ASUS Republic of Gamers G51JX-A1 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop (Blue)

5 Responses to " ASUS Republic of Gamers G51JX-A1 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop (Blue) "

1. D. Armstrong says:

   May 29, 2010 at 3:00 pm

   Yeah, I guess you could be upset that you didn’t get some complimentary swag or whatever with this machine, but I didn’t buy it for swag.

   Let’s get down to business, shall we?

   Pluses: Gorgeous, smooth graphics in Star Trek Online, DDO, Champions Online and Team Fortress 2 with the sliders cranked just shy of the max. EAX sound is amazing: even sounds decent out of the built-in speakers (really rocks with my headphones though). CPU performance and multitasking is sweet and responsive. I have multi-surfed Word, Visual Studio and Photoshop CS with no lag or issues.

   More ports than you can shake a stick at: plenty of USB, eSATA, FireWire (1394) and even HDMI (which outputs to full 1080p if that floats your boat). Bluetooth devices are easily paired. Amazing Windows 7 performance (rates a 5.9 Windows Experience out of the box, with 6.6s in graphics, before any tweaking)

   This thing is a sweet PC for money.

   Cons: Runs hot. Be sure to keep side vents for cooling free. Might be worth investing in a cooling mat for this bad boy. Also, can we please not pre-install a bunch of crap on our new, high-performance gaming machines? I had to uninstall a bunch of cheesey ASUS games and stuff before I could really get down to business.

   Rating:
2. D. Flaws says:

   May 29, 2010 at 5:53 pm

   I did a bit of research and this laptop seemed pretty highly anticipated by those looking to buy and well received by the few that already had them. I also saw that it seemed most of the initial shipment came with 1333MHz DDR3 ram instead of 1066. I opened mine up and it does have 1333MHz. A supply issue I guess. Very nice considering it’s a $150+ upgrade on some websites.

   I installed Borderlands and it seemed like a dog at first, then I realized I didn’t have the AC adapter plugged in. It automatically goes to a power saver mode when only on battery (of course) and it makes a big difference. Once plugged in I put all the settings on high except for anti-aliasing at 4 instead of 16 and resolution at native 1920×1080 it ran a little slow. Frame rate was around 30 usually. Fine for most games but not a FPS. At 1280×720 the frame rate was in the 50s. I played for about an hour and it was running very hot so I stopped for a while. I bought this laptop to replace an older Dell laptop I had because I burned out the vid card on the Dell, so I was a bit worried, maybe needlessly.

   The keyboard is fine but the keys are real slippery, could use some kind of texture or concave shape. They are lighted which will be very useful (hit Fn+F4 when you 1st get it, mine were turned off).
   
   Could use a USB in the back (I like to use a cooling pad) but it has 2 on each side near the front which is nice.
   
   Lights on the lid are annoying. The side ones turn off in battery mode, I’ll have to look into a setting to turn them off all the time. The logo light in the center of the lid never turns off.
   
   I like the physical switch for wireless and bluetooth.

   No dead pixels, I’ll be looking close for 30 days but I hope to not have to RMA. Nice warranties on this thing, definitely a selling point. Watch out if you try to buy an ASUS from Best Buy –they do not honor all the standard ASUS warranties, I think the accident insurance. Because Best Buy wants to sell you their own insurance for $179.

   The thing I don’t like the most about this laptop is the screen size. Not the resolution but the actual physical size. There is approximately a 3/4 inch bezel on the sides and bottom and nearly 1 1/4 inch at the top. This makes the laptop less attractive visually also, like it’s chunky and thick. The large top bezel is likely because of the webcam which I will never use. The screen could easily be 16+ inches which would help lots with the high resolution. At 1920×1080 for a laptop you need all the size you can get. Text at 100% is tiny but mine shipped at 125% so that’s smart on their part. I primarily use it for painting in Photoshop and Painter so the high resolution is great. Trying to show someone text on the screen is difficult when they can’t read it unless they are real close.

   One other thing I didn’t like was 40+GB of pre-installed software. Why anyone would want all this crap is beyond me. I was going to wipe and reinstall but there is the quick start OS which I need to look into and see if that will be wiped and if there is any difficulty reinstalling it. I pretty much always plan on wiping a new computer but most people wouldn’t so that is a factor.

