Pros | Cons |
+ Port placement | - Speaker placement |
+ Aesthetic Design | |
+ Good Performance when using MUX | |
ASUS Strix G15 Electro Punk
RM 5,599
Lo and behold, ROG sent me to review their newly launched ROG Strix G15 in Electro Punk and for those who know me, will know that I truly adore the Electro Punk series.
Unboxing
The Strix G15 comes in a huge black box as you get some freebies upon purchasing the Electro Punk edition. Upon opening the box, you will get the following items:
ROG backpack with Electro Punk accents
An ROG box that stores the laptop and accessories
Electro Punk Edition Mouse pad
Upon opening the second black box, you will get the following items:
ROG Strix G15 in Electro Punk
100W charger
ROG Strix Impact II mouse in Electro Punk
Paperworks (manual)
I love how the bundle comes with Electro Punk edition items but I personally love the mousepad as it is a newer version in comparison to the Electro Punk mousepad we reviewed awhile back, which you can read here.
Design
In terms of design, the G15 comes in an Eclipse Grey colour with an Electro Punk pink highlighted logo (not RGB so it can’t be paired with Aura Sync), and an ROG Electro Punk armour cap with the wording ROG laser engraved on it.
The lid on the other hand is very different from other ROG laptops I’ve reviewed, though the asymmetrical slash is back, it’s done in a way where it showcases logos and symbols in a translucent state allowing the symbols to shine under particular lighting.
There is also a strip of lightbar under the laptop to provide a better RGB experience which is of course Aura-Sync compatible with the rest of the laptop and other ROG products.
If we talk about portability, it only weighs 2.10kg, which I personally did not have any trouble bringing out.
Display and Audio
The ROG Strix G15 comes with a FHD 15.6-inch IPS display coupled with a 62.5% sRGB colour gamut for gamers as the colour gamut coverage is not suitable for creators.
It also comes with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a 144Hz refresh rate which allows it to definitely make for a better gaming experience. I had no issues with the display as it’s smooth and doesn’t lag.
Audio-wise, the laptop comes with Smart Amp speakers that are Dolby Atmos supported and can be located on the back of the laptop. Though, I am not a huge fan of the speaker placement as the sound is muffled if placed on the sofa, I suggest using headphones for best experience.
Keyboard & Touchpad
Upon first glance, you will notice another asymmetrical slash with wordings and symbols that are darker than the one on the lid. Personally, I really enjoy it as it’s not too much in your face but still pretty enough to look at.
The WASD keys are in Electro Punk pink to suit the theme better and there is a small logo on the spacebar giving it a very clean look.
I had no issues typing with this keyboard as it felt comfortable for both work and gaming and the 0.15mm keycap dish certainly felt great on my fingers. The keyboard comes with per-key RGB lighting that you can customise via Armoury Crate.
The glass touchpad that measures 126.9 x 74mm is smooth and I did not experience any lag whatsoever.
Ports
This laptop comes with a great number of ports that is enough to make me happy. On the back of the laptop, you will find 1x USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C port, 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type C with DisplayPort and USB Power Delivery port, 1x HDMI 2.0b port, and 1x RJ45 Ethernet port.
Whereas, you will find 2x USB Gen 1 Type-A port and 1x 3.5mm audio jack on the left side of the laptop. I am pretty happy with the placement of ports and the selection it offers. The struggle of not having wires dangling on the right side of the laptop is great.
Performance
In terms of specs, the G15 is powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 6800HX mobile processor and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 graphics, paired with 8GB of DDR5 RAM and 512GB of M.2 NVMe PCIe 4.0 SSD, making this laptop good enough for your gaming needs but definitely not an overkill.
This year’s line of ROG laptops also comes with an MUX switch that allows you to change to direct GPU usage in order to get the fullest out of your GPU. To be even more specific, an improvement of 5-10% can be seen in terms of performance and FPS output.
I’ve also run a benchmark on the Strix G15 and the results are as follows:
The battery this laptop comes with is a 56W battery that could actually last me half a day as I did normal office work and got some rounds of Valorant in between. The charger it comes with also came in handy in juicing it up pretty quick and conveniently.
In conclusion, under performance, this laptop did not disappoint me and could actually live up to the majority of Esports titles. Cooling is also not an issue as there are 4 fan outlets to blow out all the excess hot air out of the laptop, which is all made possible thanks to the ROG Intelligent Cooling.
Buy or no buy?
Overall, the Strix G15 did not let me down in terms of design and performance. Although it does not come with the highest specifications for the Strix G line, it came with enough to be worth the price tag it comes with - the added bundle made it more worth it in my opinion.
If Electro Punk is not your thing (trying not to judge), you can opt for the Eclipse Grey and the Volt Green that comes with an AMD Ryzen 9 6900HX processor and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 graphics card.
