dual channel....

How's the laptop so far? Any major issues that you have after nearly a week with it?

 

As for the single RAM slot, you don't need to be worried. Things such as RAM clock speed, single channel vs dual channel etc barely have any measurable impact (0-1.5%) on anything computing related, be it heavy CPU work (file archiving, encrypting, encoding, media editing, benchmarks etc) or gaming. (see here: http://www.gamersnexus.net/guides/1349-ram-how-dual-channel-works-vs-single-channel/Page-3)
Single channel RAM apparently even wins over a dual channel configuration with certain programs. All the flashy RAM sticks clocked to 1 million mHz with LED lights everywhere are just to attract misinformed customers who believe it actually makes a difference. The only difference is the often ridiculous price and their names, which should presumably induce some feeling of power. HyperX Savage, RipJawsX, Dominator, Vengeance.. please.

And about the laptop, no I haven't run into any issues over the past week. Only thing that was annoying me a bit at first, was the HDD head, which was quite audible whilst working. I did, however get quickly used to it and don't notice it anymore. Also, I can confirm that the Intel Dual Band Wireless-AC 7265 2x2 M.2 (20€) adapter works like a charm (able to reach my full bandwidth speed wirelessly - 150mbps). At first I bought a PCIe mini Intel 7260 adapter, which was too big to fit in the WLAN port. That's when I noticed I needed something with the M.2 interface.

 

Nice. Thanks for keeping us up to date with the laptop so far, it's good to see some real world reports for a laptop that's not entirely available to purchase yet . A curious bit, why didn't you go for the newer Intel 8260 wireless?

I'm searching for news regarding this laptop almost everyday, hoping to see some news on launch dates and price etc. So far it seems to be available in only China, Taiwan, Japan and Czech which is rather strange lol. I came across a link that mention it will be available in more countries beginning end of May, early of June, and Asus will make an official release on Computex Taipei taking place from May 31 - June 4.

Hopefully it won't be long until it's available in the UK, with a reasonable price (the tax here can screw up the pricing sometimes....). Otherwise I'll need to reconsider other options, or import one from Czech.

 

Actually, I noticed there was a newer Intel adapter out there, but due to it's unavailability in my region(or at least the M.2 version) I bought the 7265 instead, as I could pretty much have it the next day.

I hope it goes worldwide very soon as well!

 

ah i see, thanks in advance for all information that you already told us here. would you mind to uploading some video for us here please ?

so is the standard WIFI card on GL502VT was very bad isn't it ? how bad are they if we don't replacing it with another wifi card ?

 

I suppose I could look into a video for you on the weekend, if I have time. And yes, at least the CZ/SK model, which I got, was supplied with a cheap outdated Atheros WLAN adapter which was struggling to break 40mbps (on a 150mbps bandwidth). It supported neither 802.11ac nor dual band. It still gives my brain pause why they would do that. It's not like they needed to save the 10 bucks in production costs, which is really the difference between the Atheros and an Intel card. I hope that they decide to supply the rest of the laptops in different regions with something usable. Otherwise this Atheros adapter is going to get majorly laughed at in the reviews of bigger laptop mags. But still, like I said, it took about a minute and 20€ to replace.

 

Hi fw85, want to know, where is the speaker placement, in your picture i dont see any bottom speaker placement anymore like previous g5xx series ?

 

I think the speakers are below the keyboard at the sides. You can see the red colour grills

 

Hooo, that mean This gl502 has the up /face firing placement like the olddddd N series? Nice......thats why when i saw the internal photo of fw85 unit, there is no bottom firing placement again.

 

Yep, it is as ZeneticX said, those red stripes on the left and right below the keyboard are the speakers. Also, here's what the keyboard lighting looks like at night. Pretty cool imo. You can also see the layout on cz/sk model here.

 

Aw yiss, czech diacritical marks! That and everything else you said seals the deal for me.

