Customer Reviews

ASUS Republic of Gamers G51JX-A1 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop (Blue)

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

Yeah, I guess you could be upset that you didn't get some complimentary swag or whatever with this machine, but I didn't buy it for swag.

Let's get down to business, shall we?

Pluses: Gorgeous, smooth graphics in Star Trek Online, DDO, Champions Online and Team Fortress 2 with the sliders cranked just shy of the max. EAX sound is amazing: even sounds decent out of the built-in speakers (really rocks with my headphones though). CPU performance and multitasking is sweet and responsive. I have multi-surfed Word, Visual Studio and Photoshop CS with no lag or issues.

More ports than you can shake a stick at: plenty of USB, eSATA, FireWire (1394) and even HDMI (which outputs to full 1080p if that floats your boat). Bluetooth devices are easily paired. Amazing Windows 7 performance (rates a 5.9 Windows Experience out of the box, with 6.6s in graphics, before any tweaking)

This thing is a sweet PC for money.

Cons: Runs hot. Be sure to keep side vents for cooling free. Might be worth investing in a cooling mat for this bad boy. Also, can we please not pre-install a bunch of crap on our new, high-performance gaming machines? I had to uninstall a bunch of cheesey ASUS games and stuff before I could really get down to business.

I did a bit of research and this laptop seemed pretty highly anticipated by those looking to buy and well received by the few that already had them. I also saw that it seemed most of the initial shipment came with 1333MHz DDR3 ram instead of 1066. I opened mine up and it does have 1333MHz. A supply issue I guess. Very nice considering it's a $150+ upgrade on some websites.

I installed Borderlands and it seemed like a dog at first, then I realized I didn't have the AC adapter plugged in. It automatically goes to a power saver mode when only on battery (of course) and it makes a big difference. Once plugged in I put all the settings on high except for anti-aliasing at 4 instead of 16 and resolution at native 1920x1080 it ran a little slow. Frame rate was around 30 usually. Fine for most games but not a FPS. At 1280x720 the frame rate was in the 50s. I played for about an hour and it was running very hot so I stopped for a while. I bought this laptop to replace an older Dell laptop I had because I burned out the vid card on the Dell, so I was a bit worried, maybe needlessly.

The keyboard is fine but the keys are real slippery, could use some kind of texture or concave shape. They are lighted which will be very useful (hit Fn+F4 when you 1st get it, mine were turned off).
Could use a USB in the back (I like to use a cooling pad) but it has 2 on each side near the front which is nice.
Lights on the lid are annoying. The side ones turn off in battery mode, I'll have to look into a setting to turn them off all the time. The logo light in the center of the lid never turns off.
I like the physical switch for wireless and bluetooth.

No dead pixels, I'll be looking close for 30 days but I hope to not have to RMA. Nice warranties on this thing, definitely a selling point. Watch out if you try to buy an ASUS from Best Buy --they do not honor all the standard ASUS warranties, I think the accident insurance. Because Best Buy wants to sell you their own insurance for $179.

The thing I don't like the most about this laptop is the screen size. Not the resolution but the actual physical size. There is approximately a 3/4 inch bezel on the sides and bottom and nearly 1 1/4 inch at the top. This makes the laptop less attractive visually also, like it's chunky and thick. The large top bezel is likely because of the webcam which I will never use. The screen could easily be 16+ inches which would help lots with the high resolution. At 1920x1080 for a laptop you need all the size you can get. Text at 100% is tiny but mine shipped at 125% so that's smart on their part. I primarily use it for painting in Photoshop and Painter so the high resolution is great. Trying to show someone text on the screen is difficult when they can't read it unless they are real close.

One other thing I didn't like was 40+GB of pre-installed software. Why anyone would want all this crap is beyond me. I was going to wipe and reinstall but there is the quick start OS which I need to look into and see if that will be wiped and if there is any difficulty reinstalling it. I pretty much always plan on wiping a new computer but most people wouldn't so that is a factor.

I got my backpack and mouse, I see some others didn't.

Oh yeah it's not black, even the darkest part of the lid is a dark blue.

So:
+Free ram upgrade
+speedy
+lighted keys
+wireless switch
+free backpack and mouse
-slippery keys
-physical screen size
-bloatware

All in all very happy with it.

Overall, I'm very happy with this laptop. I don't use my computers unplugged very often at all, so battery life isn't a big issue. I was a bit timid about buying another Asus since my last one was defective, but the 2 year warranty made me feel better about taking a chance on this model. This may tell how long it's been since I bought a laptop but it was common to see 2 year warranties and frankly I'm surprised that not all the Asus models offer this coverage. To be fair, I give this laptop 4.5 stars, being dinged primarily for going "cheap" with the OS choice.

