ASUS G51J-A1 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop (Blue)

I have been waiting for the i7 core laptops to release and here it is. I originally had a dell XPS 16 on order forever and a day (32 days to be exact) and they delayed it AGAIN, so I looked elsewhere. Amazon had this one in stock and got it for next day shipping for $40! And saved a ton off the dell version.

As for the laptop itself, it is a great machine. It boots very fast, does not run hot (considering equipment). The screen is beautiful and the keyboard has a nice feel to it. What it used to take my Core 2 Duo desktop 12 hours to do, this does in 4 (compressing and archiving over 100gb of photos in a .rar)! I have tried to tax the crap out of it and can never get the processors to 100%. Gaming will fix that.

I am not a huge gamer, but wanted a powerful machine for a lot of photo \ movie stuff and also play the occasional game (COD MW2). Also, as a graduate student, I often hook up external monitors and use Dragon NS 10.1 and it has absolutely no issues with it. This is way overkill, but a sweet machine nonetheless.

Prosbuilt in Blue-tooth, sweet wireless card, cooling seem adequate. Core i7!

Some minor annoyancesLights on external lid can not be shut off.

One more noteAmazon's write up states only 4gb, but it can actually go to 8gb according to ASUS and a lot of 'boutique' sites.

Reasons for not getting four stars:

Very low batt. lifeGaming laptop, so take that for what it is worth

No fingerprint reader (comes with facial recognition, but that can be beat with a photo)

Dual drives but no RAID?!??

A very excellent gaming laptop for the money. Sure, it's not as fast as a dedicated desktop gaming rig, but for a portable one it's hard to beat. My only complaint would be the LCD is somewhat washed out which appears to be from the LED's in the top of the lid. Notice when the rig is asleep and the screen raised, one can see bleedthrough from the blinking LED in logo. Not a big deal, but if I had one complaint, that would be it. Also, much to my surprise this thing stays pretty cool to the touch. I expected it to get extremely hot, but it doesn't. The air coming out of the left side is very hot, but to touch the laptop remains cool. You can actually play games on this for hours without baking your hands and face off.

Pros:

* Great performance for the price

* ASUS provides an awesome warranty and accidental protection for this, so you can take it to a lan-party and not worry

* Plays Dragon Age, Torchlight, Empire Total War, LFD1, Warhammer: DOW2, OFP2: Dragon Rising, MSFlight X, Demigod, all extremely well at native res

* World of Warcraft runs beautifully at native res!

* Keyboard functions well and has adjustable illumination

* Relatively quiet for a gaming laptop

* i7 processor is blazingly fast

* HDMI and VGA output means this can be used to game on a TV (keep lid open!)

* Included mouse and bag are both excellent and high quality

* Totally reliable, no crashes even after hours of playing

Cons:

* The LED lights in the lid can bleed through into the LCD

* ARMA2 runs very poorly

* 260M graphics card slightly underclocked on this model

* Cannot be used to game on an external monitor with lid closed (not really unexpected though)

Buy ASUS G51J-A1 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop (Blue) Now

Pros:

-i7 mobile processor

-Sturdy Construction

-Beautiful Display

-Backlit Keyboard with a num pad and superb feel.

-Great Graphics (Full 1920x1080)

-Solid Webcam

-Free Accessories (Bag and Gaming Mouse)

Cons:

-Battery Life (Not really that bad considering the amount of horsepower in this machine.)

-Another review mentioned the RAM being upgradable to 8GB but I'm not seeing that on ASUS' website:

-Does come with ASUS' bloatware but some of it is actually useful unlike every other laptop I've ever owned.

I was in the market for a new laptop that I could take with me to and from work. This was the only machine I could find that had the spec set I was looking for.

I don't do much gaming on my PC. I mostly use it for work: multimedia editing/production. In the short time that I've had this machine it has blown me away with its performance. Video previews render out very quickly for a laptop. Captures also perform admirably. Disk burning and ripping is fast and flawless.

I would recommend this machine very highly to anyone looking for a portable multimedia editing station.

Out of the Box Windows Experience Index:

Processor: 7.0

Memory: 7.3

Graphics: 6.7

Gaming Graphics: 6.7

HDD: 5.9

Read Best Reviews of ASUS G51J-A1 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop (Blue) Here

There is a lot to like with this laptop. Including: great performance, good price, beautiful screen, sturdy feel, good standard warranty and the two hard drives. I have very quickly become a fan of ASUS, it seems you get a lot for your money and the company is really trying to build a quality differentiated product. The added mouse and backpack are a nice touch and are very reasonable quality.

The screen and size of the laptop feel a lot bigger than the 15.6". I think it is the illusion created by the HD 16-9 format screen and the high native resolution 1920x1080. Win 7 seems to run very quickly on the machine and it frankly is a huge upgrade of Vista/XP.

So what kept my rating from 5 stars is a couple of quirks that could be a deal killer for some people. Number one is the often mentioned battery life, if you are going to be using this on battery, expect about an hour give or take depending how you use it. I like full screen brightness and power and at those settings about an hour is all I get. I know, it is a gaming PC, but still an hour seems a bit short. I just purchased a bigger 9 cell battery and we will see how that does. The 9-volt battery should be standard or at least an option. Nonetheless, the battery life is the main reason why I gave the machine four stars and not five.

