Review ASUS G51VX User

Monday, September 14, 2009, 12:28
Laptop Reviews
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As a company, ASUS has had a strong history of fitting dedicated graphics into its laptops in a fashion other notebook suppliers have been less apt to do. Yours truly owns a 14.1” ASUS laptop with a dedicated Nvidia GeForce 9600M GS, remarkably robust hardware for the size, and a jaunt over to Newegg’s notebook section will reveal a healthy number of other ASUS machines with dedicated graphics that run head and shoulders above their peers.

Over the past couple of years, the push by ASUS into the retail space, particularly at Best Buy, has allowed users looking for some portable gaming to get their fix at some very nice prices. Knowing they’re entering a very competitive market, ASUS has been fighting hard, and the laptop I’m reviewing today is another shot in that salvo.

The G51VX is a refresh of the older G50 line, and in some ways another shot across the bow of Gateway’s 17" FX series gaming laptops that have been very attractive finds in retail.

This unit can be found on the floor of many Best Buys at a respectable $1,049 (though sometimes available for under a grand, depending on sales), and its looks are just a little understated compared to the bright orange of some of its predecessors.

Of course, you’re not hugely interested in its looks yet. You want to know what it’s packing. If I may…

Specifications:

Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1, 64-bit)
Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 (2GHz, 3MB L2 Cache, 1066MHz FSB)
15.6" TFT Widescreen display with LED backlighting (1366×768)
4GB PC2-6400 DDR2 SDRAM 800MHz System Memory
Nvidia GeForce GTX 260M 1GB GDDR3 Memory
320GB 7200RPM SATA Seagate Momentus Hard Drive
Dual Layer CD/DVD Recordable
1.3 megapixel integrated webcam
Intel WiFi 5100 (a/b/g/n) Wireless
Weight: 7.3 lbs.
Dimensions: 14.8" x 10.4" x 1.6"
Warranty: 1 year limited parts/labor
6-cell 11.1v 4800mAh battery
Retails at Best Buy for $1,049

Of course, before you get too excited, it bears pointing out that the processor can seem a little anemic compared to the graphics hardware, but that the graphics hardware is actually more anemic than it seems. In a bid to confuse the consumer and push a chip that’s basically entering its second year of life as something brand new, the GeForce GTX 260M is actually just a rebadged desktop GeForce 9800 GT (itself a rebadged GeForce 8800 GT) and not the vastly more powerful GeForce GTX 260M. That said, at the modest resolution the G51VX’s screen runs at, that shouldn’t be an issue.

Build and Design
I found myself pretty pleased with the build quality of the G51VX; strong in all the right places, and featuring the same kind of respectable access that I’ve come to expect from ASUS.

Looking at the bottom, the G51VX definitely has the family resemblance of its predecessors in the G50 line, with a large vent over the primary cooling fan as well as the obscene number of screws required to remove the equally obscene bottom panel.

Of course, when you do pop it open you’re greeted with the usual suspects as well as a particularly nice find: a second drive bay. I’m not entirely sure how easy it would be to securely mount a second drive in there, but at least the G51VX has some room to grow.

Speaking of which, the more daring user will see that just about everything in this laptop is upgradeable, though the processor and graphics can’t be changed without voiding the one-year warranty, and upgrading graphics in a laptop is generally a fool’s errand anyhow.

There’s a fault here that’s worth mentioning, though, and that’s the cooling system. While it seems for the most part sensible at first glance, I want you to pay attention to how the heatpipes are routed to the single cooling fan. The first carries heat from the chipset and the processor itself, and then the second lower one carries heat from the GeForce. If you’ll notice how these heatpipes are ordered in front of the fan, though, you’ll see the problem: the processor has a TDP of 25 watts, so the heated air from it and the chipset is what gets blown over the GeForce’s heatpipe, a chip that dissipates fully three times that much wattage in heat. I’m not 100 percent sure this is the most efficient way to keep the insides of the unit cool, and as you’ll see later on, it raises a couple red flags. At least it vents to the left side instead of the right.

