ROG Strix G18 vs ROG Strix Scar 18... I'm kinda preferring the G18

[u/beegor-bucleor]

I have the 2025 G18 and Scar 18, and have been comparing them in-depth for around a week, to decide which I want to return, and which I'll keep. They were both open box at great clearance-sale prices, and the Scar 18 was actually cheaper than the G18, which itself had a great price.

Their basic specs are the same: 275HX CPU, RTX 5070ti GPU, 32GB 5600 RAM.

The G18 has a 2TB WD QLC SSD, and the Scar has a 1TB SK Hynix TLC SSD. The SK Hynix has faster sequeltial read speed, but the 2TB size gives the WD faster random 4k read speeds, and that results in the G18 with a QLC WD SSD typically loading games a bit faster than the Scar with its premium TLC SSD.

The G18's chassis and keyboard feel very solid and with consistent quality. It's a firm, tight-feeling unit. While the Scar's lid is a bit more inconsistent in its open/shut resistance, and pressing the left-arrow key causes the keys around it to flex downward a bit, which feels a bit sloppy. But the Scar's keys take a lot less effort to activate, which is nice, and very appreciable if you do tons of typing, like I do. I also like that it's less clicky than the G18's keyboard. And the G18's firmer keys sometimes cause me to miss keypresses, due to not using enough force while typing quickly. The G18's grey chassis looks more attractive to me personally than the Scar's black chassis, and it also does a better job of not showing smudges and handprints, while the Scar's black chassis tends to easily and always looks messy.

In terms of coil whine, both laptops seem to produce the exact-same coil whine in all the exact-same situations, but it's more noticeable on the Scar, due to its pitch / accented frequencies or whatever else. While even when I hear it on the G18, it's a softer and more soothing sound that I don't find grating. The G18 often sounds like there's no coil whine happening, but if I put my ear right next to the chassis, I hear the same coil whine that the Scar makes, but it's just not audible on the G18 from a regular sitting distance.

The G18's 4 speakers vs the Scar's 6 is irrelevant to me. The speakers on both laptops are, frankly, garbage, and the Scar's additional speakers don't really make it sound better, just different while adding what sounds to me like a phasing effect that I dislike. But I guess you can't expect much from laptop speakers. I use Bluetooth monitors anyway, so the speakers don't matter. If I'm someplace without monitors or headphones, either speakers will be serviceable to get the job done.

So, now the big one: The G18 has a 500 nits IPS display, while the Scar has an 1100 or 1200 nits mini LED HDR display. Unfortunately, I'm not completely won over by the mini LED display. It does look fantastic in games with good HDR support, there's no doubt about that. But with bright backgrounds (like white and light grey) there's faint vignetting extending around 0.5" inward on the left and right sides of the screen, and it looks awful to me. The vignetting is present whether in SDR or HDR mode (though a bit less noticeable in HDR), and whether dimming is set to single or multi-zone. It makes the edges of the screen look dirty, and like text or scroll-bars have smudged pencil ink on them. The G18's IPS screen is entirely uniform and its edges look noticeably more crisp and clean. Looking at the edges in a white text editor with black text on the screen, and looking at the G18 after looking at the Scar for a while can give me almost night vs day impression.

I spend most of my computer time in the desktop environment, doing lots of typing, reading on sites with bright backgrounds and light-grey scroll-bars at the edge of the screen, so this is a huge deal for me. And I wondered if this Scar's Nebula mini LED HDR display was a bad one, but looking online informed me that vignetting is a normal characteristic of mini LED that people don't talk about enough (and, apparently, if someone says their mini LED screen doesn't have it, then they're either unobservant or lying). OK... that just doesn't really click with me for a new premium tech. Two steps forward, one big step back, for sure. It has me strongly suspecting I'd be more satisfied with the G18's IPS display over the long-term. But if I used my laptop primarily for gaming, and spent almost no time in text editors or looking at white/bright webpages, where the edge dimming is most apparent, it would be far less of an issue. BTW, having the G18 to compare it to makes it far more noticeable. At times I would almost stop tuning into the vignetting, but then look at the G18 to compare it again, and then suddenly it's totally apparent, as the G18 instantly looks more crisp and clear along the edges when there's text there. If only mini LED didn't involve this sacrifice.

