ASUS ROG SCAR 15

amazon ASUS ROG SCAR 15 reviews

When doing the SCAR 15 review, a friend told me: “With machines like this, perhaps ASUS this year also wants to compensate users.” Considering what has happened, the above comment is also somewhat reasonable, especially when the ROG line-up, in general, has received many significant improvements after a long year (almost) no change.

With the popular gaming line Strix, we had a “new wind” called G17 not long ago. As for the high-end SCAR line, I think SCAR 15 can completely have the same influence. Even with the worthwhile changes, this can be considered the most worthwhile SCAR to buy ever, or at least in more than a year.

A different appearance and more “earning money.”

In terms of appearance, like many previous products, SCAR 15 still owns many familiar things in common: Square body, ring-type hinge, many pitiful details, and more. But as with this year’s Strix line; Our machine has been carefully taken care of to become more attractive. In the past year or so, SCAR and Strix are usually not much different despite being in two different segments. Fortunately, this story has not been repeated with SCAR 15, thanks to the additions that are “worth the money” for me.

First, with side A, SCAR 15 will still have a familiar two-array design to create a bunker feel. Compared to Strix G17, the grainy face of the device will be a bit different in terms of texture. Instead of the tiny “ROG” abbreviations, we will now have many stylized small squares. I like this decoration because when we look at the below, we will see a synchronization between the textures of the two areas.

The smooth surface will still be covered with light rough paint, giving a smooth touch that is quite pleasing to the hand. I like it much more than last year’s scratched finish because this rough layer will make holding the device significantly more comfortable. In addition, thanks to the aluminum material, this area also proved to be firm, with very little flex when I tried to apply force.

The ROG logo on the SCAR 15 is polished and equipped with RGB LEDs. Combined with the signature LED key and bottom LED combo, we will have a pretty eye-catching combo, suitable for gamers who like a gloss.

The back of SCAR 15 has been flattened instead of layered like its predecessors – similar to this year’s Strix line. However, the ROG case on the right will now be removable; I think installing other colored cases if you want to show your personality is quite interesting. I said last time that I quite like the pink color on the Electro Punk version; if I have that cap, I will change it right away. In addition, in my opinion, this year ROG also has an orange version, which is also quite popular.

The machine’s hinge will still be a familiar ring style, giving a feeling of opening and closing quite smoothly and compactly. The ability to hold the device is still as usual, quite stable both at the table and carried back and forth in hand. When folding the device, we can see an additional RGB LED strip at the base of the screen – a point that is probably completely new on ROG laptop products. This LED will shine directly on the hump when opening the machine, making it more eye-catching and aggressive. Even though it’s just a small detail, it makes me quite excited.

All of the above upgrades will be encapsulated in a 354 x 259 x 27.2mm body, a bit more compact in width and width than the SCAR 15 2020 (370 x 275mm). Although the machine’s weight remains the same at 2.3kg, being reduced in size is still a plus point for those who love to move.

A screen that is refreshing in many ways

Regarding the screen, SCAR 15 2021 also has many notable changes. Typical examples are that the border has been significantly thinner on all four sides, helping you get a more airy experience. Combined with the compact overall size, this can be seen as a significant improvement of ASUS with this year’s SCAR. However, it is a pity that although the bottom border has a lot of room, the company still forgets the webcam cluster like every year. In the situation that many brothers have had to work from home again, the absence of a webcam will significantly affect phone calls, meetings, etc.

The second big change will come from the display parameters when now, the SCAR 15 will be equipped with a resolution of 2560 x 1440, with a 165Hz refresh rate. That is a rather strange combo on gaming laptops and has only really emerged since the beginning of this year. In addition, AdaptiveSync technology is also present, helping us minimize screen tearing to get the best gaming experience.

I quite appreciate this set of parameters in terms of versatility, at least compared to the FullHD 300Hz combo that we have had before. It can ensure a smooth gaming experience and meet the needs of high-quality images. SCAR 15 will also have a FullHD 60Hz option, which will probably be suitable for those with a slightly narrower wallet.

