another g1 thread

i'm gonna be buying a g1 s in a few weeks, but when going through this forum i see that users are having quite a few problems with it
people have told me its an amazing notebook

but this question is to OWNERS ONLY
is this a good notebook once its in your hands? specs look awesome...finish looks amazing..i just need to know if they're worth what they seem

 

I've only had mine for a few days, but so far the only complaints I've had have been about Vista. The screen is nice, the machine seems durable, and it's more than powerful enough for my needs (Engineering student and moderate gamer).

As far as the actual performance, I've only tested with Guild Wars, UT2k4 and FEAR. GW and UT run at max settings very well, but they're older games. FEAR works very smoothly at just over medium settings. Tried on max and got a little stuttering. I've heard that downgrading to XP allows FEAR to run on max, but I haven't tested this yet (waiting til I can get my cheap XP Pro license from school next week).

As far as the 50% CPU performance below 90% battery, I haven't noticed... but that's probably because I've had mine plugged in and running on straight AC since I got it. Since I'll be plugged in most of the time I'm using it, I don't see this being a problem.

Oh, and Lightscribe is a great novelty to have ;-)

 

Most of the problems with the laptop are Vista related. Drivers/applications/etc. So I don't blame the G1S for it. It's an amazing laptop in both speed and looks. You are right that the finish is incredible, definitely makes it look/feel like a high-end laptop (which it should, it is high-end).

The only downside is the weight, and the battery life. With the battery attached it isn't very light, which might make it a bit difficult to use for someone with a smaller build. The battery life is also an issue. I get approx 2 and 1/2 hours with it set to battery saving mode (and the backlight set to 7% and WLAN enabled. That's fine enough for me, but those who won't be near an electrical outlet much should probably stay away from this laptop.

But anyway, I'm glad I bought mine. My first one had some defective hardware, but ASUS's support was incredible, and I got a brand new replacement pretty quick. So far the new one is working flawlessly.

If you really want the most speed I'd recommend upgrading the RAM in it to 3GB total, and the hard drive to a Seagate Momentus 7200.2. I've only upgraded my HDD so far, but the speed of the Momentus is incredible.

 

I've had mine since friday, no issues here. Having a blast with the notebook.

 

yes the battery life is the only thing i'm worried about, but i'm buying a second so i can use it if needed.. thanks for the input!

 

Cons for me are the Size, Weight, and Battery Life.

But, she's a couch queen so those aren't terribly important issues.

Vista is...well, it's vista. If I ever buy a 7200RPM drive to throw in, I'm dual booting, maybe even tripple booting:
Vista - won't hardly ever get used unless I need to play a DX10 game
XP - gaming, daily use if I don't like...
Ubuntu - simply must give it a chance.

The build seems pretty solid. If you press on the back of the lid you can get a fair amount of flex. Too much empty space between the LCD panel and the back of the lid. No big deal. Just don't step on it.