My G73 So Far - A Diary

Part 1

I wanted to start a thread about my own experience of this laptop, it's going to differ somewhat to the more "hardcore" of users that like to OC and push the laptop to it's limits.

I started a similar thread when I got my Macbook some years ago, you can check thread out here. I think it managed to help a few people out and I got some good feedback from various people.

So today marks the day that I purchased my G73. The Laptop is currently with UPS and will be with me soon. Let me share my experience with you thus far......

ASUS G73JH-A1 Upgraded to the following spec.

IntelR CoreT i7-840QM
Crucial C300 128GB SATA III SSD
500GB SATA II 3GB/s 7,200 HDD
8GB (4 SODIMMS) DDR3/1333 Memory
6x Blu-Ray Read/8x Super Multi Combo Drive
Built-in IntelR CentrinoR Advanced-N 6200 Wireless Card
IC Diamond Thermal Compound - CPU + GPU
Custom built by PowerNotebooks.com

How am I going to use it?

It’s going to be my traveling companion. My desktop away from home if you like. I am based in the UK and I do a lot of traveling, mainly between the States, India and Luxembourg. I can be away for anything up to 2 weeks. When you travel as much as me the glamour soon wears off and you look for home comforts which this laptop is going to give me. I hope…

What research did I do?

I ended up doing a lot of research before I jumped in at the deep end. As always, this forum was the only place I looked for advice apart from watching many You Tube Video’s regarding the brands I was looking at. My advice at this point, so anyone who is thinking of buying any Latpop, not just the G73, is to STOP. Pause a moment. Take some time to browse these forums, let people give you feedback, some of the feedback you may not want to hear, just open your ears, because the more information you have, good and bad will help you make the right choice for YOU.

I was first introduced to the G73 by way of a guy on you tube who produced 5 movies, from unboxing it, to a review of the Laptop after he had owned it for a month. The guy is from up north in the UK (see here ASUS ROG G73 Review) and his movies are great. In fact if you are reading this, I am even thinking about doing my own spoof of your movies as they were so influential. So this guy pointed me toward the G73. In his review he makes mention of the retailer he bought from in the UK. Asuslaptops.co.uk, I called them, they had stock and I promised the guy I would call back in the morning to purchase my laptop. £1500 which is about $2350. Luckily, within the next 5 hours or so I had entered into conversations with various people, including Hellcry, Ziddy123, Xellon, THX5334, Chastity and many others by way of this topic http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/513579-id-like-change-my-g73-poll-5.html . Over the period of a few days I had changed my mind completely regarding which retailer I should use and I am so glad, knowing what I know now that I did not purchase of off anyone else other than PowerNotebooks.com. I will come onto why later.

The thread I mention above got my head spinning, I changed my mind several times about the laptop that was going to be right for me, I kept coming back to the G73 though, even in its current state at the time. I looked at Sager, MSI and Clevo, none of this brands had what I wanted, it was going to be the G73 or nothing. I was 95% sure this is what I wanted to do, I just needed that extra 5% and that came from Donald Stratton at PowerNotebooks.com.

I am in no way going to slag off Donald’s competitors as everyone’s perception of customer service and technical knowledge is different. What I will say is that I do have a very good eye for customer service, just because of the business and the environment I work in. Customer Service is top of my list for any product I buy, I’m a stickler for it, I sometimes spend twice as much because of this hang up, but, in the end, I know I am going to get good service bother before, during and after. This means a lot to me. After calling all the major online retailers and having had discussions of varying levels with them I settled on PowerNotebooks. To me, they were just better than everyone else. Not a little bit, but a fair amount. I like to be treated as the only customer that company has, and I was treated as such by Donald and his team. Nothing was too much for them, he explained every I needed to know to me clearly, he explained about the payment process, about shipping, about warranty. He built my Laptop once I then changed the spec, and he built it again without any complaints. I called, emailed and bugged the hell out of this guy for 2 weeks. I still get treated like their only customer. Superb. My mind was made up. A modified G73 from PowerNotebooks.com for a couple of hundred £’s more than a bog standard unit from the UK would cost me. Bargain.

So the first part of my diary is complete. I now wait for delivery. *Edit* the Nice lady from UPS says Thursday before Lunch.

 

Nice, cant wait for more =)

 

Do we get to have lunch too?

 

Only if your paying

 

I know its rather sad but. Here's my Laptop FlightAware > United Parcel Service #237

 

So my G73 made it to the UK and it made it here in outstanding fashion. As promised, it took off on the 14 and was at my house in England on the 16th. UPS were excellent, they even called me to let me know the driver was a hour away, this made for a happy wife as she was able to plan her day of shopping, coffee drinking and watching Day time TV accordingly (if she ever reads this I’m dead!!) You can also pay the duty over the phone once your parcel is in transit. Perfect service, far better than Fedex or DHL in my opinion.

