G73JH for a college student?

Hello everyone,
my trusty inspiron 9400 just died on me (a video card issue) and I've decided that since I'm heading off to college next year I should consider an upgrade. I'd like to be able to game, and the best solution for a gaming laptop I've found is the g73jh. my only question is how practical this laptop would be for a student?

From what I understand it is a large laptop, and while size and portability aren't the hugest factors for me I would like to be able to take it to class every once in a while. Also, I've heard some bad things about the battery life. Does the laptop have any sort of low power settings that would improve the battery life?

thanks

 

With some vBios modding and tweaking power settings you can get 3 hrs. For its size it isn't a heavy unit, tho you will need a big bag.

 

Yeah Chastity, thats right. But the bag that comes with it is very nice in my opinion. I'm a college student myself, and I've had no portability issues yet. Though it is a bit heavy, the backpack is supporting my back well, so I don't notice its weight that much.

 

I was just thinking you may want to pack other things too, like books and lunch and stuff.

 

yeah that makes sense I was planning on getting a bag anyway, although I am buying it from best buy and it doesn't come with a bag.
also it comes with 6 gb of ram instead of 8, but at this price it seems like a steal
Asus - Laptop with Intel® Core™ i7 Processor - Black - G73JH-RBBX05

the only problem I have with that is that the warranty is only 1 year, and after all the bull i went through with my inspiron (the warranty expired a few months ago) idk if i'd need it

where did you buy it from though? I saw something online where the guy who got it got a free mouse and siberia v2 headphones and a bag

 

With a lot of books (aka engineering handbooks etc.), your bag can get pretty heavy. I know, cuz i've been there. However, it's also true that the G73 is quite light for it's category. While i was an undergrad student, i used to carry first a toshiba M40 (around 5lbs) and later an asus N50 (around 5.5lbs) with a lot of books and it felt heavier than the G73 i carry with me now. Depending on how long you'll have to carry it, weight might not be an issue, however if you end up like me with close to an hour in the bus/subway, the G73 with other books could get pretty heavy.

With the Xeven modded vBios, you should be able to get good battery life, you could also use the AMD GPU clock tool to downclock your card to get more battery life. However due to the higher voltage of the stock vBios, you will get less batt life than with the modded vBios.

The bag that comes wth the A1, A2 models does the job quite well, however there's not a lot of room to carry other stuff.

EDIT: You might want to check if you have easy access to electrical outlets to plug your laptop in, battery life could become a non-issue in that case. For example, the new building where i study has enough outlets for everyone in the classrooms for everyone to plug in their notebooks (it was built with notebooks in mind).

 

Guess I'll spam the Targus XL bag again as a suggestion