Ok! My G73 has finally arrived and I’ve been using it a little and am ready to give my personal review of this machine.
First of all… the specs.
CPU: i7 720M
GPU: ATi 5870M
RAM: 8G
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium (64 bit)
HDD: 2x 500G 7200 drives
OPTICAL: Combo DVD burner (Mine is an A2 - A1 comes with BluRay)
Monitor - 17.3" Full HD. This is very nice. Super clear, 16:9 ratio. Viewing angles are good, though it’s a bit more glossy so can reflect a bit more.
Heat - Sits around a constant 50’C during standard windows activities. Twin fans, very quiet.
Keyboard - has backlighting, so nice in dark areas. I’m not personally used to the chiclet keys, but it’s growing on me.
Speed - this thing hasn’t missed a beat yet. Very very smooth and fast. The only speed issues I’ve had so far are Win7 related, not the system.
Accessories - the backpack supplied fits the beast in it, but it can seem a bit of a tight fit. High quality and plenty of room for fan, power box and everything else you need to bring with it. The mouse is a big clunky thing you’d expect on a desktop, not a notebook.
Gaming - will have to get back to you. My install disks are cracking up at me and refusing to install nicely. My usual games are Second Life and Dungeons 'n Dragons Online. I do like to play FPS occasionally too, but have nothing at the moment. Am also signing up for the APB beta as well as Global Agenda.
I’ve had this thing for about a month now and it’s not missed a beat. Temperatures stay pretty good, though I’ve seen the GPU hit 80+ once. Not played any hardcore FPS games yet, but for standard MMOs, Second Life and the likes… it does a great job. Much more stable than my desktop’s NVidia.
It’s very quiet. Much quieter than my desktop, which is now permenantly donated to the missus.
Only issues I’ve had are from Win7 64bit.
Photoshop CS5, brilliant. Firefox with a hundred tabs open, brilliant. Full aero on Win7 with media player open, Second life running and a few other things… still running smooth as. Only MSN Live has ever had slowdown issues and I think that’s their software, not the lappy.
Overall, a very happy customer in me - and a worthwhile purchase on the lappy.
PS. Grit gets in the speaker ‘grating’… that’s about the only con I can think of at the moment unless you mind the size. Looks ok on it’s own, but put it beside my old 14" and it’s like a huge monster.
My bad as I missed this last post. I would like to point out that this thing is NOT really a notebook. It’s more of a portable desktop. Do NOT buy it if you want to write a book or check your emails on the train on the way to work. Don’t get it if you don’t have ready access to power. A full battery lasts only about 90 minutes on normal usage, so a supply is something you will definately want for anything beyond that.
The mouse supplied, which I first said is clunky… is actually very comfortable. About a perfect fit for my hand, but I don’t really feel comfortable now on a normal 100NT mouse.
Chiclet keyboard though… now that I’m used to it - is more comfortable than a normal keyboard… but it seems to have trouble keeping up with my typing. Not sure if this is because I am pressing too lightly or if it just can’t keep up. Inclusion of a number pad is quite nice, though I had an external USB one from my old lappy anyway.
Got the A1 version of this about a month ago, as I had been looking to upgrade my old laptop for a while. Overall I have been impressed by it: graphics, memory size, processor, screen display are all top notch; all the games I’ve played so far (GTA4, FM2010, Napoleon:TW) and utitilities I use, fly at near enough top settings, it stays pretty cool, and I’m glad I payed the extra bills for it.
There have been some issues however.
Two weeks in, I started having difficulties with Windows. I removed Steam- which sorted it; but couldn’t understand why Steam was sudenly causing problems. After faffing about re-installing Steam a few times, it turned out that the Creative Audio stuff that was preloaded on it by Asus was conflicting with Steam, and causing lock-ups.
Since uninstalling the Creative stuff it it’s been fine, but has been a ballache trying to find out the problem. Apparently this isn’t a one-off, and has affected a lot of other users silmilarily.