Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Sigh... Where do I begin. Let's start with the positives: - Although it has many plastic components, the build quality of the components and finishes is high, as it should be at this price. There is absolutely no chassis flex whatsoever, and only minimal screen flex. The screen offers smooth but firm resistance when opened and doesn't jiggle back and forth once set. - While the design is more understated than earlier Asus ROG designs, even non-techy people recognize it as something special. A mildly tech-savvy co-worker commented on how "sweet" my new laptop was. Without knowing the price, he also said "It looks expensive, probably too expensive for me", and estimated it's cost at "many thousands" of dollars. - The performance is excellent. I won't rehash all the specs and performance benchmarks here, but suffice to say, if you are looking for a laptop capable of driving a 4k screen, virtual reality glasses, high end gaming, or video editing this is an excellent machine. - It has REAL mouse buttons. None of that "virtual-button" or "clickable touch pad" silliness. - It is equipped with a USB -C port. - The keyboard is glorious! Among the best laptop keyboards I have used. The keys have excellent feedback, plenty of travel and an good spacing and layout between keys. There are also built-in macro keys. A joy to type on! So by now your probably wondering why I gave it two stars. Here's why: - It is not adequately cooled. I cannot over-stress this point. It is absolutely unacceptable for a modern computer being marketed as a high performance machine to have inadequate cooling. On this point, I believe my particular unit may be defective. I am seeing CPU temperatures over 100c while web browsing. That is not normal. The problem is so pronounced that it causes the computer to randomly shut down. This renders the computer unusable for important work, because you never know when it's going to shut down on you. - ASUS "VIP" (LOL, yeah right!) customer support can't be bothered to respond to e-mails regarding the issue stated above. 4 days after contacting ASUS... still no response. - The "Sonic Bass Woofer" was completely dead on arrival. It never worked, not even a single time. The problem appears to be hardware related. - Battery is not user replaceable, so you can't swap in freshly charged batteries. (technically you can replace it, but it requires tools and major disassembly) - While on battery power, graphics performance falls off a cliff. I had very realistic expectations. I didn't expect it to handle even light games while on battery power, but I did expect it to present a PowerPoint presentation smoothly. Even with the power plan set at "high performance" and with no other programs running, it still struggled to smoothly render simple transitions. I was honestly shocked at how poor the performance became. Perhaps this is also a one off problem with my particular unit. Disappointing, to say the least. - I knew this going in, but it bears repeating... This is a heavy hulking laptop. at nearly 10 pounds, this isn't something your going to fling around like a tablet. If you want to travel with it, it will take planning. Nothing sleek or slim about it. It's designed to live on a desk. So overall, A competent machine with a few issues. Admittedly, my unit may be defective. So, either the design is deficient or the quality control and internal assembly process is shoddy. With no response from ASUS, I'm left with little choice... It's going back. However, I have lost confidence in this model. Sure, I could get a replacement, but there is no guarantee that it won't have the same issues. Sad, I really expected better from ASUS and the ROG line. Update: I finally received an e-mail from Asus CS. It was like the agent didn't even read my description of the problem. The agent suggested that I update the Intel drivers. However in my initial description of the problem, I specifically stated that I had already updated to both the Intel drivers and the BIOS firmware before contacting Asus. The Nvidia drivers were up to date. The sad thing is that before this I was very pleased with ASUS in general and had only good things to say about the ASUS ROG Swift Curved PG348Q Gaming Monitor and prior ROG laptops I have purchased.