Gripes:
Windows 7 64-bit Home Premium for a "high end" gaming platform just doesn't make sense. I was expecting, at a minimum, the Professional version at this price point. As an aside, nearly all my complaints are around Windows and the lack of it's ability to run many not-so-old applications that I depend on. So be prepared to also drop some bucks on newer versions of programs that won't run on 7 that were perfect on XP. Also, approximately 100gb chunk of the 500gb hard drive is not available out of the box thanks to Microsoft's "instant upgrade" OS to Professional/Ultimate are already on the drive. I guess it's convenient for some to upgrade this way but I always insist on a Physical Disc for that day the hard drive craters. (Asus: It would be helpful if you offered instructions or an "uninstall" option to delete these files for those of us that want our hard drive space for our use), or maybe I should charge Microsoft rent?

No Blu-ray. Ok, maybe I shouldn't list it as a gripe since I knew it didn't have this when I bought it, but seriously, why go through the hassle and expense of a true 1080p display and NOT have a drive to watch/load Bluray or HD titles?? I hope Asus will make a replacement drive available with Blu-ray/HD capability at a reasonable cost. By the way, Microsoft did not think it important to support HD playback in Windows 7 (incredible blunder!) and as of this date I have not found a pre-installed application on this machine that will play Bluray/HD files! More $$$ for a program for that I guess.

Speakers: The sound is best summed up as anemic. I was expecting much more from the Altec Lansing branding...while they sound ok (not great by any standard, as an audiophile), my biggest gripe is VERY LITTLE OUPUT AT MAX compared to my last HP notebook which would get loud enough to embarrass me! No worries with this one in this regard, sadly. (Asus,I've gone through all the convoluted menus to try to tweak more output but I'm disappointed!). Not enough bass nor treble. . Perhaps I got a bad sound module?? At least the headphone output is quite good.

The included bag, while appreciated, is just large enough to carry the laptop/power brick, mouse and few knick-knacks. It feels a bit on the cheap side compared to my other Targus bag. Perhaps it's easier on your back this way. ;-)

This is not really a gripe, just a "heads up": Heat! Under heavy load (or any graphics intensive operation) this puppy will pump out some BTU's! It's main exit vent is on the left side and I've found it quite handy for keeping my coffee HOT (not just warm!). This is almost a plus but I can see why Asus didn't want to advertise this. Just be careful for spillage. The heat is extreme enough under load that I worry about anything remotely flammable within a foot or so of the vent. Asus did a great job of keeping the heat off the keyboard and upper area (although it definitely will be welcome in the winter, keeping your hands warm while you type!). I have read that the Intel i7 chip is a HOT chip under load, so this is going to be "normal" if you run an i7 quad core, no matter who builds it. The i5 I had previous was also a hot machine, but the i7 is definitely hotter.

What I like:

The part of any laptop you look at the most and thus, in my opinion, the most important part, the display,is sharp and bright. Colors are natural and the "Splendid" application allows one to customize viewing almost limitlessly. Perhaps 1080p on a 15.6" screen is a bit overkill, but I'm not complaining. I do find myself zooming in a lot though.

Keyboard lighting is great and you can adjust the intensity (3 settings to choose from). The ergonomics is fair and I really love having a keypad on the keyboard. The keys feel a slight-bit on the "cheap" side but they work just fine. I say "fair" on the ergonomics since the edge of the palm rest tends to "bite" into my lower forearms after a few minutes. The top of this palm rest is coated with a "rubbery" layer which is comfortable enough but the edge is just a little too sharp for my tastes. This is not a big issue but I'm very thorough and critical of my big ticket items.

Wireless: The best and most sensitive I've witnessed yet. I'm amazed at the range this laptop wireless has from the base station. Almost double anything I've used prior to. Well done Asus!

Bluetooth: I've had issues using Skype (about the only time I used the bluetooth) with it dropping my Plantronics headset after a few minutes in a session. It could be just Skype's software, I don't know. The headset works flawlessly for hours at a time with my Blackberry. Perhaps there is a conflict? I'm going to find out the problem and update when I do.

Gaming/graphics capability: I consider myself a casual gamer but I've been VERY impressed with the frame-rate even at full 1920X1024 resolutions! Runs X3, Silent Hunter IV, Half-Life 2 with all options maxed no problem. (Heat! will be generated!) I will update on this as I try other games. My main use for this power is TurboCAD as I do a LOT of design work and this machine flies through everything I throw at it.

The included mouse is great! I've always used logitech mice but I think I found a new alternative. It isn't wireless (which would be even better) but it is a joy to use.

The touchpad, while not the "new" style of the one on my other Asus, is much nicer to use. I HATE the multi-fingering gesturing and I MUCH prefer having a scroll bar like this one has. It also will auto-shut off when a mouse is attached (software option). This touchpad is great!

