G1S-A1 Review

I ordered my G1S-A1 from GenTech PC after many days of careful investigation and reading these forums (thanks to everyone on these forums for extremely helpful information!) Props to Ken - he met all my requests and this computer was shipped the day after I ordered.

I decided on two upgrades from the stock model; I opted for 3GB of RAM and the 160GB 7200 RPM hard drive. I opted to do the operating system install to speed up the build process so I could have it sooner

A little bit about myself - I work for a consulting firm, and I travel every week, Monday through Thursday. I also happen to be an avid gamer! I seriously considered going with something with a 8600GS or 8400M (the new Sony SZ series) for portability. Ultimately, I decided I needed 'more horsepower', and I could live with the size of the laptop.

Well - I'm very happy with my decision! This laptop is a screamer in Vista (I have seen so many that are not), and it is 'adequate' for gaming.


Screen 8/10

The screen on the laptop does have a slight grainy look to it, but you really have to be looking. There is light bleed on the bottom of the screen which is noticable in dark applications. The 1680x1050 resolution is awesome for windows and work applications, and it has significantly less 'blur' when gaming than my old 8600 Dell Inspiron. It is glossy and represents color really well.

Build Quality / Looks 9/10

I use this thing for work and I have yet to have someone come up to me and say that they didn't like the looks...on the contrary, it has a nice shiny black finish (looks better in real life than in pictures). My keyboard is solid and easy to type on - the blue led display is cool and unobtrusive. So...the green stuff? Well, the side lights are disabled, and they don't bother me...the green eye is a little strange looking, and would be the only part of the laptop I was originally uncomfortable with. The green plastic area around the webcam looks much smaller and less noticable than you would expect from the pictures..

Overall, this is a very solid laptop with great looks (imo). It is a tad large for a 15'4 inch screen, but again, nothing out of the ordinary. For those that care, I often fly United Economy Plus and the laptop can open and is comfortable to use. It will not work in Economy, however. Simply too large.

Windows Performance 10/10

Screaming. Insanely fast. Even with the bloatware. Some of the bloatware is cool - some needs to go. I reccomend removing the data security manager, as it vastly increased my satisfaction from game performance. All I can say is that I have had problems with Vista in the past, and this computer changed my perceptions of the O/S. It is an abosolute pleasure to work on.

Gaming Performance: 7/10

You will see folks say "The 8600 GT in the G1 is almost as fast as the 7900GS" and they will show you 3DMark scores. This is true, assuming you are running a synthetic benchmark at 1024x768 with no AA/AF. The reason why is that the 256 bit bandwidth of the 7900GS becomes apparent at higher resolutions, with AA/AF.

Taking that comment into account, remember that the G1 has a 1680x1050 widescreen display - which is a fairly high resolution. Therefore, if you wish to play something at the native resolution, you should be prepared for dissapointment, as the G1 is not going to rip through newer titles like you might expect.

Here are some numbers off my machine at default clocks:

3DMark2006 (Default) : 3816 3dMarks

World of Warcraft @ 1680x1050, all settings max, Full AF, 2x AA:
Hellfire Penninsula - 25FPS-35FPS
Blood Elf Starting Area - 41 FPS - 55 FPS
Inside the Inn @ Honor Hold - 80-90 FPS

As a comparison, my friends toshiba with 7900GS with 2Ghz Duo (not santa rosa, also running XP), using the same settings, except with max AA:

Hellfire Penninsula - 49-70 FPS
Blood Elf Starting Area - 65-90 FPS
Inside the Inn @ Honor Hold - 75-105 FPS


Command and Conquer 3 I don't have the 'official' FPS. I can say I found it perfectly playable at 1200x800, all settings High/Ultra High. It feels like I'm getting 30+ FPS at this setting..

Oblivion is the same, again, no 'official' FPS, but super smooth and looks great at 1200x800, 2X AA (no HDR). I tested it both inside and outside.


Overall 9/10

I was a tad dissapointed in the gaming performance (still great though, and I suspect it will improve with new NVidia drivers as they come..). While I wish I had a lower res screen for gaming, I am SUPER happy with the screen for work. As I said, Vista runs like a dream on this computer. Overall, I am very happy and I hope this review helps any others considering this laptop.

 

I agree with practically everything you just said. I got mine last thursday, and yes, it looks a lot better in person.

I have been less impressed with Vista. After removing a lot of the Asus bloatware and other programs, it runs pretty well. It still takes about the same time to start up and shut down as my old 1.7ghz pentium m, XP equipped laptop. I turned of UAC, but everytime I start my computer, Vista reminds me that I turned it off....Thank you Vista, I know UAC is disabled, I'm the one that freaking disabled it.

I'm surprised at how quiet this machine is too. After 2 hours of gaming the fan still isn't annoyingly loud.

Have you checked the temps of your CPU/GPU? When I first installed Rivatuner and speedfan, I was a little surprised at the GPU temp. Infact when I'm not gaming, I run in battery saving mode just because it clocks the 8600 down, and I have noticed a few degrees drop in temp as opposed to having it at normal speeds.

 

Do you guys recommend new drivers for the 8600GT or should it be left alone?

 

I upgraded mine to the latest on laptop2go....there was a marignal improvement, so I would go that way

 

Get the 162.22 if you want the nvidia control panel.
163.11 don't have it.
163.15 I haven't tested yet and I don't think the .inf file is out yet.
(this is for x64)

 

have you had any stuttering in the games that u have played ?...
some owners are saying this is a problem with the G1S...
would like to know if this is a major problem before i buy 1...

 

I got mine last week and un-installed the bloatware etc. The speeds are nice and I have not run into any problems playing BF2142 (with original video drivers). I don't plan on upgrading the BIOS or Video drivers until it's actually needed. So far so good

 

I just bought the game. Does it run on perfect settings for the G1S?

 

Yes it runs excellent on all the highest settings (for video). However I turned off AA only because most do that on laptops. I don't know what effects it has on video performance by leaving it on...but I have no problems and the graphics are incredible, crisp and clear.

 

So do I have the only G1s that takes about 5 seconds to open up the control panel everytime?

Overall, the computer rocks though!!!

 

johnno:

The performance is great, no stuttering on C&C3, WOW, or Oblivion. (I Did remove Norton Internet Security and Asus Data Security Manager)

I don't have the issue with the control panel taking time to open up...everything seems close to instant within Vista (thus my high ranking for its performance!)...

I think the 3GB of RAM is the key.

 

I have 3GB of ram as well....but still very slow opening up the control panel. Like I say, the G1s is about perfect, I love it. Just slow opening the control panel. I'm sure there is some fix for this. Just don't know what....

 

I have 3gigs and it didn't help the control panel lag. i used a 4gig memorystick I had lying around for readyboost and that did help tho.

 

I guess getting any new drivers or BIOS should be considered as "Plan B". If anything doesn't look right or good then Plan B is it besides that its best not to get anything new.

 

MS is releasing a Vista performance patch soon, possibly this week I hear. One of the issues it'll address is disk access performance, so it's very possible that file transfers and stuff like opening the control panel will improve greatly.