ASUS ROG G751JY Intel I7-4710HQ 24GB 1TB+256GB SSD 17.3in FHD GTX980M BD AC Windows 8.1 Notebook

Comment:
I was looking for a laptop with a 980m GPU in it and this was the one with the most reasonable price. Looks cool with a red backlight on the keyboard. Screen is great, performance is great, bloatware isn't forced. Downsides are: It's around 5kg though (with charger), and NUM LOCK is replaced with a Steam key. ESC is also underneath a key which opens a program for recording in game video. Bizzare choices there. This review was modfied by poster @ 12-02-14 03:32 AM

Comment:
Overall I love this laptop. It has an amazing and large screen and a great keyboard to type on. In fact I am using it right now to type this.I have a 30" 2560x1600 monitor for my PC and I effortlessly switch over to my laptop for travel all the time.

Comment:
So this system is pretty damn sweet. That being said, I'm really annoyed that both my first system and my RMA replacement have dead pixels on the screen! I did not pay over 2 Grand for a sub par display. The first one was a VERY bright white dead pixel, the 2nd one is less bright... so I may just ignore this one. Still, to get 2 in a row seems unlikely, so there may be issues with the panel manufacturing. It is also strange how they partition the drives. the SSD and HDD is partitioned into 2, so you get 4 drives under "Computer". I just deleted the extra partition's and re-added the space back to the single drive letter. This link should help others if they are not familiar with tweaking HDD partitions. Just remember to match up the drive letters that are associated with EMPTY drives for figuring out which to delete. Don't go deleting your main drives :P http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/95418-disk-management-delete-extend.htmlBesides the dead pixel annoyance, it's a fabulous computer.

Comment:
I wish they wouldn't partition the drives like that. It wasn't hard to change, but still I don't like my drives cut up like that. the speakers are loud and clear but don't sound good. next model they should work on that a bit. maybe get bose or klipsh or another maker that specializes in small speakers with big sound.my complaints are very minor. as it is a fantastic laptopgot a bose soundlink mini so no worries about the speakers.and grabbed a Logitech G502 mouse and G710+ keyboard to go with it.I might suggest a lapdesk if you want to play with it in your lap so you don't block the vents on the bottom.

