Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsSuperb upgrade to the ASUS ROG line of laptops
Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2015
Just wanted to put in my opinion about this laptop.
I came from an Asus ROG G53, which I was very happy with, but it has been with me for 3 years or so, so I was looking for an upgrade.
Naturally, I looked into the new Asus ROGs, but also considered the Alienware laptops, Alienware SFF desktops, Asus SFF desktops, and some of the new 4K laptops (Lenovo and Acer). My wife has an Acer laptop which is very nice, so I seriously looked into the Acer 4k laptop.
After looking closely at these alternatives, I soon gave up on a 4k laptop, mainly due to the performance issues I have seen in several detailed reviews, and I seems to me that the benefits of having a razor sharp screen are not worth it for my purposes. It also occurred to me that a "retina" resolution screen works well on a tablet since it's usually closer to your eye (where it's some benefit), but on a laptop the screen with is usually farther away, so perhaps the super-resolution is not as beneficial - again my opinion.
I considered trying an SFF desktop, since I mainly use my laptop as a desktop replacement, but after looking at some configurations of the desktops, I found this Asus G751JL to actually be a better value. I think that has to do with the higher overall demand for laptops, or maybe something else in the marketplace dynamics.
So I came down to the Alienware and Asus. In the end, it came down to how happy I was with my current Asus, and their superior cooling system, which for me was a very large component. I hate it when laptops gets really hot, and the fans become really noisy under load. Some of the reviews for the Alienwares showed they get hot under load, but ALL of the reviews I found on the Asus show it's cooling is excellent for a laptop.
So I went with the Asus. And how it is? In a word, AMAZING.
Fantastic Screen: 17 inches of pure beauty. My old Asus had a shiny 15inch 1080p TN panel, but this one is 17 inches, IPS, and is a MATTE finish. The overall effect is a screen that simply "glows" and oozes quality. I sat in a Starbucks yesterday with my back to a huge wall of windows, and was able to work with no trouble at all. Screen hinge was a little stiff in the beginning, but has broken in over the past few days, and now can be opened without holding the base down. This also happened with my old Asus.
Keyboard: amazing upgrade. The old Asus keyboard was spongy and the keyboard sank a little with every keystroke. The new one is ROCK SOLID, no movement or play at all, solid feeling, EXCELLENT feel. The only thing I don't like is it's red backlight, which is a bit dimmer to me (I am red-green colorblind). The old Asus required you to remove the keyboard to get into the laptop, but the new G751 has an easy-to-remove panel on the bottom, so the keyboard is much more solidly locked in.
Trackpad: much larger, good sensitivity, and MUCH BETTER BUTTONS. It has 2 physical buttons, which are awesome, easy to push.
Graphics card: I don't use my computer much for games. I know it's weird buying a gaming laptop if I'm not playing games on it. I like the option of playing games on it, but I'm mainly a console gamer, since I like to be in the living room playing. It's got a nice graphics card. For a little more money, the G751JT and G751JY have more capable graphics, but at additional cost. For me, this graphics card was plenty good enough, but instead I used the $200 money I saved to add the 500GB SSD, which is much more worth it to me. I will say this graphics card has enough juice to drive a 4k monitor in the future, so that was important to me. It's also got a DisplayPort plug, so it should be able to drive a 4k monitor without trouble.
Wifi: nice internet card and is the new AC type. My old Asus had a very marginal wifi card, which I needed to upgrade. The downside of the G751 wifi is that I don't think it's upgradeable. The G751 wifi internet is fast and works well. I tested it and I was getting 30 Mbps, which is the fastest I have on my internet service. I used in a Starbucks, and no trouble connecting, and was also superfast.
Sound: only 1 speaker that I can see, on the bottom and on the left side. It sounds pretty good for a laptop speaker, but it's only on one side, which is a bit disappointing.
Design and maintenance: As I said, there's a panel on the bottom, which you can remove with ONE SCREW, and you have access to 2 memory slots and both hard-drive bays. MUCH MUCH BETTER. I added a Samsung EVO 850 500GB SSD, and now the thing FLIES. Very quick boot up and response, traditional HD for larger files, can't beat it. The bad thing is there are 4 memory DIMM slots on this laptop, which is great. Two of them are accessible through this panel, the other two require dis-assembly to access. Unfortunately, Asus decided to use the 2 ACCESSIBLE memory slots to install the 2x8GB DIMMs, which doesn't make any sense to me at all. I imagine the 2 unused memory slots sitting inside the laptop, and this irritates me. I probably won't upgrade memory any more, but it would be nice to have the option.
The power plug has a 90-degree built-in, so it plugs in and runs back, which is really nice and doesn't get in the way. Also, the power plug now has a ridge on it, so it stays in the laptop better. It is a traditional plug, though, not one of the those fancy magnetic plugs.
All 4 USB ports at 3.0, which is awesome. One design improvement - they moved the USB ports on the left side towards the back, so they do NOT interfere with the DVD drive bay, which is very nice for me. I like to plug in my mouse to the left side of the laptop so the cable doesn't interfere with my mouse with I place on the right side. On my old Asus, I was always bumping into my mouse's USB plug. Now it's nicely out of the way. Kudos Asus for a nice design improvement.
Overall design is much more classy. I swear it's a tiny bit thinner than my old Asus, or it's just the same thickness but looks thinner because the screen's bigger.
Reinstalling windows: this was a pain. The Asus Backtracker software process didn't work (I only had a USB 2.0 thumb drive, which I read it has trouble with and only works reliably with a 3.0 drive). I tried Samsung cloning, which didn't work well either (Windows crashed when I removed the original HDD after cloning). In the end I did a clean windows 8.1 install which went well with automatic activation via the code in the BIOS, once I found the right version of windows. I downloaded the drivers on the Asus website, and it works just fine. There were no issues with the standard default windows drivers, but I updated them all anyway.
NOTE: There's a link out there to build Windows 8.1 install media, and you have to choose the regular "Windows 8.1" version to build onto a DVD or USB thumb drive. I burned it onto a DVD so could keep it for the future. Do NOT build the windows restore media using 8.1N, 8.1 Pro, 8.1 Pro N, or 8.1 Single Language (thanks Microsoft for the insanely confusing options). If you do the wrong version, it will ask you for the authentication key. If you use the right one, it proceeds automatically because it found the right key in the BIOS.
In all, I've very very happy with this machine. Everything's upgraded, and has an air of class now with the new design. One additional note: it's only a little bigger than my old Asus, which had a 15-inch screen. That Asus came with an official ROG laptop bookbag, which is regrettably missing from this package, but I'm happy to report the old backpack does fit the G751, which is another bonus to me.
Highly recommended!