This 2K screen experience does not make much difference for normal users like me compared to FullHD, but you will probably see it if you are fastidious. We also have very powerful hardware (I will talk about it later), so why not push the resolution up to get a good image?

In terms of color parameters, SCAR 15 also owns quite impressive numbers. Especially, DCI-P3 will reach 100% – promising to serve both movie needs if you need it.

Mechanical keyboard cluster for a new experience

Mechanical keyboard? That’s right; you didn’t hear me wrong. For me, this is also one of the points that make SCAR 15 2021 worth the money. The key layout is the same, but an optical-mechanical switch system (Optical Mechanical Keyboard) will be below the keyframe for a rather strange experience. The clicky sound is also full, quite loud, and sharp. Brothers who like Blue Switch on traditional mechanical keys will probably also enjoy this new system on SCAR 15.

At first, when I picked up the device, I played games mainly and quite liked the feel of the optical switch. Thanks to the deep key travel and the mechanical system, each phase of my move are also “stronger” than before because it requires more force. But switching to text editing disappeared because the typing speed was significantly slowed down by the “heavy” of the mechanical switch. Although it is still possible to adjust the usage habit after 1-2 days accordingly, I think not all brothers will like this. So to me, the SCAR 15’s optical-mechanical keyboard is still good, but it will only be so when used correctly with the main task of playing games.

Above, we will still have our own set of keys to increase or decrease the volume, turn on software, etc. They will be normal keys instead of mechanical keys – quite suitable for quick manipulation when needed. The LED of this keyboard is also RGB per key, which can be adjusted with different flashing modes in the ROG Armory Crate software. The brightness of the lights is quite good, still enough for us to see even in medium light office conditions.

Next to the key will be the Keystone 2.0 key – a tool to help you open – close the access rights of the hidden file Shadow Drive. This duo will help you protect your slightly personal data; as long as you save them to Shadow Drive, remove the Keystone, and put it away, no one will see it. This Keystone is attached to the machine with a magnet, so it is quite easy to pull out and plugin.

Unlike the C-side of most old products, the SCAR 15 has a two-array design, which is made transparent to reveal the internal components. An interesting concept from an aesthetic point of view, but we will only experience plastic mats instead of metal in return. I wouldn’t say I like this very much because they will stick to sweat, which greatly affects the aesthetics and user experience.

SCAR 15’s touchpad is much larger than most previous 15-inch ROG products, made of glass, and uses Windows Precision drivers. That is also the box for us to have a good user experience. The virtual number pad system is still equipped with a white LED that is easier to see than the red LED on old SCAR machines. That will help those who need to enter a lot of data, but I don’t find them very useful.

where can you get a ASUS ROG SCAR 15 online

ASUS ROG Scar 15 Gaming & Entertainment Laptop (AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX 8-Core, 64GB RAM, 1TB PCIe SSD, RTX 3080, 15.6″ Full HD (1920×1080), WiFi, Bluetooth, 1xHDMI, Win 10 Pro) with Hub: Buy it now

ASUS ROG Scar 15 Gaming & Entertainment Laptop (AMD Ryzen 9 5900HX 8-Core, 32GB RAM, 1TB PCIe SSD, RTX 3080, 15.6″ Full HD (1920×1080), WiFi, Win 10 Home) with ASUS ROG Strix Impact II: Buy it now

Powerful, Trendy Red – Green hardware

In terms of configuration, the SCAR 15 version on hand will use an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H CPU, 16GB of DDR4 RAM, 1TB of NVMe SSD, and an NVIDIA RTX 3070 8GB GDDR6 graphics card. With the huge attraction of the current Cezanne – Ampere combo, it is not surprising that the high-end SCAR line is also fully enjoyed. If you are curious about the story of overclocking on laptops, SCAR 15 also has the option to run Ryzen 9 5900HX + RTX 3080 for us to choose.

