Asus G750JX review

When you buy a high-end gaming laptop like this, you're not only buying something that's physically large, you're also buying power - and a considerable amount of power at that.

The Asus G750JX boasts top-end components across the board, but nowhere more so than at its hugely capable heart - there's a Core i7-4700HQ processor on board from Intel in there. Launched mere months ago, this 2.4Ghz quad-core processor has plenty to offer gamers, making it one of the most excellent Asus laptops for gamers.

Gaming hub

We know this laptop is aimed at the gaming market rather than general power users, thanks to its branding. Atop that smooth touch-finish on the lid is a Republic of Gamers logo - a sub-brand invented by Asus back in 2008 to compete with Alienware in the PC market, as well as taking on other companies for motherboards, graphics cards and other hardware.

However, with the Asus logo front and centre on the lid and under the screen, this is an Asus laptop through and through. And that's no bad thing, since Asus has packed a lot of power in - enough to go head-to-head with the competing Alienware 17 laptop, which also retails at the same price as the Asus (with a variety of more powerful options available).

Benchmarks

3DMark - Ice Storm: 108,533, Cloud Gate: 14,821, Fire Strike 3,123
Cinebench - graphics performance: 59 FPS, CPU performance: 7 pts

PC Mark 8 battery Life (Home test): 4hrs 26mins

You don't get as many superfluous bells and whistles as you do with the Alienware machine - there's no control over what colour you have the keyboard backlight, for example. You do get that with Alienware, but what you also get is a more garish device. The Asus is far more subtler and could be used as a normal laptop when you're not taking advantage of its prowess with first-person shooters in your lunch hour.

That subtlety may mean that some view the Asus chassis as a little dull, but we liked it. It is not that portable, however, as it weighs in at a whopping 4.6kg. Moving between rooms is fine - but anything more and you'll need transport.

The 17.3-inch display is Full HD, so you won't be lacking in resolution and it has a terrific viewing angle (Asus quotes 140°). Although the laptop boasts Windows 8, the screen doesn't have the touch capability, meaning it's not the biggest exponent of the Windows 8 Start screen, Windows Store and touch-based Windows 8 apps. That's a limitation, but it's expected with such high-end displays at the moment.

The display is also backed up with Nvidia's latest GeForce GTX 770M mobile graphics processor, which offers 3GB of extra memory.

The 8GB of on-board memory is plenty, while in terms of storage, there are dual 500GB hard drives - this gives you around 1TB in total. That's an awful lot of storage, and you'll be hard pressed to fill it, despite the sizeable game downloads from services like Steam or Origin.

Extra features

As well as being one of the very best laptops for gaming, the G750JX also boasts a Blu-ray drive, meaning it's excellent for watching movies on disc as well as downloaded ones. The sound quality from this laptop is also terrific, and the audio output has a boost from Asus' own SonicMaster technology - this also makes a huge difference if you have headphones plugged into the unit.

We also liked the trackpad and found the backlit keyboard very responsive. It's even big enough for Asus to have also included a numerical keypad, too.

The battery life is actually reasonable for a device of this power - we clocked it at two hours and 59 minutes. Asus claims up to four hours with power saving techniques, but we feel this is unrealistic.

What did surprise us was how cool the laptop kept even at full-pelt. There was some heat generated, but this was offset by the large dual fans with rear vents - this means the noise and heat is kept behind the lid and away from you.

There are also other accoutrements you'd probably expect from such a device, like Gigabit Ethernet, an integrated webcam, card reader, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0 and some USB 3.0 ports. Display connectivity is also plentiful, with VGA, HDMI and Mini DisplayPort.

Verdict

Overall, the Asus is a superb gaming laptop. With the Blu-ray drive, it betters the Alienware 17 (its top competitor), but both seem expensive compared to other options on the market. A high-end gaming laptop may be a step too far for your wallet. But, if you can afford it, this is a superb buy.