By Darius Chang, CNET Asia
29/09/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/notebooks/0,39050488,44085266p,00.htm

The portable gaming market is very niche. Though virtual play has been steadily increasing in popularity, the savvy player knows that it's more economical to purchase a gaming desktop rather than a laptop. This is because the former can easily be upgraded to future technology while the latter is stuck with whatever it had out of the factory. Only major players like Asus G, Dell XPS and Toshiba's Qosmio series dare to venture into the field of gaming notebooks.

Unlike what most people think, a good gaming machine is more than just having a lightning-fast graphics card and processor. A good sound system and top-notch display is critical to the playing experience. Naturally, it doesn't hurt to have an aggressive design to tell your LAN buddy mates you mean business. The Asus G50, which is an update of the Asus G1S, does very well in the basics like graphics performance while offers extras like an integrated TV tuner.

Design

When it comes to gaming laptop design, it seems to follow the same credo as street race cars in that LEDs are almost always present. The Asus G50 is no exception. The plastic chassis of this laptop is decorated with an abundance of lights, from the glowing "Republic of Gamers" badge on the top lid to the LED strips at the edges of the screen. If this seems over the top, wait till you check out the metallic orange accents around the keyboard and touchpad with blue LED frame. If you bring the Asus G50 to a LAN party, be prepared to bring your "A" game as there is little chance that you and your machine will go unnoticed.

Physical shortcut buttons are nowhere to be found. Instead, a mirrored panel at the top of the keyboard shines with touch-sensitive icons when the system is switched on. These allow the touchpad to be disabled, modify power settings (battery saving, high performance, entertainment mode and quiet office) and select screen profiles (soft, vivid and theater). A feature unique to Asus is the ExpressGate button, which launches a quick pre-boot Linux environment that allows Web surfing, emailing, multimedia playback, etc. without having to log in to Windows.

Last but not least, Asus somehow managed to cram in a discrete numeric pad and directional keys without affecting the size of the individual keys, making it almost as comfortable as a standard desktop keyboard. This is also the reason for the touchpad to be slightly off-center as it is positioned directly under the spacebar. During actual use, we did not find this to be an issue.

Features

As a gaming system, there are two main features to look out for. The audio system must be good enough to replicate the strength of explosions and, if possible, simulate for virtual surround sound for a better immersive experience. The other factor is that the display should be sharp enough such that one doesn't need to engage in pixel hunting when playing certain titles.

This may be the first time a dedicated gaming laptop is equipped with a 16:9 aspect ratio display. The 1,680 x 1,050-pixel resolution display powered by a powerful Nvidia GeForce 9700M GT video card is more than sufficient for most games play at that resolution. However, since the screen is already in a format for movie viewing it would have been nice to offer a full-HD panel like the one on the Dell Studio 1535. A Blu-ray combo drive would also have been appreciated, though for gamers, a DVD writer is adequate for now. External displays can be hooked up via the VGA or HDMI outputs. Be warned that the system gets quite hot, especially when the GPU is running at full speed.

The audio quality of the Asus G50 is quite good with a set of stereo Altec Lansing speakers. It won't be able to rival the 4.1-channel setup on the Qosmio X300 or Acer Aspire 8920G but to be fair, these laptops are larger 17-inch desktop replacements. An S/PDIF jack is available for digital streaming to external horns.

Though its main focus is gaming, it's nice that an integrated TV tuner is available on the G50. Unfortunately, Asus didn't go all the way to offer a remote control despite having an infrared sensor. Other ports include four USB 2.0, mini-FireWire, 5-in-1 card reader (SD/MMC; SDHC; Memory Stick; Memory Stick Pro and xD-Picture Card), eSATA and an ExpressCard/54 slot. Network connectivity is handled via the 802.11a/b/g/n and Bluetooth radios as well as the Gigabit Ethernet and modem inputs. The system has a generous 500GB of storage space. A 2.0-megapixel Webcam sits above the display for video conference and impromptu snapshots.

Performance And Battery Life

When it comes to performance, the S$3,098 Asus G50 really shows its muscles. The 2.53GHz Core 2 Duo T9400, 4GB RAM, 2GB Intel Turbo Memory and 512MB Nvidia GeForce 9700M GT graphics engine blast through the 3DMark06 benchmark. The G50 scored an impressive 4,915 for a single-GPU midsized machine, beating the Dell XPS M1530 and Acer Aspire 6920G, though the larger Qosmio X300 trumps this with a result of 7,062 using the same GPU. On the new 3DMark Vantage test, it received a rating of P1615 (the prefix P symbolizes that the machine was on Performance presets), with 1,339 for the graphics card and 4,229 for the CPU.

For a midsized portable, the Asus G50 has terrible battery life and couldn't even last through an entire movie. We played a DVD at half screen brightness but could only watch 1 hour 10 minutes before the screen went blank. Though we expect the uptime to increase significantly if you stick to productivity tools without wireless radios on, we suggest keeping close to a power outlet if you intend to game or watch a movie with the G50.

Service And Support

Asus offers a two-year limited global warranty with all its notebooks. Should a problem occur with the unit, you can send it to any Asus service center around the world for the first two years and get it repaired using the warranty card. Issues during the third year of coverage can only be resolved in Singapore service centers for units bought in the country. For users who travel overseas often, having a global warranty is important. However, the Asus service overseas centers should be checked for accessibility. Asus Web site provides software support and updates as well as a telephone hotline number.