ASUS G51

ASUS G51

Published October 23, 2009 at 01:58:49 AM, by Jesper Berg

Basic Overview

With a tag name “Republic of Gamers,” you can expect a lot from a system and be easily let down. Considering some of the critical notes on the G50, for every major achievement there seemed to be a glaring “don’t.” This particular notebook looks very similar to the G50, down to the flashing lights on the side and top of the case when it’s on standby. The 15.6-inch LED backlit screen has a native resolution of 1920x1080, so you can see the full benefit of the HDMI slot provided. With a dedicated video card (and a strong one, at that), and ample RAM, we expected to do some serious gaming on this rig.











When a laptop claims membership in the “Republic of Gamers” as it is emblazoned on the lid badge, you take a second look. The machine shares a family tree with the G50, all the way to the flashing lights on the top and sides. However the G51 brings a larger screen with a higher native resolution and a dedicated video card to the reunion. Will this extra power translate into a better mobile experience? Find out after the jump.

Look and Feel

Large, black keys with large white lettering is a plus, especially with the keyboard’s underglow. A 10-key pad rests to the right side, as it would on a desktop’s keyboard. The keypad is strong, being built into this large notebook. Keyboard flex was not an issue and the individual keys are comfortable to use, and are not too large or too small. However, the 10-key pad on the side did leave much to be desired for. Part of a 10-key’s purpose is a universal size, as in, no matter where you go, a 10-key should be able to fit in your hand easily enough with little variation. This 10-key is smaller and slimmer than a traditional pad. Its atypical size makes it difficult to use effectively. The mouse pad was much like any other pad for a laptop. The touch pad was graphite black and very responsive. This followed the color design well enough – there was little outstanding, short of the design and metal selection buttons. But this offers the same basic function as any other touch pad in use today.











The individual keys are comfortable, and their size is easy to work with. Extended use on the keypad was not uncomfortable. The chassis for the G51 is much like the previous model, the Asus G50. The G50's keypad projects a soft underglow for the keypad, and the art design on the lid and the sides of the screen give it a real “gamer” feel. With a simplistic industrial style joined with sweeping tribal art designs around the ‘Republic of Gamers’ logo. It honestly looks like it was designed to look almost like a science fiction robot. The art design remains the same from the G50 as well. Considering this was a strong point for the G50, and left little wanting, this was a good choice in design and was probably an example of the adage ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.’

Design

With a larger monitor than the G50, the G51 offers a 15.6-inch screen with a resolution of 1920 x 1080. The ability to change brightness on the screen with function commands on the keyboard proves to be quite useful as well.











The quality of the product was clearly top priority for Asus. It's a sturdy machine with little chassis flex, being especially silent when opening and closing the lid. The lid hinges are strong and well fit.

Performance Notes

It’s important to note that the NVidia GeForce GTX 260M is a solid, powerful video card. Coming in with 1GB of dedicated memory, supplemented by 4GB of DDR3 RAM, this notebook delivers. These are some excellent components mounted onto a powerful mobile platform, and testing agrees. The first test was running Bethesda’s Oblivion. With all particle distances set to their maximum setting, anti-aliasing topped out by a factor of 4x and even shadows and reflections set to their best quality, it breezes along at 55-60fps. The next phase was testing the system against ‘Champions Online," known for putting a machine through its paces. This laptop had no issues delivering on the maximum setting. The average test was coming in at around 45fps. Not bad, considering the game released recently. Running PCMark05 returned a rating of 6297 marks. The Windows Performance Rating clocked in at a 5.0, although that was held up by the processor. Every other component was hitting 5.9 consistently.

Summary

The ASUS G51 packs a lot of performance in a very capable package. It also doesn't sacrifice build quality or weight, as used to be common from top-end manufacturers like Alienware. Another plus was the excellent heat dissipation the G51 exhibited througout the review process. We've had an issue with gaming laptops overheating in the past. This machine looks good on paper and performs well as a daily laptop - a deadly combination.

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Technical Specifications

• Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 @ 2GHz
• Mamory: 4GB DDR2 800MHz RAM
• Harddrive: Dual 150GB HDD (300GB Total)
• OS: Windows Vista
• Weight: 3.3kg
• Screen: 15.6 inches
• Screen resolution: 1920 x 1080
• Graphic Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 260M with 1GB GDDR3 VRAM