The rest of the build is a bit less exciting. The sides, bottom, and logo glow the same way the G51VX’s predecessors did, and the white lid with the “mechanical” accents is somewhat ostentatious without being too over-the-top. Overall, the build of the machine is pretty solid.

Screen and Speakers
The G51VX sports an LED-backlit screen at a questionably low resolution of just 1366×768. I know 16:9 aspect screens are the in thing on laptops these days, but I just want to be clear on something: customer demand wasn’t exactly driving this change. 16:9 displays are cheaper to produce than 16:10s, but I’ve found them to trim just a little too much off the top. A higher resolution screen might not be so bad, but 768 pixels vertically is just punishingly short for any kind of real productivity.
I will say that the low resolution of the screen does make it a fine pairing with the GeForce GTX 260M inside the unit, assuring it some longevity. The 260M can handle higher resolutions to be sure, but the low resolution of the screen ensures you’ll be able to juice the eye candy as far as it can go for a long time. By all means, crank up the anti-aliasing.

Although it’s easy to get excited about the screen being LED-backlit, it bears mentioning that while the viewing angles are alright and the brightness is solid, color saturation is still pretty poor. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still breakfast. You can have a gun-toting Alaskan run for vice president, but she’s still going to shoot a moose. And you can give a mediocre panel an LED backlight instead of the usual CCFL, and it’s still going to have middling contrast and color. Of course, the price of the notebook is also pretty low, so you’ll want to weigh that as a mitigating factor.

Laptop audio has been, at least in my experience, a joke of the universe usurped only by anyone insane enough to listen to music on their phone. The G51VX doesn’t do a whole lot to remedy this, with average speaker quality and poor speaker placement.

Keyboard and Touchpad
In a move sure to please a lot of users, ASUS has opted to outfit the G51VX’s keyboard with an adjustable backlight that features three levels of illumination in a clean white-on-black coloring. Given the target audience for this notebook is largely gamers, and gamers spend a great deal of time in the dark, frightened by bright lights and ready to scuttle away come sunrise like cockroaches, being able to see the keyboard in the dark is welcome. (Author’s note: Author plays a LOT of computer games.)

Unfortunately, the chiclet-style keyboard that’s becoming so popular these days may not sit well with some users. I also noticed a decent amount of flex with it, but overall I was able to get used to it fairly quickly.

One excellent touch is the rubberized texture on the palm rest which makes using the keyboard a lot less of a hassle. The surface of the touchpad was also easy to use, and the buttons weren’t too clicky but felt just right

Performance and Benchmarks
This is where I start to “eehh.” The simple problem is that while a 2GHz Core 2 Duo is plenty for getting most tasks done, games are starting to hit the point where they’re being severely CPU bound again. If the graphics hardware weren’t as powerful as it is I’d be less apt to notice, but unfortunately that mediocre processor power will drag your high gaming framerates into the gutter once the CPU starts getting hammered.

I ran a series of tests on the GTX 260M with the intention of going forward with a review of the GPU itself, but unfortunately it just wouldn’t be a fair review in some cases. The P7350 is an anemic processor in this machine, with more CPU-intensive games getting dragged into sub-30 framerates whenever the processor is being hit. Left 4 Dead bogged down some in the horde no matter what settings I ran the game at (though it was still plenty playable), and Far Cry 2 more or less hit a barrier. That game in particular can be punishing on a lesser processor, and here that’s evident, with the framerate barely ever eclipsing 30fps. Settings didn’t matter, either; I could run the game at 720p or 1080p and the result would be the same. The processor is just not enough for some newer games. They’re playable, for sure, but when changing the resolution doesn’t change the performance, it’s pretty clear where the problem lies.

wPrime Processor Performance Benchmark (lower scores mean better performance):

Synthetic Gaming Performance using 3DMark06 (higher scores mean better performance):

HDTune Hard Drive Performance Benchmark:

At least it isn’t all bad news. The 320GB 7200RPM Seagate, while not exceptional, is still a decent hard disk and an appreciated inclusion. Still, any step up on the processor would’ve been appreciated, however modest. It’s pretty clear what this laptop’s weak link is.

