Your experience thus far with your Asus G-Series Notebook

[JDS]

As the title says, I am curious how your experiences with your notebooks have been. It could be as simple as a one-word summary. I want to know how you feel about your notebook and why. What changes would you make and how would you rank it?

To start, I would say my experience has been a roller-coaster with the notebook. I bought it with very high expectations (probably too high), and that lead to a tad bit of disappointment on my end when my notebook couldn't put out the performance I feel like I paid for. I often worry if there is just something I'm missing, or that I didn't do that could be holding my computer back, so you could say I am a tad bit paranoid. The upside of said roller-coaster has been that it lead me to a new genre of gaming, and a new hobby of my own. I have been playing around on pcpartpicker.com trying to make the best desktop I can for a relatively affordable price. I have even tried to overclock my GPU (nVidia GTX 670m 3gb), I found that I am just not experienced enough to handle this. I feel like my computer isn't working to its full potential, and I want to know how to unlock, I am just unable to figure out how. What changes to your notebook have you made? What have you noticed had worked? What hasn't worked?

Anyways, my experience has been mostly enjoyable, but also frustrating at moments. My biggest complaint: I feel like I paid for more than I received. My favorite part: it opened up an entire new world for me, as corny as that sounds.

[rewben]

my experience with the current g55 is a nice adventure. i have a lot of fun with it.

the frustrated parts are only a handful (actually, only three - a 'partially working' left usb port; failed bios update after 209; a tiny screen resolution). other than that, this laptop has been great for my usage. it's cool and quiet.

i have switched ssd, ram, cpu, thermal pastes, and wifi by myself. all are working fine (clean installs, w7 and 8).

however, the best part after my purchase of the laptop is still the people in this community.

[Dreamonic]

As hard as it may seem to admit purchasing more for less on these machines, it really isn't about how far your dollar can go all the time, nor does it mean you are really getting less for your dollar either.

You cannot compare electronics by average lifespan or reliability charts as all electronics have their share of lemons, so comparing this aspect is redundant; There will always be one bad apple in the bunch. What you are left with is just dollar value.

When I paid $1638 for my G, I knew what I was buying into. That's why I wasn't expecting $1600 performance. What I got was a nicely balanced machine, exactly what I wanted. I'm not after glued on pieces and decals and gaudy colors like other manufacturers use on their machines just to attract the consumer dollar. Your money is going more to performance in those cases instead. To each their own though.

I find that the G75's have massive potential for GPU overclocking thanks to their not using of shared fan cooling systems as well as ASUS choice of fan sizes and fin spread, not to mention their tested efficiency in thermal exhausting.

I rarely use notebooks like they are intended, which is portability. Mine simply rests on a desk hooked up to an external monitor (PB278Q) and sees a few games here and there. I like the fact knowing that when I take a trip that I can depend on my notebook to remain sturdy and stable while paired with a 1080p screen, backlit keyboard and decent specs for moderate to heavy use without temperature problems requiring additional equipment like a cooling pad to accompany my carrying bag. I don't need top of the line or best bang for buck gaming rig, I just need what is enough for me. After all, money well spent is exactly that, no matter the cost.

I've done correctional mods ranging from installing SSDs (RAID 0) to an intake chassis mod, to newly applied thermal paste to accommodate my completely OC utility free 1325/3000 @ 1.3v modded 660M vBIOS. I've put my system through a lot and it still remains reliable and in the same cosmetic condition I bought it in.


If life shows us one thing, it's that it's not what is in the hands of the maker that matters, it's in the gathering of hands that will immerse us into the experience that gives meaning to ourselves. I have truly met some great people here on this forum that have similar passions as me. Time tails into the present that had I never made that purchase.. what would I have missed.


So I ask myself, was the $1600 worth it? Yes.

[Sadler13]

Dreamonic wrote:
As hard as it may seem to admit purchasing more for less on these machines, it really isn't about how far your dollar can go all the time, nor does it mean you are really getting less for your dollar either.

You cannot compare electronics by average lifespan or reliability charts as all electronics have their share of lemons, so comparing this aspect is redundant; There will always be one bad apple in the bunch. What you are left with is just dollar value.

When I paid $1638 for my G, I knew what I was buying into. That's why I wasn't expecting $1600 performance. What I got was a nicely balanced machine, exactly what I wanted. I'm not after glued on pieces and decals and gaudy colors like other manufacturers use on their machines just to attract the consumer dollar. Your money is going more to performance in those cases instead. To each their own though.

I find that the G75's have massive potential for GPU overclocking thanks to their not using of shared fan cooling systems as well as ASUS choice of fan sizes and fin spread, not to mention their tested efficiency in thermal exhausting.

