ASUS G75VM (The best and the cool notebook for games!!)

The ASUS G75VM is the latest incarnation of ASUS’ popular Republic of Gamer’s 17-inch gaming notebook. This notebook received significant upgrades on both external and internal sides from the old G74.

At first glance, it is a juggernaut with its huge 17” 1920×1080 screen. The matte rubber-ish material as the main cast and brushed aluminum to holster the keyboard makes it look like a no-nonsense machine. As soon as you boot up the G75VM it gives away immediately why it’s priced at almost 100,000php. There is an apparent abundance of power. Waiting times are almost nonexistent even with immensely demanding applications running simultaneously.

Portability

It’s not a mobile laptop or a netbook; it is a desktop replacement and should be treated as such. I’ve been hauling this thing around to and from work, gym and home and it has garnered quite impressive remarks from people around me. Of course, one cannot ignore its weight and size, but the fun thing about it though is how people go quiet and stare when you walk in the room with the Asus G75VM. +1 for street cred! Achievement unlocked (Looking hardcore).

Design

  

The ergonomics are perfect as they should be in any gaming laptop. The screen starts from about an inch over the keyboard (for me the higher the better). The keyboard has an amazing tactile feel which is why I am having a hoot while typing this review. The layout is decent and of course as expected in a 17’ laptop you get a full number pad!!! A full useless number pad which could have been real estate for a full set of bright and glowing (can I please press the red button) MACRO KEYS. ASUS? Seriously? Haven’t you heard of macro keys? Gamers need dedicated macro programmable keys!

 

The rubberized palm rest is a nice touch but as tropical country bred nerd in the third world, I don’t trust rubber because the heat will cause sweat and what have you to constantly seep into the material causing it to degrade and age at the speed of your hook gripped mouse swings.

Sound

I always prefer a decent pair of circum-aural headphones because I think the only reason for built in speakers is for the tooting of Windows when it boots up just so you know that it’s working. But of a laptop I think the G75VM’s speakers are outstanding and yes it really does have a built in subwoofer. You can feel it kicking and screaming inside the G75VM on action-packed scenes.

3D

The G75VM of course showcases 3D capabilities just like most high-end laptops in the market. The setup is fairly easy as the NVIDIA driver software will guide you through the whole setup process. Just make sure you’re not an idiot like me who forgot to turn on the 3D glasses (Yes, the 3D glasses do have a switch). Although there were times that I could not seem to make the 3D work and I had to reboot the system for it to run smoothly again.

 

There is a 3D hotkey beside the power key which is very useful for grinding gamers like me who really can’t stand 3D graphics for more than an hour. Saving grace is the 3D movies, which is a lot of fun!! Oh and the included 3D glasses from NVIDIA are very comfortable and the fit can be adjusted with interchangeable nose pieces.

Gaming

This laptop in particular rekindled my love for PC gaming. The G75VM is armed with an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M graphics and is able to run and play Crysis 2 at Extreme Graphics settings and getting playable frames per second without breaking a sweat. It also supports PhysX and Direct X 11 for more realistic explosions and water effects. There is just so much eyecandy going on and if you turn the 3D on it just gets better. The graphics are very immersive and I ended up just looking around, panning up and down, left and right not really shooting anything. The environment got distracting and I died a few times.

I strongly suggest you procure 2 Xbox controllers and NBA2k13 along with this laptop. Of course you’re going to need a kickass gaming mouse.

As a workstation

The Asus G75VM will not let you down with its generous 8GB RAM, 3rd Gen Intel Core i7 quad-core processor coupled with a high end graphics card and 2TB worth of storage. It is a proper desktop replacement laptop. For the price it should be.

There are enough USB 3.0 capable ports for most of your devices. The HDMI and USB ports are all positioned in such a way to lessen clutter and wire tangle.

I have to say that I like the WI-FI on the G75VM. My room is 20 meters away from the router with 2 thick concrete walls in between and it still is capable of getting “Fair” level reception.

Heat

the laptop does not affect the ambient heat circulating around you which is big plus if you do your gaming within the confines of a small room. True to its name, ROG recognizes the need of heavy gamers to be able to clean the heat sinks because dust and grime buildup will impair airflow resulting in higher operating temperatures that will reduce the lifespan of the GPU drastically. Fan access is available through the hard drive screw in bay. But let’s leave that to the professionals.

Stress testing

I don’t really know what big rocks to throw at this jackhammer. 3Dmark and other benchmark software may be “pretty big rocks” but that will just stress the system without implying real world stress factors like power quality, humidity, ambient temperatures. Because here in our humble republic where it is very warm and humid, the ASUS G75V has no problem in keeping noise at acceptable level (almost inaudible) and GPU/CPU temps in the safe zone. Thanks in part to the new and improved heat sink system and bigger exhaust fans.

Battery Life

I got a good 2 hours unplugged by doing my usual office work. Typing, streaming, e-mails. No gaming though. But let’s get real here. You can’t expect a jackhammer like the G75VM to last long on batteries. 2 hours is a pretty decent score, not to mention the very snappy wake up response times. It’s always good to go in less than 5 seconds.

Verdict

There are not a lot of manufacturers out there that can produce exceptional gaming notebooks but ASUS is one of the few who knows what they are doing for gamers. The Republic of Gamers is a trusted name if you want a serious gaming notebook and the G75VM is another testament of ASUS’ years of expertise in this arena.

The ASUS G75VM gaming notebook costs a hefty Php99,995 which is worthy of its name, design and performance.

ASUS G75VM Specs:
Intel Core i7-3610QM Ivy Bridge
8GB DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M 3GB DDR5
17.3” Full HD (1920×1080) 3D Panel Display
2 x 1TB (Raid 0) + 128GB SSD (for cache only)
Blu-ray Disc Drive (Blu-ray Writable)
2mp webcam
Wifi 802.11 b/g/n
4x USB 3.0, VGA, HDMI, 3-in-1 card reader
Windows 7 Home Premium (64 Bit)
8 Cells 5200mAh 74 Whr
4.40 Kg
SRP: Php99,995