ASUS ROG GL551 Series GL551JM-DH71 4th Generation 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop (Intel Core i7, 4710HQ 2.50 GHz, 16 GB Memory, 1 TB HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 860M 2 GB Windows 8.1 64-Bit) Black/Red

I have had this laptop for 1 week now and I am yet to come up with something that I do not like about it. Un-boxing was easy, I didn't realize this laptop came with a Asus ROG gaming mouse but I ordered a Corsair M65 anyway. The mouse provided by Asus is nice, nothing to knock it but I prefer the Corsair.First impressions upon boot up were all positive, laptop came preloaded with windows 8.1 on the SSD which made first time bootup quick and painless. Once start up was done I shut it down then booted back up because I was curious to see how fast it would boot from the SSD and it is blazing fast, seconds from full shutdown to desktop loaded.I loaded up a few games right out of the gate and started running some benchmark FPS averages. With Arma 3 running on all ultra settings I was averaging 39-50 FPS. Running Arma 2 on the highest settings was getting me 60+ FPS and the same goes for Counter Strike: Source.Some people have complained about the smudges and fingerprints that are easily left behind when using this laptop. I would agree with them fingerprints are pretty visible and do linger but a damp paper towel wipes them all away and you get a good as new look. I did not lower the stars for this because this is a very sharp looking laptop, the red back lit keyboard is nice in darker environments and can be shut off if you do not want it on.Sound quality from the speakers I would put with on par with the rest of the competition, not the best, far from the worst. While playing the games I mentioned before I was using the on board speakers and I didn't feel like game play was lost in any way due using the on board speakers.One item this laptop and I would say most gaming laptops do need is a cooling pad, I ordered a Havit cooling fan for it while gaming. While gaming the exhaust does heat up and the cooling pad does do a good job at keeping temps low. I definitely wouldn't be gaming with this laptop on my lap but basic use, surfing the web and that kind of stuff, keeps the laptop pretty cool and having it on my lap for a couple hours while surfing the web was no issue at all.Overall I gave this laptop 5 stars because it has done everything I expected and more. Gaming is amazing on this laptop, price point is great compared to the rest of the competition for what you get, and you can't go wrong with Asus 1 year no questions asked warranty. I was pleasantly surprised that I have 1 year of full coverage on any issues, spills, drops, breaks, anything.

After a couple days of owning this machine my impression is WOW, WOW, WOW!!!I'm not a gamer so I can't speak for that crowd. I'm a professional day trader and will use this as my mobile trading station since the market is often very slow during the summer and I don't want to be pinned down at home.So here's what I can say.The PROS's:1. Package arrived on time and everything worked perfectly out of the box.2. Minimal bloatware that was easily removed.3. The quality of construction was much better than expected. Very study feeling.4. LOVE the keyboard. Keys easy to identify and it just feels good.5. The IPS monitor is great. The viewing angle is extremely wide.6. For what I do this thing runs ice cold. That's with running 4 trading platforms, charting software(killed my old i3 HP laptop), chatrooms, AIM, and Chrome with about 6-7 tabs open. WIth all that going on my old i3 would start to get very hot and slow. This beast doesn't even break a sweat.7. FAST! My desktop is a i7 4790K with 32gb ram and Samsung EVO PRO ssd. I cant really tell much difference. My charting software took 3 minutes to load on the old i3, about 15 sec on this thing. About the same as my desktop. Boot times are really quick too. Think seconds.8. The ISP screen allows such hi resolution that I can fit quite a bit more on the same sized screen. I wasn't expecting that so that was a nice positive surprise. Fwiw, I'm 54 and my eyes are not that good. I'm shocked I can read the small font but it's just so very clear/tight and vivid that its actually no problem.9.It's quiet. So far more quiet than my old laptop was even just web browsing.10. The track pad isn't bad at all. I'm not sure if I got lucky or if everyone else is just used to something better than I've ever had, but this track pad beats the crap out of the HP Probook I have.11. The wifi card seems awesome. My router is in the basement of our house(no windows). I can sit in my driveway and still get a strong signal. The HP can't do that.12. It's light. Very light. Probably weighs no more than my HP but the weight is better distributed. I can easily walk around carrying this with 1 hand with the display open. I thought it would be a little heavier.Cons: (being really nit picky here)1. It's a finger print/dust magnet. Doesn't matter to me as this is a work machine not a trophy.2. I think it's storing temp files to the ssd drive thus taking up space.My desktop does that too and I just delete them once in a while, but for some reason I can't figure out how to do that on this machine yet. Both run WIn 8.1 too so that's odd. I probably figure that out in time, or maybe someone here will tell me how:)3. The sound isn't very good. Really lacks bass. Doesn't matter to me but may for some.4 I think the colors are off. Reds sort of look like neon. I can probably adjust that just haven't taken the time. Any suggestions?Anyway, for what i bought this laptop for, I think I'm going to be very happy. I'll likely never experience the GTX 960M card, but I love the overall speed and feel of this computer.