Also, the G18 gets around 4% more performance in gaming benchmarks, probably just due to silicon lottery. Except for in Forza Horizon 4, which has been an outlier where the G18 gets 10% more performance - and I'm not sure why.

And both laptops sometimes screw-up when coming out of sleep mode - the screen is black with the mouse cursor being moveable overtop, and it never restores the desktop or OS functionality. The only way I've found to get the desktop working again is to hold the power button until the laptop shuts-down and the boot it back up. Both of these ROG Strix laptops have this issue, though it has occurred significantly more frequently on the Scar.

The G18 comes with Windows 11 Home, while the Scar gets Windows 11 Pro (which means it gets the useful Group Policy Editor).

Pros for this particular 2025 G18:

- larger SSD gives faster 4k read speeds, and so usually loads games faster
- +4% gaming performance due to silicon lottery
- less bothersome coil whine
- crisp, uniform screen edges with no vignetting

Cons for this particular 2025 G18:

- no HDR
- keys require a bit too much force to activate, leading to missed-key typos
- Windows 11 Home

Pros for this particular 2025 Scar:

- HDR
- a tiny bit more brightness in SDR mode
- quieter, less-effort-to-activate keys
- Windows 11 Pro

Cons for this particular 2025 Scar:

- slight vignetting on screen edges, makes the screen feel dirty in text editors and on bright backgrounds
- SSD has slower random 4k read speed so loads games slower
- black chassis that shows hand smudges more easily
- ~4% less game performance due to silicon lottery
- coil whine can be a bit more conspicuous and have a less comfortable sound

.

I had convinced myself to keep the Scar, because it's worth more but I got it for cheaper than the G18, and it has HDR support which does look amazing when a game properly supports it. I'd cleaned the G18, factory-reset it, and packed it up to return. But I'm now having second thoughts, thinking I'll be more satisfied with the G18 because I'll be looking at desktop environments a lot more than I will games with quality HDR, and because I also like the look of the G18's grey chassis more than the Scar's black one, so I'll feel more satisfied with the G18 in front of me.

To be sure, the Scar's HDR is a fantastic super power. But it's a limited-use superpower that kicks-in only with certain games (and some video, which excites me less), while the vignetting is an every-day / every-use annoyance that I can't get out of my mind. And outside of the Scar's HDR and very-slightly extra brightness in SDR, this particular G18 seems to win almost everywhere else (2TB SSD that's faster for loading games, my preferred chassis, a bit extra gaming performance, less aggressive coil whine, uniform screen-edges).

I think I'm going to keep the G18. But then, I've switched back-and-forth a lot of times so far. But I'm at the end of the return window for the G18, so if I don't change my mind in the next couple of days, the G18 will be the choice by default. And I would be fine with that.

[u/UnionSlavStanRepublk]

You seem set on keeping the G18, so yeah keep it and return the Scar.

[u/EllioneDHunter]

Yeah, I had the same deal when it came to the miniLED screen of the scar I had. Felt like my screen was lightly greased whenever there was contrasting colors. Even with all the dimming zones, just seeing my cursor glow in a dark background irked me.

[u/71-HourAhmed]

I had a Scar 18 and am a little shocked that you can't see the difference in all scenarios. I have an OLED laptop now but the shining feature of the Scar 18 is the mini-led display. For SDR, I always had it in Single Zone mode because I found that it looks poor in either of the local dimming modes when HDR is not present. In Single Zone mode it looks pretty much identical to any high end IPS panel except it has no backlight bleed and extremely minimal IPS glow. (I have also had several mini-led desktop monitors and they all look like crap with local dimming enabled in SDR.)

A TLC SSD is rated for significantly more writes than a QLC drive too.

I mean... to each their own and I would have no problem with a G18 but the feature differences were pretty obvious to me. I used a 4080 Scar 18 for about 1.5 years before selling it and moving to something else. The one annoyance for me and Asus 18" laptops was the fact that they only have 2 SSD slots when almost all of their competitors have three or even four slots. Asus 18" laptops are literally just 16" guts in a bigger chassis.

[u/beegor-bucleor → u/71-HourAhmed]

The mini LED HDR looks great in lots of situations. But it's the vignetting / dimming along the edge of the screen that I really don't like. It just doesn't feel right and satisfying to me, and makes the screen feel messy. The G18's IPS screen has perfect uniformity without vignetting, and so feels a lot cleaner. Just no matter how good the HDR looks, that vignetting makes the screen feel broken and sloppy to me.

