ASUS G71G-Q1

by Cisco Cheng

The ultimate gaming laptop needs something more than the fastest processors and the most blistering 3D graphics cards, and ASUS is well aware of this. The ASUS G71G-Q1 ($2,000 street) is close to the bleeding edge, packing features like an Intel quad-core processor, a Blu-ray reader, and cavernous hard drives. It's almost the total package, but it falls short on the one thing that matters most to gamers: graphics. Although the Nvidia GeForce 9800M GS card it comes with is considered a very good gaming card, there are systems that deliver higher frame rates for about the same price.

The G71G-Q1 isn't as friendly on your back as the 6.1-pound Apple MacBook Pro 17-inch (Unibody). It suffers the same weight problem as other gaming laptops that use fast parts and a 17-inch widescreen. Although at 9.1 pounds it's lighter than either the Alienware M17 (9.4 pounds) or the CyberPower M1 (9.6 pounds), you can easily work up a sweat lugging it around. The MSI GT627-218US, on the other hand, is a lighter alternative (6.1 pounds) that uses the same graphics card but forgoes the big screen.

ASUS put more thought into design than CyberPower did with its M1, though the G71G-Q1's glossy black top picks up just as many fingerprints and smudges. The Alienware M17, on the other hand, has a matte, rubber-like finish that wards them off. Red is a popular motif among gaming laptops these days. The fiery design of the Toshiba Qosmio X305-Q725 should appeal to gamers of both the zealous and the eccentric varieties. MSI takes a more restrained approach: The GT627-218US's red highlights are used sparingly along its sides. ASUS has distributed red accents generously throughout the G71G-Q1's interior, surrounding the keyboard and on the sides, and, taking a page from the Dell XPS M1730 (Penryn), has developed the gaming theme further by the use of LED lights. Blue LEDs are studded all over the lid, around the touchpad, on the corners of the front bezel, and in the multimedia buttons.

Alas, these LEDs didn't find their way into the keyboard. I was disappointed to find that, unlike those of the Alienware M17 and the CyberPower M1, the G71G-Q1's keyboard lacks illumination. Otherwise, it's a good keyboard, full-size and with a solid foundation that can sustain the constant pounding of easily frustrated gamers. A numeric keypad—handy for entering serial codes—lies next to the main keyboard. (Most gaming laptops have one these days.) I love the design of the aluminum-draped mouse buttons, which wrap around the touchpad, but they're a bit too resistive for my tastes.

The G71G-Q1's feature set is the kind that gamers lust for, and its price makes it that much more compelling. It comes with a built-in Blu-ray reader; in comparison, choosing a Blu-ray option on the M1 or the M17 would boost the laptop's price to more than that of the G71G-Q1. The gorgeous 17-inch widescreen is equipped with the highest resolution possible: 1,920 by 1,200. The two port covers—unique on a gaming laptop—cover the four USB ports and a FireWire port and are handy to have in high-humidity areas. Other, uncovered ports, including HDMI-out, eSATA, VGA-out, and Ethernet are in the back of the system. The 640GB of total storage (made up of dual 320GB hard drives) exceeds that of the M17, the M1, or the X305-Q725. While other gaming laptops offer a one-year warranty (parts and labor), the G71G-Q1 comes standard with a global two-year warranty.

The mere mention of the word "quad-core" can trigger a drool response from performance enthusiasts. The 2.0-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo Q9000 has already made its way into gaming laptops like the Toshiba X305-Q725 and the Acer Aspire AS8930-7665 (stay tuned for our review). Video-encoding tests indicated that the quad-core processor was more than 20 percent faster than the dual-core ones found in the M1 and the M17. The margins were even greater in CineBench R10 tests. Furthermore, the G71G-Q1's 6GB of memory is twice as much as the M17's, although the G71G-Q1's slight edge over the M17 in their Photoshop CS4 scores is more useful for bragging rights than indicative of performance prowess.

ASUS clearly favored the processor over the graphics card in the G71G-Q1, given that the same Nvidia GeForce 9800M GS can be found in a much cheaper system, the $1,100 MSI GT627-218US. And it's the graphics card that determines how well a system runs a 3D-intensive game. Alienware and CyberPower took the opposite approach with the M17 and the M1: They scaled down to a midrange processor and allocated the resources saved into dual ATI Radeon HD 3870 graphics cards (in a CrossFire configuration), which, in each case, delivered higher 3DMark06 scores than the G71G-Q1 could manage. At low resolutions, the G71G-Q1's quad-core processor played a big role in defeating its adversaries in World in Conflict and Crysis tests. At native resolutions, though, the Toshiba X305-Q725 and the Alienware M17 had an overwhelming advantage. The heat coming from the processor and graphics card, and the high fan speeds needed to dissipate it, proved too much for the G71G-Q1's 75-Wh battery. A MobileMark 2007 score of 1 hour 45 minutes was less than impressive, but it's in line with battery scores achieved by other hulking gaming laptops.

The ASUS G71G-Q1 is one part shy of the total gaming package. Add up parts like the quad-core processor, 6GB of memory, a Blu-ray reader, and the two-year warranty, and you'll see why the G1G-Q1 is one of the best values in the gaming market. But if you believe that frame rates are the ultimate measure of a gaming laptop, the M1 and the M17 have better graphics cards for about the same price.