I plan on doing a 90 day update so stay tuned.

On paper this machine seems to have it all. However, there is one major issue - it completely shuts down in the middle of gaming. When running COD MW2 the machine would make it about 5-10 minutes into the game and would then completely shut off as if someone had cut the power to the machine. We tested this over and over with gaming as well as with several different stress testing tools (Furmark, etc.) The laptop did not shut down in every single instance, it happened about 50% of the time. While running non CPU/GPU intensive apps we had no issues. After making several calls to ASUS support, they could not determine the problem and wanted me to send the unit in for repair (after only having for 2 days). Thankfully Amazon let me return the unit for a replacement. However, we just received the replacement machine yesterday and are having the same exact problem with it!

After doing some digging on the internet, it appears others have had the same problem and is a known issue with these laptops. All indications point to the fact that either the CPU/GPU are getting too hot or the power supply itself is getting too hot and the machine completely shuts down.

You may want to look at other options when considering this laptop - especially for gaming.

I can't say enough good things about this machine. Yes, the "gameboy" packaging is a bit garish and it is a fingerprint magnet, but it's what's on the inside that counts. The ultra-high-density screen is amazing. Speed is incredible and the features can't be beat for the money. As an IT professional, I have dealt with Asus' technical support in the past and have found them to be outstanding. The free accidental breakage coverage is unprecedented. Get yours now!

This is the most powerful laptop I have seen at this price point. This system is easily a match for high end gaming systems by alienware or voodoo pc, but at hundreds of dollars less.

Pros:
There are a plethora of ports on the laptop - 4 usb, 1 e-sata, 1 hdmi, and 1 firewire. Add the standard network jack and multi-card reader, and you can use almost any conceivable device on this.

The display is gorgeous, with full 1080p resolution.

There is plenty of power out of the box. This machine was able to play Dragon Age, Champions Online, and City of Heroes at full 1920 x 1080 resolution with graphics sliders set to maximum with no slowdown.

The power is not limited to gaming. I was able to run Word, Access, Excel, Visio, and several web browsers simultaneously with no slowdown in the applications.
The illuminated keyboard is a very nice touch, making it easier to use the system in low light.


Cons:
A machine this powerful generates a lot of heat. You will need a cooling mat of some kind.

The ROG logo and case art is cool looking, but it can be gauche in a business environment.

The battery life is on the short side, but I had planned on using this plugged in anyway.

Bottom Line:
The G51JX-X3 is a steal for the price being offered. It is a powerful desktop replacement at a great price.

Pros
Fast laptop
Decent Graphics Card
1080p LED screen is very nice
Asus support/warranty
Speakers are good
Comes with backpack + mouse
Webcam seems nice, haven't tested it but the mic is pretty good

Cons
Mine came with a horrible bios glitch that took me two days to fix.
Short battery life
Speakers are a little on the soft side

Conclusion
It is a good laptop but mine started crashing as soon as i got it. It would blue screen on me, freeze, and just do crazy stuff. If this is happening to you make sure you update your drivers. The problems went away after I installed the new bios driver. It would be four stars if it didn't crash on me in the beginning.

I ordered this laptop from Amazon and received it quickly afterward. Once received, I quicly opened the box and this is what I found out about the laptop:
The Pros:
- It is fast. It ran all of the games I am owning with with ease (because of GTS 360M GPU, core i5, and lots of fast RAM, etc...)
- True 1080p on a 15.6in monitor produces great picture quality; however, text can be a bit small (tips: do Ctrl + +sign in IE to increase the font size, vice versa Ctrl + -sign to reduce it).
- 7200RPM hard drive. (The hard drive is the biggest bottleneck in laptop or any computer's performance for read and write, but this has 7200RPM, which is very good, boot up and shutdown time is great).
- The material that made up the laptop case is good, the laptop feels sturdy.
- Full keyboard with dedicated num pad and can light up in the dark helps with using it at night.
- Audio sounds great (if you have a headset, plug it in and you will be able to hear the true sound quality of the built in sound engine.
- Heat (to be fair, I have own laptops that are hotter than this one, and ones that are cooler than it, so the heat from this laptop is neutral in my opinion, neither hot or cool.

The Cons:
- For a 15.6in laptop it feels a litle bit bulky (ASUS could have reduce the height and width a bit)
- The keys on the dedicated NUM pad are smaller than the normal keys (??? why, they certainly have spaces on the sides to make these normal-sized keys
- the bezels around the lop are thick (again ??? why, they could have reduce half an inch off of each side and it will be perfect).

Overall, this is a great laptop for the price; however, the GTS 360M is only a directx 10.1 GPU, now that Fermi is out, might as well wait for the mobile GPU from that architecture and upgrade.

