another g73jh owner mod questions

good day. new to posting on this site. but i have come here many times. its a great forum.. i just wish the asus gaming laptop section was organized a little better by series...

So i have been kicking it at about 2 years with my g73. its been great its an amzing machine.. the question is at this point should i sell and upgrade or hold on?

or would it be cheaper or better to just upgrade internals... what do used g73's go for these days?

I have gotten into photography a lot lately and I want something with a better lcd.. maybe ips .. I definetely want something sleeker designed less flashy, much lighter... for example I think i saw some customized u series with geforce 250m.. Im lookng for something between a ultra portable and a laptop that still has awesome performance.. is that too much to ask these days..? or do i have to get the new mac book pro.

Or would it be better to modify my g73 ie upgrade to ssd only to lighten it.. smaller battery? (dont know if this is even possible) upgrade the lcd to better display like ips... and most importantly trash the horrible synaptics touch pad asus decided to throw in this thing .. dont know if this is possible ... oh i could def grab some ram that stuff is cheap these days..

im honestly thinking selling is the best option ive seen a lot of potential laptops around 1k my biggest hangup on the 73 is its bulk (i knew going into it and yes its a desktop replacement but have since bought a new desktop) and the touch pad... cant stand the touch pad.. and i bought this laptop because reviews claimed the screen was beautiful but though it is a led display it has the worst viewing angles and least dynamic color i have ever seen.. other than all this its a lovely machine and would not think twice about upgrading components and keeping her right now instead.

so what do you think? what route would u go..

man i would need some help swaaping out the lcd though..i dont even know where to begin... find a newer laptop with same size screen and locate where to buy replacement lcds for that model?

a lot of the g series use the same case i belive but does one of the newer models have better lcd or better touch pad?

its been a while since i have kept up with whats new in tech.. what are good laptop video cards these days that would fit in a small laptop but offer same if not better peformance thant the 5870m thats in the g73

and how do i get a lighter battery? maybe find a cheap smaller capacity extra battery on ebay ?

what about the ac adapter.. is there a similiar power source out there that is not the size and weight of a ammo box

 

1. There are various threads on how to replace the LCD:

Get your replacement here: LAPTOP SCREEN, LCD panels from $42. Dell, HP Compaq, Toshiba, Acer, IBM Lenovo, Sony, Gateway, Apple, Asus replacement screen display panel

Although I doubt it will improve color at all. You need to calibrate it with a calibration tool.

2. Smaller batter? Does not exist to my knowledge and why would you, the regular battery doesn't last long at all.

3. Maybe an aftermarket power brick, but generally it's the same weight and size. I have an after market one, I don't feel much difference in weight.


For photography, this machine can handle it fine. I do a lot of photo editing on my rig from images I take with my Canon 60D in RAW. It works excellent.

 

thanks for the reply man.

Yea im using raw and its running lightroom and everything great... I love the machine it runs great.. besides the small hiccups with driver issues .. resolved thanks to this awesome board... think i used the custom vbios and everything has been dandy since.

i never use the battery... scratch that. i use the battery when I move from one outlet to another.. i wish i could get a 5minute long lasting battery that is like 80% lighter.. too bad about the power box...



great tip about the calibration..i just did a calibration and it made a big difference. I was reading about how you can use your dslr to calibrate but i didnt quite understand.. i think u take a picture with screen displaying black. then white and submit it to the site.. then it calculates adjustments for u... who knows.

find it here LCD monitor test images

what do u recomend for calibration?

I might just replace the screen... and add ram +ssd my current screen either has dead pixels or dirt under the shield.. so should i keep her... shes fine with photography.. i could always upgrade my desktop display and then use the spared up display for this machine...

I dont know at the same time im like im sure i could get atleast 800 for it so for 800 i could get something more comopact with updaed features like usb 3 and wireles intel display... I dont know what to do man.. just saw the dell xps15z looks nice.. anyone know a good laptop video card chart i can glance at to get an idea of what newer gpus are doing ? in todays gpus where does the g73 relate?

the new generation of intel cpus coupled with nvidia's optumus is definetely a compelling option 6-8 hour battery life on a power machine... that shure would be nice

 

OP GOOD Q
see this chart Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List - Notebookcheck.net Tech
WE are in place 55 ....
I am in a similar position to you, personally I am going to get a Sager to replace my G73, Too many nagging issues; too much time wasted with driver, software and Bios updates.
Now I have 1 vertical line accross my dislplay and am out of warrant; so I use mine as a desktop with external monitor. I will not put any money into this machine.

~Zealous did you get the hanstar panel? - most that got them here, and me as well, are very happy with the vibrancy of the color once clalibrated.
VVVVVVVVV thanks ScottDrmyers, you seem to be an up and coming super star here! + 1 Rep as soon as I am allowed ..

 

Ive never had a problem with drivers or anything.

Only driver I get from the ASUS site is the ATK Package. That's IT.

Everything else is:

Intel.com (For Rapid Storage Tech Driver, CHipset Drivers and WLAN driver).
AMD.com (For 5870m Driver).

Seems to work fine for me. Only "off beat" thing I did was the BIOS stuff, vBios 93a updated by Chastity. Solved every GSOD issue i've had.

Sucks about your screen though, but that happens on any laptop.

 

Hi
For best calibration use a hardware calibration tool, like this here Datacolor Imaging Solutions - The World Leader in Color Innovation
They can be used for several types of monitors and you can get a very good resemblance of the colors. As good as the monitor is capabale that is.
If you really are into pictures and color acuracy is important for you, get a hardware calibration tool.
But yeah, upgrade or not is a tricky question. I still use mine on a daily base and won't upgrade that fast, because it runs day to day without any issue (besides some self created ones ).
The GPU itself is still one of the fastest on the laptop market, it's just the cpu that has a multicore max-clock of some 1,6GHz (I think) which isn't that fast. But it clocks really high on singletask applications.
See also here for a review of the 1920p screen (and the whole notebook): AnandTech - ASUS G73Jh: Today's Top Gaming Laptop
pato