While, I love the dual drives, not sure why they partitioned the drives into 4 separate partitions, it doesn't take much to undo the default set up but was a minor hassle. Also, they should give you the option of having the drives in a RAID configuration, which as far as I know is not possible. So while I like the dual drives it could have been implemented better.

Also, the 120W ASUS power brick is exactly that a brick. I know it is giving off a lot of power, but the thing is a boat anchor. It feels like a couple of pounds which takes the total package weight up. I ended up buying a second power adapter, for work so I don't have to carry it back and forth from home to work along with the laptop.

I like the keyboard now, but it did take some getting used to. The keys are similar to a Mac keyboard and they squished a full keyboard with num keypad. At first, I really did not like it as it was causing a lot of typing errors, and some of the keys are in slightly different spots. After a week or so I am used to it and now really like it. I like having the full keypad/numpad and I am used to the size and the keys. Some people may find the keyboard a deal killer as well, but like I said I didn't like it at first, but it only took about a week to get used to it. Now I really like it.

My other complaints are that the manual was very skinny and the web presence for ASUS is lacking so not much info there. I suspect as ASUS gets bigger in the states that will improve. Also, I could not find a travel adapter for the machine that works on airplanes and ASUS does not make one. I guess the downside of a lesser known brand is the fewer peripheral choices.

Overall, the quirks were not deal killers for me and after investigating numerous gaming/multimedia laptops this was far and away the best choice in my view.

Want ASUS G51J-A1 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop (Blue) Discount?

NOTE:This is for the Intel Core 2 Duo model. Not the I7.

I really loved this computer, i say loved because i just didnt think it was necessary for me, since i already have a PS3, 360, and a gaming Desktop, so yes it was a bit overkill. But i'm glad i tried it out just the same. I got this laptop right after the release of the windows 7 models, also i had a friend who had the old Asus G51 i believe, with the Nvidia 9800GTM, with 512mb of memory. This one comes with the Nvidia Geforce 260M, which isnt quite as powerful as the desktop models, but holds its own for a laptop. I actually have an ATI 4850 1mb that beats this card quite a bit, and can play pretty much anything at 1920 x 1080, but thats neither here nor there. Being able to play pretty much any game thats on Xbox on this laptop is a very cool way to do things, especially if you travel and want to whip out, Call of Duty MW 1 or 2, Dead Space, Devil May Cry 4, Borderlands, or even something old like Doom 3 or SIMs 2, whatever your pleasure. So bascially yes this is a portable Xbox 360, and plays much the same, resolution wise, etc. The speakers leave something to be desired, but if you go down to your icons next to the clock you'll see the real tek red speaker. Click on it, go to the menu underneath where it says sound effects, you'll get many options like Club, Rock, Classic, etc. Choose live, and the volume will shoot up drastically, the only time you should uncheck it, is when watching a movie, not sure why this is, but it works. The native resolution is low, but even the G72 is still only 1600 x 900, and not full 1080p, but most laptops aren't considering the punishment the smaller screens will take with this high resolution. You really shouldnt start getting into the 1080p area until about 24inches or so. Besides if you look on Xbox live and see the demos, it tells you exactly which games have what resolution. Well sadly, very very very few have it, and most are 720, or 1080i. The only draw back i've seen or heard are two things, what i've heard is the wireless drops quite frequently and even on all the Asus models it may do the same. Thats the biggest issue i've heard about ASUS in general. While i didnt have a problem in this area, what i did notice is when copying movies, the max speed you can get with the software your given is 4x, this i thought is totally unacceptable. Next to my girlfriends cheap Toshiba(which i gave her) it was really really slow at burning. Converting is fast and a breeze, and why the drive slows when copying or burning, i have no idea. Thats why i decided to move up to the G72 which was a beast in itself, but just to much money for me to blow. After using it for a few days i decided i didnt need it, but compared to its little brother, the burning was fine, speakers where much better, the resolution was well, about the same, but had 6 gigs of RAM to make up for the slower 5400rpm hard drive. So all in all they are about on the same level, and if you check with this model the calculations per second and the Pentium Core 2 Duo of 2.13ghz actually gets 5 stars, as compared to the G72 getting 4 on the intel sticker. Best buy now has this model(not the I7 which i imagine is sweet) for 899, i would definitely get one while they last. So if you want a great computer for all around, and its not to big, get this lil bad boy, or just up and get the big brother, they are really about the same.

Also something else to note is i really liked the rubbery texture to rest your hand on as opposed to the high glossy blue that comes on the G72. This one shows prints much less and can easily be removed. Another thing is don't always rely on the Windows Rating Index, this computer shows the same as the G72 pretty much in every area, which i don't see how its possible considering the bigger model has a 2.53ghz duo core processor. Strange. And least but not least, do not i repeat do not but your PC games anymore at Gamestop(which is stopping anyways) or Best Buy. Go and download them from either GamersGate or Direct to Drive dr2d(my personal fav) and you'll find anything you want DRM free. No kidding, the DRM is removed and there are no discs and you can re-download anytime you like. Also i've heard went Infinity Ward gets up off its rear and finally fixes all the flaws with the pc version of COD MW2 they are aiming for these sites to be the first with the fixed versions. So definitely take the warning, stay away from discs, download digital. :)