Kaelang's Asus G73JH-RBBX05 Review!

Howdy folks!

Well, in exactly 5 hours and 32 minutes from the moment I am writing this, I have owned the G73 for 1 week. Here's my impression:

LOOKS:
The computer looks amazing to me still. The rubberized coating that encases a majority of the computer has really helped. I previously owned an Acer Aspire 6920 which was a super finger-print magnet. It also resists dust very well. I was literally cleaning it every day to prevent myself from going insane. The stealthy design is also something that I love. It's unique and it's also controversial. At Best Buy, the guy that sold the laptop to me, and the guy at the front door that took the security thing off, both told me the are jealous. However, my female cousin who shall remain nameless (shame on her) said that she thinks the computer is a 'piece of junk' (her uneducated opinion, not mine ). Like I said, personally, this thing is absolutely beautiful and I would take this over the expensive, useless eye-candy that is Alienware any day. One issue I have is with the keyboard. My Acer had a very durable keyboard and did not show wear at all. However, after a week with the G73, the keyboard keys are already balding. Not a huge issue, but I could have lived if Asus made the mid-section of the laptop (keyboard area anyways) out of black, shiny, durable plastic instead of durable dull plastic, so as to avoid wear.

PERFORMANCE:
I don't need to be specific here. Go anywhere and someone will tell you this thing is a beast. Go to your neighbor. I'll bet you 20 macaroons that he/she/it will tell you that it's a beast. Walk into a Starbucks and watch the G73 suck all the netbooks within a 10 mile radius into its impressive cooling system and spit them out in a million pieces. Speaking of cooling, it does run pretty cool. My ambient is around 74-78 and the laptop idles at 60 C. I haven't seen it go above 85 C under load. Externally, the keyboard and palmrest stay comfortable. But put your hand behind the screen and expect your hand to sweat like a million dirty nerds that are looking at your computer.

In terms of how loud the machine is, it doesn't get very loud. Mind you, my Acer was so quiet you would never know it's on without looking at the screen. You can hear the exhaust on this computer, don't be fooled. The fan is on 100% of the time, most of the time, and there is a distinctive hum that comes from the inner workings. But it's actually a very quiet computer when you think about what's going on in there...

Now, as far as games go, I'm not a hardcore gamer. I got this computer because I wanted the best that I can afford, and I needed something good for my web design. But this thing obviously plays all modern titles very well on the highest settings. Personally, I've played WoW on this (170+ FPS w/o VSync on Ultra, 60 FPS w/ Vsync), I've played Combat Arms, Tomb Raider: Underworld (both without measuring FPS ) and I've played the DiRT 2 demo, I also benchmarked it. On the stock Cata driver, I had all the settings on the highest EXCEPT Post-Processing, which was on medium, I think. The FPS dropped from 44 to 30-something, and benchmarked at these settings, I got 28 min, 33 avg. After updating to the 10.1 driver, I set post-processing to High, and achieved the same results, indicating higher performance. (Also, the Windows Experience Rating for the graphics card went from 6.0 stock to 7.2 with 10.1.)

I'll tell you right now, you will NOT need to overclock or use the Twin Turbo mode on this computer for the foreseeable future.

BUILD QUALITY:
Coming from a budget model computer like the Acer, this Asus is ah-mayzing. There are no odd creaks or weird noises when you pick it up or anything. Some people have reported keyboard flex, but honestly, it's a chicklet style keyboard. Who cares about flex. You won't notice it from typing, only if you're jamming your fat fingers on it like an idiot, or you let your cat dance on top if it (and your cat is fat, too. ). Speaking of picking up heavy things, there's no flex when you use one hand to pick this thing up. It's super sturdy. The monitor, however, does flex when you use one hand to open it or close it from one side or another, but it's not major, doesn't make a noise, and doesn't distort the screen. (My Acer didn't flex at all because the backing of it was made of some ludicrously hard plastic.)

I guess I'm done. Which is fine, because I need to take a breath here pretty soon.

 

Nice little review but where is the pics hahahahha

 

Everyone knows what it looks like. :3

 

I'm curious about the keyboard balding issues. You're not the first to mention this, but I've had mine for 3 months, and my keys don't show any wear issues. Is it like from the AWSD keys? Spacebar? Pics? I mean guys, what are you doing to kill these poor keys?

 

Yeah, mostly the WASD keys. Spacebar too. I'm a very oily person, that's probably why. I'll take pics. It's hard to see
http://img231.imageshack.us/img231/3250/20100722122143.jpg
http://img121.imageshack.us/img121/8117/20100722122230.jpg

 

Odd, have had mine since February and I don't see much balding at all. You have to stare at my keys for a while, it's nothing like the balding I had on my previous notebooks or any of my dad's Lenovo/Thinkpads.

 

Hey dude, I loved your review! And I couldn't agree with you more, this is the best of the best and the better at it's price range. However I screwed up, got a virus and I didn't burned the recovery dvd. I reinstalled windows 7 cuz it wouldn't start. And I have downloaded video, audio, keyboard, hotkeys, etc etc, drivers from Asus support, however and I can't install the TwinTurbo. And I can't find the recovery dvd download anywhere, any ideas?

 

Chastity put them up HERE:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/497463-asus-g73jh-rbbx05-cowboom-refurb-recovery-disk.html#post6440152

 

Anyone been having issues with this model? I'm pretty...timid...about purchasing one. After hearing tons of various horror stories.

 

Like what?

 

Hey this is my first post. But yeah I have been reading about the crashes of the cpu and also some overheating problems. I was wondering what your thoughts are on that. I heard that the new bios beta or something fixed the issues, and if they did how would I do that if I were to buy this. Also I was wondering if there were any other problems you have heard of. Since the laptop is refurbished my parents are freaking out saying that it is just going to die on me or something. Also my dad thinks I should wait for the new intel processors to come out. Should I buy? Should I wait? Is there an extended warranty that would put my parents minds at ease with the whole refub thing?

 

I've bought refurbished gear before and in all cases they come with the full manufacturers warranty. Now, since I've not tried to get an extended warranty, I'm not sure if one is available on refurbished gear.
I bought an HP printer back in 2001 that was refurbished and it still works great. I did have to replace it recently though, there isn't a driver available for it that will work with my Windows 7.
Around 2005 I bought a refurbed IOmega external HD and it too still works great.
Refurbed isn't like buying a used car. Your buying what is essentially a new product but one that had some initial problem.

 

Unfortunately, other than Apple (which does provide the full 12 month warranty) most PC hardware comes with 90 warranty on refurb laptops. Dell might be another exception but I know the ASUS, HP & Sony refurbs are 90 days.

Cheers,