Asus RMA update - Replacement Review (G73JH vs G73SW)

Hi All,

Many of you have seen me around complaining about Asus products and the RMA process. Well, I have another update, alot better experience.

First, as a history, I bought a G73JH for full price about a year ago (more like 11 months). Well during that 11 months, it has been nothing but RMA after RMA. It all started with power adapters blowing out then horrid trackpads, etc...

Well, fast foward to today, I've been through 3 different G73JH's, all of which contained the same issues. Trackpad issues on all, one the mobo went out and on two of them, the mobo kept losing the connection with my SSD (yes it was installed right...). So, obviously, as a consumer, I thought "Is it me, how can a whole series of products be so damn bad".

Well, finally, Asus said they are going to send me a new laptop that hasn't been in the RMA process, not a refurb, new in box. Now, I don't care if it's new, used, rebuild, replaced, but going 0/3 on these, I had to agree.

So a few days pass by, and a G73SW-XT1 shows up on my front door. And all I can say, is after how many revisions, they finally got the laptop thingy right. This laptop works like a damn laptop should, and the fact that I can now compare a working G73 to a non-working G73, confirms that I wasn't being a moron.

I just wanted to add, that once you get around dealing with the standard RMA process, and goto a higher tier representative, Asus is excellent in customer service.

With that being said, here's what I noticed between the JH and SW, after having them side by side.

1) JH's screen is more vibrant, looks alot nicer (probably because it's a better graphics card?). The SW's whites are a little off, and blacks a little light.

2) The RAM in the SW, though clocked the same, performs alot better. JH had Kingston ram, SW has Elpida ram. Then again, the CPU might be the factor here.

3) SW runs ALOT cooler, not nominally, not a little, ALOT cooler. I am no longer getting little burn marks on my legs when I use it as a "lap"top It's alot alot quieter.

4) JH and SW are virtually identical in the presentation of the laptop. Everything is laid out the same.

5) JH's motherboard is a little easier to work with when replacing the Wireless NIC card, SW's is packed higher and under the case a little more.

6) Overall performance on the SW is nowhere near worth justifying an upgrade purchase over a JH. Performance is nearly the same, definatly not highly noticable.

7) Keyboard responsiveness seems to be the same for both. I still get lagged out a little once in a while, the same as I did on the JH, but it's really not that bad for me that I can't deal with it.

8) SW battery life seems to be an extra hour or two longer than the JH. My JH only lasted an hour at most, I'm getting about 2-3 hrs out of the SW.

9) SW sound seems alot better, but I think this is because it has a different audio package than the JH. I never dug into the cause, as it's not that important to me.

I think that's about it, there's nothing really major, but I figured I'd write a review since I'm sure I'd be one of the few that has had the two side by side and experience with the JH's pain points.

Feel free to ask any questions for those who are, or were in the same spot as me.

 

Damn, 3 RMAs?! I suppose giving you an SW is the right thing for ASUS to do. And all the more reason for me to never buy refurbs.

Did you run any benchmarks or at least the Windows Exp. Index and see if they were different?

 

Ran the Index. It was higher in the CPU/RAM, lower in the graphics. Overall results with a Vertex 2 SSD are:

Processor : 7.4
RAM : 7.6
Graphics : 7.1
Gaming graphics : 7.1
Primary HDD : 7.7

I also did some Crystal Disk Marks and saw about a 10% improvement from the HM55 chipset to the HM65 chipset.