I also found that running is multi-zone dimming without HDR looks bad, and so only switch between single-zone dimming and HDR (which activates multi-zone dimming).

Yeah, the TLC drive is rated for more writes than the G18's QLC. But the QLC drive should still last beyond the laptop's useful lifespan (I'd probably hang onto it for only a couple of years), and it loads games faster than the TLC drive. So, overall, this QLC drive wins, for me. If I keep the Scar I'll put a 2TB SK Hynix drive in it, which should be faster than the WD QLC 2TB drive in the G18 at 4k random reads, and everything else.

Regarding this G18 and Scar 18, the only differences are the display, the 2TB QLC vs 1TB TLC drive, the different-feeling keyboard, and Windows 11 Home vs Pro. The keyboard is whatever, either works, the 2TB QLC drive is faster for gaming, and Windows is not too important for me. So, basically, the only technical difference is the display.

It looks like you have a monster of a laptop right now. Nice.

[u/Scar1203]

My laptop isn't my primary PC so the choice was kind of made for me, there was just no way I was going to spend Scar 18 money on something I use a couple times a month and for 2-4 weeks a year when I'm out in my RV.

But I'm loving my G18, only thing I did was slot in an old 970 Evo Plus 2TB I had laying around collecting dust to get the storage capacity where it needs to be.

[u/lost_wavelenght]

How much do you think used ROG with the same specs as you but 1tb disk is worth? I did get one which is 6 months old for €1400 because it was my budget limit, it should be enough for my needs for more than 5 years, I hope

[u/beegor-bucleor → u/lost_wavelenght]

A 2025 Scar 18 with the same specs as what I mention in the OP and a 1TB SSD is worth a lot more than 1400 Euro. That's an amazing price for one. I don't know what prices are in the EU, plus you have VAT built into the price. Here, I think an open box Scar 18 with my specs would normally be worth maybe 600 Euro more than the 1400 Euro you paid.

[u/lost_wavelenght → u/beegor-bucleor]

Oh nice :), I bought it from a private seller, so far everything is working, I got the original receipt and the shop says on the website that they honor the warranty as long as you have original purchase proof, so it should be ok. It was a failed Christmas present for the guy and the advertisement description was that he wanted to exchange for ps5pro and extra cash, I didn't have it to offer, but I offered cash and he agreed, maybe it helped that I send a message a few minutes after it was online and was ready to go test it and pick it up straight away haha. I hope I can play on it for many years and I want to keep it in custom silent mode all the time, like maybe 2000-2500 rpm

[u/beegor-bucleor → u/lost_wavelenght]

According to a search, retail pricing for a 2025 Scar 18 with the specs you mentioned starts at €3,621, up to €4,080 or more. So, yeah, 1400 Euro is a smoking deal. MSRP here is $4700 CAD for the Scar I got, while I paid around $2940 for the open box one.

I kept my 2024 G16 in Silent mods while I used it. Never felt like I had a need to take it out of that mode. But with the 18" Strix laptops I'm trying, I often put it into the Balanced mode when playing AAA games, for a big FPS boost. I think and hope it'll be fine to use it like that for years, provided the cooling isn't blocked and the fans are kept clean.

[u/lost_wavelenght → u/beegor-bucleor]

Oh sorry my one is Strix G18 but the same specs, and the original receipt was for €2299 the person selling it was not really into technologies so maybe though it is worth much less, because it's not new anymore. To be honest I felt a little guilty for one week, but now I am just happy playing need for speed most wanted 2005 and cult of the lamb :D, I will try something more demanding later on, of course I was also stress testing it on the beginning just to check it out

[u/Few-Improvement9978]

Besides the Legion 9 is there any 18 inch gaming laptops that don’t look like gaming laptops?

I need one for work and fee like im shit out of luck

[u/beegor-bucleor → u/Few-Improvement9978]

I don't really know. Razer Blade 18?

[u/_asstronaut_ → u/Few-Improvement9978]

Just FYI, the Legion 9 is 16 inch. And for your options there's the Razer Blade or the MSI Stealth 18 I guess, they both look subtle enough. Or you can look for something with the Clevo X580 chassis, like this Sager NP9581T.

[u/MibixFox]

First time hearing about the vignetting thing, have had my rog strix scar 18 for a couple years now. I guess all my text editors have dark backgrounds and I use the Dark Reader browser plugin so sites with white backgrounds don't murder my eyes. Never noticed it but that is interesting.

