Asus - Laptop with Intel® Centrino® 2 Processor Technology - Black

I ran TF2, CS:S, DoD source, and warhammer online all on full settings. with everything maxed out and was still getting between 35-90 fps depending on the game. (222.66 fps in CS:S video stress test with everything maxed) i even had other windows running in the background. i turned the settings to low and i could get about 250 fps in CS:S the graphics card churns through everything and my cpu usage stays under 50%. THE GRAPHICS CARD IS LABELED WRONG!!!!!!!!! In every system properties window and program i could find, everything recognized my card as a 9800 GT (twice as good as the GS) The screen shares the same native resolution as most 16:9 HD tvs. 1366x768. This should work nice for the built in HDMI out feature. This is a fantastic laptop and a GREAT value. bought mine when it was on sale too, but this is still a good deal even at the normal price. compatibility with 64 bit vista is the only problem. (not the laptops fault, just throwing it in there)

The is the best computer I have ever bought. The video card indicates that it is a 9800 GT. The computer comes with an easy overclocking program, you can set it to normal, turbo or turbo extreme. I am deploying soon, so this Beast is going to come in very handy. It plays 2142, BF2, Mass Effect, Space Siege, Bioshock at the highst settings. There is very little bloatware, the only thing I had to unistall was Norton and Microsoft Office. I sold my desktop on craigslist and connected my 19 inch Monitor, G15 keyboard, G9 Mouse and Logitech speakers to my Asus Laptop which makes for an awesome gaming machine. I highly recommend this laptop to anyone who might be thinking about getting it. Even if you are not happy with this laptop then Best Buy will let you return it.

So I got the Asus G50Vt-X1 from Best Buy (obviously) for $950. That is a steal, let me tell you. This computer is excellent. I've had only one problem, and it's not a huge deal at all. [Problem]: When you shut the monitor while the computer is on, it goes into hibernate mode. So when you reopen the monitor you have to press the power button and it resumes your applications and stuff. BUT, after doing that it would change the all warm colors (Red, Orange, Yellow) into a blueish color when I played the Crysis Demo, Bioshock Demo, and Crysis Warhead. LET IT BE KNOWN IT WAS ONLY FOR THESE 3. Dawn of War 2 has no problems, TF 2, no problems. No other demos have problems. The games still run fine, it's just that fire is now blue (Which does look cool I must admit) and the sky is now orange, things like that. IT CAN BE FIXED BY JUST RESTARTING THE COMPUTER. So if this does happen to you, just restart the computer and DON'T PUT IT INTO HIBERNATE, and you won't have all the blue. But Hibernate is still a great feature, and Crysis still looks good :). Okay, Crysis. I got Crysis Warhead. Here is my FPS, because I know people are looking for this. Very High - 15-20fps. Does dip down to 12 near explosions. High - 20-25. Can dip down to about 17 or 18. Medium - Steady 30 fps in-game. Runs very smooth. Low - 50-60 fps. Yeah. [This was without Anti-Aliasing and without Overclocking the CPU or GPU] I played on Medium (Still looks gorgeous) and it's extremely smooth and very playable. You may be disappointed that it can't run on all high settings flawlessly, but for a laptop under $1,000, or even for one under $1,500 dollars, you're not gonna get much better. This laptop is a STEAL. Dawn of War 2 runs great on high. TF2 Runs great on High with Anti-Aliasing. Counter-Strike runs perfect on pretty much any settings. Garry's Mod runs perfect. Half-Life 2 runs perfect. I haven't tried WoW, but I'm 99.99999% sure it will run buttery smooth. Lord of the Rings online should also run very very well. Age of Conan should run great. Unreal Tournament 3, though I haven't tried, should run near perfect. [The CS:S Video Stress Test pulled over 200 Frames Per Second on all high settings, with Anti-Aliasing x 4.] The Bioshock demo runs near perfect on all high. Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3 demo runs great on all high. If you're an Empire: Total War fan, the demo ran great on all high settings. Overclocking the CPU is really easy. You hit one of the little blue buttons above your keyboard, and then click Performance - Turbo Extreme. And that's it, it's overclocked and games will perform better. This will increase your CPU from 2.26ghz to about 2.465ghz I believe. Improves fps in most games, but don't keep it on constantly. This laptop runs very quiet, and VERY COOL. The only warm/hot part is the small area around the fan, because that fan blows out a lot of hot air. When a game like Crysis is running, it will blow out very warm air, but that little area is the only warm area. ~IF YOU ARE COMPARING LAPTOPS FROM BEST BUY~ The FX laptop on Best Buy is great. It's $200 dollars more, and that's basically for the bigger screen. Games run about equally as well at the top resolutions for both computers. The FX does come with a better Graphics Card though, and it can be overclocked for better performance, just as the one in the Asus G50Vt-X1 can. The resolution on the Asus G50Vt-X1 is smaller than you would expect. I was a little worried it'd look bad, but it looks just fine. And games look just fine when you top out the resolution. I worried about it, but honestly, don't. It's not a big deal, and you probably won't even care when you see that it actually looks fine. Now for the overall look of the laptop. If you can't tell from the pictures on Best Buy's site, this laptop has a cool look. The outside is pretty awesome, and the blue lights on the outside add to the effect. [You can customize the lights, but only the side two. The ones that are on the edge. The other two, the logo, and the light below the logo stay on constantly.] You can turn off the two side lights if you want to get some better battery life, but it won't be a huge boost in the lifespan when off the charger. In fact, this laptop won't last longer than 2 hours off the charger. I'd give it maybe an hour and fifteen minutes tops. Probably less when playing a game. But this is a desktop replacement laptop, so you shouldn't have it off the charger for too long anyways. It's never an issue for me. One quick thing. There is an LED screen above the keyboard. Basically what this is is a screen that you an customize with personal notes, how much memory your laptop is using, and how hard the cpu is working. You cannot, from what I've seen, customize it to show temperatures. I know this is a long review, but when I was reading all the customer reviews, not one had all the answers to questions I had, so I'm trying to answer a lot of the questions you people might have. Asus is a great company. I have seen some skeptics, but Asus makes high quality stuff. You can't go wrong with them. Okay, that is just about everything I had planned on covering. I hope ALL your questions have been answered. If not, I am sorry, but hopefully you can get your answers somewhere, or in another review. Thanks for reading! -V