I rarely use notebooks like they are intended, which is portability. Mine simply rests on a desk hooked up to an external monitor (PB278Q) and sees a few games here and there. I like the fact knowing that when I take a trip that I can depend on my notebook to remain sturdy and stable while paired with a 1080p screen, backlit keyboard and decent specs for moderate to heavy use without temperature problems requiring additional equipment like a cooling pad to accompany my carrying bag. I don't need top of the line or best bang for buck gaming rig, I just need what is enough for me. After all, money well spent is exactly that, no matter the cost.

I've done correctional mods ranging from installing SSDs (RAID 0) to an intake chassis mod, to newly applied thermal paste to accommodate my completely OC utility free 1325/3000 @ 1.3v modded 660M vBIOS. I've put my system through a lot and it still remains reliable and in the same cosmetic condition I bought it in.


If life shows us one thing, it's that it's not what is in the hands of the maker that matters, it's in the gathering of hands that will immerse us into the experience that gives meaning to ourselves. I have truly met some great people here on this forum that have similar passions as me. Time tails into the present that had I never made that purchase.. what would I have missed.


So I ask myself, was the $1600 worth it? Yes.

Dreamonic Spoke for me as well!!
I used to have a Gateway FX (My first ever gaming rig) had it for 4 years'ish so I came from that to This G75VW-BB5.
I had bought this from....Craigslist..from a guy that just bought it 2months before but had lost his job and needed the $$$
So yea I got it for a smoking deal and I knew what he had and what I was buying and I also have the money to buy one brand new
from the store but why would I do that??
Well for one he needed the money and two I knew that there was nothing wrong with this and if there was that I could get it working
myself and learn more about Asus's packages and their hardware components and why they are so unique.
And yes I almost did spend $1850 for a brand new G75 but I am cheap in a sense.
Also seeing all the bling rigs like Dreamonic mentioned was a turn off when I was shopping around, flashy lights and rainbow colors
and cool looking emblems wasn't working for me.
Compared to the competitors this is what I saw and how Asus put together the perfect package...

(1) Balance of Power: Input power-Power consumption ratio I feel was perfectly balanced.
(2) Cooling factors-exhaust I feel was really balanced as well
(3) Hardware choices to = the balance of power consumption.
(4) Geforce GTX all the way!!
(5) JUst the right amount of I/O's
(6) The soft backlit keyboard
(7) The entire design completely fits the performance.

Compared to other laptops and price and the "Market" with how it is
I feel that Asus did a great job of putting together a amazing machine for the price.
I have had this G75 for about a year now and I have had 0 issues I wasn't able to work out
or make better.
This machine and this community has taught me so much about this industry and helped me better understand it.

I was even able to upgrade my GPU from a 660m to a 670m in this thing myself and thanks to Dreamonics help and help
of others in this community I have a blazing fast machine that can run any game out there and it was even able to before I upgraded
GPU's and I had a lot of fun doing it and that's all that matters.
And also as soon as I got this G75 home I started fresh installs with everything and added a Samsung 128 SSD.

So yes I will spend 2k on my next Asus G series.

[Zygomorphic]

@Dreamonic, that is almost exactly the reasoning that I used when I bought my ROG machine. It wasn't the fastest, but it was pretty close to the fastest, and the cooling is really good. That, and the G53SX has excellent LINUX support out of the box. The alternative computer, a Sony Vaio F, had a slower GPU, half the RAM, Blu-ray, and terrible LINUX support. My choice was then made. Sure, there are things that could be better, but overall, I got the computer that I wanted. When I have to replace this computer, a 15" ROG laptop is high on my list.

@rewben, the community around here is why I am still here. It is nice to see a forum where we aren't constantly dealing with trolls and stuff like that.

[rewben]

Dreamonic wrote:
As hard as it may seem to admit purchasing more for less on these machines, it really isn't about how far your dollar can go all the time, nor does it mean you are really getting less for your dollar either.

You cannot compare electronics by average lifespan or reliability charts as all electronics have their share of lemons, so comparing this aspect is redundant; There will always be one bad apple in the bunch. What you are left with is just dollar value.

When I paid $1638 for my G, I knew what I was buying into. That's why I wasn't expecting $1600 performance. What I got was a nicely balanced machine, exactly what I wanted. I'm not after glued on pieces and decals and gaudy colors like other manufacturers use on their machines just to attract the consumer dollar. Your money is going more to performance in those cases instead. To each their own though.

I find that the G75's have massive potential for GPU overclocking thanks to their not using of shared fan cooling systems as well as ASUS choice of fan sizes and fin spread, not to mention their tested efficiency in thermal exhausting.