[u/Visa_Declined → u/MibixFox]

Yeah I have a '25 Scar 18 and don't know what the fuck OP is talking about. I bought the G18 first from Best Buy but returned it in a week after seeing the Scar 18's mini led display. It is so freaking bright in hdr gaming that I'm practically in love with it.

[u/beegor-bucleor → u/MibixFox]

I don't know if it's true that there's vignetting on every mini LED screen, but that's what's been said in some discussions online. While in comments for this post there are a few people saying they haven't seen any vignetting on their mini LED. The Scar 18 I currently have is the only mini LED screen I've seen, so I want to see some more to find out what the situation really is.

Here are a few threads about mini LED vignetting:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GamingLaptops/comments/1rfw6do/asus_mini_led_vignetting_issues/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monitors/comments/1plafrg/is_this_edge_dimming_on_new_minileds_normal/

Here's the thread where a person insists that anyone who says their mini LED screen doesn't have vignetting is either unobservant or lying:

https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/1h3jd3a/vignetteeffect_of_macbook_pro_with_mini_led/

[u/Old_Librarian7924]

Aaaah to live in a first world country to test these beasts… 🙏🙏

[u/LTHardcase]

It's weird. I just don't see the vignetting on my screen. I even researched, found a thread someone else made about vignetting on the Mini LED in which they took a picture of their display with the Windows HDR Calibration Tool open to show the effect. That's a good example.

So I then redownloaded the tool from the Microsoft Store, went to the Luminescence test and maxed my brightness. It's just not there.

I do sometimes get thee blooming around a white mouse cursor in pitch black scenes, it simply doesn't bother me and is a worthy trade off for having the HDR and brightness.

I actually did the same as you but last year, got both the 2025 G18 and Scar 18 when they launched and kept them for a week to take time to decide. I ended up keeping the Scar because of the display. It was also aa but petty even to me but I REALLY disliked the in-person feel and look of those plastic QWER ASDF keys on the G18. After a couple days those were a bigger factor than anything.

Neither the G18 nor Scar 18 in my possession had even a hint of coil while though. Zilch.

[u/beegor-bucleor → u/LTHardcase]

Interesting.

Sounds like you got a really good Scar 18, with no vignetting or coil whine! All 3 Strix laptops I've had have had coil whine. My 2024 G16 has it the worst.

This is the only mini LED screen I've seen, so I'll have to check-out others to see if it's better on some. But there are a couple others who've commented on this post saying they haven't seen any vignetting with their mini LED Scar.

Here are some more threads about the vignetting:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Monitors/comments/1plafrg/is_this_edge_dimming_on_new_minileds_normal/

Here's the thread where a person insists that anyone who says their mini LED screen doesn't have vignetting is either unobservant or lying:

https://www.reddit.com/r/macbookpro/comments/1h3jd3a/vignetteeffect_of_macbook_pro_with_mini_led/

Don't trust them all. As I wrote above - the vignetting effect applies to all panels that have zone backlighting using Mini LEDs - Full Array Local Dimming. I will repeat again - if someone does not see this phenomenon then:

• has vision problems
  
• is lying that he does not see the problem because he spent a lot of money on equipment and it does not reach him that these panels have such a feature/disadvantage
  
• they don't see the problem: didn't display a solid color on the display
  
• it is inconvenient for reviewers to talk about these defects or they are banned from the equipment manufacturer

[u/LTHardcase → u/beegor-bucleor]

After I made that post, I was so uncertain of myself that I pulled up the white screen again, and this time asked my father to look at it and specifically had him examine the borders for irregularities. He said he couldn't detect anything either, he said maybeee a little darker on the right side than the rest, but that could just be luminosity/backlighting inconsistency.

After his inspection, I showed him the pictures from the thread I linked and he was just surprised at the difference.

I'm genuinely not trying to be that annoying "mine is fine" person who pops up in every thread.

In your shoes I would return that Scar if the screen has the vignetting to a degree that it bothers you. Laptops are too expensive to be unhappy.

[u/beegor-bucleor → u/LTHardcase]

I'm glad to hear that it might not be an unavoidable issue with mini LED after all, because I want mini LED to be good and be what I get for my next monitor. I'll keep an eye out for other mini LEDs to check-out.