ASUS G55VW-DS71 15.6-Inch Gaming Notebook (Black)

This is simply my first impression of this notebook, i will update later to make sure no problems have arised. This beast has everything you need to take on everyday work, photoshop, gaming, AutoCAD, and it does it flawlessly. The matte black ruberized material used throughout the notebook feels nice and gives you some extra grip and is cool to the touch. The dual fan system keeps everything cool even when you're gaming with it on your lap! My previous laptop practically gave me 3rd degree burns when i used it on my lap. The backlit keyboard is very nice and looks beautiful in a dark room. The notebook does come with a software that limits CPU/GPU clock speeds for when you're simply browsing the internet or using word, which you can switch back to gaming mode for 100% power! I have had no problems with this product and highly recommend it.

Pros:

For me, the best thing about this laptop is that it stays quiet and cool under heavy load, including while playing games.

I can play Skyrim or Diablo3 on ultra settings without burning my lap. The grills on the exhaust vents on the back can get hot, but never dangerously so in my experience. This is in contrast to my previous laptop, where the exhaust vent was hot enough to cause burns.

Rear exhaust vents are also much nicer than side vents; you can sit next to someone without blowing hot air at them the whole time.

Screen quality is good. It's a matte screen (not glossy). The matte coating is not excessive though; pixels are still clearly defined. The screen is also very bright; I usually keep it towards the dimmest settings at night.

I was originally planning to replace the HDD with an SSD, but honestly the laptop is so snappy that I cannot imagine it going any faster. Having a full 750GB is nice too.

Keyboard feel is nice. Having a numpad is extra nice (especially for games). The keyboard backlight supports 4 levels (off, dim, medium, bright).

Overall the build and materials have a high quality feeling to them. The construction is also solid; no flex when you lift it one-handed from one corner (assuming you have the wrist strength).

Cons:

As many others reviews have mentioned, this laptop is uncharacteristically heavy for a 15" laptop -so be prepared.

The other problem that I (and many others) experienced is that the sound level is too high! To keep it in a quiet regime, you must set the global sound volume to somewhere between 1-8 (out of 100) on the speaker volume tray icon. On the flip side, the audio level is very good when watching movies with high dynamic range, since you can actually hear the quiet parts.

Another minor annoyance is that I tend to jostle the power cable out of the socket when moving the laptop too far left on my lap.

A final complaint is that unless you are Shaq, you will need two hands to adjust the volume with the keyboard, since you need to press Fn+F11 and Fn+F12 for volume-up and volume-down.

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But on a more objective perspective, I have had numerous ASUS products and they have proven to be built to live and are of very good quality. Not to forget the great software support that they offer.

To start with, and clear any questions you may have, this version of the notebook does NOT have the 3D transmitter built in and does not have the Blu-Ray drive. That model would have the 3D designation in the model number (G55VW ...... 3D). Not sure how effective 3D gaming would be on a 15" screen, the screen has amazing colors and no noticeable dead/always on pixels on the unit I have (unlike all my previous notebooks Dell and HP, Dell died HP still is ticking. Hence Alienware was not an option when I was looking to get this).

With a 15" the full HD pixel density and LED it makes everything look much nicer than my 23" desktop full HD screen. However, I am not yet sure if the notebook screen supports 3D gaming with an external NVidia Nvision2 transmitter and glasses but the HDMI 1.4 should be able to on an external supporting display.

The NVidia card GT660M has the umph to run WoW on full settings on DX11, and that's mainly what I bought this notebook for. Running WoWish games should be no problem for the i7 3610 and the NVidia card although there is some slowdown where there are more players to render, the more taxing games like BF3, Future Solder, etc. level of games would need to be toned down a bit in the setting department (i.e. antialiasing and anisotropic filtering down or off).

