published 14 June 2011

Asus knocks out another 3D gaming laptop that's solid as a rock

Asus might've been copying notes from Alienware's design team but that's no bad thing if it means it designs a rock solid 3D gaming laptop. It doesn't quite have the all black rubberised class and feels cheaper despite costing more. However, those two massive exhaust fans at the back are nearly as cool and quiet as Alienware's M17x3D and it is as ridiculously powerful. Oh yes and the keyboard glows different colours as well.

Like Alienware, the 3D solution has NVIDIA's active shutter glasses and an integrated receiver in the guts of the laptop. That's particular good on this model because it doesn't need the extra hardware on the outside. The massive fans at the back mean Asus had to cram the ports at both sides - Asus even had to add the card reader at the front. It is an unfortunate design feature but we'd rather have the comprehensive port layout than bugger all. For your wonga you get four USBs, one HDMI for outing your content to an HD source, one eSATA, one VGA and the fastest wired LAN connect you can get. You'll also be pleased to hear you get a Blu-ray player and very nice chiclet keyboard, which is complemented by a solid matte touchpad.

Despite only sitting on a small 15.6-inch chassis, we found the Asus ROG G53JW-IX162V to be a bit weighty. It's bulked up by the nice stealth bomber design and it's still essentially fine for carrying around over to a mates but you wouldn't want to carry it for too long. The smaller stature has some benefits. The Colour-Shine LED screen only supports a resolution of 1366 x 768. If that were on a bigger model you'd notice the difference but it is fine here. In fact, we streamed 720 HD (half full HD) content from You Tube and the screen was excellent for movies playback, offering accurate colours and good detail if you are happy to sit close enough when you're using it. Our only bone of contention is the really tight viewing angle and dimmed 3D screen. You aren't going to get away with sociably playing any 3D content on this for more than one person and, even though all screens dim when you put 3D glasses on, this one could've been brighter.