G53JW-3DE Review + Benchmarks

G53JW-3DE Review
In a laptop, I look for the overall durability as well as power.

I want to thank Gentech PC for the great service I was provided with, and Ken Lee, who truly became my friend, as he spoke with all friendliness and honesty. We shared a great trust quickly and I hope you can make a great decision by purchasing from him in the future.



G53JW-3DE Specs

- I7 740QM
- GTX 460m 1.5gb GDDR5
- 750gb + 500gb 7200rpm HDDs
- 8gb DDR3 1333 ram
- 15.6 120hz 1368x768 Screen
- Intel 6200 A/B/G/N Wifi + BT 2.0 EDR


It’s a bombing run… no wait it’s the G53!



This laptop looks as amazing as a laptop can, it has ultra-smooth plastic on the top and the sides of keyboard surface, and more ridged (read DURABLE) plastic on the sides and back plate. The person responsible for the ridiculous decision of having this ultra-smooth, sensitive to touch, visible when touched, surface needs to be really brought to justice. No matter how you try to clean this surface, nothing will work, so it will always look smudgy and continue to increase from handling.



The rear of the laptop has 2 fans that are not only quite, but cool as well. This is literally the coolest laptop I have ever used. Of course I don't recommend using this or any laptop on the bare lap due to possible infertility problems.

The palm rest is made of a thick hard rubber (feels almost like plastic), I can’t ever see it wear out, but it keeps the area cool as rubber does not conduct heat very quickly. The ASUS logo on the back seems to glow, but a very faint one. I can only see it in almost pitch darkness.

On top of the gorgeous screen there is an upside down trapezoid bezel that houses the camera and the ir (infrared) emitter. The camera is measly 2mp and sits in the middle, it lights up when in use, and the ir emitter sits on the left side of that bezel. There seems to be only one microphone despite the fact that there seems to be a small hole beside the bezel on both sides. The hole on the left (beside the ir emitter) is actually used to indicate when the 3d is on, while the other one is actually the microphone.

The back plate of the laptop has no screws or ports, it only has 6 rubber feet to keep this beast from flying off, and one of these rubber feet is on the battery.

On the Rear of the laptop are 2 Kingston locks that on both sides of the battery compartment. The battery compartment has two locks, one is spring loaded, meaning you need to keep your hand on it, while the other one does not. The battery feels and weights averagely, it’s an 8 cell (5200 mAh) and it does an adequate job powering the laptop.

The left side of the beast has 2 usb 2.0 ports and the optical drive, while the front has indicator lights and the popular 8-in-1 card reader. The right side is this marvel’s connections. There is the ac adapter, Ethernet, vga, hdmi, usb 3.0, usb 2.0, microphone, and headphone jacks. Note that the headphone jack also has optical out (SPDIF). This beast also has built in standard a/b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 +EDR.



To access anything in the laptop, you need to remove the keyboard, then remove then remove a few screws which will remove the palm rest which in turn will allow you to start disassembling the laptop, so if you can, avoid it, otherwise, be careful.

The biggest design flaw I feel is the port placement, while I certainly appreciate having zero usb ports located at the back (what are we monkeys?). They should not be so close to one another, while standard usb cables fit fine beside one another, almost every usb flash drive cannot connect while the one on its side is in use, this is terrible for me as all my hard drives are encrypted and password protected, so if I unplug it, I need to repeat the password process again. Also, I feel the ac adapter connection should be located at the back, instead of one of the two Kingston locks that are located there. The ac adapter connection is straight and not bent, so I feel any accidental tugs could really hurt this laptop.

My whole set up was created with a laptop where all its ports are on the left, sadly, the G53 has everything to the right. So I have my ac, vga, usb, and aux connections all bending around the laptop to the back of it and to the left side where my monitor, hdd, speakers and power are all set up there.
The keyboard is fantastic, it’s extremely comfortable to write with, I have no trouble speed writing notes in class or playing games. The backlighting is a great plus, it really adds a nice touch to the laptop and it’s easily visible during the day and it has 3 dim settings for when it’s pitch black. This keyboard is easier to keep clean than my previous as this has individual keys, so you won’t have a sewage facility under your keyboard after a week of use.



The touch pad is easy to use, and is located on the left-center of the keyboard, which sits nicely between the hands, but I did find my-self touching it with my left thumb when I type or it interrupts my mouse when I try to use it with my right thumb. What is a real downer is the touch pad is a little misleading as the whole surface is not the touch pad, the sides of it are curved to keep up with the whole aesthetics of this bomber laptop, but by doing so, the top corners of the touch pad do not register, but Asus has brackets drawn [ ] like so to keep us in. It barely annoys me, but I have “touch zones” enabled, and my top left corner maximizes the window while the right one increases the volume, they can be helpful. The real concern however, should be the buttons of the touch pad. As they seem to be louder than anything I’ve experienced before, they are spring loaded and I don’t think they will ever wear out. But they seem to get the job done and seem very heavy duty.



