The G73 Best Buy info thread

Sorry but comparing to desktop is silly. A 1200 dollar desktop build would slaughter this machine any day of the week and we all know it.

 

thats just common sense. i know and understand that. but i have always been into desktop's and i want to play around with laptop. and with my budet laptops this nice have always been out of my price range, so sincei ts only $1200 i cant pass it up. its not like i would be playing demanding games thats for my desktop. but to able to have wow high/maxxed and sc2 high/maxed i would be happy as day. because then i can show it to my friends

i would build a core i7+2 5870 if i wanted but i wanna laptop it comes down to personal choice's

 

I should be getting a tigerdirect x3 to compare to my bestbuy 05 on Friday to do some direct screen comparisons.

 

I don't know, I priced up a 5770 build with a intel quad, and it usually runs about $1200 with an OS. Hey, you already knew that, lol.

 

I'd be interested in seeing that. Looks like you get 2gb more ram, 140 more gigs of hard drive space, and bluetooth too. I think that's well worth the extra $200.

 

Not to mention the better screen too, and with Bing cashback, it actually brings it down to about a 60 dollar difference when you factor in BB taxes.

 

I can build a desktop that will beat the G73 for $800 with monitor. You don't need a 5850, a 5770 will do. An AMD 955 will also beat the baby i7 in the G73. I am just trying to make a point that $800 is possible, not $200 over the G73 like you said. I know the whole notebook vs desktop argument.

 

not to start a fight or anything but if i go desktop i wont go anything lower then a 5850. plus i wanna toy with a top if the line laptop. plus i can take it on the road with me unlike my desktop. so thats why i was gonna go with the g73 plus i am not a fan boi or anything but i perfer intel and nvidia/ati i just dont care much for amd.

all i want the laptop to play is sc2/wow/cnc3 and thats pretty much my gaming. i know its a underclocked 5770 but from my understanding you can o/c it and it runs fine. now other problem i see is did ati fix the m5870 problems?

 

Why would you build a $800 desktop that will give marginal performance over a $1200 laptop that's already built and ready to go? You including 6gb ddr3 and an OS in that $800? Doesn't make sense.

 

This topic is pointless.

 

This is nonsense.

There are many stats for all versions of the G73, including several independent reviews, and getting 40-50 @ 1920 is fantasy.

40's are barely doable with the 1600.

 

My settings. You can see the Fraps counter running in the corner. My averages were always greater than 40.

Smooth as silk.

 

No, running DX11 mode dips to 30 in clusterf***s. Normally it's 50-60

 

gtx 480 dips into the 40s in dx11 mode, so for the 5870m to stay up in the 40s is good. I still think the resolution would be smoother at 1600x900.

 

i just wanna able to play cn2 cnc3 and wow and the new wow exp. would it run them high/maxxed out? and it would last me about 2-3 years?

From reading and reading it seems like it could. with the 1600x900 bb model

 

Don't sweat it Barack... I see so many of this Gateway owner's posts in so many of the Asus threads... Can't tell if its pen1s envy or nothing going on in the Gateway forums .. who cares, we're loving our G73s! lol

Last I read, this was the "G73 Best Buy info thread" ... keep em coming!

 

Is the LCD display REALLY that bad?

 

Reports Vary ... I'm more than satisfied with mine after having two horrible washed out Gateway 6860 and 7805u displays... the Asus isnt a whole lot better, but its definitely an upgrade... I've experienced them first hand. (I still think the G60vx had the best screen)

Go to best buy and judge for yourself... I dont play 1 foot to the left of the display, 1 foot to the right nor do I play with the screen at 30 degree or at 120 degree angles (who the hell does??)... I play directly in front of my lappy or on an external LCD tv - either way it looks great!

