Prospective Asus G73JH Owner

I've recently been looking around to get a new gaming laptop as my current Dell M1730 is getting a bit long in the tooth. I'm specifically looking for a gaming laptop to handle recent games (i.e. MW2, UT3, BF:BC2 etc) and anything that's coming up within the next few years as I attend a lot of LAN parties and travel with a laptop is so much easier.

I had originally had my mind set on a Dell M17x as a friend bought one and it performed well. The only downside was for a high spec he paid around £3k for it and it still only had 320gb hdd space and no blu-ray capability. I've since came across the Asus G73JH in this weeks edition of Micromart and I was impressed by both the technical spec and the price.

I've had a look around for some reviews for the laptop itself and from suppliers and generally most people seem impressed with it even though there has been some problems. Play.com have it for £1,770 (free delivery) but they have it down for Due for release on 01/05/2010. Asuslaptop.co.uk have it at £1,713.15 + about £10.00 for normal delivery although I had never used or heard of them before and I have came across mixed reviews about them.

Any G73JH owners out there who can recommend this laptop over another? Also which would be the best place in the UK to buy? I've considered buying from the US as they are a lot cheaper but as I don't have a credit card there's limited options for payment and I'd have to figure in the import tax and hassle if I ever had to return it.

 

Asus g73 is a pure gaming monster. Its built up from the ground up with gaming in mind and it does it well. It gets great frame rates, runs nice and cool and well built well overall.

If you are a gamer with a sensible budget you can't do much better. Hell. Even out of the budget you really can't do all that much better (unless spending 2k more for 20 extra frames is worth it)

 

The more I read about the G73JH the more I like it and believe it's the one for me. I just need to now find somewhere in the UK that has it at a sensible price and has it in stock

 

I wouldn't mind getting one but the scattered reports of the GSOD (gray screen of death) bother me - my luck I'd get the only one from some store stock that would have the problem.

 

I have came across a few negative reviews/reports on the laptop but it's hard to get the whole picture. These might be a small minority of problems reported in which there are simple solutions to them. Often it's hard to tell as people generally speak out more when complaining than they do when everything goes fine.

 

My first one quit after three days. I've had the replacement for over a month. I have 94 hours of Dragon Age: Origins plus using it at work every day. No problems with the replacement unit. I think it's a solid machine. I like it so there's another data point for you.

I personally hate the keyboard. I am a very fast typist, but I have "lazy" fingers and I don't hit the keys very hard. On this keyboard, you don't have to bang the keys but you do need to hit them deliberately or you'll miss letters. That's my only gripe and it isn't enough of one to make me not buy it again.

 

I e-mailed Xotic PC a few queries I had about their ordering process and got a fast reply, which was good. They mentioned in their email that there was an A2 and A1 version which as far as I can tell the only difference is A1 comes with a blu-ray reader. Is this the only difference?

Another thing that just occurred to me. Is the blu-ray reader in this laptop region locked? As if I did get one from the US then I would have to either buy their region discs or find out if it can be unlocked to play any region. The other option of course is just get the one without blu-ray.

 

That is the only difference between the A1 and A2. Also they are backordered for months.

The X3 comes with 2x 320GB drives instead of 2x500GB, and no mouse nor backpack.

ASUS G73JH-X3
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applicat...s.asp?EdpNo=5725517&sku=A50-17315&srkey=G73JH

12.3% bing cashback ($190)
total cost = $1365

cashback steps:
1)adblock off
2)bing shopping
3)search "laptops"
4)click the 12.3% Tigerdirect link on the right.

 

OP , Xoticpc.com might look cheaper but after u customise and all and it ships to UK , the price comes to about 1700-1800 pounds as u have to pay custom duty and VAT... to save the hassle , someone pointed me out to this G73 seller on ebay .. this guy will ship to u next day... iaTa , who is on this forum , got an X1 from him... a A1 is going for 1795... its a great deal and u get it ASAP... and betaflame , tigerdirect only ship to US or Canada.. Op is from UK... anyways , here's the link for the ebay guy...

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ASUS-G73JH-La...tZUK_Computing_Laptops_EH?hash=item4ceec76518

 

That's not really a good deal as I can get it from http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/13605...ium-64-Bit-Laptop-Notebook-Black/Product.html cheaper and I've dealt with them loads of times. They also have free delivery and are based in the EU.

I don't think I would need to customize as the base spec is already very good. The only thing I might do would be to not take the blu-ray reader and upgrade the RAM to 1333 instead of 1066.

I don't expect import tax/duty to be that much as, unless the exchange rate tanks like it did a while ago, I would only be paying roughly £1000 for the laptop and even if I paid a staggering 50% on import duties that would still be a saving of almost £300. I've been looking around to try and find out how much tax I would pay but can't seem to find a definitive answer. I don't suppose anyone here would know?

Also as a side note:

1) The auction breaches Ebay policies as he has M17x M15x in the title which is nothing to do with the item for sale.
2) Has low feedback, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but when on ebay I prefer to use high feedback on expensive goods.