First of all, I read all the reviews before I made my purchase, and it was by far positive. My impressions are the following, and for others considering this who don't have time to do any research. For the money you spend, you CAN"T find a better laptop anywhere as I looked in stores and online for WEEKS beforehand. The graphic card is awesome and you can play anything on it. I 've thrown CRYSIS at it and played it to the end with a mix of HIGH/VERY HIGH graphics. By default it was detected on HIGH which shows the power of the GPU. Crysis one of the most demanding Graphic intensive games there is, so it's a great measuring stick. All other games run on MAX settings with NO LAG. The system runs cool and efficient, especially compared to my old AMD X64 dual core laptop which you could cook eggs on. The SCREEN is GOOD clear and CRISP. It could be a tad brighter though, and the resolution is very good for gaming, but not at the normal PREMIUM levels you find on gaming laptops. NOT really an issue though. Running games, you can adjust the brightness no problem, on desktop and normal features the contrast is a bit poor unless you have the screen at the perfect tilt. This was mentioned in a few professional reviews. This is a very nitpickhy assessment though and the screen is masterful compared to 95 percent of laptops, plus is come with the same native resolution as LCD tv's and is great when you use HDMI to hook it up and play games on a HUGE LCD Screen. HOWEVER, I WENT TO BEST BUY AND COMPARED IT THE TO GAMING GATEWAY NEXT TO IT, WHICH HAD "BETTER RESOLUTION" and tilted the screen to check contract/brightness etc.., AND YOU REALLY CAN'T TELL ANY DISCERNABLE DIFFERENCE iin contrast or brightness suprisingly. The CPU is fast, cool and excellent. A couple of observations and quirks,.... The Overclock feature/menu doesn't work on battery(and really shouldn't be used) unless you check and enable it in the menu in normal mode whenit comes up, so don't think it's broken or something. Also the desktop icons disappear on one of the power saving modes when you choose it for some random reason. I thought there was a virus until I realized this, because if you restart the computer on a powersaving(one of the modes I can't remember the exact name) mode the desktop icons disappear after a few seconds. Just put the laptop back on a normal/other like entertainment/gaming etc..mode and they stay in place. This was mentioned in a pro review also. OH yeah this computer has A 7200 RPM DRIVE NOT 5400! ITS A MISPRINT. ITS A SEAGATE 320GB HARD DRIVE, AND SEAGATE DOESN'T MAKE 320GB HARD DRIVE'S IN 5400 RPM! CNET MISTAKENLY HAS 5400 WRITTEN ALSO BUT THEY JUST COPIED BESTY BUY INFO. BUT CHECK ASUS'S SITE AND IT WILL SAY 7200 ALSO. ALSO THE RAM IS DDR2-6400! NOT DDR2 5300 LIKE IT STATES IN THE INFORMATION. Says this on ASUS site, and I checked myself to be sure. Also as mentioned by others, the system says the graphic card is a 9800 GT. IT"S NOT. IT's a 9800 GS! because a GT has 96 shaders, whereas this has 64 shaders, and the reason for this wrong information is the GS is exactly the same otherwise and it's very new so they didn't input the proper updates to have the system recognize the slight difference! The Flashing lights are pretty cool to, but if they annoy you for some reason, you can shut them OFF through the directconsole menu if you click on the powersaving box(nothing to do with computer power status). Then the ASUS logo is the only thing that stays lit, and it's cool like the Mac logo that lights up or HP on the cover etc.. The MINI LCD is fantastic and you can write any script you want for it to display along with CPU RAM info etc.. great when you are playing a game full screen and want to know you your computer handles it. IN TERMS OF PERFORMANCE, IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE! CHECK NOTEBOOKCHECK.NET laptop graphic card check performance rating and chart for the results. This thing GPU among the BEST class one group. Also, The keypad is large and responsive. Very nice. The SIZE is to be expected and is smaller than the GATEWAY, but wish it was a bit less thick with the lid closed. Ton's of ports etc.. for all your needs. Plus Firewire which is good if you hava a camcorder. Also, the system has a FANTASTIC almost perfect Windows Experience Rating of 5.2 and 5.8, 5.9 5.9 5.9 in some order across the board, which is the best of all the laptops they sell. Remember, the Rating is the lowest value in any of the 5 categories and NOT the average. YOU CAN ALSO UP IT TO 5.3 IF YOU TURN ON THE OVERCLOCK FEATURE TO THE HIGHEST WHEN YOU RUN THE RATE MY COMPUTER FEATURE UPDATE AGAIN! So you're system becomes a 5.3!!! The gateway is a 5.2, but rates a little lower in 1 or 2 of the other catagories. and CAN'T be overclocked! The cd drive is FAST and burns and read very well. FINALLY, you will not be disappointed. If this was a SONY brand with the same specs, it would be around $2500. Oh, yeah the WARRANTY, this is where is could have been better. It's only one year where ASUS anywhere else in the world is a standard 2 year with an $99 dollar option for a 3rd year!. YOu would have to use BEST BUY"S warranty, which I'm not a big fan of. It is written that the 1 year warranty was done especially at BEST BUY's request to get more people to pay up and by theie IN HOUSE warranty extension that makes them MONEY. NOT COOL. I don't really care though, if it doesn't break in the first year, then it will hold up if you don't throw it around. Cheers