I've been searching information for weeks, even translated the official reveal event in Jakarta in pure desperation.

If you find the time to summarise your thoughts and do a video, I will be insanely thankful!

 

Nice,

Is the speaker quality average or loud and clear? Sadly there is no subwoofer isnt it?

oh and can you describe what kind of panel your gl502 use?
If it's use good 1080p panel, i'll consider to buy it once it's available in my country(Indonesia, by the way)
http://new.pemmz.com/asus-rog-gl502vt.html

 

sikat bro jgn tanggun2 wkwkwkwk salken sesama dr indo gan :malu:

back to topic :

any video yet mate ? i cant wait for the video

 

TUnggu dulu brooooooooooooo

I'll wait for some reviewers opinion like ultranotebookreview.com, dave2d or notebookcheck.net to see is there any kind of flaw for this model. This is a brand new model that asus bring this year and never before asus sells notebook with this kind of design. Kudos for fw85 to share the information with us in this thread

 

So I bought this laptop as well (in Czech rep.) and it came with the qualcomm atheros ar956x card as well. I was thinking on buying the Intel Dual Band Wireless-N 7260 but I'm a little unsure of how difficult that is as I've never done this before. Do you break the 2 year assurance by doing this? I think that you cannot open the insights without breaking it, but I may be wrong...

 

Hello,
First of all, I hope you've read this topic thoroughly and if not, then you probably should.. I've mentioned that I also bought the Intel 7260, but its interface (pcie mini) was too big for the laptop's WLAN port. I had to replace it with an Intel 7265 M.2 adapter. So, make sure that whatever you buy, has the M.2 connector as well. Also, I'd advise you to go for the Intel Dual Band Wireless- AC series, because you've mentioned the N series, and the Atheros already supports 802.11n. As for difficulty, it's not difficult at all. Remove all of the 10 screws holding the back plate in place, then gently pull it up. You'll notice a small adapter to the left of the vents, which connects to 2 small wires (white - main antenna, black - auxiliary antenna). Carefully lift those up, so you disconnect them from the adapter, unscrew the adapter (there's only 1 screw) and it can now easily be removed. Insert your newly purchased M.2 adapter, and make sure not to touch the pins on the bottom side of it while manipulating with it. Connect the antennas back in place, it usually says which antenna goes where, on the adapter. You're good to go! It's also good to uninstall the original qualcomm drivers and have new Intel drivers ready before swapping the adapter. You could also watch a video on YouTube about changing a WLAN adapter, to furthermore help you with this.

And lastly, I've specifically asked Alza (not sure if that's who you bought it from) about their warranty policy in this matter, if I can open the laptop up to clean it or to perhaps upgrade a component and they've told me that it's not a problem and that if I don't damage anything myself, my warranty is unaffected.

Have a nice day and I hope you enjoy this glorious laptop as much as I do!

 

GL502 now available for pre-order on HIDevolution

http://www.hidevolution.com/catalogsearch/result/?a=all&q=gl502

4 variants available, VT with GTX970M and VY with GTX980M. Comes with customisation options as well.

15.6" IPS w/ G-SYNC support and w/ nVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M 8GB - Intel 6th Generation "Skylake" i7-6700HQ - 16GB DDR4/2133MHz RAM - 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD - Windows 10

all for £1385!!

below is the price (with custom thermal paste option) including tax but without shipping to UK, which is quite steep since they ship from US, and according to them it will be available starting early June. So I guess I'll wait awhile more. Still this is considered a steal for a laptop with GTX980M



I played around with the configurations and customisations and I feel the best deal would be the model with GTX980M 4GB + 1TB HDD but without SSD. GTX980M 8GB is a bit overkill for FHD panel and the increase in memory won't bring much better performance. Choose the one with GTX980M 4GB and use the customisation option to add in a M2 SSD, much cheaper.

[EDIT] only the GTX980M models require preorder. The GTX970M models are already available.