Thinking of buying new Laptop

Jonzcrusher

Academy Page

Join Date: Apr 2007

Diety of Honor(DoH)

D/W

I recently got my tax return(yey!) and want a new Laptop. I think I want the Asus G73JH A1 ,I have done alot of research on this, but I would like the opinion of a GW player who actually owns one, or knows someone who does.
Thx

tijo

tijo

Jungle Guide

Join Date: Feb 2007

Montreal

[CDDR]

R/

Got mine about a month ago (-A2), so far, i had no problems with it and i love it. The battery won't last long though. You should be aware of that if you intend to use it for more than two hours on battery. Don't even think on playing games on battery, it will drain it in 30mins or less depending on the game.

I suggest you update the bios to version 209 if that's not the version you have since if fixed a few issues like the CPU staying downclocked when you switched from battery to AC and the freeze caused by pressing fn+esc. There's a nice thread on www.notebookreview.com on how to flash your bios if you're unsure how to do it (look in the asus forums).

The community at notebookreview is also great if you need problems resolved and some members even developed a few tweaks for more advanced users. There's also a nice guide on how to do a clean install of windows 7 and a guide to what all the asus software preinstalled on it does. In a few words, when you first turn it on you'll find bloatware, bloatware and more bloatware. Some of the asus utilities like power for gear hybrid (you know what i'm talking about if you owned an asus laptop before) are actually quite useful so there's also a list of the asus utilities and what they do so you can choose which ones you want to keep.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask them.

Oh and by the way, that laptop is overkill if you intend to play only Guild Wars.

Here's a few useful link:

The G73 owner's lounge (everything you should know about the laptop is probably there)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus...rs-lounge.html

Here's a link on how to do a clean install of win7 (if you're the kind of person who does that when he/she buys a new computer)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus...7-install.html

The asus utility and bloatware guide
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus...are-guide.html

Here's how to flash the bios to the latest version. Note that there's always a small risk when flashing a new version of a bios.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus...available.html

EDIT: personally, i didn't do a clean install of windows 7, i did remove a lot of the preinstalled software though.

EDIT2: If you are in the US, ordering from the suppliers recommended by notebookreview is probably a good idea, these suppliers also offer the option to change certain components like the CPU/thermal paste for you if you want more power/have the money.

One more thing you might or might not be aware of is the G73Jh-A1 and A2 is that they come with a backpack (rebranded targus) and a gaming mouse that is quite nice. It says republic of gamers on both though (it's still discrete on the backpack, you have to be close to read it).

Jonzcrusher

Academy Page

Join Date: Apr 2007

Diety of Honor(DoH)

D/W

Thx Tijo some great info there, I know its gunna be overkill for Gw only But i plan on playing GW2 when it comes out and i want to be rdy with a nice Laptop.