ASUS ROG Strix Scar 16 (2023) Gaming Laptop, 16” Nebula HDR QHD 240Hz/3ms, 1100 nits, Mini LED, GeForce RTX 4090, Intel Core i9-13980HX, 32GB DDR5, 2TB PCIe, Wi-Fi 6E, Windows 11 Pro, G634JY-XS97

This is my second ASUS gaming laptop. I switched from the overpriced Alienware. I think ASUS has provided the best value for gaming laptops for at least the last 5 years. I also like how the styling is subdued, so you can use it as a regular laptop without people thinking you're weird. The best features are the screen, the speed, and the relative low temperature. The fan noise can get very high. Top tip: If you put some lego bricks or similar sized items under the back to keep it off the desk, the laptop stays much cooler. I found that works far better than any of those cooling laptop stands. The image quality and brightness of the screen is very good, although I almost always hook it up to my TV. I don't think the battery life is great, but it never is with a gaming laptop. Overall, I would definitely look at ASUS first when I come to buy another laptop.

My only drawback on this computer would be the loud noise it emits but that's a given considering it is a gaming computer. The screen is nice, looks really nice and is of great quality. It runs very smoothly and gaming with it was really fast. Overall, the best laptop I have ever brought. Update March 2026: After about 2.5 years the laptop is still running pretty well. The temps do get a good a little bit higher than when I first got it and the fans still run pretty high. However, it can still run just about anything and any game pretty smoothly. To help combat the temps getting too high while gaming I got an llano laptop cooler (can run pretty loud as well if you put it on the max settings, but can run much quieter as well) to go along with it since it can cool the laptop better than any of the other laptop coolers I had before. It does get a fair amount of dust inside the fans and air holes from time to time since the laptop just sucks in so much air to cool down the components inside, but it can be fixed by simply cleaning it. The battery life on it does drain pretty fast without a charger but I usually just leave it plugged in.

EDIT: laptop GPU is dead just after 1.5 years of usage. Whole motherboard needs to be replaced for $2900. Absolutely unacceptable. I love this laptop, it is great. I'm gonna list its goods and bads: - The good: 1- Beautiful screen. 2- Relatively portable. 3- Great performance. 4- Faily queit. 5- The audio quality is great for those who prefer to use laptop speakrs (however, it is not flawlessly amazing, it still could get a little better). 6- I like the laptop design. - The bad: 1- The coil noise is there. I have around 4 different coil whines in my machine. Bios updates seem to sometimes increase the whine and sometimes it reduces it. 2- Since this is a mini-led display, there is a clear halo around the mouse when the creen in a darkeer tone. You can literally see your mouse jump from one LED zone to another. 3- There are numerous issues with Advanced Optimus. It takes time to switch. When I close a game, if I quickly eopn the browzer before the switch switches to the iGPU, it will feeeze my screen indefinitely. Also just recently, It apparently stopped switching to dGPU. I no longer see the NVIDIA container pop up in the bottom right corner. The switch sometimes swithes to back to the iGPU (apparently), but the system tray shows the DGPU still running, sometimes it won't stop unless I change the power settings in Armoury Crate (to silent, for example). 4- I hate one design issue, which is the heat exasuts to the sides. Because of this, I get too much heat on my right hand that uses the mouse while playing. 5- The Ethernet an DC charging ports are just next to the left exaust, making them become too much hot while gaming. - The ugly: 1- And it is the reason why I took a star away, the battery life. With power set to battery saving, Armoury Crate set to Silent and Standard, PC on night mode, and screen brightness around 70 and RGB only for the keyboard on the lowest brightness settings, I get around 90 minutes only while browsing or even leaving the laptop idle. This is not acceptable, sice I'm seeing reviews saying this laptop should provide up to 7 hours of browsing experience. Discloser: I'm writing this review to get the 90 days warranty extension by ASUS.

I purchased this laptop expecting top-tier performance based on its impressive specs. However, in reality, it has been a major disappointment. I’m hesitant to update the NVIDIA driver because every time I do, I encounter significant FPS drops. This is by far the most expensive laptop I’ve ever bought, yet also the least satisfying. I can't recommend it.

This laptop is so great but there are some issues with the battery. Just 1 hour without power. The first time there was some problem with the monitor, when you turned off the power, the monitor could turn off and not turn on again, but this was fixed by software. I can recommend this laptop after several months of use, I always use it with great pleasure. Even if Windows itself is buggy, it's not Asus's problem.