Most helpful customer reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
The Laptop for the Power Hungry but keyboard has broke 4 times and more..
By Scott
If you are a gamer, or are looking for the performance of the highest End Laptops to date. You Found it.

PROS:
This machine is one smooth operator. It has a smoking CPU and GPU that are unbelievable. I just finished testing out the most recent releases (Black Ops, Civ 5, Metro 2033, etc....)
I CAN'T BELIEVE HOW THIS MACHINE EATS THESE UP. In comparison, My Desktop runs 2 GTX 480 SLI and this laptop is running right along with it. Amazing hardware configuration. The heat goes right out the back vents. It really is like a stealth fighter, lol. Lap and keyboard stay nice and cool. Very Quiet even at full throttle. I am in utter disbelief. I LOVE IT. Speakers are great. I m listening to music right now while I am writing this and it sounds GREAT. Keyboard is nice. ASUS solved the past issue with the G73 Keyboard. I use a Logitech Everywhere Mouse, but the touch pad is very nice and responsive as well. All the features you would expect from a high end laptop. The Screen is beautiful at 1900 x 1280. The G53JW-A1 Version I believe comes with an extra year warranty and of course another 250GB (750GB Total) hard Drive that is FAST and Quiet. An extra 90 bucks seemed worth it to me. (Opposed to the G53JW-XA1).
Machine can be OC'ed and you can add an additional HDD. Yes That's right. UNBELIEVABLE LAPTOP for under 1500.00.

Cons:
The machine came with a lot of bloat ware on it. But there is a not so painful solution. It also comes with a drivers disk. I solved the problem quickly through some simple pre-ordered research and just reformatted the Hard-drive into one Partition and reloaded windows and then reload the Drivers and skipped the bloatware. Easy solution! Thanks whomever that was blogging it; and now I have the nicest, Fastest Running laptop in my town. Funny dis-assembly make; sure you watch some online instruction about going in through the keyboard to get to the guts. It is slick once you know how though and you can change the colors up on the keyboard with colored film as well. Totally modifiable. So sweet. Oh wait this is the cons section sorry. It has a large power brick and the keyboard could be a little more solid but I am comparing that to the new HP ENVY keyboard which is the tightest keyboard on the market. The mouse pad left right buttons are too clicky but maybe they will loosen up over time. The I/O inputs, outputs could have been a little better placed but nothing that is too bad. (Power input on right side too far forward but I see why they had to do it that way, And the audio I am used to being on the left side of my laptops but that maybe just me?

Bottom Line:
This is the real deal as far as hardware and value. Design is great. Very few cons. Outrageous performance. ASUS lights up on the back of screen but overall look is not too outrageous. The Stealth look is more appealing once I got this on my coffee table than I had thought; and I love it. As far as this category of laptop this is the best value for the money. Good work ASUS. Stop it with your lame bloatware though please. Takes time to remove.

Add on 10-15-11:
I have sent the laptop back for repair 4 times. Still not fixed.
Do not buy ASUS.

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful.
Good Value, fragile power connection. Very Fragile!
By BlueWrangler
I've had this laptop for a week now, and it really is outstanding--sort of. I've usually had underpowered laptops for work, and used the desktop for gaming. This unit is truely outstanding as a gaming platform. I've been using Call of Duty and it runs silky smooth. Boot ups are fast, and construction of the whole unit seems to be well done. Office applications, of course, run at lightning speed. Others have commented extensively on the tech specs, so I'll focus on what it's like to live with it.

Pros--Runs quiet and cool. Used in on my lap for several hours and it barely gets warmer than a Time magazine. Other laptops, i've always had to use some sort of pad so your legs dont over heat, but this one channels the heat out of the 2 pack ports nicely.

Back lighting-- keyboard lighting is fantastic. I didn't realize how nice this was until I had it. If you've ever tried to log on using a password with special characters in a dimly lit room, you know how hard it can be to find the right keys. Turn on the keyboard lights, log on, turn it back off if you like. Awesome. Others are wowed by how cool a lit keyboard looks. Other reviewers don't like the fact that you can see the lights leaking out from around the edges of the keys, but really, it just outlines the actual key itself, and i think it looks really good.

A great hinge--I have had several laptops that had flimsy hinges (Dell Inspiron comes to mind), where after about 500 open close cycles, the plastic covering the hinges starts to pop open or hang up. This one seems, so far, very solid and stiff enough so you can set it to any degree and it will stay. If you've ever had one that was loose (listen up Dell), you know there are a few spots where it wants to close--usually around 25 degrees. This one will hold anwhere from 5 degrees to full open.

Cons--Small screen. I didn't realize this when looking at the specs, but while it is 15.4 inches diagonally as advertised, top to bottom is only 7 5/8. Plenty wide at over 13 inches, but top to bottom, it's an inch shorter that my old Dell. That may not seem like a lot, but when looking at web pages at full resolution, everything is tiny. Really tiny. If you have great eyesight, no problem. But for me, I had to reduce the resouluton down to 1024x768 just so I could read most pages. That means you have to do a lot more scrolling up and down. So that's the trade off. The screen by the way is not as deep as the whole unit as you might expect. The hinge is set about 1.5 inches from the rear to give more room for the battery and the exhaust ports. So that means they needed to make a smaller screen. If you are used to a larger screen, it might be worth it to look at one in person and surf the web a bit to see if you can live with it. I will say in full resolution, what screen real estate there is, is very bright and good looking. If I decide to use it for work projects, it will go to my desk and get plugged into my desktop monitor.

