cntzero
05-25-2010, 11:10 PM
OK, I thought I would write a brief review of my G73. Hopefully this will give the guy or gal sitting on the fence some insight on whether to drop 1.7k on this machine.
First of all I was looking for a desktop replacement machine. I wanted something that had plenty of disk space so the G73 fit the bill with 1 TB. I don't care about battery life because 95% of the time I am running this machine from my desk and when I travel I will always be in a hotel or at the office. So, the G73 thirst for juice is not a problem.
The laptop I chose had to have a great screen, check. The G73 screen is gorgeous and when I take my machine on the road it more than does the job. In my office I have a Dell 2408 and a Acer P235H hooked up and my G73 drives them perfectly well. I also had some fun and I split out the HDMI to the Acer and to my HD TV (J-Tech 1x2 HDMI splitter). The splitter works pretty good; there are some limitations but I am happy with it.
The laptop had to be powerful enough to run all my apps well. Again, the G73 laughs at just about anything I throw at it. I wanted a laptop that also could run games at a high level. The G73 flat kicks ass, no problems whatsoever. I could have built a desktop machine that would be faster for about the same money, but not that much faster.
I wanted a machine that had a good warranty, check Asus 2 years with 1 year white glove is hard to beat.
Sounds great right? Well, it is but there are some proverbial flies in the ointment. The biggest gripe I have is that the sound card will freak out and ugly static will scream out at fairly high levels. Yes I have tried all the fixes and it is better now but a far cry from perfect. Right now I am running the latest drivers from RealTek and have removed the Creative drivers. I am currently using the output jack (or the hdmi) for sound to either the desktop speakers or to my surround sound system and have zero issues. The problem is of course if I have the laptop away from my office, that ugly burst of static (that you can't shut off) can begin to howl out and I can't stop it unless I shut the entire laptop down. I have read the horror stories of folks that tried the bios upgrade and I am staying far, far away from that fix!
The little rubber feet on the bottom of the machine are glued on with a substance with the adhesive qualities of spit and bubble gum. They will easily rub off if you slide the laptop around on the desk.
The BD drive can howl like a lunatic monkey because the face plate can vibrate against the main chassis of the laptop.
I liked the feel of the chicklet keyboard at first, but quickly grew to hate it because of lag. However this is not a deal killer either because I run my wireless Microsoft 6000 keyboard (which I think has a great feel) and have no issues.
So, to sum it up, the G73 is a great laptop however it has some issues one might expect for a first version out of the box. The fixes to the problems for Asus should be fairly straight forward I think and if I wasn't if a big hurry to own this laptop I would recommend folks wait until the next revision comes out (if it does).
Personally I would buy this laptop again, even if I knew the problems prior to my purchase. For me since this truly is a desktop replacement the problems do not manifest themselves in my current setup (remote keyboard and speakers). It is not perfect, but pretty close to it. If I where a 100 percent road warrior I don't think I would buy this machine. The power consumption, keyboard and sound issues are too much of a negative.
My last comment is that I am watching the forums and blogs waiting to see if there is a real fix to the keyboard and sound problems. I have my fingers crossed that Asus will have a fix for the sound card and keyboard problems and make all things right in the end.
Oh, almost forgot, it really sucks that there is no ExpressCard/34 slot on this machine. I guess I have to go USB for my 3g wireless connection.
Cheers,
Cntzero
First of all I was looking for a desktop replacement machine. I wanted something that had plenty of disk space so the G73 fit the bill with 1 TB. I don't care about battery life because 95% of the time I am running this machine from my desk and when I travel I will always be in a hotel or at the office. So, the G73 thirst for juice is not a problem.
The laptop I chose had to have a great screen, check. The G73 screen is gorgeous and when I take my machine on the road it more than does the job. In my office I have a Dell 2408 and a Acer P235H hooked up and my G73 drives them perfectly well. I also had some fun and I split out the HDMI to the Acer and to my HD TV (J-Tech 1x2 HDMI splitter). The splitter works pretty good; there are some limitations but I am happy with it.
The laptop had to be powerful enough to run all my apps well. Again, the G73 laughs at just about anything I throw at it. I wanted a laptop that also could run games at a high level. The G73 flat kicks ass, no problems whatsoever. I could have built a desktop machine that would be faster for about the same money, but not that much faster.
I wanted a machine that had a good warranty, check Asus 2 years with 1 year white glove is hard to beat.
Sounds great right? Well, it is but there are some proverbial flies in the ointment. The biggest gripe I have is that the sound card will freak out and ugly static will scream out at fairly high levels. Yes I have tried all the fixes and it is better now but a far cry from perfect. Right now I am running the latest drivers from RealTek and have removed the Creative drivers. I am currently using the output jack (or the hdmi) for sound to either the desktop speakers or to my surround sound system and have zero issues. The problem is of course if I have the laptop away from my office, that ugly burst of static (that you can't shut off) can begin to howl out and I can't stop it unless I shut the entire laptop down. I have read the horror stories of folks that tried the bios upgrade and I am staying far, far away from that fix!
The little rubber feet on the bottom of the machine are glued on with a substance with the adhesive qualities of spit and bubble gum. They will easily rub off if you slide the laptop around on the desk.
The BD drive can howl like a lunatic monkey because the face plate can vibrate against the main chassis of the laptop.
I liked the feel of the chicklet keyboard at first, but quickly grew to hate it because of lag. However this is not a deal killer either because I run my wireless Microsoft 6000 keyboard (which I think has a great feel) and have no issues.
So, to sum it up, the G73 is a great laptop however it has some issues one might expect for a first version out of the box. The fixes to the problems for Asus should be fairly straight forward I think and if I wasn't if a big hurry to own this laptop I would recommend folks wait until the next revision comes out (if it does).
Personally I would buy this laptop again, even if I knew the problems prior to my purchase. For me since this truly is a desktop replacement the problems do not manifest themselves in my current setup (remote keyboard and speakers). It is not perfect, but pretty close to it. If I where a 100 percent road warrior I don't think I would buy this machine. The power consumption, keyboard and sound issues are too much of a negative.
My last comment is that I am watching the forums and blogs waiting to see if there is a real fix to the keyboard and sound problems. I have my fingers crossed that Asus will have a fix for the sound card and keyboard problems and make all things right in the end.
Oh, almost forgot, it really sucks that there is no ExpressCard/34 slot on this machine. I guess I have to go USB for my 3g wireless connection.
Cheers,
Cntzero