Comment:
I have only been using this new notebook for about half a day now, but seeing as how there are no reviews up on this site yet I thought I would add one. I will come back and amend this review if my impressions change.The best things that can be said about the G751 are obvious from the specs sheet. This is the best value mobile processor in Intel's lineup and the best mobile GPU which nVidia has ever developed (in terms of performance relative to the top desktop GPU avaiable). The combination of those two parts makes this the most capable desktop replacement I have ever owned. The 24GB of system memory is about three times as much as you need for gaming the extra RAM is appreciated by those of us who do video and photo work. In short, ASUS gets the essential internal components mostly right unless spending a couple of hundred dollars extra for 16GB more RAM than you need for gaming is a deal breaker or you absolutely must have the most powerful available processor regardless of the cost.Combining an SSD for fast boot and load times with a hard drive for massive amounts of data storage is pretty much par for the course at this stage in both desktop and notebook PCs. ASUS' setup seems a bit quirky though as the 256GB SSD has been broken up into two 121GB partitions and the 1TB data drive has been split into two 465GB ones. I don't really see anything wrong with this, but I don't see any reason to do it either. If anybody who is more knowledgeable than me has an opinion to offer then I would love to know why they did this.The machine runs exceedingly quietly and while I only loaded up Skyrim for a few minutes to check out how the game ran on ultra settings, how much noise the notebook made and how hot it got the fact is that I hardly even noticed the fans spinning up. or the case getting hot at all. Honestly, I'm in a fairly cool, air conditioned room and I could hardly hear the thing even under load or notice any difference between it's temperature and the ambient temperature of the room. Great job, ASUS! Your engineers did a wonderful job designing this thing's internals.When it comes to a notebook the included display is very important too because you're likely to not be near an external monitor a lot of the time when you're using your machine. The 17" 1920x1080 display on this ASUS is pretty much par for the course in terms of resolution these days, but it is a very nice upgrade from the old TN panel offered on previous iterations of the ROG G-series notebooks. The viewing angles are greatly improved and the colour representation seems very nice as well. I'm impressed.The trackpad and keyboard on a notebook are important as well. I have used a lot of different trackpads over the years and on balance I'd say that the one on this ASUS is decent, but not great. On the other hand, the only really GREAT trackpads I've ever used are on Apple's machines. Otherwise the Lenovo ones are the best, but still significantly worse than those found on the Mac notebooks and not really that much better than the other alternatives out there. Frankly, you're going to want to plug in a mouse or gamepad for most games anyway (and really for any kind of extended use), but the trackpad here does as good a job as any on a "gaming laptop". It will get the job done for those occasions when a mouse isn't available.The keyboard, on the other hand, is a mix of some really great qualities and some somewhat frustrating quirks. The keys themselves feel as nice as any I've used on a notebook keyboard. Membrane keyboards are never going to match that beautiful, satisfying click of a mechanical keyboard, but those aren't really an option for the internal keyboard on a notebook. I've been using it for work all afternoon though and found it to be quite nice really. The chiclet-style keys feel a lot like those found on a current generation Macbook Pro which is to say they feel as good as the best, honestly. In contrast to the touch pad situation, I don't think that Apple has any edge in this department anymore.The frustrating aspects of the keyboard are, in some cases, probably as much of a reflection of my inexperience with its layout as they are real negatives which one can lay at ASUS' feet. They all have to do with the extra buttons which have been included at various points on the keyboard. The ROG Gaming Center button just to the right of the "backspace" key is probably something which I will become accustomed to not hitting in due course. For now though it is a minor annoyance as I have tried to delete  some text and hit it by mistake several times this morning. This is not the end of the world by any stretch, but it is a bit disconcerting the first few times you're midway through editing a paragraph and a big red screen with some links to various system settings fills the entire display.The ASUS "Record" button, on the other hand, feels more like something which a streamer might inadvertently hit while they're trying to reach for the "esc" key in the top left of their keyboard to open up a menu or something. It's not something which is likely to be a big issue for me personally as I don't stream gameplay at this time, but I can see why it could be one for people who do that sort of thing frequently. If you've got a moderately sized audience and every now and then your stream is inadvertently interrupted by hitting this button when you didn't mean to then that's diminishing the quality of what you're trying to do. I also don't really understand the need for the "Steam" button to the right of "Record". Most people I know have Steam start automatically when they boot up their computer and why does Steam open in Big Picture Mode when you hit that button on a notebook? Who uses that mode on this kind of machine? It's a curious pair of decisions all around.I realize that I'm spending a fair bit of time on things which are ultimately pretty minor details, but with how similar new notebook releases are these days I think that it's important to discuss the little tweaks which system manufacturers make. These are the kind of things which make for a better or worse user experience when comparing two otherwise pretty similar products in the same category.And it is the subject of the product category which I am going to get into for the final part of this review. This is a "notebook". It is not a "laptop". This this is big. It weighs nearly 10 pounds and while, sure, you can lift the thing and carry it around that is not the point. The idea that a person might whip this thing out on the train and use it on their lap for a minute or two between getting on public transit and getting off of it again seems absurd to me.This is not an ideal machine for people who want to check their e-mail in a public park or work on a film script in a cafe. There are plenty of options out there which will do those jobs just as well and be lighter and have longer battery life. Honestly, as a person who is platform agnostic (I have used PCs and Macs both since I was a kid and like both) I'd recommend a Mac for that kind of user if they can afford it or whichever modestly priced ultrabook out there has the best keyboard and the nicest anti-glare screen.This is a machine for a person with rather specific needs. Basically, it is for a person who desires a very powerful computer with a nice, big screen and needs to transport it between different locations frequently enough that a desktop won't do the job. Are you one of the aforementioned live streamers who travels a lot to various events? Do you work in post-production and require a laptop with a powerful GPU because you are doing a lot of work on the road or actually on set? Are you simply Are you simply a passionate gamer who travels enough for work that a desktop PC will not suffice? In any of those cases (and I'm sure in some others) this ASUS might be the ideal machine for you and in an age where we can do a lot more with our smartphones and tablets you may not need a highly portable notebook for normal day-to-day tasks like e-mail, web browsing, etc.Because it's neither by a clear margin the best option for a specific type of user or a very good choice for a anybody who wants a notebook I cannot give this ASUS five stars. It gets four for being potentially the best choice for some people (depending on which components and features you are looking for) and a less than ideal choice for others.