ASUS G73JH-A2 Core i7 Radeon HD 5870 Gaming Notebook Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2010-05-08
·
1,885 words · ~9 min read
0:00
So today I'll be unboxing a pretty new notebook from ASUS. And this is the ASUS
0:06
G73 JH2. So it's an Intel Core i7 720 QM
0:12
processor, 8 gigs of RAM, two 500 gig
0:15
hard drives, and it features an HD 5870
0:19
mobile graphics card. So that's the fastest graphics card you can get in a
0:23
notebook at this time. Now, just to give you some idea of the scale of this
0:29
notebook, it's a really really heavy and b really, really big. Okay, so why don't
0:34
we just kind of get started here. So, the difference between the G2 and the G1
0:38
is just that the G1 has Blu-ray as far as I can tell. So, um I grabbed the G2
0:44
since I don't have any particular use for Blu-ray on the go at the moment. And
0:49
let's see if we can Yeah. See, this is why I need a
0:53
knife because scissors don't quite cut it. Get it. Cut
0:58
it. Yeah. Okay. So, the first thing we
1:01
find inside the box is an ASUS or Oh,
1:05
no. A Targus backpack. All right. So, watch out. This
1:10
is a choking hazard. Do not put in reach of small children or dogs. All right.
1:16
And uh I'm going to go ahead and assume that this notebook bag fits the notebook
1:21
in question. So it would have to be quite large to fit a 17inch notebook.
1:25
But as you can see, it is. And I guess I might as well do my little turn on the
1:29
catwalk here. And we'll throw the backpack on. Yeah, there we go. So
1:36
that's what I would look like if I wore a backpack every day. Okay, there we go.
1:41
Next we have Oh man, that's heavy. Okay,
1:47
this G series. It's got their Republic
1:51
of Gamers branding all over it. Okay, Republic of Gamers. Got the color scheme
1:56
going on here. Not really a whole lot in terms of anything there. So, let's get
2:01
this box opened up. All
2:04
right. Uh, let's do this first. This
2:08
looks like an accessory sort of
2:16
box. Okay. Well, it'll come out. There
2:19
it goes. Even that's heavy. Wow. This must be like the battery or something.
2:23
Okay. Open it up. So, the first thing we find in here is a power cord and then um
2:30
the AC adapter. Wow, that is huge. So,
2:34
this is a 1 19.5 vol 7.7 amp AC adapter.
2:40
This thing has some real heft to it. Okay. Next thing we have is the
2:45
battery. The battery is actually surprisingly Oh, all right. Cameraman
2:49
wants me to do his whole iPhone for scale thing. Here, here. Here. Okay.
2:53
Okay. So, this is the cameraman's iPhone next to the battery pack. And it doesn't
2:58
look that big now. Oh, but look at me now. It's huge. And it's heavy. It's a
3:03
lot heavier than an iPhone, we'll tell you that much. Okay, battery. We'll show
3:06
you the size of the battery as well. Just you It's It's actually not It's
3:10
surprisingly not big. I'm I'm very shocked at how small the battery is. So,
3:15
you put it next to the phone. You can see the uh width and height of it. It's
3:20
very very deep, though. So, I'm guessing it's like double stacked inside there or
3:23
something like that. Okay. Uh, next thing we find here is a black box which
3:31
includes Oh, a gaming mouse. That's nice. So, this appears to be based on um
3:38
Oh, shoot. I should recognize this, shouldn't
3:42
I? Rats. Okay, I don't recognize the OEM
3:45
design that this is using, but it looks like a pretty decent little gaming mouse. You got a back and forward
3:49
button, nice rubberized grip here. You got your DPI adjustment. uh mouse wheel,
3:54
left and right click. Not too bad. All right. It's nice of them to include that
3:58
as part of the package. I mean, you're buying an expensive notebook. You know,
4:02
you might as well throw in some accessories for their customers. Much
4:05
appreciated, ASUS. If I could just get this back inside there. Okay. And then
4:09
we finally have a cable tie. How very random. Actually, it's not
4:14
that random. Normally, a cable tie would be attached to the power adapter, but it
4:19
isn't. So, they provide you with an extra one. Okay. And then that is it for
4:24
accessories. We are down to the notebook itself. I'm surprised at the lack of any
4:29
documentation inside here. There's there's nothing in terms of instructions
4:33
or uh CDs. So I guess the OS is probably on a uh on a partition on here. And then
4:39
I'm guessing all of your drivers are also on that partition. So why don't we
4:43
just first of all install the battery. So you can see that it just kind of
4:47
slides in right like that and then just locks in place. Okay.
4:53
So the battery is in and that is a pretty sleek looking machine. Let's get
4:58
this box out of the way. Thank you, cameraman. And then we'll just kind of
5:01
put this down here. So it's a matte black slightly rubberized finish to the
5:06
back of it. You've got a silver shiny
5:09
ASUS logo on the back as well as their Republic of Gamers Shield. Okay. The
5:13
hinge design I'll comment on once I actually get it open, but it looks
5:17
fairly beefy and solid at the moment. On the back, we've got huge ventilation.