Huge Case. If you're wondering how they got so much computing power in a laptop, they just made it as thick as about a half dozen macbook airs. Sure it looks cool, and stealthy with the angled corners and black finish, but it is huge. If you want to commute with it, update your 24 hour fitness membership and start working out. It's heavy too. I was hoping it would be more portable that the mammoth 17inch G73 version. And it is. It's just that you still need to remember to bend at the knees when picking it up. Like the G73, this is a laptop that would work great on a desk, and CAN be portable if you need it to be. The question is, do you want to carry it. By the way, this model comes with a backpack, not a laptop case. Smart, since backpacks can carry more weight :)

Power Hungry-- All that computing power sucks a lot of juice, and requires a 120 watt adapter thats the size of a shoebox. Well, not quite, but it's the biggest one I've ever seen. To avoid hauling that around too, I'll just by a spare to keep in the office, or where ever I haul this thing to. I can't imaging lugging this laptop, plus another 3 lbs of power adapter anywhere. Ahh but where to buy one? No one on the internet has this exact same adapter. Sure, they have ones that are similar, but not quite the same amps (4.74) or volts (19) and i'm not willing to fry this thing just to test it out. I wrote to Asus, and they replied that you can buy one on their estore. Great. Looked there, and this model is not shown at all. Nor is the N53-JQ which I also bought. I've written them back, apparently they have never tried to look up this part on their own web site. Hopefully, they will find one they can sell me.

Port Placement-- Nothing on the back--remember the exhaust jets are there, so everything is on the side. This is a minor annoyance, but the usb ports are near the front, and get in the way if you have it on your lap. The button to eject the cd is TINY and you really have to hunt for it, and press it with your fingernail. I suppose that prevents you from accidentily hitting it, but a loading slot would have been nicer. Having the power plug on the side means the cord has to bend if your wall outlet is on the opposite side and the cord does not have a 90 deg bend at the tip. So if you're in a narrow seat it adds a few inches to the overall width. The outside of the case does show some smudges and finger prints. Again no real biggie.

Overall, I rated this a 4, and took some off for the small screen, and bulky weight of the unit and the power supply which limits portability. Performance is excellent, and the value of this over the XA1 version seems to be worth the extra money. You get another year on the warranty, the backpack for hauling, a gaming mouse, and 250 gig larger hard drive.
***Update***
Asus revamped their web site and now you can find the adapter if you want a second. Order the one for the G73-JW as the rep swears it will work fine on this G53-JW. Cost is $89 plus S&H. The asus rep was very helpful, and followed up with several emails until we got it sorted out. Received the adapter in 5 days.

***1/10/2011*** Well after about a week of use, the pc would not boot, and the recovery disks could not save it. One call to Asus and i had a return authorization, with a prepaid shipping label. Shipped it back to them, and they swapped out the hard drive,and sent it back. Now it works fine. Turn around was quick, only 4 days, and they sent several follow up emails to make sure all was ok. If I had lost data, i might be more upset (at myself!)since everyone should back up data anyway--you never know when a hard drive might fail. This was a good test to see how they handled a problem and Asus came through nicely! That was enough to bump them to the 5th star.
***5/15/2011*** Turns out that straight power cord IS an issue. Apparently if anything bumps it, it can lead to internal damage. Mine stopped charging unless i got the plug positioned "just right" and didn't touch it. After a few weeks of this, it refused to charge at all. Got another return authorization and sent back to Asus for repair under warranty. The blog on the Asus site shows others have reported the same issue. So, if you move the unit at all, be sure to unplug first, and be very careful not to bump the plug. Not even slightly. Here is the blog site: [...]. The longevity of this unit is not looking good. :(
***12/12/2011*** Still happy with the unit overall, but the power attachment failed again. Seriously, any small bump to the be power cord cracks the connection to the motherboard, and the whole thing needs to be replaced. Asus still helpful gave me an RMA to send it back for repair. I will no longer use this on my lap. After the last repair, the bluetooth stopped working, so it had to be fixed anyway. I am happy with the warranty, but the stability of the power connection means there will be a point I have to give up on this unit. Back down to 3 stars.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
Fantastic computer but with manufacturing defects:
By Nelson
As a quick review, the computer itself is fantastic. It's 5 stars. The issue is that some people around the globe are complaining about the computer going dead about 1 month after purchase. Mine happened that and the supposed "Asus Global Warranty" is misleading: It is not even close to Global, so check if your country is covered taking care that there are countries that have an Asus office but doesn't cover the warranty, like mine, so check it out before. (Nice marketing strategy, Asus, trying to capitalize in the Apple Global Warranty. Should I live in the states, you would be sued for that).
Basically, if you leave in the States and is not afraid of waiting about one month while Asus fix your laptop in the case of "sudden death", it's the best cost benefit laptop today.
If you live outside the warranty zone, well, think twice.