G53JW-XT1? Differences from A1/XA1

Thinking of ordering this model from TigerDirect. It's cheaper than the A1s and XA1s I've seen and also includes a Blu-ray drive. Anyone know of any major differences in hardware between these 3 models. The XT1 has a 500gb hard disk vs. the 750 in the A1.... So far that's the only difference I can see. Is this just a branded model for tigerdirect? Thanks for any input. Just got Best Buy to give me a full refund on a 2.5 month old G73JH model due to the GSOD issues that were uncorrected for me with new vBios. Hoping for better luck with the g53!

 

I've been checking out the various g53 models too and there is fast becoming a variety of web-store versions of the g53.

The cheapest is the newegg xn1 but only has 4gb ram and their return policy is exchange only so if you just hate it your stuck with it. CostCo is next cheapest for basically the same thing with a better return policy and 6gb ram.

Next up is the Tigerdirect, Compusa, Circuitcity trio which are all really tigerdirect. 6gb and bluray is nice but did you notice the 1366 x 768 screen? Hope thats a typo but would hate to risk it.

If your looking at the tiger direct unit you might take a look at the A3 at xoticpc. Its $75 more, free upgrade to 8gb of ram and has a few cheap 2nd hard drive and optical drive upgrades if you want to put a lil more in.

K keep going back and forth myself, between getting the newegg special and upgrading it myself once im sure its not going back or having xotic upgrade it and check it out so I dont get a bad unit. After reading peoples indy support horror stories id prefer to avoid sending anything to asus until they get their support ducks in a row.

 

Thanks for your insight! I'm trying to get a straight answer from tigerdirect.com about the screen resolution... it sounds bloody odd to offer a blu-ray player in the model and then have a non-1080p display to see it on! The Xotic deal is good except that it starts with a smaller 5400 rpm HDD so you're upgrading right off the bat. I think I'm leaning toward CostCo; they have a 90 day return policy and after my G73JH ordeal that sounds convenient.

 

No problem, ive been researching (obsessing) on these since the sandybridge recall through my hopes of an sager np8130 out the window anytime soon.

Yep, the Xotic deal has that 320gb hd but you can upgrade it to 7200rpm for 20 and add a second one for another 20 giving you 640gb and a backup drive.

The costco deal looks good too although im not a member so that adds another $50 to the cost for me. I like their return policy though.

What ordeals did you have with you g73jh? I first looked at getting a g73 but have read one too many horror stories on here so thought id try the 53 instead.

 

i just ordered a g53jw from xoticpc. I did the free 8gb ram upgrade and added the bluray player. I was leaning towards newegg but like stated above only 4gb of ram and a 5400rpm hdd. Cant wait to mine from xotic, hopefully next week.

 

My problems with the G73JH were with the GSOD issue. New vBios, new Bios, new drivers, old drivers, new .inf's (whatever they are!), loooooong talks with ASUS tech support, destroying my LCD ribbon cable while doing a thermal repaste (don't tell Best Buy!), complete Windows 7 reinstall... None of these were able to get the unit past GSODing 10 minutes into a Furmark run. Finally ASUS refused to RMA the unit and I was fortunate enough to deal with an extremely nice Best Buy manager who just gave me a refund. With hundreds of forum posts devoted to this issue I felt that my best bet was to avoid the Broadway ATI set entirely. Plus I travel a lot and carrying that monster around was tiring. Called a few local CostCo's but the G53 unit isn't stocked in-store I guess. I didn't realize how inexpensive the HDD upgrades were at Xotic and now I'm leaning towards them!

 

Damn, sounds like you went through the ringer with the g73, after asus refusing to rma the unit im surprised your jumping on another asus. They look like great machines but support doesnt seem to be their strong suit these days. But then again, there arent alot of games in town for a i7 460m lappy.

Im leaning toward xotic as well although some of their pricing irks me, but they do have some good upgrades if you pick n choose. And I really like the idea of having someone upgrade and bench test my notebook before it ships. Makes it alot less likely it will be sent in for repairs.

