My review of the G75VW-AS71 (amazon model)

[Courage_Dragon]

Although I do fire up a game on occasion, I'm not a high end gamer by any means so this review comes from the perspective of a Power User. Multiple monitors, multiple windows, multitasking galore. From video encoding, HD video editing, 40 open browser tabs, audio processing, audio encoding, multiple documents open, etc. I've had the laptop for just over 4 weeks now, so it's been put through my everyday use for a decent amount of time.

As *that* kind of guy, I absolutely love this laptop. It's not without its faults of course, but I have yet to find the absolute perfect laptop, this is the closest I've come. As someone on the go, I wanted to find a laptop that allowed me to edit and process HD Video while on the road.

A couple of notes: I immediately added a 250 GB SSD and did a complete fresh install of Windows 7 before using the system (although I did make the necessary ASUS backup recover disks before wiping the machine (make sure you do this, otherwise, it'll cost you like sixty bucks to get disks shipped to you. Also, make sure to update all the drivers on the computer. Many issues were fixed from the original drivers.)

With the i7-3610QM (2.3GHz), 16 GB DDR3, and an SSD, this baby hums. About 10 or 15 seconds to the login screen, and about 30-45 seconds to full windows loading (Note: this includes my firewall/antivirus loading (Comodo), mapping network drives, and about 10 other various programs and utilities that load on startup.) Encoding a video to H264 used to be an overnight process, now it's done in 10-20 minutes AND I can still use my computer without a hitch while things are processing. Love it.

Here's a list of things I love about the laptop.

• Keyboard - The aluminum plate that spans the entire keyboard gives it a nice solid surface to type on for a touch typist. One thing that I've hated about most laptop keyboards is how spongy or bouncy they are in the middle. This is solid and uniform across the entire surface. Awesome! This is my first Chiclet style keyboard so I thought I could have issues, but it's a minor adjustment. One pet peeve though is the placement of the "0" on the numpad. For numpad touch typists, it will require an adjustment. I love the lighted keyboard as well, although there is significant light bleed around each of the keys.
  
  
• The easy access to the hard drives made upgrading them very easy.
  
  
• Cleanable/replaceable fan dust guards - any power user knows that being able to clean these easily is essential to proper PC maintenance. It's super easy on this laptop.
  
  
• I like the placement of the audio and mike jacks on the left hand side. I hate laptops that have them on the front edge.
  
  
• The Fan Cooling system - The design of the cooling system is extraordinary. I had no idea what a difference it would make to my every day use comfort levels. I can actually use this laptop directly on my lap AND my hands and wrists always stay cool. After getting used to sweaty hands, I'm amazed at how well the cooling system works even when the system is running fully stressed (GPU and CPU maxed). Seriously, the way the heat vents directly out the back is a god send for any power user.
  
  
• Great non-glare screen - without the high gloss, the viewing angles are great on the screen and the reflections are minimal.
  
  
• Build Quality - a very solid laptop, doesn't feel flimsy when I pick it up to move it with one hand. This is the most solid feeling laptop I've ever owned. Normally if I pick up a laptop from one edge it feels like it's going to break, not so with this laptop. Feels super solid. Also, the design of the screen hinge gives you a nice solid piece to pick the laptop up from the back, something I didn't realize would make a huge difference in handling the laptop.
  
• Rubber coating - Before I bought the laptop, I didn't think much about the rubberized coating of the laptop as a feature, but it really gives the laptop a great feel when handling it. Sure fingerprints show up a lot, but it's well worth it for the comfort during extended usage.
  
  

Now for the nitpicks, and things I don't like:

• The Front LEDs are SOOO bright. I wish there was a way to turn them off. I often leave my computer on overnight to download stuff and I have to block the LEDs in order to sleep.
  
  
• Placement of Ethernet/hdmi/Mini-display (annoying as a right handed user b/c desktop replacement) - As mentioned before, I'm a power user, so I plug two monitors in to the right hand side. These cords end up passing right through the area that would be ideal for your mouse pad to go. Very annoying, but this is a consequence of having the awesome cooling on the backside. I'll take this trade off any day, so it's not really a "con" for me.
  
  
• The touchpad features don't work consistently for me and when I'm typing the bottom of the left thumb touches the pad just enough to register as a touch when I'm pausing to use my right hand on the touch pad. I love the multi-tap gestures, but they are very inconsistent for me, which just makes them annoying. On a positive note though, I love the travel of the buttons on the touchpad, lots of travel and they feel great.
  