I was hesitant to buy an asus brand laptop just because of the fact that they aren't one of the big boys in the laptop industry. But they are well on their way with this machine. I haven't thrown much as far as games at it yet, just rainbow 6 vegas 2 and c&c 3 kanes wrath. I jacked the settings up to ultra high and did not see any slow down at all! And thats not even in the turbo or turbo extreme mode. I have more I will install soon to test it out, but I have complete confidence it will handle anything I throw at it. This is my first 64 bit system and I was a little hesitant, but I havent run into an problems at all since I bought it a week ago. It doesn't come with bluetooth, but for about $8 (including shipping) you can get a micro bluetooth dongle (sticks out about 1/2 inch in one of the 4 USB ports) on ebay and it works great. (I would have recommended the bt dongle from bestbuy but they didnt have any lol) I just bought a new desktop at Best buy this year as well, it features a quad proc and lots of trimmings, but this laptop beats it hands down. Battery life is a little short, of course. Its a gaming system, it actually holds a charge longer than I expected it to (using the power options to configure it for low power use) If you are wondering what the windows experience score is... My machine with no overclocking= processor: 5.2 memory 5.9 graphics 5.9 gaming graphics 5.8 primary hard disc 5.9 The case design is pretty cool. I am pushing 40 and it makes me look like a big kid lol, but I think they are just jealous! It is also extremely quiet for such a beast! My last laptop was no where near as powerful but loud as can be. I highly recommend this system to anyone looking for an inexpensive powerhouse that can handle anything you throw at it.

Ok, let me start off by saying that I never spend time writing reviews, but for this laptop I feel the need to. This thing literally is just awesome. The main purpose I bought this is for WoW, its portability taking it to classes every now and then. This laptop was referred to the "crashmaster" by a previous customer. This guy does not know what he is talking about. Yes, before any software and drivers are updated this machine does not perform very well; however, once they are added this runs WoW as smooth as butter. Currently I am at a steady 60 fps in performance mode, and around 40 in battery saving mode. The resolution is better than I expected, it really does look great ( those frame-rates were taken on high settings as well). The fps drops to around 40 while doing raiding, but if you desire higher frames turn down your video settings to medium. 64 bit is a nicer operating system than 32, im not saying great cause imo vista is terrible. This also has its downsides though like the compatibility of some applications. Honestly other than previously stated reviews cons I have nothing to add. They really are minute and honestly I couldn't care less about them. Most of the time this thing will be plugged in anyway, but what is expected out of a gaming pc? You will give away battery life for the hardware it has on it. The only thing I would recommend is buying a cooling deck, it has not yet got too hot on me, but you should be buying a cooling deck anyway because it will extend the life and performance of your laptop. Buy this laptop if you are looking for the best bang for the buck, and get it fast because the newer one is actually worse lol. Spend the extra $50 on it you will not be disappointed by this machine.

