ASUS Laptop G Series G51JX-X1 Intel Core i7 1st Gen 720QM (1.60 GHz) 4 GB Memory 500 GB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360M 15.6" Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Pros: 1920x1080 screen in a <16" footprint + i7 + GTS360 video card all in one laptop = instant winner. High powered, portable, and Asus quality to boot.

Cons: None

Overall Review: Contrary to the other review posted, I immediately opened mine after reading on another forum that Asus may have changed the memory mid-manufacturing. While the specs may say it is DDR3 1066 ram, I opened mine to find a pair of Kingston 2gb DDR3 1333 chips inside. Obvious flaw in the usual bloatware installed, but nothing a wipe, repartition and reload of Win7 can't fix. For the money, I'm not sure there's a better laptop out there.

Pros: This laptop flies! It's the perfect mix of performance and functionality. I chose this over the Asus G73JH-A2 (and I would have happily paid the extra money at the time), mainly because of the extra function on THIS MACHINE! This is an all-purpose machine for me, from gaming to media production to entertainment. The extra ports (SATA, Express Card) are non-existent on the G73JH-A2. All for about $400 less. And the resolution and monitor are sharp. The resolution looks fantastic outputted via HDMI to my Panasonic 54" plasma. I would highly recommend this laptop to someone who is seeking the functionality the G73JH-A2 lacks. Sure, the other one has more RAM and storage, but the cost of 4 GB of 1333 RAM is approx $120 and an extra 500 gb is even less. Still below cost of the G73JH-A2. And, good news, this too came with 1333 RAM. Thank you ASUS and Newegg!!!

Cons: 2nd HDD: Now this one bothers me. Not because it doesn't have one, but because not even Newegg knew if it had the extra bay before I bought it. I called Newegg, they couldn't tell me, and directed me to ASUS. I called ASUS. First guy tells me that he "was looking at it right now, and it has 2 bays and 4 DIMM slots." I doubted after reading a few reviews. Called back. 2nd lady tells me 2 bays, 3 DIMM slots (How?!). Anyway, the story is this: One HDD bay, 4 DIMM slots. The 2nd Bay is taken up by permanent DIMM slots. They can't be moved to make room, and they can't be taken out without busting the MB. Sorry. Aesthetics: You've heard it before. It looks silly unless you're a pimply 14 year old that plays WoW all day (hey, and if you are, cool, I'm not judging). It's just that editing a video in front of a client with this is, well, a little awkward... Wireless Card: Small thing, nothing major, but I wish the card supported 5.4GHz. Nothing huge. Can be replaced.

Overall Review: Wonderful laptop!!! Do not hesitate to pull the trigger on this one. For the price, it rocks! Note to Newegg: You are THEE premier supplier for 90% of us techies. We love you, and your customer service is outstanding (they even reimbursed my shipping because they didn't know an answer to the HDD question). BUT... This whole competitive supply/demand pricing thing is getting your customer base ANGRY! Be flexible. If someone bought something a week ago, and the price dropped $50, give it to them. I promise you, you'll have a customer for life.

Pros: The Hyper-threaded i720 has 4 physical cores with a total of 8 virtual cores and is fast enough for almost any game. I have yet to max it out on a single game! The GTS 360M GPU runs smooth set to the 1920x1080 screen resolution with games and movies alike. -RAM- the ram specs on the page for this laptop are incorrect and gladly so, it is 4 GB however it is a faster 1333MHz instead of the 1066MHz advertised! the motherboard has 4 DIMM slots only 2 of them are used so for around $100 its a good upgrade to 8 GB of 1333MHz RAM and well worth it. the ability to change the brightness of the back-lit keyboard is a nice feature from off to well bright. the same feature is available with the screen with the exception that you cant turn it off compleatly using the brightness controls.

Cons: there are only 2 cons that i can really think of. 1. the battery life isnt particularly long but what can you expect from a gaming laptop. (I keep it plugged in anyways so not much of a con) 2. NO Blue-ray drive! however this can be rectified by purchasing a external or upgrading the internal Super Muli DVD drive.

Overall Review: a blue-ray drive would have been nice with the 1080P screen res but not a big deal breaker.

Pros: HDMI, eSATA, 500g 7200rpm hardrive, KILLER screen resolution, GTS 360, backlit keyboard, bluetooth, digital sound, gigabit LAN, must I go on... Plays L4D2 on the highest settings flawlessly!

Cons: It does get pretty dang warm, but that comes as no surprise...they do a pretty good job of directing it to the side so you don't get to. warm with it on your lap. Battery life is poor obviously, but no surprises there. FYI the smartlogon app is essentially useless...

Overall Review: My system also came with DDR3 1333 ram. The laptop does come with bluetooth, which I didn't see listed in the specs. If anyone knows of a way to restore the factory recovery partition let me know (I'd like to nuke it but to my knowledge its non-recoverable). And someone was complaining about it not having S-Video...are you serious?!? I'm sorry they can't tailor a laptop to your specific needs, but it does have both analog (VGA port) and digital (HDMI). Get some new hardware or a vga converter and quit complaining!