NOW IN 3D

As all of you know, this is the 3D version, and it doesn’t disappoint. NVidia has done an absolute perfect job by putting the gamer in mind, because the 3D a) Has no flicker b) Comfortable to wear c) Compatible with oh so many games.



NVidia 3D Glasses: NVidia did a spectacular job by having high quality parts in the 3D glasses, there is no flicker what so ever when playing. The glasses shutter without notice and run as if they are always dark. The glasses are a bit on the big side (but that depends on your head) I feel that if they were smaller, I would actually enjoy the experience more as the outer sides can be easily exposed to light (because my head isn’t covering them) and because of that it can be slightly distracting. These glasses run for 40 hours straight and recharge using a usb mini cable that is included. The glasses unfortunately look and feel very cheap despite the 100$+ price tag, the plastic flexes and feels light and breakable if any more stress is put. The glasses come with one nose piece installed and 2 different nose pieces, I’m very comfortable with the original one.

The ir emitter is located to the left side of the glasses (left side when you are wearing them, right side when you are looking at them)

A great thing to note about these glasses is that they cannot be easily interrupted, while they do in fact need a constant connection in order to keep them in-sync with the screen, you can block the connection for 3 seconds before the glasses disconnect and turn off because it is not receiving any information. But as soon as there is a connection, they go back to working perfectly. I note this because as I was reaching for my drink with my left hand, and as I blocked the view of the ir emitter, I started wondering all about it.

3D Screen: What makes this a 3D screen is that it runs at 120 Hz, but sadly only at 1368x768 resolution. I feel that a 1080p 3D screen could have easily been possible (17’1080p 120 Hz should be out by December) but would have driven the prices even further (higher than 2K!) I personally can’t complain about it because I owned a G50Vt-X1 and it had the same screen, but only 60 Hz. So I lived 3 years before on that resolution and I feel I can live another 3 without a problem as I do a little of AutoCAD, Photoshop, and video editing, and the screen delivers a great experience.

3D Experience: I watched and gamed in 3D and I am truly a believer. I always SAW 3D as the cutting edge of Tech (pun intended).

When a 3D-Compatble game is launched (over 500 of them), NVidia pops up a message regarding the game and the rating of the 3D experience and why, and what you can do to improve it. For example, as I launched Left 4 Dead 2, NVidia detected the game and said the rating is good, and this is because that some objects do not render correctly. They also added that it is recommended to turn off film grain due to some objects reflecting off the 2d water.

3D really brings you even closer to the game, as I was playing Left 4 Dead 2 where I was at a motel with hundreds of Zombies charging at me, I felt that I was almost there with my Uzi trying to fight off hordes of flesh eating zombies. The crazy thing is, when I turned off the 3D effect, I felt I was missing something as the soda can next to the dead zombie doesn’t seem real anymore. It felt almost flat despite the designer’s best work on shadowing and shading and cylindrical bending to make it seem I’m seeing it in three dimensions. Heck, I was really impressed when I found out that I can peak outside the door with one eye, because the other eye was actually looking at the door frame.

The movies felt absolutely fantastic, I watched Ice Age 3 in 3D and it was really cool seeing the different sizes interpreted in our minds in 3D rather than 2d.

I felt 3D stole the show as it immersed me even more into whatever I was watching.

3D works better in the darkness, as the glasses dim the screen and the world around you, so when the 3D effect is on, the laptop automatically sets the brightness to the highest in order to compensate for the glasses.
A small note, when using the 3D, the back lighting on the keyboard must be at full power, or off, otherwise they will seem to be blinking to due to a frequency mismatch between them and the 3d glasses.

Another note, the 3d glasses and the 120 hz screen seem to be polarized in one way or another, as my other screens would look like as if they are off when the glasses are worn, but on in some angles, so multitasking with a 3d screen and a 2d screen could be problematic.

The worst thing about 3D could be the gigantic performance hit any game takes while 3d is in use. Almost every game I’ve played received 40% degradation in performance and my benchmarks will strengthen this statement.

Like I said earlier, 3D is a new era of awesomeness, but it’s not something that everyone will love, it gives you depth, it gives you immersion but it can also give you a headache. Also, in more than one way in can be cumbersome as it requires expensive glasses, it requires perfect environments, and it requires higher performance, and I’m not sure if I’d use it while I’m in public. I personally am not sure whether I did feel any sickness because I was already sick because of food poisoning. I must continue to play to reach a conclusion.