Talking of duty, if you going to be buying from the UK then remember you are going to get hit!! I knew it was coming and I had used an online duty calculator to get a good estimate. If you new to the world of international shipping just beware. The duty on my Laptop was £287. I truly believe that with the upgrades I got, with the thermal paste, the loading of the OS without bloat ware that it was worth the extra money, in fact, if you take into consideration all the extras and work that was done your probably saving money, or at least breaking even.

It was a tough day. The Laptop turned up at 09:00, I had a full days work and then had to take my dogs to the Vet’s when I got home. The box was finally opened at 20:00

I had watched every unboxing movie on the net so I knew what to expect and what to put out first, I had listened to everyone’s differing opinions about “oh the Power Brick is big” or “Oh the mouse is nice” but now it was my time to evaluate my new toy.

So firstly the Power Brick. Yeah, its big, and its fairly heavy, heavier than the power brick that comes with my MAC, but its not OTT, not for the office or home, for my upcoming plane Journey they may need to run the APU to keep it going next out the box was the mouse, and yes, it’s a nice mouse, very nice in fact. I have had razor’s all my life, from the very first Boomslang, I have NEVER had a bad mouse from that company and that still rings true today. The mouse is great.

I made sure that PowerNotebooks.com made me some recovery disks as well. These and the ASUS CD were packed nicely in the box along with the various manuals you get. The warranty card is also floating around in the box, be sure to send that off within 60 days for a further year of Accidental Damage coverage. That in itself is a great offer.

So it was time to unleash the beast. The question on the new users mind is “Is it big” oh god yes. I took it on the train this morning and got it out on the big tables and everyone just starred, some in awe, some laughed. It was that big the guy next to me could not open his newspaper fully  Something strange though, for its size, which incidentally, if I put it on top of my MacBook Pro, the Mac disappears, its not heavy. This surprised me, I had a SSD installed so I am assuming I have saved a few ounces, but its not heavy at all, what a surprise, I was stunned.

Never having had an SSD before my son found it odd that I was laughing to myself as the Laptop booted up. Turn away, look back, its loaded  Superb. Last night I went through the process of loading some apps and games, the speed in which they install and then load is awesome, it was the right decision to get an SSD.

I just want to talk about the backpack.

1. Its comfortable, far more comfortable that my very expensive SWISS back pack, its lighter too.
2. Its not as room as my SWISS back pack. This is an issue for me as I take all kinds of crap to work with me. I may need to look for a pack big enough to take the G73 and all my gear. I will keep you updated on that one.

Never had a glassy screen before. The Jury is out on that one. I have done little else than to load apps and what not onto the Laptop. I will have more of an opinion as progress through the coming weeks.

Keyboard is good, I like it. There is flex in the middle, but this does not concern me at all. Wireless upgrade paid off. Not sure of the range yet, but I can tell you I am using the WIFI at the Mayfair Hotel in London which is a fair old distance from my office window.

I ran Future Mark last night. No tweaking, straight out the box. I have had no GSOD or any crashed. I have not updated any drivers and the BIOS is 211 not sure what VBIOS I am using. How do I tell?

The Score was 13061 3DMarks

The Max Temp of CPU was 64Deg C

The Max Temp of GPU was 74Deg C

My Windows Experience is 7.2

Sound seems ok. Need to find out what drivers I am using. Not really messed around with anything like that at this time.

I will keep you all updated.

 

If I may ask... how much for delivery to the UK?

 

$ 270.00

 

Thanks. Good to know.

I already have mine, ordered in France from a French shop.
Last night I told myself "finally this beast is working like it should"... had it since early July.

If I had to do it over, I'd order a customized and repasted one from one of the shops in the States.
Why the States? Because the market in France is not big enough to have shops like Powernotebooks or XoticPc. There are some, but they are expensive and have smaller volumes so less experience, etc.

Fro my G73 I'm keeping an eye on my temps. If they start breaking 100°C during gaming then I'm just going to have to RMA because I simply don't have the time to do the repaste myself.

I don't trust Asus in France in the sense that I feel it is a bit like playing russian roulette... maybe it'll be perfect, maybe it'll be ok, or maybe it will be a nightmare of back and forth, scratches, etc.. so I'm hoping not to send it.

 

Just curious but could you verify what brand of ram you got in your rig? Kingston or Hyundai Electronics?