Pros: i7 processor, +1; 1920x1080, +1; DDR3 1333 upgrade, +1; 4GB RAM +1; lighted keyboard, +1; eSATA, +1; 500GB 7200RPM drive, +1; NVIDIA GTS360M GPU, +2

Cons: USB ports at the front instead of the rear of the sides, -1; no Blu-ray for the price, -1; White bleed on the display is the worst I've ever seen on a laptop, -2; EFI hosed by a restore (see other thoughts), -2.

Overall Review: My first ASUS laptop was a M70XA-X2 (bought from NewEgg), and it was the most perfect laptop I've ever had. So, I had high hopes for this second ASUS, but I was rather disappointed. The white bleed on the display equates to difficult viewing angles while you're using it. I never experienced this with the M70, being comfortably viewable from any angle. I was in the process of getting used to the machine, and my review may have been better had it not been for what appears to be a bad implementation of the machine's EFI. After backing up the system using Acronis 2010, I needed to restore that backup one day. After the restore, my machine will no longer power off or sleep. You have to hold the power key for 4 seconds to shut it down after Windows itself has shutdown. A Google search shows that this is a common problem, that ASUS knows about it, and doesn't appear to be in a hurry to address it. For the price, I cannot recommend this machine.

Pros: By the specs its a great machine for the price...when its working it burns through every game I have with no issues.

Cons: I can confirm that there is still the BSOD issues with this model. Right out of the box on first start up the machine crashed due to graphic driver issue. You could just be checking email and the machine would either freeze up showing a black screen and come back saying the graphic driver crashed but recovered or it would stay dead and go to the BSOD. I tried updating the drivers and seems to have made it worse. I also tried updating the bios from the files on asus website and the built in flash program wouldnt update using those files......I will try and call tech support about the issue I really dont want to RMA a brand new laptop have only had it less than a week but with this type of issue I dont think I will have much choice.

Overall Review: I do enjoy the laptop when its working but this seems like a simple thing to check for before you send out a laptop. Also considering other models have had this issue before so i would have thought it would have been fixed by now. And I would have though that if the bios flash program comes with the computer it would actually work with the files on the website. These things are very very simple to test for not much work at all... I will update the review if I can get these issues fixed.

Pros: There's no need to rehash all of the pros. You've seen them in the other reviews. This thing is fast, fast, fast. Mine had the DDR3 1333 as well, in case anybody is wondering...

Cons: Heat. Fortunately, this thing has really decent ventilation, but under heavy load it pumps out some serious hot air. Popcorn, anyone? Bloatware. Though, to be fair, this isn't really a con for me; it just makes the decision to wipe the drive that much easier. Of course, those of you planning on keeping Windows will likely want to remove most, if not all, of this. Aesthetics. I'm not really a gamer (at all), and I'm already starting to anticipate the strange looks I'll get taking this into a meeting... but I'm sure that I will be able to convince them I'm serious. I grabbed this model based on performance alone, but it would be nice for me if it had a plain lid. You may feel otherwise. Keep in mind, if these are the only cons I can find, you've got nothing to worry about with this rig.

Overall Review: I will say, however, that I was deciding between this and two other similar rigs. My main concern was Linux compatibility; I am happy to report that virtually everything is compatible out-of-the-box. Currently running Ubuntu (Karmic 64bit), and only had to tweak the wireless driver. I'm extremely happy! Also, with regards to the internals: Some have said that they have an extra drive bay inside -- I have a space where one _would_ be, but there is no SATA connector on that side. Instead, as reported by others, there are two additional RAM slots. So... no joy on throwing a second hard drive in this one.

Pros: -The screen and full HD resolution are beautiful. -Solid keyboard (doesn't flex on the left side like the N61). -Maybe personal preference, but I like the touch pad and mouse buttons better on this than on the N61. -I'm a Linux guy for development work and everything seems to work in Ubuntu 10.04 with no fussing :)

Cons: -Large and heavy; bulkier than the N61. -Stupid, stupid, stupid looking graphics and LEDs on the top of the lid. If I weren't a grad student I might actually care. -The shield icon on the lid flashes when the computer sleeps, which is distracting when *I* am trying to sleep :p

Overall Review: I was deciding between this and the N61. I actually spent some time with both, and both are great machines, but in the end the high resolution screen won me over. I do mainly programming and robotics PhD work, and not having 1/5 of the screen taken up by fixed-size window and menu bars is nice :) Speakers are loud, but not terribly hi-fi. I use external speakers or headphones anyway. I like games but I'm not really a gamer. I suspect that the N61 might actually be better for gaming because of the lower resolution (less pixels to push on roughly equivalent graphics cards).