The power management is spot on, Asus did well on that, but you'll miss the switch of graphics between the i7 integrated graphics and the GT660M maybe it is a software feature that will be available later who knows. You'll get an ROG button that chooses the operation mode from battery saver to full on performance with parameters you set, even the windows theme changes on battery saver.

The battery is OK, the GT660M burns through it though in a just around an hour when gaming and a few on normal usage (including normal brightness), however, you get almost a week of standby for the notebook on battery saver, and the included "always on" (I think) software tells you when it will no longer turn on. I forgot mine for a few days after it shutdown and once I plugged it in it resumed windows normally so you don't get that "windows was shutdown incorrectly" message, it remains standby mode.

However, the power brick is big and bulky and the short "unplugged" gaming life hinders the portability of the G55,,, the weight also factors in as it is not very light... but you knew that, right,,, when you thought about this notebook as a purchase option,,, right,,, anyone... unfortunately, and somewhat expectedly, you're getting a powerful gaming almost desktop-replacement notebook. So, make sure to choose "near the wall" seating in coffee shops and such because you'll need a power source for any decent gaming session.

There is absolutely no flex to the keyboard, and it is nicely backlit and not too bright. You get the usual Fn keys that control the volume (would have preferred the normal physical control, not a problem though) and other standard features. The notebook runs cool, quiet and comfortable, you may notice in some pictures that they show it with a full heat fins on the back, but that is only a showcase model. The back fins are almost three quarters (give or take a few) of the back, the battery has to take a part of it.

All in all I do recommend this product, if you want a really good gaming notebook you're at the right place for the right price. You also have the power for graphic and media processing, but not sure if there are other notebooks better suited for that specific application in terms of weight and battery life. Because the G55 is a powerhouse of gaming features and is built specific with a gamer in mind as the target customer.

Five out of five

Cheers,

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The G55VW is a great 15-inch laptop. Received on 7 August, 2012.

After arrival, I unboxed it and set up was relatively painless. This specific package ships with a nice-ish green colored backpack, supplying ample padding in the case of computer transport. The power-brick was a small surprise, being almost twice as large/heavy as my brother's Alienware M14X's 'brick. The computer itself is slick and a little more mature looking than an Alienware, without all of the premium lighting options. The computer's matte finish and matte 1920x1080 display really come together well.

I proceeded to load up the G55 with Adobe CS6, and Steam (with a large complement of games). Photoshop runs well, and I have to be actually trying in order to make it think a bit on the filter processing and amount of layers I have up. With Steam, I loaded up Crysis 2, Red Faction: Armageddon and Tribes: Ascend to test out overall graphics processing, physics-handling and reaction speed of the computer, respectively. In all three aspects, the 2.0 GB graphics card held up well, allowing me to run the games in full 1080p with high quality settings and the AA turned off. Turning AA on was a bit of a different story, so don't expect to be able to crank out the smooth pixels on this baby. Don't even worry about noise or heat with this thing, they're almost no factor at all.

After 2 solid days of use, I can say that none of the bundled software (except of course the McAfee antivirus) made me want to remove it, and seems to function well with the computer. The exception to this rule is that I needed an update for the audio drivers in order to make the on-screen-display (OSD) function correctly. Other than that, it's been smooth sailing.

Buy with confidence and know that if anything goes wrong, I'll be back to update my review.

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So far this computer has handled everything I've thrown at it game wise that would have killed my last computer. The sound is on this computer is amazing to me, its extremley loud I have to keep it on the lowest volume setting and it works great. It boots up extremley fast and shuts down just as quick. I usually have a 4 hour battery life, which I can't complain because its a gaming laptop so you can't expect much out of the battery. The free mouse and bag are a good throw in for how much you spend on it. To be honest my only complaint about it so far is it is by far the heaviest laptop I've ever owned but again it can't be a negative, because when your buy a powerful gaming computer its going to have a shorter battery life and be quite heavy. But if you want my opinion, this computer is a great buy and has a lot better specs then other computers I saw at this price.