Is this a good laptop?

[Alevice]

Hey nerds, can anyone recommend me the ASUS G73JH-A1?

I want to get a decent gaming laptop (I move too much around to consider using desktop), and this one seemed to be a good deal (23 999 Mexican pesos = 1 886.89738 U.S. dollars) here in Mexico.

[IskatuMesk]

gaming laptop

There's your problem right there. Don't expect much out of a laptop, especially performance comparable to a desktop.

Also holy shit are those expensive

Asus is a good brand, though. So I imagine that's as good as you're gonna get.

[Alevice]

gaming laptop

There's your problem right there. Don't expect much out of a laptop, especially performance comparable to a desktop.

Refer to the first post. I am pretty much nomadic as oflate, and it won't change anytime soon. Also, I was considering buying all the pieces and asseminbling it myself (a desktop pc, of course), but ironically, it is just as expensive to do it here. Fuck mexico.

I don't fell that bad because aparenttly the 5870 is a good GPU and it comes with 8gb.

So yeah.

[IskatuMesk]

It's a good gpu but just remember a laptop doesn't have the cooling options a desktop does, and high-end gpus make a shitton of heat.

[Alevice]

good point. according to reviews, heat is tolerable, but I guess i should check longevity

[UntamedLoli]

As long as it isn't an nVidia card/chipset you won't have to worry about trying to reflow it.

[Legion]

Hey nerds, can anyone recommend me the ASUS G73JH-A1?

I want to get a decent gaming laptop (I move too much around to consider using desktop), and this one seemed to be a good deal (23 999 Mexican pesos = 1 886.89738 U.S. dollars) here in Mexico.

You can get a kickass MacBook Pro for that kind of money.

I wouldn't spend a dime on a Windows laptop. Nothing but trouble. I've had a couple of your price-range ASUSes die on me. A desktop sure.

Don't listen to these Windows boys. They'll all come around one day.

You are ready to move over to the Dark Side. (You'll see there's lots of bright shiny things where we Mac fanboys dwell).

[Lwerewolf]

He said gaming laptop and... ah well, whatever. From what I've heard the mac's battery is insanely good (or it's just insane power management). Then the display - S-IPS is the best that you can get from an LCD IQ-wise I think (not sure again). Then the UI which, well... can't comment on it xcept multi touch and nice touchpad. Otherwise... Well just look at the 1.8k model and compare it to the thing you're getting. The asus seems to beat it in just about everything xcept for build quality (dunno what's the case there), display and battery life (guess so).

BTW have you considered getting a mini-ATX case (e.g. lan party-like) machine?

And by the way you don't need to be a windows fanboy to recommend something different than a mac, thank you

EDIT: forgot a few things

[Legion]

He said gaming laptop and... ah well, whatever. From what I've heard the mac's battery is insanely good (or it's just insane power management). Then the display - S-IPS is the best that you can get from an LCD IQ-wise I think (not sure again). Then the UI which, well... can't comment on it xcept multitouch and nice touchpad. Otherwise... Well just look at the 1.8k model and compare it to the thing you're getting. The asus seems to beat it in just about everything xcept for build quality (dunno what's the case there) and battery life (guess so).

And by the way you don't need to be a windows fanboy to recommend something different than a mac, thank you

I was only kidding of course. But not really.

Still, a gaming laptop is almost like an oxymoron, anyway, so why bother? I mean, really. The best portable gaming machine would be a console (handheld or otherwise) in my humble opinion. A Macintosh laptop beats about every Windows laptop out there in terms of usability and durability. In my experience, Windows machines always seem to want to destroy themselves. But who can blame them? If you want to do your gaming on the road, I don't think a 1.5k - 2k laptop is going to cut it unless you're one of those people that has the patience and motivation to build one.

One more thing -- the fact that the ASUS add says there's all kinds of top notch shit inside it doesn't mean it's actually going to work or not fuck itself up all of a sudden. With Macs you know what you're getting. Seriously, the day I switched over to Macs was when my days of reinstalling Windows, defragmenting, virus-scanning and whatelsehaveyou were over. FOR ME that was a great improvement. I realized I'd have to take my gaming elsewhere, but that didn't bother me one bit.

Edit:

Don't take my advice to heart. I know nothing about tech specs, I know what feels right for ME. And I am crazy.

[Lwerewolf]

Actually about that laptop in particular - I'm REALLY not sure about that HD5870's perfomance. Just check around like mad whether the drivers for this thing work properly etc. The card itself is not bad but ATI's driver team is just... yeah (not a nvidia fanboy, got a 4870 and recently a 5850 so don't kill me ). Just search for the powerplay issues with these cards (and the previous models) to get an idea.
As for the best portable gaming machine - depends on what you're going to use it for
About the mac's durability/usability - I won't comment here because well... the non-mac machines vary a lot

EDIT (just noticed smt):

Don't take my advice to heart. I know nothing about tech specs, I know what feels right for ME. And I am crazy.

The tech specs of the asus are largely superior.
Here, check the 1.8k$ model ^_^

[UntamedLoli]

...reinstalling Windows, defragmenting, virus-scanning and whatelsehaveyou were over...

Funny I've never had to do that again after dropping XP for the supposedly terrible Vista, probably be over 2 weeks uptime without any problems if it didn't have to restart for updates.

5870 also works fine, I would know because I'm using one and enjoy your chips detaching themselves from the motherboard.

[chris]

I bought a new laptop 2 days ago, I went with an acer aspire 5745G. It has a geforce 330M and a core i5 450 and 4GB of ram. It can run any game. You can run SCII on medium with it.

I got my laptop because it was incredibly cheap meaning that in only two years I'll be able to afford another computer in case something should happen to my current one.

By the way, I heard ASUS gaming laptops have severe heating issues.

[GreatGodSajuuk]

[Quote]With PCs you know what you're getting. Seriously, the day I switched over to Windows 7 was when my days of reinstalling XP, defragmenting, virus-scanning and whatelsehaveyou were over. FOR ME that was a great improvement. I realized I don't have to take my gaming elsewhere and that was cool.{/quote}

Yeah...

I hated XP with all my essence, My 2k held better than that thing. But Vista and then 7, well stuff just went into epic scale of awesomeness.

[IskatuMesk]

wtf who would seriously recommend anyone besides their most hated nemesis a mac? Yeah the ati drivers have been a bit flakey lately but only with sc2 and age of wonders 2, and one of those is a 2001 turn-based game from 2001. I still recorded sc2's campaign at 1920x1200 on max settings in playable peformance. Nvidia broke support for a shitton of old opengl stuff a loooong time ago. Ain't nothing wrong with the 5870 or the drivers. Only thing you have to worry about is heat production because laptops aren't exactly the most ventilated hardware out there. On the other hand my furnace of a 4870x2 has been running sc2, you know that game that kills Nvidia cards because of their shitty cooling, in 35-38c temperatures outdoors alone nonstop for months now.

but seriously, lol macs

[Legion]

wtf who would seriously recommend anyone besides their most hated nemesis a mac?

...

but seriously, lol macs

Okay, explain this to me. Without calling me a liar or an idiot.

How come I can do everything I want to do (except Audition) equally as well or better on my Mac than on my Windows computer?