I needed a new laptop, and after weeks of investigating I decided on the ASUS G73. After placing my pre-order, 2 weeks later it arrives! To make this review (hopefully) more interesting, I recorded most of it as I was using it as video. This article is an accompaniment to the videos, so I can provide more detail on certain things I missed/didn’t have time to explain in the videos. Because there's so much to say about this, its a big article.So without further ado… lets go!

Price £1713 + £69 for 3^rd Year Warranty + £20 Insured Delivery from www.asuslaptop.co.uk

Looks

As widely reported, the design of the G73 was based on a fighter plane. This sounds quite corny but when you actually see it, you realise “holy hell…. Now I get it”. The colouring, materials, build quality, sturdiness and obviously the vents male you stand up and listen. Just picking it up/pushing it here and there is impressive, its completely solid with almost no give, and looks wise, it just works. Kind of like when you first seen an I-Mac and thought “oh that’s pretty… why didn’t they do that before”, but this time its more like “Aggressively understated yet very good looking AND clever cooling…. Genius!”.

I’m glad to see that companies are starting to move away too from the technique a few years ago that was used on notebook screens which was, “Make it as glossy/reflective as possible” which was great indoors/dark areas, but in full or semi sunlight, you couldn’t see anything. Now it seems, the tactic is not gloss it up, but instead use a better quality monitor with better contrast ratio so that blacks look black without having to use glass/film/screen coatings as a gimmick

For a laptop... Damn thats impressive!

Being able to switch off the lights in the keyboard mean you could even use this in an office environment without drawing too much attention to yourself, or looking like you are ready to take to the battlefield when really you are typing up meeting notes.

Left 4 Dead 2

Runs like an absolute dream. Does not visibly slow down whatsoever and looks fantastic. Backtracking on what I said in the videos about the non RAID0 hard drive setup, it means I can play L4D2 from one hard drive, while recording fraps directly onto the other as to get minimal slow down, NICE!

Battlefield Bad Company 2

Runs fantastically at the highest resolution. Only really started to slow down when setting things like AA and AF to > 4X Settings, which was a bit overkill. For best results, Keep AA to 2 or 4 and AF to 2 or 4, and you will get a fantastic smooth game, which looks amazing, even at 1080p.

Aliens VS Predator

With this game being DX 11 supported, it makes sense to turn them on (DX11 options). In order to get this game running smooth, it was best to have AA set to 2X both regular and DX11 AA. Removing the DX11 features may be an option as they aren’t that noticeable, though if you know what you are looking for it’s a nice thing to behold. This is one game that the Overclocking Turbo Button is handy for, press it then load the game up and even at maximum settings, it’s quicker. Either way, its more than capable of playing it at slightly-below highest AA and AF Settings, and looks gorgeous.

Final Conclusion

This laptop is a monster. Some may say it is an expensive monster, but compared to the likes of Alienware, this is exceptionally good value. It has everything to raise the bar for other gaming laptops to follow, from DX11 5870 (which at the time of writing this Alienware UK do not provide), to a decent core I7, a whopping 8GB of DDR3 RAM, 3 year GLOBAL warranty, all for less than 2 grand! I spent a long time looking at alternatives, such as the Toshiba Quosimo or the Alienware M17X, but I’m very glad I went for this choice, and I believe I will have this laptop for a good few years to come.

What makes the deal even sweeter is the free branded goodies that come with it. This isn’t just a laptop, it’s a complete top-end mobile gaming system. Simply put – buy this and you don’t need to buy anything else. Excellent quality gaming mouse? Check. Great sounding headset with mic? Check. Carry bag to hold it all in? Check. Best of all, they all match, share the same feel, materials, and most of all, quality.

As someone who spent a lot of time investigating top end laptop, there is “The law of laptop buying” which I studied a LOT across all of the laptops I checked out, and this is by far the best.

The “Law of laptop buying” says:

“You can choose Cheap (Price), Reliable, or Fast. Pick 2, as you will never get all 3.”

And for years I have followed this code, until now. I genuinely believe this is the first system to break the mould, and bring power that stands up to the likes of Rock and Alienware to the masses, and wow what a job. The saving grace of the likes of Alienware too has always been the “design and look” which before now were one of their secondary selling points. Aesthetically speaking, as mentioned earlier, it’s design was based off that of a fighter plane, and this design is not just limited to it’s aggressive looks, it’s also the basis for one of the most effective cooling solutions I have ever seen in a gaming notebook. Noise wise, it’s quieter than most standard laptops, and I’m almost tempted to say as quiet as a netbook, and somehow it manages to stay cool too (when normal gaming laptops would have you in the burns unit by then. Move over Apples IPad, this really IS a magical device, and compared to our other options as a UK shopper, the price is fantastic too (bearing us poor Brits gets raped when it comes to pricing compared to the USA). Ladies and gentlemen, this laptop has all 3 of the laws of laptop buying.

Even with the few niggles I outline below, all in all, if you are looking for a gaming laptop, look no further; as for the money, it truly doesn’t get any better than this.

SCORE: 9.5/10

Bootnote

Sorry for saying “Nice” 1,000,000 times in the videos, by the time I had edited all of the video, I’d done my own head in saying it! I’ll remember that for next time ;)

Issues

Since using the G73 I have came across a couple of small issues which I have since dealt with, though I feel it is important to not only disclose what these issues are, but show you how to fix them. To be honest none of these are really ASUS’ fault. The GSOD issue is ATI’s fault, and the other 2 issues are simple 3rd party driver issues, which can easily be fixed.

GSOD – Grey Screen of Death

Apparently ATI shipped ASUS a bad batch of Radeon 5870’s, and the results are that you get a “Grey Screen Of Death” when using it. This issue has been raised by a very small amount of users, and the solution is simple, return your laptop to ASUS for a non-affected unit.

Caps Lock Minimising Issue

In my review when I am playing bad company 2, you see both when BC2 first gets in game, and a few minutes later that the screen goes black for a few seconds. This is down to the fact I use the CAPSLOCK key as sprint, and when I was pressing it. It was minimising the game then restoring it.

If you are just on the windows desktop, and press caps lock, a little window appears at the bottom right which displays a “Caps lock on/off” message, which steals the focus (highlighted window). This is what is happening when you are in game, and is why you get the black screen.

Believe it or not this issue is down to the Bluetooth software, and to solve it simply:

Press Ctrl, Alt and Delete, start task manager, then close BTTray.exe from the processes list

Or, to stop it loading up each time windows starts:

· Push the start button

· Type “MSCONFIG”, press Return

· Go to the “Startup” tab, and make sure “BTTray.exe” is NOT ticked

· Press OK

Freeze/Lockups in games (Especially Battlefield Bad Company 2).

A video of this glitch can be seen here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_PiFTdqylw

Creative have done a great job at providing crap buggy drivers for the sound, which causes game freezes/lockups, which are EXACTLY like this –

I experienced 3 of these lockups, and a bit of researching later revealed they were down to the sound drivers. To solve this issue:

· Go to Control Panel, Programs and Features

· Uninstall anything you see that has “Creative®” in it

· Go back to control panel, then system, Click “Device manager on the left”
Expand Audio, then uninstall sound drivers. When prompted, tick the “delete driver” box.

· Get the latest RealTek 64 bit audio drivers from here LINK

· Restart PC

Sorted