Asus G51VX-A1 First Impressions

I received my new A1 last night and thought I would provide some general feedback on the product and the overall sales transaction.
I purchased this from excaliberpc on ebay using Bing cashback and with the MIR rebate the overall price was about $200 less than I paid for my Asus A8JS three years ago. The sellers performance was fantastic with the free shipping occuring the day after I paid for the NB. Unit was double boxed and very well packaged and delivered on time by Fed EX.

I had debated back and forth between the G51 and G71. I'm glad that I went with the G51. It's a monster in size and weight. The G71 would have been way to large for my purposes.

Out of the box the system appeared well packaged and well built. It came with a gaming mouse, backpack, EEE stick, 9 games. I thought the back of the black/blue lid was going to have a decal but it's not. It looks more like a silk screen or painted on. I'm not sure exactly how they do it but was it was very sharp looking IMO. The lid is complemented by the lights on the lid.

I had the system on my lap for about 7 hours last night while I setup the software and did all my component level testing. The viewable portion of the LED LCD measured in at exactly 15.6 inches. It's a large colorful and bright screen. So bright in fact that I had to tone it down just a bit. I was hoping the text would not be to small on a 16 inch screen at 1920x1080. All I can say is it's so much better than my previous Asus that had a 14.1 inch screen at 1400x900. I no longer have to squint to read the text.

I could detect no flex in the keyboard whatsoever. I love the full size backlit keyboard on this model and that alone was enough to sway me away from the G71. It has a soft touch and very solid feel to it. Typing in dimly lit rooms is no longer an issue.

Boot up and performance was on par with what I would expect from a quad core processor and 4GB ram with Seagate Momentus 7200.3 ST9320421AS 320GB 7200RPM drives. Asus had the two hard drives partitioned into 4 logical drives at about 149GB each.

Wireless setup was fast and easy and I was on my home network in under 15 minutes from box to lap.

The cooling system and battery setup on this system keep the system cool in the front where it counts and exit the hot air from the rear left side of the system. I played a few games, watched a DVD, watched a streaming movie courtesy of Netflix and tryed to put the system through it paces. It never felt hot on the bottom or on my lap. There was however plenty of hot air coming out the back...

All in All very pleased with my purchase. It appears to be a solidly built system with decent hardware, nice accessory package and a great warranty.

 

I get my delivered tommorow (in Australia), hopefully the design looks as good as you say it was... I was having serious doubts when I saw the blue/black design over the white model. Will post my own review if it arrives on schedule.

 

Isn't the text even smaller now than your 14.1" because the resolution is so much higher? Smaller text make you squint less?

 

The screen is so much larger than the 14.1 on the A8. You really have to see it in person. The A8 is running in 1440x900. At first glance the G51A1 looks like a 17" screen until you pull out the tape measure.

 

You mean hot air coming out of the left side correct? The G71 had the exhaust out the rear of the laptop.

 

gwrace so you can read the text at full resolution correct? I was thinking a 1080 screen on a 16 inch screen would be to small. If possible take a screenshoot with the default notepad and default text it uses. If possible, my G50vt-A2 has a resolution of 1680x1050, so debating what to do.
Thanks

 

And gwrace, what's it like to game at HD res? sharper pictures? I personally don't think 260m gtx can handle HD res!

 

I'll try to post some pictures later today.

 

I'm going to load up Crysis tonight and give it some tests. I wanted to do this last night but got sidetracked with other software installs and work issues. I multitask on this computer so gaming was not my primary focus but I am anxious to see how it performs. You can also go to Gen Techs web site. He has some videos captured with among other things a crysis demo.

 

You are correct. It exits on the left rear side of the computer.

 

I just got my Ax1 right now. ...just unboxed and its not even done loading the initial OS setup yet.

I'll post more as I have more time with it.

Edit1: Got it up and running. Find it funny that the background choices as you load up the machine have the white lid G51 even though this is a blue lid.

What I plan on doing is tweaking and messing around with the Vista OS, then buying a second HD and loading win7 on it. I don't have the 2nd HD bracket yet, but just want to do that to see how it goes.

Edit2: What I find odd is that the intake above the fan, or what "looks" like the intake above the fan has a piece of plastic over it to prevent airflow. It looks like the only actual intakes are by the RAM and GPU. I wonder why Asus did that.

Oh, and the screen view angle and color clarity is very nice. Better than my 24" Samsung 245BW desktop monitor

Edit3: Just a warning, it doesn't fit in my 15.4" messenger bag due to the width of the laptop however it does barely fit into my 15.4" backpack. Though the way it fits it may get scratched up by the zippers.

Edit4: Windows 7 goes on it without a problem. It only gives on program compatibility error with the Asus face recognition login software. I stripped most of the asus stuff out anyway, so no big deal.
I'm installing games like City of Villians and Aion on there because that's what will be primarily used on this laptop. I don't expect to ever play a FPS on it, so I'm not gonna put Crysis on it like everyone else is doing.

 

What, don't you wanna be cooool??

*peer pressure*

 

So what kind of screen is this? Is this RGB LED, comparable to macbook pro led screens?

 

Yes it's an LED LCD very sharp colors. I was loading up some webshots photos into their desktop photo manager tonight. The images were gorgeous with great colors and contrasts. The screen has a wider angle viewing from side to side but a much narrower field of clear view from top to bottom.

Played a few games tonight that included Crysis and Unreal Tournament 3 and the system had no issues running and playing either of these games.

 

Text size can be increased or decreased depending on preference. It isn't tied to resolution.

 

Yup, windows 7 is beautiful in high DPI mode.

 

Pics, or it didn't happen! ;D