*It does need some minor Gama and Vibrance correction out of the box*

 

The AUO Panel I have in my G73 is REALLY that bad But the display unit at my Best Buy is flawless for a 16x9, I'm bringing hwinfo on a flash drive tomorrow to determine the panel thats in it. I checked it out when I exchanged my first G73 hoping to get a different panel (failed), and noticed a few things. The sticker placement (i7, Windows 7, ATI, EAX) are on the right side of the display unit, and on the left of both of mine. Yet all part numbers / barcodes were identical. I'd love to find an indicator of the batch that has the LCD panel in use on display.

 

Are all 1600x900 panels the same on the best buy model?

 

I agree.

It would.

I will post a new thread to help with all the confusion going around about the G73JH BBY different screens.

It depends. I'm on my 3rd G73JH and the first 1 I had, had an AUO B173RW01 screen which had bad greys and had very limited viewing angles.

My second G73 had a GPU failure before I could really rate the screen.

My 3rd G73 has a LG screen model# LP173WD1-TLC1 that looks fantastic and has great contrast and decent viewing angels. Here's a link to my pics. Keep in mind that my camera sucks for pics like this at the moment. But you should be able to get an idea of the LG's screen characteristics

Link
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=476494

The one in the store most likely has the LP173WD1-TLC1(LG Screen) opposed to your AUO B173RW01.

NO, so far I know of the crappy AUO B173RW01 screen and the fantastic LG LP173WD1-TLC1

 

Didn't someone mention getting a replacement with a newer BIOS? Those could be the ones with better screen?

 

Mine came with 206. I didn't know it until I tried to update the bios with winflash, only to be told I already had 206. My first G73 came with 205.

 

I just looked at HWinfo, and under monitor I see that my model # is LP173WD1-TLC1 - date of mfc 2008... my bios revision is .205

 

well i am returning my BB g73 for the tigerdirect one, I really cant handle the screen, washed out colors, and I prefer the higher resolution for MMOs.

 

How would you rate the quality of your LG?

 

Hey Gunner.. like I said in my earlier posts, its a huge upgrade over the 6860fx and 7805u (i can see why so many upgraded their displays going aftermarket) ....

This LG panel needs minor tweaking of vibrance and gama out of the box - but thats not the panels fault... As for rating laptop LCDs I'd say its a 7... imo the G60vx was a 9, followed by the G60jx an 8.

 

Interesting point on the sticker location:

My first machine from Best Buy had the LG screen and the stickers on the right, along with 1066 ram and 204 bios
.
My second machine from Best Buy has the AUO139E screen, stickers on the left, and 1333 ram and 205 bios.

From what I can tell, and without having them side by side, the LG screen was a bit better, the colors are a little more washed out and not quite as vibrant with this screen. Not enough that I'm gonna , as everything else with this machine is better or perfect so far. Keyboard is 100% better, speakers both wok great (first one had a dead left speaker) and even though I know it doesn't matter, I like knowing it has the 1333 ram in there.

 

how do you go about checking what type of screen you have?

 

I use Everest Ultimate, great for all sorts of info, but there are many other options.

http://www.lavalys.com/products/everest-pc-diagnostics

http://www.hwinfo.com/ is another free option

 

All I can speak for is wow, I get around 30-35 fps in 25man raids with the graphics turned all the way up, 50ish otherwise.

New wow exp will probably be about the same.

 

I guess I have the LP173WD1-TLC1 LCD as well. It's decent. It's very blue out of the box but Windows 7's fabulous color calibration control panel solves that. Viewing angles are ok. I dunno, no complaints really. It gets the job done.

I've also used the G73 1080p LCD and I wouldn't rate that one as clearly superior really. It might be better but it's basically a wash up IMO. The thing is you can get desktop LCDs that dust these screens so getting all caught up on nuances isn't worth the effort IMO.

I decided to go with the 1600x900 screen because 1) this machine is only $1200 2) 1080p is really too much for what amounts to a desktop Radeon 5750 abouts 3) 1080p is rather miniscule on a 17" LCD. I like to make these notebooks last. Previously I had a Inspiron 9300 17" 1440x900 with NV 7800 Go GTX for 5 years.

