Asus K501UW(-AB78) 15.6″ FHD Gaming Laptop (Intel Core i7, GTX 960M, 8GB DDR4, 512GB SSD, Glacier Grey)

The Asus K501UW(-AB78) is a gaming PC packed in a mainstream laptop form factor. Externally, the 15.6-inch K501UW(-AB78) doesn’t differ from the usual everyday laptops, but inside it packs some gaming-centric hardware. In particular, the Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M dedicated video card.

The 15.6″ screen features crispy Full HD resolution and anti-glare coating. But unfortunately, IPS technology for wide viewing angles has been omitted on this model. Also, touchscreen functionality is missing, as same as a built-in DVD drive. On the other hand, the keyboard of the aluminum-topped “Glacier Gray” Asus K501UW(-AB78) has backlight beneath the keys and the whole laptop is quite portable for a gaming-capable machine. It weighs in at 5.2 pounds and is 0.9″ thick.

Regarding internal components, the centerpiece is the Nvidia GTX 960M graphics card, which in this model comes with 2GB of video memory. Supported by the 6th Generation Intel Core i7-6500U upper-mid-range processor and 8GB of DDR4 RAM, the GTX 960M enables playing of all popular game titles. Some of the heaviest titles hardware-wise won’t be able to run smoothly on maximal graphics settings and Full HD resolution. For that purpose you can take a look at some more powerful gaming laptops, such as the Asus ROG GL502 series with faster Nvidia GPUs like the GTX 970M or GTX 1060. Another great feature of the Asus K501UW(-AB78) is its solid state drive. Besides great data reading and writing speeds, the SSD has a generous capacity of 512GB, as opposed to more common 128GB or 256GB.

The system includes stereo speakers, a web camera, 802.11AC Wi-Fi and Ethernet LAN network interfaces, two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI video output, a combo audio port, a memory card reader, and Bluetooth 4.0.

The built-in battery has good capacity of 48 Whr, which should translate to at least around 4-5 hours of battery life under low computing load with lowered display brightness.