A CPU-Z Check should it.

 

Hyundai Electronics

 

Owned.. Join the club. No OC headroom for us (or in my case, no way to catch you lol)

 

Hi, What did you do about a plug on the power adapter? Cit the wires and put a uk one on or buy an adapter? Or can you order from the US with a uk plug? Im waiting for the G73JW 3d and planning to buy from the US also.

 

Just get a US to UK conversion plug, that works fine for me. From what I have seen, the power brick is universal so all you need to do is provide a plug converter. In addition, the plug side of the brick's cable is removable so you could just buy a replacement but I've never bothered with that myself.

 

I stole one from my IBM work Laptop Its exactly the same plug. We had a few spare ones kicking around at work as well.

 

I made a quick video for you. Just to show how quickly the Laptop Boots and Shut's down with the SSD.

Please excuse my narrative error halfway through. See if you can spot it!!!

YouTube - ASUS G73 ROG Laptop - Boot Up time

 

ur SSD isn't as impressive as mine... i already login before u reach the windows 7 screen

 

Problem with the SSD is size. I already have 1 500G drive full of games and plan to fill the other one with other stuff.

I have a SSD in my desktop which host my OS and a few Apps and chosen games. But the games go on a Raid 1 2TB drive, all my main files and such saved on a Raid 1 of 750's, with another pack of 750's for multimedia.

 

My SSD only has 30GB left - it's fast enough for me.

 

Nice speed on the SSD, my Patriot Inferno 120GB is slightly faster at boot up though but I agree SSD's do improve performance by a large margin.

 

Err load speeds. Actual processing, gaming, photoshop, video, etc. performance gain 0%

 

I have had the G73 for 2 weeks now so I thought it would be a perfect time to update you on my new relationship.

Well firstly, I did not get to India. The trip got cancelled on the morning I was due to go, thank crunchy for Flexible tickets. i obviously cant tell you anything about how it performed on a plane, you will have to wait until i go to the States

The Backpack - I take my laptop to work every day. For me, although the backpack is comfy, it fails on size and the fact that it is not waterproof. I cant fit everything I need to take to work in it and the storage inside the back pack is pretty useless, what I do put in the bag is generally rolling around inside my the time I get to work. So, although adequate for most people, for me its not, I am therefore looking at alternatives.

I am currently looking at the Everki Beacon & the Crumpler Box Boy. Both waterproof too. I have a long walk from the station to my house and I need a waterproof pack.

The laptop itself has been great. There is nothing it cant run (Dont by CIv 5 - it will take over your life) I have been running it on the train everyday, and, I can watch a movie (albeit running from the HDD) and do some surfing and the battery gives me about 60 mins. The train I travel on has power if I need to give the laptop a boost.

I have not had any GSOD or any of the other problems. The touch pad has been good, the button has been fine and the thing is pretty silent. It runs cool as a cucumber too. No problems with heat and I can have this running on my lap with out fear of 3rd Degree Burns like you get with a Macbook Pro.


Loving it so far.

 

Just goes to show that late buyers that thought of getting a repaste when ordering have something similar to what all of us thought we were buying.

BTW: Difficult to tell the difference between our comps aside from the proc and the ssd, but by playing with power savings (screen brightness being N°1) I get closer to 2hrs of use on battery.

 

Good point regarding the Power Settings - I have it maxed out for performance. So 60mins aint bad.

 

Ive settled on this bag - KOA M.A.S.K. Customizable Backpack

Going to order today

 

I am enjoying this post. I also am very happy with my g73. I went with Everki EKP117NBKCT Beacon Laptop Backpack - Fits Notebook PCs up to 18 at TigerDirect.com for my backpack and it is a nice build, good padding and plenty of space.

 

Ordered the Slappa yesterday at 15:00. Arrived in my office this morning at `11:00am.

Got a Free 17" Sleeve which i will sell. Its not gonna fit the beast in that!!

Will let you know how I get on later.

 

Do you have your own SSD hard drive for your OS? I ask because mine (Which still has it's origina hybrid drive) boots about as fast as yours did in that youtube video. Which seems weird to me at least.

 

Yeah the SSD has the OS on it, but I only have 25GB free space out of 128 which I think makes a difference

 

"Soave"? Is that a suave way of saying "space" or did you just miss the p and c buttons?

Perhaps that explains it... I'm no expert on SSD's though.

 

How much for the ROG pack? And is it plenty big for the G73 and accessories?

 

Yeah it's big enough for the G73 and accessories.

Will only sell to the UK though. Im not gonna ship it.

 

Darn the bad luck.