Newegg is selling pretty much the same machine except for a bigger 1Tb drive for $840:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231002
They are also selling the new (not refurb) version with the newer i7 processor, 12Gb memory, and better graphics card for $1380:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231089
Newegg is also free shipping and no sales tax for most of us. Recently NeweggFlash was selling the first one for $805, but that deal is expired.
Your first newegg link is for a refurb. I stopped reading at that revelation. This is the cheapest you will find this laptop New. That being said, I’d still prefer a Y510, they had a deal for 789$ last week over at Lenovo and its got Haswell.
Dude, spoilers in the write-up!
It’s great, this is a legit desktop replacement and you can add the nbluray later if you want but, my only disappointment with it is that I didn’t realize it didn’t have Bluetooth when I bought mine from Amazon.
The Y510 put the intake at the bottom and doesn’t have anywhere near the ability to cool the CPU and GPU that this thing has. You can use this thing on a bed with no issues and several hour gaming sessions leave the laptop cool to the touch.
The GPU in this is on a card so there is potential for upgrade and the CPU is in a socket as well but, 4 RAM slots and 2 Hard Drive bays easily make this a better design and build than the Lenovo.
There’s some kind of mixup here, these bad boys don’t come with a Bluray player, only DVD, but they definitely come with Bluetooth, I was gaming with my Bluetooth Razer Orochi just earlier today
I trust Asus and regularly use their hardware in my desktop builds. That being said, for this price range I’d also highly recommend folks take a look at the Lenovo Y500 and/or the 510p. Both are available with dual graphic cards (GT 650m and GT 750m respectively) in SLI setup which absolutely destroys a single GTX 660m in performance. Although the Lenovo has only a single 2.5 HDD slot, it also has an available mSATA slot. I swapped out the stock HDD for a 1 TB 7200 rpm and a 250 GB Crucial mSATA using a clean install of Windows 8 from an upgrade disk I had from another PC (keep original HDD and msata safe for a few months in case you need to return or service the laptop). Alternatively, there are good online resources for cloning the original drive if you lack access to an installation disc. My system boots to desktop in 15 seconds, has a Windows performance rating of like 9.5 and plays Battlefield 3 on Ultra settings with 30+ fps on all maps.
This Asus looks nice, but make sure you know all your options before throwing down for a rig that is technically already outdated the moment it hits the store shelves. Buyers remorse is bad, but lag and shoddy frame rates are worse! Happy gaming, Wooters!
Won’t Woot ever offer one without Windows?
They do occasionally… They call them Macs. You can see them being modeled in nearly any coffee shop in the country.
I bought this Asus a few weeks ago when the had the sale, it was the same price and the same laptop. Typing on it now, I LOVE it!
As a gamer, my games all run smooth and looks great, usually on High settings.
This laptop is SO QUIET I am amazed. Its also very, very cool. The cooling system in here is top notch. It may be big and bulky, but for the quiet and coolness you get its well worth it. I bought this laptop instead of building a gaming rig and it was well worth the price.
If you are on the fence, just do it. Lots of room to upgrade and modify. I haven’t updated the RAM or SSD yet and Honestly I haven’t seen a need to do so. I will eventually, but right now everything runs smooth and fast.
Any questions I am happy to answer ^^
Torn on this one…
It’s between this and a Sager NP8275, the sager is $1399, but has i7-4700, 16gb ram, blu-ray reader, and 770m … both are 17’’ laptops new with 1yr warranty.
Any gaming techies out there able to give me a pro/con?
Yep and the Nvidia Experience app will optimize most games for their best performance / looks compromise. This software is installed on the laptop by default.
I cannot give you a pros / cons but, I can tell you I went with this over more powerful laptops because of the cooling. This thing has a cooling system that should keep it running for years where as the other gaming laptops tend to be small heaters.
I am really torn on this deal too. It would be an automatic buy if it was a 4th gen i7. I have a laptop spec on dells site that is almost the same with an inferior graphics card. Ugh! can’t decide!
Torn too. I don’t NEED another laptop (I have a couple of older ones that are still alive and kicking), but this is a good laptop for a good price and pretty much what I am looking for. Except for the Chiclets keyboard; I hate Chiclets type keys, but that seems to be the standard now.
I have the G75VX (same as this laptop but with the GeForce 670MX instead of the 660M Woot’s has). I actually got it at Best Buy as an open box for $816 (so it may be worth seeing if your Best Buy has one before jumping on this) the same day Woot ran this laptop last at the end of July.
These laptops are great in every way. But you truly need to realize just how huge of a laptop this is. It doesn’t fit in [i}most* bags built for 17.3" laptops, you need a bag built for 18" laptops if you want to be certain it will fit without trying it first. You need to carefully read what dimensions the bag you buy fits. Most of the bags that fit this laptop are $75-$120. Below that price range you will be very limited in your choice. The Solo Urban backpack ($35 on Amazon): http://www.amazon.com/SOLO-Collection-Computer-17-3-Inch-UBN701-4/dp/B00BP5N2BS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1376752886&sr=8-2&keywords=Solo+Urban, is what I got and is the only backpack under $70 I found that would fit it.
IMO, 4th gen is not needed on this laptop. Haswell’s big gains were in battery life and graphics. This laptop will benefit from neither because it has a dedicated graphics card that will eat up your battery. A 4th gen i7 is going to add nothing but extra cost to this particular laptop.
Got this for my son about a year ago. It is very fast and preforms well. It is huge, heavy and bulky but hey…when you cram a complete gaming system into a small form factor there is only so small you can go.
As for the blue ray, well mine came with it . Don’t worry though, the cdrom will fail and need replacing so just get them to send you one then. LOL The rubber feet on the bottom will all fall off and ASUS wil not replace them. That being said the worst part about this deal is that it is ASUS. The machine is good but the customer service/tech support is the WORST ever!!! I am totally, it is horrific and if you have to contact them be prepared for off shore idiots who dont care about customer retention. If you do need help do everything you can to get to the Indiana call center. After 10 or so contacts with the others I finally found a guy at the center in Indiana that was friendly and wanted to help. Like I said…the laptop is awesome, just be prepared with booze, Valium and deep zen meditation if you need support.
I own the G75VW-BBK5. Biggest thing you can do for this is toss the SATA drive and get a SSD. Power off to login screen in under 10 seconds. This is more of a desktop replacement than a portable laptop, so get ready to lug it around (and its equally massive power supple)… performance comes at a price and I’m willing to pay that.
Thanks! I pulled the trigger.