I know Austin Evans made a review on this laptop basically taking a **** on it, but I'll be honest, he's not very accurate in that video because he's all like "theres better for a little more expensive" and kinda missed the point this laptop was going for. So here is my take:
I've handled several other series of laptops (alienware, MSI, ROG series, and Acer's Predators). They are all great laptops and not a single knock can be made on them so kudos to the manufacturers. Only thing is, not everyone wants to spend upwards of 1.3K on em so I get it and apparently ASUS did too. So lets go over what I like about this laptop.
Good:
I know people say "ugh if you don't go metallic what are you doing with your life" and "but its so pretty". First off, ya getting this laptop for the horsepower, not for the looks (I got black matter and honestly people can't seem to find a flaw in the design cuz its quite nice looking). Don't get too worried over looks, my recommendation is black matter and enjoy the nice little black and red combo.
5lbs isn't light. I'll say it again, 5lbs is not light. BUT, if this is the only thing you're carrying around or you have it with other stuff, THIS IS JUST ABOUT THE LIGHTEST GAMING LAPTOP (razer stealths aside) YOU CAN GET. HOLY HELL I HAVE HELD SOME BEEFY STUFF AND THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM. It's not gonna be the most slim or easiest to carry, but its not gonna break your back if you put it in a bag. I have put this in a bag on a trip abroad and it wasn't half bad to carry.
How it performs: I've had it for about a month. Works great. I switched from an ENVY series laptop and it feels sharp. Boot times are wonderful and just general speed is good. Also, I've noticed the cores tend to try and hit that 4.0 GHz mark more times than not so you are getting some oomph to it.
I went from a touchscreen ENVY to this laptop AND OH LORD IS IT WONDERFUL. That review by Austin Evans is really damn inaccurate considering that many laptops when turned to the side do that annoying thing you know I'm talking about. At low brightness you can tell but that's because its at low brightness. At mid range in a non-glare environment you can't even tell. At max brightness it looks crisp and nice. Obviously not 4K but thats what a desktop is for.
Questionable things:
Its rather thick. Thats all I have to say on that front. The weight doesn't represent the thickness though. Carrying it in one arm is quite feasible but of course, thickness.
Red on black doesn't make for a good natural keyboard contrast now does it ASUS. No worries though, you can keep the backlight on low and it'll work just fine.
Fan speed. If you don't like noisy fans, why the hell are you getting a gaming laptop. Most of them have thick fans that have to circle out air anyways. Other than that, they are rather loud ONLY if you have them on overboost and you are gaming, but if you wear headphones like me, they aren't noticeable (but maybe to the other people in the library :P). One good thing I have to give asus, since it uses a dual exhaust type style you'd find in cars, it works damn well to push the air away instead of keeping the heat under. With a nice, comfortable, cool room, you could stick your hand behind the grills while it is cranking out heat and feel it be comfortably warm I find.
Audio. I once had a laptop with Beats audio and another with harmon kardon. This doesn't compare. BUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT I have to give credit where credit is due and say that the audio speakers being on the side of the laptop is quite nice and while isn't all "surround sound" and stuff, its pleasant.
Things that won't appeal to 90% of people:
Ports. If this was a dock it would probably fit about 1 jetski in the laptop world. 1 HDMI, 1 audio jack, 3 USB. Thats all ye get. If I'm being honest, I'm used to it because I never had a laptop with a CD drive, and I haven't had any need for an SD card slot as of late since modern DSLR's have wifi connection straight to your phone and/or laptop but I can see not having an SD slot annoying. Also, the whole USB type C thing hasn't taken over the world so you are ok. The only thing I own with a type C port is my switch so far. It's useful, but the world isn't gonna break.
Battery life. You could get more battery off a lemon with wires. I can do random stuff like watch videos for about 4 hours on low power setting but everyone should know by now that you aren't gonna get a good battery off a gaming laptop lmao. Speaking of battery, if you are running an extremely powerful game PLUGGED IN, your laptop could be discharging.
Last thoughts. I paid an extra 100 off of the base 700$ price to get a 1050 TI with 4gbs of ram. There was a deal at the time and personally, it was well worth it. The TI over the regular doesn't matter that much but the extra 2gbs gives your computer a total of 12gbs of ram to work with (8 DDR4 and 4VRAM) and it CRANKS hard. Also I suggest getting a CPU heat monitoring program because the CPU can hit temps of 90 degrees celsius if you aren't handling it properly under intense loads. I find that you can manage it at 80 degrees on gaming sessions and that should be completely ok as it doesn't bottleneck the GHz output and keeps it at 3.7-3.9 (looking at you new macbook pro with I9 processor). It's been about 2 months since investing and I think it does ok, and for everyone who is tight on their wallet, it does what you want it to.
BTW I have the GE, so I have the i5-8300H but I also have the TI. Obviously in your case those i7-8750H would kill it so you'd be even more powerful but at the 1K asking price, I may look at the Acer Predator Helios 300 series.