Asus regularly wows us with innovative products such as the ultraportable AU$499 Eee PC and experiments with secondary Sideshow displays, but how does the company fare building a typical 17-inch gaming system? While high-end gaming rigs from Alienware can run more than AU$5,000, the Asus G2 gives you a decent set of specs -- a few steps down from the top of the line -- for a reasonable AU$2,999. The G2's unique look is a nice change of pace from the corporate Dell/Lenovo/etc. design philosophies, but serious gamers will need more video-card muscle than the included Nvidia GeForce 8600 will provide.
The G2S has a decidedly industrial flair, with a brushed metal lid, wrist rest and a black interior. The black keyboard tray upon closer inspection reveals a subtle crosshatch pattern, which adds some pleasing depth to the flat surfaces of the laptop. Metal accents in the lid and on the hinges add an industrial flavor, but the red lights on the sides of the lid are a bit too bold for our tastes. Many of these design touches are the same as those found on Asus' 15-inch G1 gaming laptop.
The crosshatch pattern extends to the touchpad, while a plastic backlit red eyeball logo sits between the mouse buttons and stares at you in a slightly menacing way. In case you forgot this was gaming laptop, the W, A, S, and D keys -- the main control keys for many PC games -- are thoughtfully highlighted in red. The interior surfaces are uncluttered, but there's a Webcam above the display and a row of basic media control buttons along the front edge.
The 17-inch wide-screen LCD display offers a 1,920x1,200 native resolution, which the GeForce 8600 will likely struggle with, but is higher than most 21-inch LCD computer monitors. Asus offers several display presets (called "Splendid Video Intelligence Technology") for watching movies or playing games, but we preferred the default settings. The screen also has an 8ms LCD Response Time -- most laptops are closer to 12ms.
Adding an HDMI output to the usual VGA-out and S-video outputs is a welcome extra, as is the e-SATA jack, for plugging in external hard drives. These features are common on more expensive laptops, but at the AU$2,999 level, we wish more laptop manufacturers would follow Asus' example.
The 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500 CPU is close to the top of the line, and it was nearly as fast as laptops with T7700 and X7900 (Dell XPS M1730) Intel CPUs, although the slower 5,400rpm hard drive held back the G2S in our Photoshop CS3 test. But for a system marketed at the gaming crowd, it's the GPU that counts, and we were surprised to see only a single Nvidia 8600 GPU -- while larger 17-inch systems from Dell, Alienware, and other vendors offer twin SLI GPUs, or faster single-GPU options. The G2S offers decent frame rates in slightly older games such as Quake 4 and FEAR, but those seeking to play games such as Crysis at higher resolutions should look to more expensive laptops, such as the Dell XPS M1730.
On our DVD battery drain test, the Asus G2S ran for 1 hour and 24 minutes -- about the same as other 17-inch laptops such as the Alienware Area-51 m5790 Special Edition or aforementioned Dell XPS M1730 -- which was 15 minutes more than the Alienware m9750, but still a short lifespan. That's not very impressive, but we don't expect a system of this size to spend much time unplugged. Bear in mind that our DVD battery drain test is especially grueling, so you can expect longer life from casual game playing, Web surfing, and office use.
Asus covers its laptops with a standard one-year parts-and-labour warranty.
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1024x768, HQ, 4xAA, 8X AF |
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1280x1024, HQ, 4xAA, 8X AF |
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1024x768, SS:on, AA:off, 8X AF |
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1280x1024, SS:off, 4X AA, 8X AF |
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System configurations:
Asus G2S
Windows Vista Home Premium Edition; 2.2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7500;
2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 256MB Nvidia GeForce Go 8600M GT; 160GB
Toshiba 5,400rpm
HP Voodoo Envy
Windows Vista Ultimate Edition; 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7700; 2048MB
DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT; 160GB Seagate
Momentus 7,200rpm
Dell XPS M1730
Windows Vista Home Premium Edition; 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Extreme X7900;
2,048MB DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 512MB Nvidia GeForce Go 8700M GT; 200GB(x2)
RAID 0 7,200rpm
Alienware Area-51 m5790 Special Edition
Windows Vista Ultimate Edition; 2.33GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T7600; 2,048MB
DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz; 256MB ATI Mobility Radeon x1900; (2x)100GB Seagate
7,200rpm
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chaosthebomb
06/05/2008, 01:52 AM
rating
9/10
Great Notebook for the price. Absolutely beautiful high resolution screen. the LED display right above the keypad which notifies you when someone is trying to talk to you is very helpful when running full screen applications. Their is an issue with the screen having a bright blue and green line going from top to bottom. very annoying however I called asus notebook support and they paid to pick it up and I had it back in my hands about 72hours later. I use the built in HDMI port for a second monitor which runs very smoothly in windows and even with some games.
Pros: High Resolution Screen. MSN LCD on keypad. Great FPS in most games with above average settings. Great for Lan Parties.
Cons: No extra built in numpad. Battery drains very fast due to the size of the screen. Normal Running temperature is very hot.
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