You can use the ROG Mothership like a very large laptop by keeping the keyboard connected to the monitor. Once you remove it, though, a whole new world of possibilities opens up. It's basically no different than using a desktop with a 17-inch monitor. The keyboard feels great, with a solid amount of travel, and its 2.4 GHz wireless connection is pretty responsive. You can also fold it in half to give it a more ergonomic angle, as well as save some desk space. And of course, you could just remove the it entirely and replace it with your favorite mechanical gaming keyboard.

As you'd expect, ASUS is also aiming to deliver a solid gaming experience with the Mothership's 17.3-inch display. It's available in 1080p with a 144Hz refresh rate, 3ms response time and NVIDIA's G-SYNC. Given that it's such a large screen size, though, I'd expect a 4K version eventually too. Under the hood, it's powered by Intel's Core i9-8950HK CPU, which is overclocked out of the box to reach boost speeds up to 4.78 GHz. You can stuff in up to 64GB of RAM, and the very brave can run three 512GB NVMe SSDs in a Raid 0 array. If you don't need to game and just want to work on documents, you can also switch over to integrated graphics by hitting a button. That process requires a reboot, but it should net you a few extra hours of battery life.

At this point, ASUS isn't talking about a price or availability date for the ROG Mothership, but you can expect it to cost much more than a typical gaming notebook. It's almost like a limited edition device -- the company isn't planning to put it on the shelves of Best Buy anytime soon. Building every unit also takes a while, since it involves plenty of hand crafted components. Even if its price and appeal is relatively limited, though, the ROG Mothership is a good sign for the notebook industry. While everyone else is focused on getting thinner and lighter, ASUS wants to rethink the way we use gaming laptops entirely.