 

Kobalt Computers is a UK company that builds Clevo notebooks. You can get their 870 for 1748 pounds including the VAT. This will have everything the G73 has except for the 8GB of ram, instead 4GB, to get the 8GB you need to pay another 2oo pounds. Something to consider.

As for review:

Look at http://www.anandtech.com/show/3662/asus-g73jha2-affordable-xlsized-gaming

Anandtech is far better source than anything written on this forums IMO. You just don't know what a lot of forum members did to cause the problems. And for me personally, whenever someone asks for notebook recommendation, I tell them Asus. Not because they off the most performance for the money, but because of their customer support and warranty. In my experince in the last 4 years as an Asus Notebook customer, 4 year Dell Customer, 2 year Compaq and 3 years Acer, Asus is by far the best. I have not experienced the major issues that others here have complained about, their CS personnell aren't bots, their turn around is quick and they are very professional. Delays on G73 I cannot blame them as parts are scarce due to demand for the G73. This would be the same with any other company in their situation.

 

not the greatest pic, I'll grant you. . .but still. dual 24" monitors @ 1080 running two different instances of WoW, clocking approx 35 fps in Dalaran Each with max settings [minus shadows, which are down 1 from max]

outside Dal, on Autorun, both instances clock 45-60 fps simultaneously.

I realize WoW isn't the most graphically instensive game in the universe, but that's still fairly amazing from a notebook [or maybe I'm too used to my old 9400m ]

 

mindinversion, are you running VGA and HDMI simultaneously or did you get a Matrox DualHead box?

 

Wow that is impressive!

I remember people duel boxing, but that was always windowed mode in very low res like 1024*768. WoW is no slouch, still arguably the best game out there IMO if you have the time. Time is the key

 

grind. quest. grind. quest. grind. quest. No thank you.

.....it does get kind of addictive though XD

 

left monitor via HDMI, right monitor via VGA. I suppose TECHNICALLY the VGA is running 1920 x 1080, but at that point it's really splitting hairs. At any rate I'm surprised by the clarity of the VGA signal, i was initially expecting a lot more fuzz than I'm getting out of it [I'm not complaining]

(And for the record, I don't NORMALLY dual box WoW. . I just thought it'd be a good example of what the G73 is capable of. usually it's playing an .avi or .mkv full screen while playing, and it STILL doesn't stutter.)

 

Not surprised since for majority of .MKV files it only uses 2% of CPU. That just astounds me still.

 

I never really paid attention. . . but my wife's 8600 equipped iMac couldn't do it. Movies always got choppy, went down to 5 fps in game. Similar results for my kid's home built (by me) phenom X2 with 9800 GTX-S GFX [which surprised me, but I wasn't about to fight with it]

It's the notebook part that makes it moderately impressive. I needed something with desktop performance that I could take with me for those occasional week long business trips, and this thing DEFINITELY does not dissapoint.

The dual monitor setup was just icing on the cake.

If only someone could figure out a way to firm up the keyboard in the center, i'd be tempted to call it almost perfect

 

We need something to do with all those cores and RAM

 

Thanks for the link to Kobalt Computers. I'm still leaning towards the G73JH at the moment but it's given me something more to think about.

 

One last thing i heard over and over from reading the several thousand plus threads is that there is no benefit to upgrade 1066 ram to 1333 due to the higher latency in the 1333 ram.

Unless you are getting some special 1333 ram, you might be able to save some money!

Good luck, its a great machine and I am loving it. Also, I opted for the SSD instead of 2 hard drives. Best thing i ever did. This is my first SSD and I dont think i could EVER go back to a spindle drive.... i cant wait till they get larger in size!

 

I've been steering clear of SSD for the moment as I don't think they are currently worth the price. I'd rather have the extra storage now and consider putting in an SSD later.

 

According to http://www.dutycalculator.com/calculation/ I would pay roughly £219 in total to import the laptop.

I went through the various options putting in the values asked and for some reason it seems to think I wouldn't pay any duty on it as it's duty free (not quite sure if that's right or not) and the £219 would be for VAT at our rate of 17.5%

 

I agree. I'm also concerned with their longevity. Have SSDs been perfected to the point that they are just as reliable as a spinner? Has enough time passed to know for sure?

 

Just found this on http://www.dutycalculator.com

So it looks as though it may work out cheaper than I originally thought if I order from the US. The only downside is the pre-order wait

Edit: £1,411.83 is what I work it out to be with (laptop + delivery (- 3% cash discount for paying by wire transfer) + VAT). This is of course using the current exchange rate on www.xe.com

 

Well I've done the deed and placed my order.

I just have to now contain my excitement and play the waiting game like everyone else

 

I have no needs for a faster HDD atm. Windows and my programs already load in seconds and faster HDD does not provide faster performance for any of my needs.

Having more HDD space with 500GB drive on the other hand is of incredible benefit to me

I'll wait until I can buy a 500GB SDD for $150 before buying one.