Boom Boom... more like pew pew.

The sound that comes out of these speakers is weak, it will handle any situation fine, but don't expect to be immersed in any way as these don't provide the power to surround you in the action.

The F-17 and the G53 are BiG

This is a tough one because I’m still debating if this thing is much bigger than it should be. But it’s simple, if you are looking for a portable gaming laptop, then you have found it. But you have not found the most convenient laptop, because any other laptop will be more portable than this. I certainly don’t recommend this laptop if you are planning on using it at home and at school every day for every class. I feel it’s simply too big, along with its ac adapter that seems to be related to the sun and the moon (because IT’S HUGE!)

This laptop can certainly be portable, and I use it for 2 classes. But I’m already thinking of investing in an ASUS UL-Line. In the future, the design of this laptop will be smaller, because ASUS will shave down the many mistakes it molded. The rear vents for example, could have been easily smaller as the last inch of the laptop is just filled with hot air and plastic.


Battery drains faster than a Hummer gas tank.

When I started writing this review, I thought it would be a great idea to see what the battery life is really like when using it for writing a long document,
I had Wi-Fi, 2nd level of brightness and no keyboard back lighting, 40% memory usage, 4-16% cpu usage, outlook checking 4 account every minute…. Well it’s embarrassing. After an hour and a half of writing and responding to the forum, I had 5 minutes (10%) to wrap up (I was no-where near done) or the laptop would force me to hibernate in 3 (5%). Luckily, I was setting beside my ac charger and as soon as I plugged it in, my laptop pretended it wasn’t yelling at me and we’re really happy together.
I know I could have probably improved this further, but I wanted to see what real usage would look like, I’m not trying to restrict myself from using the laptop because I’m using it on battery. This is was important for me because when I work over-seas at sites. Our power generator could temporarily shut down due to a mechanical problem. Our 3g sim cards would still work and so will our laptops, so our work will continue.
Here is the breakdown of the laptop battery life.

1:43 100% 2 hours
2:05 77% 1 hour 30 min (estimated)
2:21 62% 1 hour 8 min
2:32 51% 55 min
2:49 35% 40 min
2:59 27% 31 min
3:14 12% 8 min
3:14 11% 12 min Warning received, 5% reserve kicked in.


What a load of crap...

All laptops are known to have bloatware that is only intended to advertise and not serve you in anyway, well this laptop is a little different.

Aside from the ASUS software, thelaptop includes useless items such as, Trend Micro Internet Security, Game park, which has over 10 games installed for trial.

But, the laptop has already the NVidia 3D drivers as well as a preview pack ready to go. Also, a full-fledged 3D Blu-ray player is yours by only registration. Also, Cyberlink software is offering their label maker as well as great burning software just for registration as well. I also found boingo Wi-Fi to be already installed, I’m a member and I certainly appreciated it. Another useful application is Syncables, the copy included allows the G53 and another computer to sync information between one another. I feel this can be useful for people who wanted to use their new laptop and did not migrate all their information yet and need it while they were at school or at work.


Gaming Benchmarks:

Coming Later this Weekend.

Please submit any games you would like me to test here, pretend I have them all .. except World of Warcraft

Here is my G53 Unboxing

 

1st! nice to see a good review!
I personally didn't get the 3d model (and switched to g73 since I am going for the FHD screen anyway, so wanted a bigger screen), nice to see that you enjoy it.

1080p 3D screen is possible, I think it is on the list for G73 3D models, but then thinking about the impact on games...lol

 

For the NV 3D vision, degradation in performance is a real problem~~

 

hi,

i currently own its bigger brother and thought i may sell m7 g73 (1 month old opps) and get a g53 for two reasons really...

1 better spec graphics card
2 smaller in size

the g73 is huge....

my question is what are the dimensions of the g53?

many thanks

Ian

 

Hey Ian,

Sized Up: G73 vs G53

Here is a comparison between the g53 and g73, the size of the g73 is much bigger in width.

 

Yeah it is, the laptop can play almost everything in 2D, but man with 3D, the laptop is brought to it's knees

The screen is def showing it's age, I mean any screen that isn't 1080p better do something else, and this one does 3d, so I guess I can't be so hard on it.

Unless 3D becomes standard in testing game benchmarks, 3D will continue to suffer with performance, because all games will be tested in 2D. If companies where to create a 2d then optimize a 3d version as well, then performance wouldn't be as bad as it would be.