   I got my backpack and mouse, I see some others didn’t.

   Oh yeah it’s not black, even the darkest part of the lid is a dark blue.

   So:
   
   +Free ram upgrade
   
   +speedy
   
   +lighted keys
   
   +wireless switch
   
   +free backpack and mouse
   
   -slippery keys
   
   -physical screen size
   
   -bloatware

   All in all very happy with it.

   Rating:
3. R. S. says:

   May 29, 2010 at 8:40 pm

   I can’t say enough good things about this machine. Yes, the “gameboy” packaging is a bit garish and it is a fingerprint magnet, but it’s what’s on the inside that counts. The ultra-high-density screen is amazing. Speed is incredible and the features can’t be beat for the money. As an IT professional, I have dealt with Asus’ technical support in the past and have found them to be outstanding. The free accidental breakage coverage is unprecedented. Get yours now!
   Rating:
4. J. Taylor says:

   May 29, 2010 at 11:38 pm

   This is the most powerful laptop I have seen at this price point. This system is easily a match for high end gaming systems by alienware or voodoo pc, but at hundreds of dollars less.

   Pros:
   
   There are a plethora of ports on the laptop – 4 usb, 1 e-sata, 1 hdmi, and 1 firewire. Add the standard network jack and multi-card reader, and you can use almost any conceivable device on this.

   The display is gorgeous, with full 1080p resolution.

   There is plenty of power out of the box. This machine was able to play Dragon Age, Champions Online, and City of Heroes at full 1920 x 1080 resolution with graphics sliders set to maximum with no slowdown.

   The power is not limited to gaming. I was able to run Word, Access, Excel, Visio, and several web browsers simultaneously with no slowdown in the applications.
   
   The illuminated keyboard is a very nice touch, making it easier to use the system in low light.

   Cons:
   
   A machine this powerful generates a lot of heat. You will need a cooling mat of some kind.

   The ROG logo and case art is cool looking, but it can be gauche in a business environment.

   The battery life is on the short side, but I had planned on using this plugged in anyway.

   Bottom Line:
   
   The G51JX-X3 is a steal for the price being offered. It is a powerful desktop replacement at a great price.
   Rating:
5. Bryan C. Greifinger says:

   May 30, 2010 at 12:46 am

   Bought this unit because i wanted a laptop with High definition and good graphics. Was originally going to spend about 800 or 900 on an acer but it took to long to come on the market. Lucky me. I spent the extra 300 or so and am very pleased I did. This is a great unit for playing tv shows and videos in high definition. Had this for a few weeks now and am very satisfied. Have not exercised all the ports yet but was able to sync my pda with music on it and download my songs. For some reason tho I’m hearing imperfections in the files when played, like skips and hesitations. Not sure why. Also noticed there was a built in microphone surrounding the built in videocam. it will echo when you listen to audio thru the headset plug in. But the mircophone was easy to turn off. Materials used to make this machine include a fair amount of plastic but regardless it still feels solid and no problems with any parts coming loose etc. It is a bit of a high maintenance unit. You need to be cleaning the screen and the plastic fairly often but i’m sure this would be with any unit. I bought a gelskin to protect the top of the laptop and that works great. Will eventually be getting a protective coating for the screen as well. People have mentioned this machine gets hot but for me its not so hot that i can’t keep it on my lap or that i need to get a cooler. But then I don’t play alot of games so maybe that makes a difference. I do love that there are tons of ports on this thing including an Expresscard slot which can be converted to any other type of port you can think of. I will probably use it in part to create a scsi port since my scanner is scsi. Will update my comment when i finally do this. One thing people should be aware of is that this really isn’t great for typists. The chicklet keyboard is not for the speedy typist being that if you don’t hit the keys solidly it might not show up on the screen. But again, this isn’t what this machine is primarily for. But I did try the included speech recognition and that was pretty cool. Takes a bit of time to get good at it but it might be what a person would want given the difficulties with typing on the keyboad. Definitely alot of unit for the money and being that i love High definition its certainly delivers in that department. When I get a high definition tv I’ll be checking the output to the tv.
   Rating: