Design
The laptop follows a dashing blue-black theme, where the lid is glossy and deep blue with an illuminated ROG emblem and lights at either edge. The interior is all-black, with a hint of brushed satin chrome around the touchpad. Thankfully, there aren’t any loud or annoying colorful blinking lights, something rather typical of gaming laptops. On the contrary, this one is quite sober to look at. Open the lid and you’ll notice a glossy but solid screen frame, good-quality hinges, and a matte rubberized wrist rest with a nice matte touchpad. The touchpad is rimmed with a brush finished metallic frame, which extends to double as mouse buttons. The overall build quality and the ergonomics are top notch, but we weren’t impressed by the chiclet keyboard, because it flexes a little too much.
Gaming laptops are large in size, heavy in weight and they certainly can’t be carried around on a regular basis, and the Asus G51J is no exception. Owing to its overall size, ruggedness, and rich feature set, this laptop weighs almost 3.5 Kg and its maximum thickness is almost 5 cm. So, what goes without saying is that, you’ll have to use it on a desk, unless you want a sore lap. Also, while benchmarking and gaming, we noticed the temperature of the base soaring to 70 degrees Celsius, so you wouldn’t want to play games when on the move. Another good reason for using it on the desk is that, this laptop doubles up as a high-end desktop PC, thanks to the powerful hardware.
Features
In terms of hardware, the biggest asset of this laptop is the processor, while others include RAM, the two hard drives and the discrete graphics. Built around Intel’s performance chipset, an Intel PM55, the machine is powered by an Intel Core i7 720QM processor which is clocked at 1.6 GHz. There is 4 GB DDR3 RAM and two 320 GB hard drives (7200 rpm). So there is not only enough number-crunching power but also ample room for storing games, music, movies and such. The discrete graphics is courtesy an Nvidia Geforce GTX 260M.
Coming to the highlighting feature; the laptop bundles with it the Nvidia 3D Vision glasses and a classy Razor Abyssus optical gaming mouse. So you don’t need to go hunting for these must-haves. Also, you don’t need to worry about compatibility, because the 15.6-inch screen is a 120Hz panel (1366 x 768) which is suited for the 3D vision kit. Want something more to drool over? This machine has a Blu-ray drive and multi-channel sound, so even watching movies is truly a treat. Options for external display are common, HDMI and VGA. The standard connectivity options include gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi N and Bluetooth. Then, there are 4 USB ports, a 2.0 megapixel webcam, a FireWire port, a memory card reader and the laptop is pre-loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit). Finally, in addition to the Nvidia 3D Vision kit and the Razer mouse, the laptop bundles with it a sporty rucksack, an OS-recovery disc, drivers, manual and a cleaning cloth.
The processor
Most powerful and high-end in Intel’s new series of Core processors, the Core i7 features Hyper Threading (HT) and Turbo Boost. While the Intel Core i3 and Intel Core i5 series of CPUs are common to entry-level and mid-level machines respectively, the i7 is the workhorse when it comes to performance. The CPU used in this laptop (the Intel Core i7 720QM) is a quad-core variant so you can see eight threads processing simultaneously (thanks, to HT). Also, it has a whopping 6 MB L3 cache, which again helps boost the performance of a CPU.
Nvidia 3D Vision
Remember the blockbuster flick Avatar? Well, now you can enjoy a similar experience in your home, with Nvidia's 3D Vision glasses. These glasses have brought about a new twist to the gaming world. They offer a stereoscopic 3D experience during gaming and even while watching 3D images. But, for the glasses to work, you need a 120 Hz LCD monitor.
While the G51J bundles these glasses, you can even buy them separately to experience the 3D realm on your desktop PC. Since there is wireless technology involved, in the kit you'll find a wireless receiver which connects with the USB port. Also, they wouldn't work with any game you throw at it, there's a handful of games, that are optimized for this technology.
