Let’s get real for a second here, the gaming laptop market is beyond oversaturated! There is a plethora of options for people to consider before they get their hands on their gaming companion. However, it becomes easier to choose a laptop when it packs top-end specifications. The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 laptop goes all out with the latest and fastest AMD and Nvidia silicon which simply puts it on top of the gaming laptop food chain. So, should the Strix Scar 17 be your gaming machine in the near future? Find out below –
Design: A Familiar Touch
Asus has focused predominantly on the internal components of the Strix series thus we pretty much get a similar design from the 2022 variant. The highlight of this design has to be the popping LED trim which runs at the front base of the laptop which tenfolds the aesthetic appeal of the laptop. Sadly some flex can be experienced around the keyboard deck which is not a major issue but isn’t acceptable for a laptop at this price.
While the laptop looks sleek, it packs in heavy at nearly 3Kgs coupled with a power brick that is also thick! Hence, carrying it around from office to home was a hassle for me. While we have ample port selection over here, it can only be defined as awkward. Here’s why – you get two USB-A ports coupled with a 3.5mm port on the left whereas all the other ports are placed on the back. There is not a single port on the right side of the laptop which could have been used to at least have a single type-c port. The keyboard here is good consisting of individually backlit keys. The overall build quality here is just passable. It’s basically made entirely of plastic if we exclude the lid which sports an aluminium cover. The keyboard has a flex to it and the display has a little wiggle.
Screen: Visual Treat!
The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 rocks a 17.3-inch IPS LCD panel clocked at 2560 x 1440 resolution at a 16:9 aspect ratio. What’s impressive is the high refresh rate of 240Hz which even Asus’ recently introduced Nebula displays lack at this point. The screen is anti-reflective and also supports the Nvidia G-Sync technology and Dolby Vision. Watching films and playing games on this laptop is no less than a visual treat as it is capable of producing some punchy colours. What sits on top of the display is an underwhelming 720P webcam which
Users will enjoy the display the most while playing cinematic games like The Last of Us or Detroit: Become Human. It’s not the brightest of the displays out there having a peak brightness of 330 nits. Thus using the laptop under direct sunlight won’t be a pleasant experience, though this is not the kind of machine one would use outside! Overall, there’s not much to complain about the screen here and users get an immersive display with perfect colour calibration.
Performance: BEAST!
Everything boils down to the performance when it comes to laptops in this segment. I am genuinely not surprised that the Asus Strix Scar 17 2023 performs the way it does. I tested out games like Marvel’s Spider-Man, Detroit: Become Human, The Last of Us, and Red Dead Redemption 2 while testing this one out. As expected, I faced no performance issues while testing these games out. Our review unit was maxed out with the AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX SoC coupled with 32GB of DDR5 RAM. In the graphics arena, the laptop sports a GeForce Nvidia RTX 4090 which takes the graphics performance of this laptop to the next level. In the current performance standards, this gaming laptop gives performance output that is at par with any modern gaming desktop.
While pushing the laptop to play graphic-intensive games, the laptop does not get too loud. It is undoubtedly quieter than most of the gaming laptops in the market thanks to Asus’ updated Arc Flow Fans. Asus uses a vapor chamber design for heat dissipation which works just alright. On the software side, users get ample customization and Asus Armory Crate remains the best centralized control software for any gaming laptop in the market.
Verdict
The Asus ROG Strix Scar 17 gaming laptop is one of the best gaming laptops you can buy right now. It comes with the best hardware specifications coupled with high-end performance and a sleek design making a complete package. The 720P webcam and overuse of plastic stains the otherwise premium gaming machine, however, these nitpicks can be easily overlooked due to its heavy-duty performance.
