After 10 years of service my Sony VAIO was finding it difficult keeping up with even the most basic of tasks; a Windows Vista machine that even after a fresh install to factory defaults, once those Windows updates got loaded back on that HDD light always seemed busy not to mention a couple of hardware bottlenecks. - Remember when 2GB used to be a lot of RAM?



So I had been contemplating the purchase of a replacement laptop for several months. Being something of a hobbyist in home computing for almost 20 years now, I was always one for chasing hardware that provided the best bang for my buck, the best value for money; I'd buy good hardware, yes but I was conscious of not aiming my sights too high as there exists a point where the expense for your return in performance becomes exponential. I'd advise others, friends, family, colleagues to never aim for the best machine they could find; to always walk away with a machine that suits their needs. These days however, if your interest doesn't stray much beyond internet browsing and Office apps you'll find that you can't even find a machine that's as low spec as that. The laptops available today pack some great hardware and are capable of so much more than most will ever need for just £300.



And yet... Since I put my last desktop together in 2013, I've got a bit power hungry (SLI graphics? I don't really need that... But I'm running it all the same!) and so I have been tickling that more expensive gradient of that power curve... But I have to say, I kinda like it.



I wanted my new laptop to have the performance and versatility of my desktop so my 'wants' list prioritised the following:

• Quad-Core i7 processor

• 16GB RAM or more

• SSD Hard drive, greater than 120GB

• Nothing less than a 1TB secondary drive

• BluRay optical drive (preferably an HDMI-out to suit)

• 17" display (Hi-Def)

• £1500 was my absolute limit.



With a shortlist of wants like that it quickly became evident that I'd be aiming for a gaming laptop even though ironically, I'm hardly what you'd call a gamer. I do practice 3D modelling which can get resource hungry but I'm also expecting to keep this laptop at least as long as I did my Sony (perhaps longer) so I figured that if I aimed at this level of performance I can expect some longevity out of the thing.



My Google searches frequently pointed me in the direction of those laptops manufactured by MSI or Asus. I ultimately chose Asus because a couple of members of my friends and family own Asus laptops (X55 models) and only had good things to say about them. The value for money appeared to be on Asus's side as well which I found hard to ignore. Specifically I don't know if optical drives are going the way of the dinosaur (the ROG GX800VH, the daddy of them all doesn't even have an optical drive and it's around £6K worth of machine!) but I was surprised by how few the number of laptops there are available with a BluRay drive installed; something I had grown accustomed to with the Sony, so I wasn't prepared to compromise on that.



Once I had confined my choices to those ROG models of the Asus family of laptops I was struck by a minor dilemma: Amazon was offering me a brand spanking new 24GB G752VY model for less than £1400. saveonlaptops.com was offering the 32GB G752VY with the 512 GB SSD for £1500 (a little over £1700 on Amazon at the time). - I was put off saveonlaptops.com by the nature of some of the negative reviews so I plugged for the 'baby' 24GB machine on Amazon because I know them, I trust them, I've used them for years.

Value for money, convenience, efficiency and a high quality of customer service; that's the running impression that Amazon have spent over a decade earning from me. That's why I was prepared to pay a little more to receive a little less. - Unfortunately that reputation took a bit of a knock as Amazon had delayed dispatch of my new toy no less than 4 times with no satisfactory answer as to what the problem was. In the chain of e-mails, some of Amazon's excuses were even contradictory, some of their responses were even a little 'cut and paste' and they stubbornly evaded answering direct questions, even after I called them out on it. I was forced to ask, are Amazon's best years behind us? - Less than impressed to put it mildly.



A week later than the initial delivery estimate the laptop finally arrived in a massive, properly huge box.

The laptop itself is really quite cool looking with a brushed aluminium finish on the lid, red lit detail, the most elaborate cooling system I've ever seen on a laptop, red backlit keyboard which I was a little apprehensive about at first but I settled into it, no problem (brightness level adjustable) and that 17.3" screen is fabulous; I love it! - I can never have smaller after this!



What's it like to use? - Did I mention I love it?? :) Yeah, she's pretty effing slick, no messin'. Plenty of stamina for multi-tasking with a ton of reserves to take on as much as you need.

Next to graphics, which seems to be advancing at a bonkers rate, I'd say that the SSD drive is arguably the most significant contribution to maximising performance and minimising system lags since the arrival of the multi-core processor. I'm telling you SSD's are an absolute must! Boot-up from cold takes about 35 seconds which I grant you, though not bad is no big whup; from sleep mode though... Can you say less than 5 seconds to desktop and less than 4 to go back to sleep again? - Love it!!



The full sized keyboard is nice to use as is the glidepoint. One of the things that irritated the piss out of me when using the glidepoint on my Mum's Asus is the fact that the select and secondary menu buttons share the same surface as the glidepoint pad itself so you tend to move the mouse pointer as you click. Not so on the ROG; the pad on this one is separate to the buttons and they provide you with a nice level of tactile feedback.



What will surprise you is the weight of the thing; the ROG is quite heavy and presents the question of just how lap-friendly is this lap-top? I set my laptop up on a board which sits on my lap, but the size and weight of the ROG does suggest that it's really entering the realms of portable desktop machine rather than straight-ahead laptop.



The audio quality is really good, far superior to that of my Sony which was hardly horrific; it's just that the sound on the ROG has more guts.



The battery life from a full charge obviously fluctuates depending on what you are doing; currently I'm running a variable power plan that throttles back the machine's performance during the last 10-20% of the charge and for straight-ahead internet browsing or office apps, I'm getting more than 3 hours use on a single charge. Obviously if you're gaming you're probably gonna want it plugged in most of the time. I was surprised by how quickly you seem to get your full charge back though (a little under 2 hours whilst running).



The ROG runs lovely and quiet and cool most of the time (again with straight-ahead basic use) with just the occasional surge of fan activity from the dual fans.



Like I mentioned, I'm no gamer. My most recent game is Need For Speed: Rivals from 2014; yeah, the ROG eats that game with all its graphics quality settings set on maximum. - Very satisfying!



Bundled with the laptop itself was a custom rucksack that has a ton of compartments and pockets for all your peripheral gear. You also get a mouse (not a gamer's mouse) and a gamer's headset.



Software-wise you don't actually get a great deal. You get Windows 10 of course which I took to a lot easier than I did Windows 8. You get the usual Asus 'welcome' bloatware which I either uninstalled or switched off as it was largely irrelevant to me. Despite the fact you are provided with a BluRay drive, you are NOT provided with any BluRay video software which I though was a bit stingy.



£1400 is no small sum, so to spend it on what is essentially a toy (most of the time) I'd even call it an extravagance. But a month in, the honeymoon feeling still hasn't worn off yet. This is a cool piece if gear that I highly recommend.