 

Well, unbeknownst to me, my pretty wife was listening to my agonies about deciding who to get my new G53 from... and she surreptitiously ordered it from TigerDirect yesterday morning. UPS guy just dropped it off! Now she wasn't aware of this discussion so she didn't know about the screen resolution bit that was revealed above on tigerdirect.com (advertised as 1366 x 768 screen.) Well I booted it up and it's 1920x1080! The machine is gorgeous, has the look of the G73 but a more manageable size. Screen looks good to my eyes... Icons set to medium in windows and a good size. Still ripping out bloatware and deciding if I want to do another windows re-install. If anyone wants any details just ask. Just wanted people to know that it's the 1080 screen in the tigerdirect deal with a bluray player.

 

Clean install is probably a better bet than just uninstalling bloat. Reinstall ATK100 and from the asus website, and everything else you should use the windows update driver / nvidia driver and you'll be fine

 

@ Galland is this the machine you are talking about? I am about to order after reading your post.. I really want a 1080p screen..

ASUS G53JW-XT1 Laptop Computer - Intel Core i7-740QM 1.73GHz, 6GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, Blu-ray Player/DVDRW, NVIDIA GeForce GTX 460M, 1.5GB DDR5 VRAM, 15.6, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit at TigerDirect.com

 

Thats great that you got it so quick and that it was the 1080p screen. Getting that bit wrong would have ruined my day. lol

I have a couple questions...

1. How is the screen for brightness, viewing angles, and any backlight bleed at the edges.

2. How is the keyboard working for you. Ive heard that some g53s have the keyboard issue of the g73 but not nearly all. Try typing something into notepad a few times and see if it misses any keys.

Congrats on the unit!

 

get2vivek.... yes that's the same link I ordered from. I called and told a sales rep about the advertised screen being in error but they just thanked me and apparently haven't done a thing about it. Maybe calling them expressing reservations about buying it would prompt them to look into it more and give a definite answer; I would have hesitated pulling the trigger myself from TD with that advertised resolution. Still, there's no other model I could find with the 1366x screen other than the 3d one...

Alchemist.... The brightness of the screen is excellent with no edge bleeding; left/right viewing angle is very good however up/down is a bit narrow. In gaming I find that I'm tilting it up and down slightly as I shift position to not have it fade out. Now I'm not much better at typing than I was in 1992 playing Space Quest 3 with both index fingers but I haven't noticed any missing keystrokes, no issues in gaming either with all the multiple key presses there. I had read this about the g73 also and I didn't notice it at all on that model either, so I may not be a good judge of that.

In regards to screen resolution the 1080 setting makes games look beautiful; but with a commensurate hit in performance. That said it's handled every new game I've thrown at it without a hitch, at highest settings without any framerate issues. I hope I'm correct in saying that it's the 1920x1080 screen... That's the "recommended" setting in the windows control panel settings; and also when I set it to 1366x768 it looks horrid like it's not the native res. Just wanted people to know I haven't cracked the case to look at the LCD panel model. In the device manager it's id'ed as AUO15ED which seems to be the model of peoples A1s.

 

^ I just ordered it yesterday! cant wait for it to get here tomorrow BTW did u get a Backpack and Mouse with it for free?

 

No backpack or mouse from Tiger Direct.

 

I finally got it yesterday! its awesome! 1080p screen they raised the price by 100 bux now!

 

Do you know if you can put another hard drive in? I was thinking of putting an SSD to boot from and use the 500GB for storage

 

it has 2 HDD bays, but only one caddy. and caddy's don't seem to exist for g53's yet, you have to use a g73 one and they can be hard to find and dont fit perfectly.

you kinda have to keep the caddy for the 7200rpm drive, and ghetto rigging an SSD is an option since it has no moving parts. personally i mounted the SSD in the caddy then put the 7200 rpm drive in a spare external enclosure i had laying around and use it as an external drive.

 

Thx for the info

 

I love that it has two hard drive bays especially after I seen a youtube video on how hard it is to open up.
I dual boot windows and Linux ... I am assuming I can go into the BIOS and tell it from which hard drive to boot ??