Hey how's it going. Dave 2D here
And in front of me is a laptop that will turn you into an MLG pro gamer
This is the Asus 703 SCAR
And they have two variants to this product. So this is the SCAR version
That's geared towards first-person shooter games
And then they have something called the HERO Edition
Which is geared towards MOBAs
So things like DOTA and League
But I'm more interested in first person shooters
I'm just better at those types of games
So I was interested in this particular variant
Now the thing that makes this thing special
The thing that makes this a first person shooter oriented device
is entirely the screen
Now when you look at the hardware
I've done a review of it's smaller brother, the 15 inch 503
And surprisingly the components are very similar
Like the build quality, the keyboard,
even the battery size is like almost identical
So I'm not gonna do a full review of this device
Because just I've basically done the full review
I'm gonna focus mostly on the screen
But I'm just gonna go through
I guess its main components just in case you guys are curious
Ok, let's start with the keyboard
Pretty good keyboard, nothing super special about it. Good layout, roomy, with RGB lighting
But the keys are a little bit softer than you might expect
The trackpad uses Windows precision drivers, so you'll probably like it
The keyboard deck is this like faux carbon fiber finish
It's not real carbon fiber obviously, at least not at this price point
But I think it looks nice
And I guess everyone's gonna be a little bit different
But I think it's a nice design overall
One thing you'll notice that there isn't a single drop of red on this entire laptop
When it's off. When it's on there's like a red power button
And I guess the top logo lights up red
But it's a really kind of plain looking laptop which I like
I think this is a nice transiton away from the classic
Republic of Gamers thing that Asus has done in the past like just red everywhere
I like this and I think next year we're just gonna see even more not super red laptop, which is great
The build quality on this thing, really good
$1600 for a gaming laptop is certainly not cheap
So you expect good build quality and they deliver
The one thing that I don't love about this in terms of the build quality
just, the build in general, is that the bottom panel is very difficult to open
I had this problem with the 503 as well
There's a hatch that you can get into just for the necessities, like the RAM and the storage and stuff like that.
But if you want to access the fans or the Wi-Fi card
or just stuff that's inside, this bottom panel is not easy to remove
There are screws that come off, but it's just a pain
Now the laptop has 16 GB of RAM pre-installed
You can easily upgrade it to 32 by adding a single stick
The fans are definitely audible, but they don't get too loud in game
And thermal performance is not bad as well. You can definitely play for extended periods of time without issues
The battery life on this laptop isn't great. It's a 64 watt hour battery
And I'm only getting around 2 1/2 hours of battery life with the screen at 250 nits
Now, there are devices with a 17 inch screen that have like 99 watt hour batteries
But the reason why this one is short, well, as short as it is, is mostly because of the screen
So, this screen is the main attraction of this laptop
and
the reason why I'm even doing this video is because I think that this is one of the most impressive screens I've seen on a 17 inch device
So, it's a 120 Hz panel
and it's a TN panel. Now, before you just want to take a huge steaming dump on the fact that it's a TN panel
Understand that I've seen a lot of laptop screens, and yes for the most part TN panels are terrible
But this one is very good. I've seen another laptop
It was the MSI Raider's. Those also have a TN panel which are also really good
But this is 120 Hz
But it's 5 milliseconds, so it's very fast response time
And when you're playing shooters, it feels like you're playing on a high-end desktop monitor. It's just a really nice looking screen
The visuals are good, the colors pop, everything looks really smooth. And, unfortunately you're watching this video at 24 frames per second
So you can't see the full 120 frames per second
But it is a really impressive looking screen
Now there's two kind of issues to this thing
First, it doesn't have G-Sync and that's not something that I, like I'm not worried about it
But I feel like on paper some people might be upset by it
Because there are other laptops that do have 120 Hz panels that do support G-Sync
But, I mean, this screen blows most screens out of the water
Just because of how quick the response rate is. Now depending on how you run your games
This may or may not affect you and I think that
Kind of leads to the next question of the fact that this laptop is only running a GTX 1060
and
this makes this laptop very niche of a product. And, okay let me explain
I think a lot of people are gonna look at this and be like, why does this thing only have a GTX 1060
Why don't they put a 1070, or even a 1080 in it
Forget about the heating issues and all that stuff but you would think that a laptop with a 120 Hz
5 millisecond screen should have like a really high-end graphics card in it, right?
And, I would agree. But, if you're looking at the price point
You want to be able to supply a laptop for people that are really hardcore, like competitively into games
And if you look at any competitive gaming, they're always running their stuff at the lowest graphics settings
Because they just want the highest frame rate possible
And when you do that on this laptop, if you take any of the competitive shooter games, like
I don't know, Overwatch, CS:GO
if you run those games that even high graphics settings you're already above that target of 120 frames per second
So, yeah, you could put a 1070 or try to put a 1080 in here
But a lot of those frames would just be wasted because you're not even able to see it
And the person who's buying this doesn't want super high graphics quality. That's just not what this was for
So, if that's what you're in the market for if you want to play Witcher 3 at like 10,000 frames per second, this is not that laptop
But if you're looking to be slightly more competitive in your first-person shooter games
This is a great pick up. It's not cheap
But I think of all the laptops that I've seen, for people that are really hardcore about a particular shooter, this is a really really good one
Okay, hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thumbs if you liked it, subs if you loved it. See you guys next time
BGM