Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 (2022) Review: Flashy Gaming Beast with Strong Performance, Weak Webcam and Speakers

Most gaming laptops sold today are built to disappear into a boardroom, all muted greys and blacks with a token flicker of RGB. The Asus ROG Strix Scar 15 (2022), model G533ZW, does the opposite. Firstpost's Mehul Reuben Das tested it and calls it unapologetically wild: flashy, extra and over the top. He rated it 4.5 out of 5. It is priced at Rs 2,29,900.

The unit under review pairs a 12th Gen Intel Core i9-12900H, with 6 Performance cores and 8 Efficiency cores for 14 in total, with 32GB of DDR5 RAM at 4800MHz. The graphics come from an Nvidia RTX 3070 Ti laptop GPU with 8GB of GDDR6. It runs at 1460MHz and 150W, which is Nvidia's 1410MHz boost clock plus a 50MHz overclock from Asus. Storage is a 1TB PCIe 4.0 M.2 SSD, and the battery is a 90Wh four-cell unit.

The screen is a 15.6-inch 2560 x 1440 anti-glare IPS panel running at 240Hz, with a 3ms response time and 100 per cent coverage of the DCI-P3 colour range. Drop to 1080p and it can reach 300Hz. Bezels are 4mm thin. Das found it surprisingly bright for an IPS panel, vibrant and accurate in its colours, and backed by a Dolby Vision certification. He said he would not hesitate to colour grade video or work on high-resolution photos on it, which he called high praise for a gaming display.

The chassis is built like a tank, if on the heavy side for a 15-inch machine, and the weight buys strong cooling. The lid opens to 110 degrees, which feels a little restrictive, and it flexes slightly, though the hinges and the body show little flex. The plastic keyboard deck smudges easily, so a cleaning cloth is advisable. Asus includes two extra faceplates for the large ROG section of the hinge, a purely decorative swap done with a pull. The machine also ships with a KeyStone, a USB-like key tied to Asus' Armoury Crate software. It can lock and unlock the laptop or launch a game and stream in one step, but because it depends on Armoury Crate, Das finds it limited. Memory and storage are user-serviceable, with two SODIMM slots and two M.2 slots.

The keyboard is a membrane chiclet design with per-key RGB, not a mechanical one, but Das never found the typing experience lacking. There is no separate number pad, though the touchpad can act as one. The trackpad is big, wide and centred, with good tracking, and dedicated media, fan-speed, Armoury Crate and volume buttons sit nearby.

Performance is the headline. The i9-12900H, clocked at 2.5GHz and boosting to 5.0GHz, beat or matched every other gaming laptop Das has tested this year in synthetic benchmarks. Real games were run on the Turbo profile at 1440p, ray tracing off, at the highest settings. Shadow of the Tomb Raider averaged about 105 fps with a 98 fps minimum. Far Cry 6 averaged about 90 with a 78 minimum. Battlefield V averaged 134 with a 75 minimum in its heaviest scenes. Metro Exodus averaged 68 with a 49 minimum.

Those figures are close to the top but not at it. The laptops that beat it carry the RTX 3080 Ti. Rivals with the same i9 and 3070 Ti struggle to keep up, Das says, because of weaker cooling and restricted power limits on the CPU and GPU. Asus lets both draw freely.

The flaws are specific. There is no webcam in the chassis, which rules out Windows Hello, and no other biometric login. Asus supplies a ROG Eye Clip webcam that attaches to the top bezel. Das sees the logic for streamers but says a webcam is essential in the post-COVID era. The speakers have good depth, bass and balance but do not get loud enough, and Das has used budget laptops that are louder. There is also no SD card slot. Battery life was 6-7 hours on mixed writing, photo editing and streaming at about 65 per cent brightness, even with the display dropping to 60Hz and graphics switching in hybrid mode. The charger is a 280W brick. The review's battery-test section cuts off mid-sentence.