Apparently this note has the DDR3-1333 too. The other G73s I've had in my search for one free of defects have had 1333 or 1066. It's a complete non-issue as the CPUs in these aren't that fast anyway and the 1333 RAM runs higher latency than the 1066 RAM.

 

7 out of 10 is pretty good

 

Well said

 

I'm lucky i got the LG screen instead of the other one. Is the other one really that bad?

 

It is pretty bad compared to the LG.

 

it easily calibrates to an 8.5 ... very content...

and like the previous poster said about 1080p.... on a 17" lappy that is some really small text... in a programming editor I can see how you'd need the higher res, but windows easily let's you adjust font size and so do all programming editors I've used.

1080p video content will scale down nicely to 900p... I'm a videophile and I cannot see a difference in 320x180 lines of pixel... most people can't... however non-native res gaming does look bad, most people CAN see that difference... the lg screen @ 1600x900 is very capable and IMO is the sweetspot for performance for this laptop

 

Gee......I feel really terrible and left out. This being because I have nothing to complain about, regarding my BestBuy G73JH-RBBX05.

I'm pretty much a desktop guy, but wanted a laptop so I could game on a recent road trip. I picked up the G60VX (also from BestBuy), and was pretty happy with it. Alas, while on the road, I was in a BestBuy and saw the G73, so of course as soon as I got back home, I went in to upgrade.

And like I said, no problems on this end. Well, maybe I should rephrase that. I did have sound issues initially, but once I uninstalled all Creative Labs software, those issues are totally gone.

So all I can say is thus far I'm really satisfied with this rig.

 

Where can I check to find out whether I have a LG screen or other? More specifically, what are the codes for the LG? I checked device manager and couldnt find a name. How about HWInfo32? What would it state for an LG? Thanks!

Oh, also, Best Buy is marketing on their website that the i7 720 in our G73's is a 8MB L3 Cache rather than 6MB L2??? WHich is it!? Best buy descriptions are such a joke and really is false advertising!

 

Go up 8 posts.

 

It's 6mb, you dont get the 8mb until the 820qm and 920 CPUs.

 

Simple quick way is to right click on Computer, select Properties and select Device Manager.

Once in Device Mgr look under Monitors, Generic PnP Monitor, Details, Hardware Ids: Mine says LGD01DD for the built-in display and SAM036A for my Samsung 2493HM external 24".

Doesn't give the exact part but a quick simple Windows check to make sure you have the LG display.

Cheers,

 

Says I have the LGD01DD. Is that the good one?

 

Yes that's the BETTER one.

 

Yup, thats the LG. Honestly though, if you have to check to see which one you got to know if you got the "good" one or not. Because you can't tell if you have a good one or not, your prob just wasting your time.

No offense of course, I just see it as if your not complaining about it, don't go around looking to see if you have the bad, cause then if you do have the "bad" one, you'll begin to not like it, and it will prob be for all the wrong reasons.

Just my 2cents...

 

This is very true. Mac users do this to themselves all the time (hear about a flaw that they never noticed and go looking for it, returning systems 3 and 4 times to get a "perfect one").

I found the screen info helpful only in that I've never had an issue and wondered why people were complaining. Now I know why.

Cheers,

 

Id agree on the screen comment as far as if ya don't have an issue, it doesn't really matter... as someone that has had both, I'm totally fine with the "worse" screen. It's still just fine. As long as it's not PSOD or GSOD or anything in between, I'm just fine ;-)

 

I agree with the comment although I was just inquiring if I had the better one or not.

 

Yep, sure is.... and also, for anyone wondering, checking in the device manager is in fact a good quick way to tell... Hardware ID will tell you without installing a third party program.

So, good call Panzer!

 

And sorry Shizdan if it sounded personal, I wasnt meaning you personally when I said "you" a lot.

I totally understand about the curiosity part, honestly, I'd be doing the exact same just to get my curiosity out of the way.

I meant it more as in general to everyone that will read the forums. So I hope that clears some things up =).