I have been using this huge and crazy machine for about a week so far. I can tell you guys that this machine is fast responding, nice, comfortable; but heavy, large and has a short battery life. Let's get straight into details shall we?
For Pros,
It is truly a fast responding laptop as what I have mentioned above. Because it has 4 GB RAM plus 1 GB graphic card memory, it never gets stuck by almost any kind of multi-tasking. As soon as I unveiled the cover of this computer and lifted the screen up, the first lovely feature came into my mind was the wonderful keyboard. The design is following Apple Mac's keyboard, however, ASUS makes it even better! It is soft, confortable and smooth. So, it certainly fits for typing tasks and it can let you have a pleasant typing journey. The 15.6" HD screen is amazing and clear, and unlike a lot of other laptops, it has the shortcut to turn off the light of the screen while leave the PC switching on. Since this machine also has LED light under the keyboard, you can actually turn off the screen light and turn on the keyboard light while you are sleeping. Therefore, you can also use this laptop as a fancy table light ^-^. Well, since we call it `Republic of Gamers', this machine should be good with gaming, right? YES! ABSOLUTELY! So far I have run extreme high definition of the online game-League of Legends and Call of Duty 5-World at War. Both of them run fairly well. Furthermore, the audio system is mad good, however, you might need a headphone to enjoy it better. Few more features about this device are the webcam, and the LED lights on the back and sides of the screen. I tried Skype video chat through the webcam of this laptop with my parents, and they told me they can see me better than while I was using my Macbook's webcam (never expected it before >.<). I don't know why some people say they dislike the LED lights on the back of the screen, ASUS actually learned from Apple (I think)! It is indeed the right and nice design!
For Cons,
I really don't want to say anything bad about this lovely machine considering the fairly low price of it. However, lol, I better tell the truth about the shortages of this ASUS product.
First of all, it is heavy. Since it has 2 separated hard drives inside, each with capacity of 250 GB added up to 500 GB; the machine cannot be a light one. In addition, we have the huge 15.6" HD screen. In order to be specific, I checked the weight of the G51jx series from the official website of ASUS, 3.30kg (7.28 pounds). Well, it is only the pure weight of the device. Considering that we have to bring the charger (which is a large and heavy one) with us almost all the time because this laptop's battery life is relatively short, it will actually weight up to around 4.2-4.5kg (9.3 - 9.9 pounds), which almost equals to the total weight of two 13.3" laptops. We just can't expect it to be light, can we? Secondly, G51jx-X3 got extremely hot around the area of the side fan while I was playing games. Here, what I mean for `very hot' is that it can actually warm up a cup of cold water or `burn' your left hand. So, it helps a lot during winter that you can put a cup of tea or coffee next to the side fan and keep it warm while you are playing games ^^. Therefore, we need a good cooling pad to keep this machine running well and safely. Moreover, there are also complains about the inconvenient design of the keyboard that we almost need function shortcuts (press two keys at the same time) everywhere like turning up/off the volume, increasing/decreasing the background LED light of the screen, fast forward/rewind a music or movie.
All in all, if you don't care about the heaviness, inconvenient shortcuts and short battery life of this machine, everything else works just fine. I can say this is really a brilliant and nice and satisfying laptop at this price.
Thanks for reading and hope you will get the one you like.

PROS:
-Fantastic display and resolution.
-Super fast boot time. There isn't even a normal POST screen (but you can still change boot order and enter BIOS).
-Sleek design. The campy "Republic of Gamers" labels are very small.
-Very good quality webcam
-Convenient and secure face detection tool for logging in.
-Nice, comfortable keyboard with backlight that has three levels of brightness.
-Backback is black with no "Republic of Gamers" labels.
-Mouse is comfortable and sleek. Also has DPI and frequency adjustment switches on the bottom.

CONS:
-Main hard disk size is small. Only about 150GB. Comes with extra 329GB hard drive, though, but I'd prefer my C: drive be larger.
-It's thick and big. This is technically a desktop replacement notebook, but everyone prefers a laptop be small.
-Most everything has a 7.0+ Windows Experience rating (max is 7.9), but the hard drive has only 5.9. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. I'm not entirely sure if the rating is low because of the disk size or the disk speed.

Notes:
-People have complained in reviews about the volume being really low. Perhaps Asus improved this laptop recently, but the max volume is plenty loud.
-The side vent gets very hot. I'm not sure if this is more of indication that the system gets super hot or that the ventilation system Asus designed is super effective.
-Despite there being a side vent, the bottom of the laptop does begin to heat up after a while's use. Though I'm not sure how useful a cooling pad would be considering the vast majority of the heat comes from the side.
-I haven't tried any games on this laptop yet. This review is based on my initial impressions after two days of use.

This is a HUGE bang-for-the-buck laptop. This has far better specs than the 17" MacBook Pro, and that costs $2,500.