With the Ryzen 7 5800H CPU, ASUS continues to “drop power” quite comfortably for it as it did on the recent Strix G17: Up to 80W in Turbofan mode and stable at 45 – 50W with tasks multicore. Thanks to that, the final benchmark results are not much different from the previous measurement, still very high and among the top compared to many Core i7 or i9 Comet Lake competitors up to the present time.

As for single-core performance, SCAR 15 can still help the 5800H reach a high clock rate, specifically about 4.4 – 4.5GHz maximum on Cinebench R23. Anyway, the single-player ability is also the point that the Red team is doing well this year, so maybe you guys can still use it with confidence until now. As usual, I also used PCMark10 to test the machine’s office performance, and the scores were still high with all three types of tasks.

Regarding the RTX 3070 graphics card, its power consumption is also strongly pushed up by the company. Depending on the games we play, the “waste” power level will vary, but the maximum will still be up to 130W – mainly when playing at 1440p. Also, because the device is equipped with a “weird” screen, I push it to the highest image quality to check the tests.

As before, I have an explanation; The RTX 3070 Mobile uses the same die as the 3070 Desktop, perhaps only cutting the CUDA core compared to the senior to better fit the system on the laptop. So after experiencing FullHD gaming on the G17, I would also love to see its performance when meeting a more “hard” level (the G17 also has a 2K 165Hz screen option). With the above results, it can be said that my expectations for 3070 Mobile were well rewarded.

I found a better hardware temperature compared to the Strix G17 a little while ago, SCAR 15. The average temperature I get when fighting games will mostly only be at the threshold of 80 degrees, sometimes slightly up to 84 – 85 but only with a few tasks. With a duo that is “dropped” in both pulse and power like 5800H + RTX 3070, this number can be said to be quite good. Currently, I have not been allowed to open the product to study inside, but the SCAR 15 will likely be equipped with a better VRM system than the Strix G17.

Finally, as a high-end model, the SCAR 15 will also be equipped with some outstanding additional elements this year, such as ROG Boost (switching power from CPU to GPU in some cases) or Liquid Metal to serve the heat dissipation problem.

High-speed memory, good upgradeability

The SCAR 15 will be equipped with a 1TB NVMe SSD from SK Hynix, but this will be a customized version specifically for the ROG series. The read and write speeds are also good when measured with Crystal DiskMark, and we can upgrade to a similar NVMe SSD to take advantage of RAID 0.

Fully Connected Port

Regarding connectivity, SCAR 15 will be equipped with 2 USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports, 1 USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port that supports DisplayPort, RJ-45 LAN port, HDMI 2.0 port, and 3.5 combos headphone jack. The device’s C port will also support Power Delivery charging, so you can temporarily use the C charger of other devices in some cases.

In general, the number of ports of the machine is still quite adequate for the needs of connecting gear or hard drives, USB, … But it is unfortunate that the machine still lacks some small elements necessary for me (USB 4.0, SD card slot, etc.) despite being a product in the high-end gaming segment.

The bottom is solid, unique.

On the underside, SCAR 15 will also have a rubber sole enhanced in both quantity and size, stylized and printed with messages related to the ROG brand. That is also where ASUS puts the characteristic bottom LED strip, combined with the key LED and the A-side LED, making the device appear bold as a gamer.

Large battery, with technology to support the duration.

Inside will be a battery with a capacity of up to 90Wh – a high battery level for gaming laptops in general. And to take advantage of this battery, ASUS will also equip the iGPU Mode feature on SCAR 15, allowing us to turn off the discrete RTX 3070 graphics card to switch to using the integrated Radeon Vega 8. That will be a “salvation” for those of you who often move, bring the device to school, go to work, … but do not want to carry the big, heavy charger that comes with it.

Ending

That’s all I want to share with you about the ASUS ROG SCAR 15 2021 – the SCAR that I think is the most worth the money so far. While it’s possible to continue using Strix G’s prized chassis, the company, fortunately, did not choose that route with the SCAR line. Valuable and unique changes have been added; we’ve got a product that’s more advanced, fresh, and different enough to take seriously.