So, after a solid 3 months of doing research on laptops, (approx 80 hours or so total put in) I decided on this laptop and for the most part I couldn't be happier. This machine delivered in almost every way I could have hoped and had some things I didn't even think it would have had. Let me start with the Pros. As stated this machine is fast. The upgrade was a near shock when I first started using it as I was used to my old dell which was well beyond it's last legs. The system boots fast, runs programs fast and doesn't delay in anything that I task it to do. The touch-button overclocking is a really nice feature especially when overclocked laptops are such a rarity. I had originally thought that MSI had the patent on the push button technology but obviously they don't. As for the asthetics I love them. The lights can get annoying but they can be configured to minimalist settings. Even though the screen is only 1366x768 I find the graphics to be exceptional. I really could go on and on about all the good things of this laptop. Sufficed to say that aside from the few cons that are to come this machine is top notch in every way. Gaming, graphics aps, whatever you could dream of doing. I play games and run fraps and still maintain a solid 60 to 80 FPS while gaming. Now for the cons. The first issue for me is the heat. This machine gets remarkably warm. Hotter than any system I've owned before. I highly reccomend getting a cooling deck for this especially if you're working with it actually on your lap, that is if you plan on having children in the future with the correct number of fingers and toes. The sound on the machine is lacking, but for me it's not really an issue as I use headphones all the time. Language. I've had some strange issues while gaming, particularly online (Team Fortress 2) where my text chat in games will randomly turn to.. well.. I suppose it's chinese but I really couldn't be certain. I can't seem to change it back while in game and have to restart to fix it. I suspect this has something to do with the machine likely being meant for overseas sales originally. I've had an issue with the keyboard, (my "3" key broke but a replacement is on it's way very soon. the customer service is quite good which I've found to be the case with all Asus products). The only other real issue I've had is with the operating system. not simply the fact that it's vista, but that it's 64 bit which makes many of my old programs, i/e vpn clients, antivirus software as well as a few other, incompatible. This may prove to be an issue for some people who have a strict list of programs they need to be able to run for work/school. I myself bought the PC with the express purpose of putting linux on it and for those of you thinking of doing the same thing by all means DO IT. this machine runs flawlessly on Linux and with the open GL graphics I usually sit somewhere around 1000 fps.. yes 1000. /rantOn Those of you who are windows non believers need to do some research on what a real operating system is. /rantOff Overall I can't say enough good things about this system. I would have paid considerably more for it. I can't believe they are selling this product at this price. It is a steal. Buy this buy this buy this. The system outperforms other systems that are much more expensive, (xps 1500 series, toshiba Qosmio, HP HDX). Either for gaming, business, school or all three, you can't make a better investment than this system. Best of all best buy had it to me in 2 days.

I decided to give Asus a try when I starting looking on the notebook market a few months back after my Toshiba took a dive. At first I hadn't intended on buying a gaming notebook as my desktop is more than capable, but for the price I just couldn't resist. For the last few months, the Asus g50 has done almost nothing but impress me. In fact, even the small and frustrating keyboard issue is overshadowed almost entirely by the sheer greatness of this product. Pros: - Fantastic performance on even modern video games - Built solid and feels that way (doesn't creak when you lift it by a corner) - Some Asus utilities very nifty - Power cord connects securely to rear - Included webcam handy - HDMI connection for easy TV hookup - eSATA connection for blazing fast data transfer - Cool design and trimming Cons - Keyboard is not very responsive and requires pressing hard on some keys - LEDs superfluous (can be turned off) - Battery life short, but this thing is powerful so that is expected - Quite heavy, very noticeable when walking through the airport - Vista steals resources that otherwise might make a faster system - Odd 1366x1080 display resolution not supported by many games Overall, I would recommend this system to anyone looking for a capable gaming machine. I took a chance on an Asus notebook since I have always used their parts in my desktops and it paid off. I feel like not only is this notebook fast, but that it was designed very rugged with gamers in mind. Keep in mind that this notebook really does scream "gamer" and will attract attention in public (some positive and some negative).