Ports and Features
Once again, ASUS delivers with an absolute mess of ports and features.

The front of the G51VX features just a dedicated wireless switch, infrared receiver, and two speakers placed less than ideally under the lip of the unit.

When we move to the back of the notebook, we can see the Kensington lock port, the battery bay, a USB port, a blocked-off modem port (for the nonexistent modem), an ethernet port, and the power jack.

The left side features the charmingly antiquated VGA port, the overworked vent, a USB port, FireWire port, eSATA port, HDMI port, ExpressCard54 slot, and media reader.

And finally on the right, we have a line-in, headphone jack, and microphone jack. Next door to those are two USB ports, and finally the DVD+/-RW optical drive.

That’s a respectable four USB ports in total, along with everything else you’ll need to get any kind of work done on the G51VX. I do have a small beef with the HDMI port being so far forward on the machine instead of hanging out in the back where it would be the most logical, at least to me. Likewise, the eSATA port should hang out at least a little further back on one of the sides. HDMI and eSATA both use fairly thick, rigid cables in comparison to some of the other peripherals, and their placement really should reflect this.

Battery
Ha! And double-ha! While my ASUS X83 produces decent enough battery life, the G51VX’s is as dismal as one would expect. This laptop is, under no circumstances, to be run off the mains. Opting to do so will result in roughly two hours of useful life. Admittedly that’s a reasonable battery life expectancy given the hardware inside the laptop, but the laptop itself isn’t exactly prime for that kind of portable use anyhow given the weight and power-hungry graphics chip.

Heat and Noise
Well, this is unfortunate. In true ASUS fashion, the G51VX’s other fatal flaw is the heat it generates. I mentioned the poorly-designed cooling system when I popped the bottom of the unit open earlier, but I didn’t mention how bad the temperatures got.

While the processor temperature is generally fine, the GeForce GTX 260M’s temperature soars to over 90C under load, and air coming out of the vent can be very hot. Likewise, the fan winds up working overtime to try and keep the chip from cooking itself, and it, too, becomes fairly noticeable.

Heat doesn’t radiate too badly off of the top surface and keyboard of the notebook, but the sperm-killing temperature of the GPU ensures that you’ll want to avoid using it on your lap at any costs. Do yourself a favor and buy a cooling pad; the G51VX is meant to run on the mains, anyhow.

Conclusion
I very much want to like the G51VX and indeed, despite my gripes it winds up being a pretty solid machine. Purchased by a friend of mine almost strictly for mobile gaming, it fits the bill for the most part. It’s definitely comfortable to use, and the respectable screen size and low resolution are a relief for my aging eyes. The inside of the unit is nicely understated (at least as far as gaming laptops go), with a nicely cushioned palm rest and white backlit keyboard. And the GeForce GTX 260M ensures a healthy useful life as a gaming machine.

Yet while the heat problems can at least be mitigated by obtaining a cooling pad for the notebook, the poor processor performance is much more tricky. Certainly the more enterprising and daring user can pick up a faster processor down the line, after the warranty runs out and when the CPU finally just becomes too crippling and swap it in…but if that’s not you, this could be a real problem. In your shoes I’d consider opting for a model with a faster processor, which can helpfully be found on Newegg.

I think the G51VX is a fine laptop, but the caveats may turn some people off. Those of you willing to make those jumps will be quite happy with your purchase, though, I assure you.

Pros:

GeForce GTX 260M is plenty fast for modern games
7200RPM hard disk
Bright LED-backlit screen
Backlit keyboard with rubber palm rest
All modern ports, including HDMI and eSATA

Cons:

Alarmingly high GPU temperature
Mediocre processor
Low battery life
Heavy

Tags: ASUS, ASUS G51VX, Business Technology, Laptop ASUS, Laptop Reviews, Technology News

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