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ASUS N552V review: How bulk can be beautiful

Let’s start with the N552V notebook’s most noticeable aspect – it’s huge. Frickin’ huge.

The notebooks dimensions measure 383x255x31.5cm and the whole package together tips the scales at 2.9kg. But while some may put their back out while lifting the latest N552V from the ASUS N-series camp, it boasts great performance and exceptional cooling.

So if you’re in the market for a notebook that is good enough for work and a bit of play, and you don’t mind hefting a large piece of kit, read on.

ASUS N552V review: Hot cores, but you wouldn’t know it

Asus seems to have tamed the mighty hot air creating beasts hidden beneath the N552V’s faux-aluminium shroud. Make no mistake, under load, there is still heat coming through the keyboard but it’s nowhere near as uncomfortable as some of notebooks we’ve used.

Asus has managed to keep heat from the keyboard to a minimum.
Asus has managed to keep heat from the keyboard to a minimum.

The internal thermal temperature of the CPU rose to around 80 degrees Celsius at its peak before settling in at around 78 degrees while still under load. You can expect similar temperature peaks on the GPU while in use.

ASUS N552V review: Brains behind the beauty

At the core of the N552V is the latest 6th Generation Intel Core i7 6700HQ, paired with 8GB of DDR4 memory. The memory is rated at 2133MHz but you can expect that to be lower (1066MHz) when running on battery power.

As for graphics you’ll find an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960M contained within which sadly only has 2GB of GDDR5 memory.

All of this tech hums along steadily when its plugged into the wall but we noticed some scary thermal throttling on the CPU when the notebook is forced to run on its portable power.

What you’re looking at is a heavily throttled CPU while on battery power but the throttling is strange. Rather than limiting the peak performance of the CPU, this shows that the processor is still trying to reach its peak of 3GHz.

Despite that however, overall performance is great. You can go from typing up a year-end report to playing a game (albeit it at medium settings on a Full HD resolution) effortlessly.

There was some screen tearing and throttling to 30 frames per second on battery but nothing that would make you want to quit gaming before the hour’s worth of battery you have is used up.

Storage capacity is handled by both a 256GB SSD as well as a 1TB HDD. The primary OS drive is as fast as you would expect clocking in read speeds of 521MB/s and a write speed of 291MB/s. The HDD fares as you would expect it, slow as mud compared to the SSD. Our benchmarks recorded read speeds of 101MB/s and write speeds of around 97MB/s.

ASUS N552V review: Put a lid on it

The display boasts touch capabilities but this had me scratching my head. Firstly, the Full HD (1920×1080) resolution makes navigating the 15.6inch display tricky. Granted, if your fingers are slimmer this is less of a problem.

This is the most the lid will open making using the touchscreen a bit awkward.
This is the most the lid will open making using the touchscreen a bit awkward.

The second issue we have is that there is no point where taking your fingers off of the keyboard and mouse to use the touch display makes sense. The display doesn’t even fold back far enough to warrant using it like Lenovo’s Yoga range or traditional convertibles.

As for colour correctness, the N552V is a bit on the warmer side of things and it is incredibly bright. The warmth and brightness are easily corrected though thanks to included software.

ASUS N552V review: Beauty can also be, problematic

The battery life is a bit weak with Windows reckoning we get two hours of life, and real life giving us almost three. We were frugal towards the end of that time turning the display brightness down and removing any USB peripherals so expect times to vary.

While you’re gaming or doing CPU and GPU intensive tasks expect an hour and a half of life.

Despite the audio boasting ICEpower from Bang & Olufsen Technology, the sound is terrible. The speakers sound as if the speaker cone (that’s the material around the shiny bit in the middle) is nanoseconds from tearing and bass tones are piddly.

The power button is oddly placed, it isn’t on the side, away from the keyboard or in a cleverly hidden spot, no, the power button forms part of the number pad, which I hit multiple times reaching for the “-” key.

The position of the power button is bound to have people accidentally triggering a shut down.
The position of the power button is bound to have people accidentally triggering a shut down.

The button feels no different from any of the other keys and you will hit it while in the middle of a typing out a text document, probably an important one, that your boss needs now.

Our final gripe is that the notebook is too big and the materials feel a bit lack lustre. At a retail price starting at R20 999 we do understand that compromises need to be made somewhere and a slightly below average build quality is hardly the worst compromise that could have been made.

ASUS N552V review: Conclusion

So there are problems, but when it comes down to making a decision, we do really like the N552V.

The NVIDIA GTX 960M is a nice touch that will suit the needs of the creatives who need a beefy, portable notebook and gamers that spend their days at the office.

The CPU and RAM make multi-tasking effortless and the hard-drive/SSD combination means your performance and storage needs are taken care of.

Finally, the price of R20 999 might seem like a hard ask but to our minds, that price is just right given you have most of the latest tech in one package, lumpy as it may be.

The build quality, battery life and bizarre power button and terrible audio pushed our score down but ultimately this is a good notebook and you won’t be disappointed.

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