  
• As mentioned above, the Zero key placement on the numpad is wrong and doesn't work for those who are fluent numpad touch typists. Minor annoyance.
  
  
• The function key to toggle Bluetooth and Wireless radio is annoying to use. If I use the key, I often have to re-pair my Bluetooth keyboard and mouse because you can only cycle through the options. I wish there were separate hardware keys to toggle wireless and Bluetooth separately. However, there is a compromise for this. There is a software key called Wireless Console in the system tray that remedies this. It pops up the options and allows you to select the toggles separately.
  
  
• The "Subwoofer" is not a subwoofer, it's just another speaker that can play deeper frequencies. It makes the sound balance weird at times and/or muffled, but all and all, not that big of a deal for me.
  
  
• Power brick is really big, but that's expected. You gotta power the beast!
  
  

Obviously this laptop is huge, and requires a large backpack if you plan on carrying it around. Caution, most backpacks listed for 17" or even 18" laptops will not fit this one. I highly recommend the [[ASIN:B005LMWP78 Everki EKP120 Titan Laptop Backpack]], it's pricey, but cradles this laptop like a glove, not to mention it's great for traveling, and build quality is great.

Also, a very special thank you to the posters and maintainers of the threads in the "Important and Useful" section! You guys/gals there really helped make it a lot easier to do a clean install and find what I was looking for to setup my new laptop! Thanks!

[john_from_ohio]

Courage Dragon wrote:
Although I do fire up a game on occasion, I'm not a high end gamer by any means so this review comes from the perspective of a Power User.

Thanks for the review ... I find a couple of small pieces of black duct tape ( Gorilla Tape from walmart ) covers the front LEDs quite nicely.

The machine is an absolute beast.

I was out for a week in San Francisco ( last week ... Open World 2012 ) and ditched my asus. Took along my 2011 macbook air for portability reasons and that machine does work nicely on an airplane.

Macbook air did fine but I did miss the beast!

[pROGammer]

Excellent review. As a programmer, I completely agree!
Super-easy upgrading of the hard drives (doesn't void the warranty) and super-easy cleaning of fans is a must for a real desktop replacement!
The only difference is, I installed Windows 8 final (RTM, from Dreamspark) and so far everything is great, boot times are even lower, thanks to a new Windows feature where shutdown is really 'shutdown all user programs, hibernate the core'.

The things I'm missing from my previous Asus V1V notebook are:

• the ability to take out the optical drive and plug a second battery (included)
  
• the docking station with second charger (included) which allows you to quickly connect an external monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, speakers/headphones, mic, hdd and charge the computer, with no cables at all!.
  

I really hope the G76 will have those or at least Thunderbolt. Until then, the G75 is the best!

P.S. I got the model with the Seagate Momentus XT SSHD and added an OCZ Vertex 4 256 GB SSD.

[Courage_Dragon]

john_from_ohio wrote:
Thanks for the review ... I find a couple of small pieces of black duct tape ( Gorilla Tape from walmart ) covers the front LEDs quite nicely.

No problem. I don't like the idea of making my beautiful laptop look tacky (literally and figuratively), otherwise I would have gone the tape route as well. I have post it's and electric tape all over various LEDs, lol. I just discovered these things, and they seem perfect for the job! http://www.lightdims.com

pROGammer wrote:

The only difference is, I installed Windows 8 final (RTM, from Dreamspark) and so far everything is great, boot times are even lower, thanks to a new Windows feature where shutdown is really 'shutdown all user programs, hibernate the core'.

The things I'm missing from my previous Asus V1V notebook are:

• the ability to take out the optical drive and plug a second battery (included)
  
• the docking station with second charger (included) which allows you to quickly connect an external monitor, keyboard, mouse, printer, speakers/headphones, mic, hdd and charge the computer, with no cables at all!.
  

I really hope the G76 will have those or at least Thunderbolt. Until then, the G75 is the best!

Nice list, That's great to hear about Windows 8. I always like to wait until the first Service Pack comes out before upgrading my OW, especially since it's a big UI change, but we'll see if that policy lasts.

Great points to add on as well. I would love a docking station, but I don't see that happening unfortunately. I think the cost is prohibitive to them and it's not a huge feature request to their core demographic. That would be awesome though.

Also, here's my System Performance screenshot: