ASUS G53 15.6in GTX 560 Gaming Notebook Unboxing & First Look Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2012-05-07
·
1,290 words · ~6 min read
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Welcome to an unboxing and first look at a gaming grade notebook from ASUS. This
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is the I can never remember their model number, so I'm just going to let you guys read it with me. This is the
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G53 SXDH71. So, this is a 15.6 in gaming
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notebook. It's got 12 gigs of RAM. It's got a Core i7 quadcore processor. It
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comes with a 2-year global warranty, including 1 year of accidental damage
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protection. Includes a bag, which I
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didn't know, but that would explain why the box is huge. So, there's your
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Republic of Gamers backpack, which is actually not that bad. Cool. Okay, so
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there you go. You get one of those. And it also includes, look at this, a
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notebook inside as well. So, you're getting definitely uh some value for
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your money over here. And there's a very specific reason that
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I'm going to be having a look at this particular notebook. And that is because
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ASUS, and I don't, you know, don't want to criticize them or anything, but ASUS
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seems to feel in their gaming notebook line that a GTX 560M is good enough
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because they don't have anything with a GTX 570 or a GTX 580M. So, what I'm
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going to be doing is I'm going to be taking this 15-inch notebook and I'm
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going to be putting it head-to-head on my NCIX TechTips channel against a Core
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i5. So, that's a dual core, whereas this one has a quad core, a Core i5, less
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RAM, but otherwise similarly speced
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configuration from one of their competitors with a GTX 580. So, what
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we're going to find out by comparing these two notebooks is what do gamers
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really need in their gaming notebook? Do they need higherend CPUs and lots of
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RAM, or do they just need the the most beast graphics possible and then go from
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there? So, we got some screws, an LCD cleaning cloth, uh notebook user manual.
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You probably got something in here about your warranty. There's also some
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Logitech thing. Yeah, notebook warranty there. You got your uh drivers and
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whatnotss on a disc. Oh, look at that.
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Comes with a G300. Well, where is
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it? There it is. Look at that. Comes
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with a Logitech G300 mouse, too. That is a beast package. So, they've definitely
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got the uh the whole like package thing going on
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here. I mean, not that I'm saying that, you know, they are like a
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package, which could be perceived as good or bad depending on like what you
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want.
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Um, so notebooks, 15.6 in
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ones. Okay. Sorry. Sorry. I'm calmed
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down now. I'm calm now. Okay. We got uh
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we got the power brick, which I'm going to do the obligatory iPhone comparison.
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I'll let uh let Slick have a look at that over there. Just don't get the
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package package shot
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going. We try to maintain a professional demeanor on this channel, you guys. We
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try. We fail. It's okay. There's your battery. Battery is kind of big, but it
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doesn't really matter cuz it fits in the notebook. And the notebook is also kind
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of big, so it is what it is. Okay, there's your
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cord. So, now let's have a look at the notebook itself. I've already talked a
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fair bit about the specs, so I'm not going to really get into that too much more here. I'm going to show you the
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battery installation, which goes a little something like that. And the
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thing about ASUS's G series is they have a gorgeous rubberized finish that is a
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fingerprint resistant and b also
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slightly more durable than your typical glossy notebook which drives me crazy.
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Can't stand glossy notebooks because as soon as you take like fabric and go like
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this, it's like, oh, it's covered in micro scratches. Awesome. Um, so this is
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this is outstanding. I love the finish on their G series notebooks. They've got
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a matte screen, which is also awesome because you see some of their
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competitors using glossy screens on their gaming notebooks. Ah, gamers won't
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know the difference. TN panel, glossy screen. They'll think it's great. Um,
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you know what? No, I prefer a matte screen, especially for a high-end
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notebook like this. This is not a cheap notebook. This is well over $1,000. So,
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you definitely want to see things like the accidental damage protection, as
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well as matte screens, high-end specs, and overall good build quality. One
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thing that I would potentially criticize about it is it has a lot of depth. So
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you can see out here there's a lot of extra sort of baggage and that's where
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it's carrying the battery. So just bear that in mind, guys. You're going to need
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a little bit of a bigger desk in order to accommodate one of these guys. But if
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you're buying a high-end gaming notebook, hopefully you knew that already. So you got your headphone port,
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your microphone port, you got USB 2, USB 3, HDMI, VGA, Ethernet, and power in.
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This is a good mix. I still like to see VGA ports on notebooks. You've got a
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fairly average size touchpad. Keys are soft and quiet, but
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uh not too soft. Okay, it's got a full number pad. Nothing stupid as far as the
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keyboard layout is concerned. We've got full size backspace, shifts, and enters.
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So, nothing really bothersome over there.
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Um let's go ahead. This is back lit too.
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Interesting. Yeah, illuminated check keyboard. What else we got on here?
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Improved cooling stability and reduced noise. Ah, okay. We'll have a look at that at the back. And the soft touch.
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I've talked about that already, but the palm rest is also using soft touch.
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Mentioned 12 gigs of RAM already. Uh,
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okay. He says it's okay. Over here, we've got a DVD drive as well as a
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couple more USB 2 ports, hardware buttons for
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uh your your lights as well as your overclocking and something to do with
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Republic of Gamers in all likelihood based on the logo. Uh, here we go. No,
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that's not it. Oh, cool. So, that's a level up. So that's an overclocking
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button. Very cool. You can just overclock your CPU using the one button.
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Okay. So on the back, these are for ventilation. So that is why we have so
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much space over here. I guess so that they have room for the beast fans that
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they're going to be using to cool this bad boy. So like I said, the comparison
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that's coming is going to be this versus the GTX 580 model. Seeing how they stack
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up against each other. Do we need bigger CPUs? Do we need bigger GPUs? How much
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of a value is there to buying a notebook with a super powerful graphics card? How
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much more power does it consume when you're gaming? All this kind of stuff is
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going to be very interesting. So, thank you for checking out my unboxing and
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first look at the G53. So, we'll just call it the G53 because it's basically a
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shell. You can get it in a lot of different configurations. Don't forget
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to subscribe to Lion's Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and other
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innuendo.