While ASUS likes to brand the K501UW-AB78 as a multimedia laptop I think it also has all the features to make for a very good gaming laptop. TheASUS K501UW-AB78 will be the first affordable gaming laptop I will be reviewing in the next couple of weeks. Let’s see if it is as good as I think it is.
The Exterior
From the onset the exterior of the ASUS K501UW-AB78 is in keeping with the thin, minimalist and elegant design ASUS gives its laptops. The top cover is finisher in a gun metal grey brushed aluminium finish with a chrome ASUS logo right in the middle.
On the inside we find the FullHD 1920 x 1080 pixel matte screen. While it isn’t the newest IPS technology screen and just a TN-Panel it still is a very good screen. The screen is surrounded by the typical matte black plastic borders. The built in webcam and dual microphones are located above the screen. Below the screen there is a large chrome ASUS logo.
The palmrestgets a matte aluminium finish only being contrasted by the full sized black keyboard with numerical pad. As is typical with laptops with full sized keyboards the touchpad is moved off centre to the left so that it doesn’t interfere with your typing. The entire palmrest is made out of solid aluminium for added stiffness and rigidity. The power button is located on the top right corner above the keyboard. All the status LEDs are located on the front edge of the laptop.
As a final detail, the speakers are built underneath the body on each side. I for one have never been a fan of this placement as they tend to get covered and muffled when used on your lap or in bed or on a couch. Another thing I don’t particularly like about this laptop, but can understand considering the price is the plastic back cover. ASUS could have made the back cover out of the same aluminium as the palmrest but decided save some money and use that on the components.
Overall the design ASUS K501UW-AB78 is very sleek, thin, minimalist and because of the aluminium chasis it is a very sturdy laptop.
The Connectivity
The connectivity options of the ASUS K501UW-AB78 are very good and everything you would come to expect from such a laptop is present.
The left side of the body features the power connector, the ethernet LAN port, HDMI-out, and 2 USB 3.0 ports. The other side of the body features the Lock-port, Headphones/Mic-combo-jack, 2 USB 2.0 ports and the built in SD Card Reader.
On the inside it only has WiFi 802.11 b/g/n connectivity(I was honestly expecting it to have AC for a device so new) and Bluetooth 4.0.
The Performance
This is where we come to the main reason I’m reviewing the ASUS K501UW-AB78 and why I think it is a very good affordable gaming laptop. Just like most other affordable gaming laptops it is priced around the 850 dollar mark, it comes with the all important dual-fan setup I recommend, and has a good nVidia GeForce GTX960M graphics card with 2GB of video RAM.
With the main points covered to ensure it is worthy of being in the gaming laptop category we come to the remaining specifications. It comes with a 6th generation Intel Core i7-6500U processor running at 2.5GHz, 8 GB of DDR4 RAM that is easily upgradable up to 16GB and a very fast 512GB M.2 SSD for storage. With all this hardware on board the ASUS K501UW-AB78 has everything it needs to run even the latest games.
The 3-cell 48Whr battery is what you would normally find in your average laptop. With this battery the ASUS K501UW-AB78 is good for up to 6 hours of web browsing.
Thanks to the big plastic back cover this laptop can easily be upgraded to 16GB of RAM and also has the necessary space to accommodate a 2.5-inch mechanical HDD or SSD.