I rarely use notebooks like they are intended, which is portability. Mine simply rests on a desk hooked up to an external monitor (PB278Q) and sees a few games here and there. I like the fact knowing that when I take a trip that I can depend on my notebook to remain sturdy and stable while paired with a 1080p screen, backlit keyboard and decent specs for moderate to heavy use without temperature problems requiring additional equipment like a cooling pad to accompany my carrying bag. I don't need top of the line or best bang for buck gaming rig, I just need what is enough for me. After all, money well spent is exactly that, no matter the cost.

I've done correctional mods ranging from installing SSDs (RAID 0) to an intake chassis mod, to newly applied thermal paste to accommodate my completely OC utility free 1325/3000 @ 1.3v modded 660M vBIOS. I've put my system through a lot and it still remains reliable and in the same cosmetic condition I bought it in.


If life shows us one thing, it's that it's not what is in the hands of the maker that matters, it's in the gathering of hands that will immerse us into the experience that gives meaning to ourselves. I have truly met some great people here on this forum that have similar passions as me. Time tails into the present that had I never made that purchase.. what would I have missed.


So I ask myself, was the $1600 worth it? Yes.

@Dreamonic, very well said 🙂

Zygomorphic wrote:


@rewben, the community around here is why I am still here. It is nice to see a forum where we aren't constantly dealing with trolls and stuff like that.

@Zygomorphic, i know. that's why i am still here, too 🙂

[d_2]

Oh well, it seems that everyone is happy with their buy.
I'm more or less.
First reason it's the screen. It looks like it's full of grease when you have a light color background. I've had other matte screens, and never had this feeling.
The keyboard is squicky, especially the space key, but it's not the only one. Also, for the price of this machines, the lack of an ambient light sensor, to turn off the keyboard lights and adjust the screen brightness according with the luminosity of the environment.
Locked BIOS? I was thinking it's a ROG machine, not an office lenovo, and the gaming performance it's not exactly top of the line, in newer games you cannot max out the settings.
Unupgradeable video card, even in the VX, so you are forced to buy a newer product, instead of just buying a more performant video.
So, my 2$: it's a decent machine, but nowhere close to the league in witch asus wants you to think that it is. Worts the money? For me no. It's my first and last asus, that's for sure.

[Apexing]

and thats why its important to do research befor, throwing down a wad of cash.
I´m perfectly happy with my laptop, did plenty of research befor buying it. Does what I want it to do, play what I want it to and the settings I want it to.

[d_2]

Point taken.
In my defense, I've found out about this forum only after i bought the machine. And, for this price i was expecting more quality.
What it's done it's done, the lesson have been learned.

Edit:
The ONLY excellent thing about this machine, it's this community. :))

[DirkHardeck]

I love my G46, but like others have said, I knew what it was good at and where its failings were. By adding an mSATA and changing out the screen, most of the unique failings have been reconciled. But gaming laptops are often flawed by nature.

Gaming laptops are a strange breed. It is completely counterintuitive: a cramped chassis with poor cooling potential (compared to a decent desktop case), and an integrated motherboard with very low voltage potential. Sure, a large Clevo chassis will still cool decently and you can house a desktop processor and SLI if you like, if you don't mind your mobo components desoldering themselves. No truly gaming quality keyboard and screen can be married to a laptop...hooking them up to a monitor and external keyboard is great and all but it begs the question, why a laptop in the first place? Personally, I keep a couple of gaming rigs around the house plus a laptop, that is for travel and when I am being lazy in the recliner, sipping on some bourbon, and I want to play some Baldur's Gate with the touchpad 😉

With the SFF options these days (Bitfenix Prodigy anyone? And that new ROG mini-ITX board ::drool::), you can't make much of a LAN party argument.

These are just the things that come to mind when people talk of being disappointed with gaming laptop performance, especially when they are attempting to overclock to make up the difference. No, a $1600 laptop simply won't get $1600 of performance. Even if you consider that you are getting a monitor and keyboard in that package. And the overclocking potential in a laptop rarely seems worthwhile, I wouldn't overclock desktop components with stock cooling and a case with poor airflow, why do it to a laptop? (of course I do it anyway, but I am illustrating the foolhardiness). Asus has been an exception in this regard with their excellent cooling, but given the limitations of being soldered onto a laptop mobo, you cannot expect a night and day difference and there is the component degradation to worry about with the parts all being so close together.

OP, you are making a wise choice with building a desktop. Although you can tweak and mod laptops (like the fine ppl in these forums have done, beautiful work), its generally best left to the desktop realm. A time and place for everything....if your budget and space allows it, a remotely serious GAMER needs a real desktop rig, if you are playing new titles. Just my opinion.