5:23
So, you've got a heat sink here, and that's normally about all you would find
5:28
on a typical notebook. But then over on the other side, past the Kensington lock
5:32
and the antenna hole, you've got another huge ventilation hole. All right, let's
5:37
go around to this side where we will find power in, VGA, HDMI out, so you can
5:42
do both analog or digital out. Then you've got a couple of USB ports as well
5:46
as an SD card slot. Around the front,
5:49
you've just got uh indicator lights, so you got your wireless hard drive,
5:54
battery, and a light bulb. And then you
5:58
have gigabit LAN, another USB port, DVD
6:02
multi or in the case of the uh of the other version of this laptop, you would
6:06
have a Blu-ray drive, USB mic in and
6:10
headphone out. Let's go around to the bottom here. So you can see the bottom
6:14
is where all of that
6:17
um oh yeah, whatever. Okay. Where all of
6:21
that air is going to be coming from. So, these there are probably blower fans
6:26
right around here and then they're sucking air into these vents and then
6:30
out the back of the unit is my assumption. Either that or one of them
6:34
is an intake and one of them is an exhaust. I have no way of knowing
6:37
without opening it and I don't particularly want to do that though. So, anyway, there's the bottom. You can see
6:41
you've got easy access for upgrades to uh what appears to be the RAM here and
6:46
probably wireless hard drive and all of that good stuff. So, let's flip this
6:50
back over. And uh now I've gotten it all dirty. Oh, well, there we go. Okay, so
6:54
we'll open up the front. Okay, there's no uh there's no unlock or anything like
6:58
that. You just kind of lift it. It's heavy enough I doubt it's going to come out on its own. Okay, we'll remove the
7:03
little uh sleeve. Okay, so the first thing we see inside is obviously the
7:07
17in widescreen LCD. And uh here's a
7:11
little bit of information that ASUS includes about this notebook. So, you've
7:15
got a 2-year global warranty. That means that if you buy it in Canada and take it
7:19
to Europe, you're still covered by your ASUS warranty. You've got a zero bright
7:23
dot guarantee. So, a bright dot is kind of like a dead pixel except it's um like
7:27
a colorful spot. Then you've got two-way free standard shipping for your RMA and
7:32
24/7 technical support. That's pretty darn good for a standard warranty. And
7:37
they even include no way. They include
7:41
the ASUS accidental damage warranty. So, you have a one year covering accidental
7:45
drops, spills, power surges, and fire damage. Go figure. All right. So, here,
7:51
let's have a look at the Let's see if the battery came charged. Wouldn't that be lucky? So, you got a couple of
7:55
speakers here. That's going to take care of your sound. And then there's also a
7:59
subwoofer grill that we saw on the bottom of the unit already. That's okay.
8:02
We already saw that. And then, so let's have a look at the screen itself. I'll
8:06
just kind of angle it so you can have a look here. You've got a webcam up at the
8:09
top. Little glossy thing around
8:12
there. Okay, we're starting up Windows. Why don't we have a look at the
8:16
keyboard? Cuz keyboard is such a big thing for uh for any notebook. You can
8:20
see this is quite a comfortable full-size keyboard and it's using the
8:25
chicklet keys which are very popular although they're not my personal
8:28
favorite. ASUS gives you a little outline of the specs of this again. So
8:32
they've got the i7720 5870 with 1 gig of
8:37
video RAM which I hadn't covered already. 17.3 in screen. It includes uh
8:41
wireless N as well as uh yeah that's
8:45
pretty much everything that we already talked about. And they oh they had these
8:48
labeled. Look, they're both exhausts. So, there you go. So, the air intake is
8:52
actually at the bottom. Okay. And then we've got more badges over here. So,
8:56
your Core i7 badge, Windows 7 is included, obviously. Uh HD5870 graphics
9:01
as well as a Creative EX. And then, oh,
9:05
hey, here we go. So, it's booted up already. We can check the English
9:08
language. Cameraman is indicating something to me. Oh, I like this. Look
9:11
at this touchpad. This is an enormous touchpad. That's a huge advantage for
9:15
this laptop cuz if you have a nice big high-res screen, the last thing you want
9:19
is to have a little tiny touch pad that you're going to the edge and then going back tracking like that. So, keypad's
9:24
comfortable. Um, that's pretty comfortable, too. Actually, this whole
9:28
thing's a pretty good experience, actually. Cameraman, if you want to have a look at the screen, you can see it
9:32
there. But, I think that pretty much covers everything that I have to say
9:35
about this particular notebook. Thank you for checking out my unboxing of the
9:39
G73 series ASUS gaming notebook.