The Asus ROG Strix SCAR II is a great gaming laptop with good looks.
Options on the model I purchased:
Intel Core i7-8750H Processor
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070
16GB DDR4
256GB PCIe SSD + 1TB SSHD (I replaced the !TB with a 2TB Firecuda SSHD before I even started it the first time)
The top is brushed aluminum with 2 bush patterns and a fair bit of rigidity. My cal of 10 lbs has jumped on the lcosed laptop multiple times with no ill effect seen.
The ROG symbol that looks like chrome but can also be lit up with the RGB led, along with the light bar on the front. The light bar is not distracting at all when using it, contrary to my first thoughts when seeing it.
The keyboard has zones of lighting, it would have been nice if it were per key and with the way it changes color gradually it looks like it could have been with minimal trouble. With that said, it still looks great, and the key travel is enough to feel comfortable and solid. Typing on this is effortless.
The bottom was easy to open and the replaceable parts are all easy to get to. I replaced the hard drive with a 2 TB model in under 10 minutes. The only time consumer was the 11 or so screws, and slowly un-clipping the plastic base.
The screen looks and responds great, all the gaming I have done on it is smooth and tear free with the 1070. I have even connected it to an untrawide 2K 120 Hz monitor and the laptop had no issues driving both displays at the same time.
The SSD boots fast, and all the games I store on the 2TB version of the Firecuda SSHD that installed load quickly. While not SSD speeds the SSHD still is quick enough that you would probably only notice level loads. Possibly a 7200 HDD would be quicker, but would also produce more heat. I would expect the 1 TB that comes with the laptop normally to be just as quick as the 2 TB that I installed.
The laptop can get warm, but produces less heat under load that I expected; however the fans can get quite loud. Typically this is when I am playing games so I do not notice it, but when editing photos there is no background noise to mask the fans.
Battery life when just browsing and playing some videos is about 3 hours or so. Gaming will be less, and I am typically plugged in when using the laptop for games. I did not purchase this laptop for its battery life, so I was not expecting to get 5 hour runtimes with it and am very pleased with how long it lasts.
I would recommend this laptop to anyone who is looking in this price range, or prehaps waiting for the new versions with the Nvidia 20xx cards coming out soon.
Warning: If you get the model that only has a M.2 SSD drive in it (500 GB I believe), it does not have the cable for the secondary hard drive! This cost me a hefty restocking fee (other retailer) due to the fact that I wanted the bigger SSD and was going to put my on HDD in as the secondary drive. When I contracted Asus, they told me they did not have a hard drive cable to sell me. Even with this frustration, I went ahead and purchased another SCAR II after returning the first because I loved everything else about it.
| Standing screen display size | 15.6 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 pixels |
| Max Screen Resolution | 1920 x 1080 Pixels |
| Processor | 3.9 GHz apple_ci7 |
| RAM | 16 GB DDR4 |
| Memory Speed | 2666 MHz |
| Hard Drive | 1000 GB Hybrid Drive |
| Graphics Coprocessor | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 |
| Chipset Brand | NVIDIA |
| Card Description | Dedicated |
| Graphics Card Ram Size | 6 GB |
| Wireless Type | 802.11a/b/g/n/ac |
| Number of USB 3.0 Ports | 4 |
| Average Battery Life (in hours) | 1 days |