Left 4 Dead 2 sees a 400% decrease in performance from 2D to 3D... from 120fps to 30fps

 

+1 Rep! Nice review Metallic. Well I pre-ordered the non-3D version since I don't want future games to get hit by performance. (3D is still in its semi-infancy stage in terms of gaming.)

Is the vents can be cleaned easily?

 

Thanks for the review, bud. It's too bad that you get hella reduced battery life compared to Voodooi's regular G53.

 

Yeah happy to do it...

I'll re do the test, because I think i may have had it on entertainment or quite office...

 

Lol, yeah I loved 3D, but as games keep coming out, I know soon enough I'll have them to play at medium, or god forbid... low settings, Just to play the 3d...

Vents are massive, they are super easy to clean with just a little compressed air, or a vacuum...

 

Well I'll jump into 3D if the tech matures. That's the downside for early adopters you sometimes have to sacrifice performance.

Thats nice to hear vents like those are dust magnets @_@.

Edit : Just a heads up ,Metallic the gallery hyperlink is messed up.

 

I I have no idea how to fix it...

 

Gallery

G53 Unboxing

Code:

Gallery

['url=http://picasaweb.google.com/112520038713341188559/G53?authkey=Gv1sRgCPCE8rnGv-qfzwE#slideshow/5533515411825779570]G53 Unboxing[/url]

Just Remove the ' from url then you're good to go.

 

G73JW-3DE, the 17.3" version of G53JW-3DE, is ready for pre-order on both XoticPC and GenTech. ETA Nov. 22nd. Too bad there is no built-in WIDi, Bluetooth 3.0, full USB 3.0, nor HDMI input. It is still a good buy if you are not a hard-core gamer, but just want to watch 3D movies, display 3D photos.

XoticPC
ASUS G73JW-3DE - XOTIC PC - ASUS Gaming Laptop

GenTech
Asus G73JW-3DE 17.3" FHD 120Hz/NV GTX460M 1.5GB/740QM/8GB/1TB 7200 SSD Hybrid/BD-Burner/ ETA Nov 22: GenTech PC Store

 

What do you mean "not a hardcore gamer".

It can handle almost every game on ultra setting on 2-D.

It's a great value for the "under 2k laptops".

A laptop like this is for the moderate/hardcore gamer.

 

Lol! Yeah I'm with voodooi here, this thing is for hardcore gamers, I can't see it being for anyone else....

Thanks Darksieg!

Widi is absolute crap since it uses the "intel hd graphics" video proccessor rather than the gtx 460, meaning it won't even do 1080p let alone 3D movies OR GAMES!

Full USB 3.0... that's because ASUS has made their own 3.0 usb support because intel doesn't have it, it wont even have it in Sandy Bridge.

Hdmi input??? umm have you ever seen a laptop with one?


3D movies, photos, just get another laptop with a 3d screen, like the acer that costs around 800$

 

well no offence dude,buy don't you think you should have waited for SB cpu's.i mean in two months you would get native usb 3 support,a better ati 68** gpu(may be if asus wants to ) and quad with optimus!
BTW thats one heck of a laptop(aka RIG) dude,dont forget to post some ultra setting gaming vids on youtube.I had love to see them!
Cheers and again gr8 laptop you got there!

 

Stupid question: Does the monitor run 120hz in 2D mode?

 

Not a stupid question, specially because the media advertise a lot of. Themonitor always runs at 120hz. 3D requires a 120hz panel, so you have 120hz all the time. This means that games you run in 2D mode can surpass the 60fps you can notice the extra frames.

 

Nice to see a hands on review!

Q
As a geek who has not yet undergone Lasik surgery, do the 3D glasses fit over prescription glasses?

thanks in advance

 

Hey, the 3d glasses are certainly large enough to fit over glasses. I personally never wore glasses and haven't tried them with glasses on, but I'll ask a friend to do it and I'll come back here.

Laptop is doing great so far, but I have squeaking problem with the left side of the palm rest...

 

Thanks for the response Metallic, I cant wait to hear what you find out.

Another question (this one you wont need a friend with spectacles!)

What is the Windows Experience Index Score for the 3DE? I have a frend who is wary of Asus for some reason he wont tell me,but I think I can sway him over a score higher than the 6.2 that he gets on his Sager Notebook.

Thanks again.

 

Well, remember that the score shouldn't matter since it's not real benchmarking but rather just some score Microsoft decided to give the computer. It's based on the age and hardware of the laptop, the score will decrease over time.

Update: My friend wore them without a problem, and he had big glasses. But he wasn't very comfortable, I asked him if he would like to have them on for 2 hours... he said no!