ASUS G1S GAMING NOTEBOOK REVIEW
Asus introduces Santa Rosa to gaming--for a bargain.
The G1S is one of Asus' first Intel Santa Rosa notebooks and carries a bargain price of $1,899. It's not the screamer machine serious gamers are hoping for, but mainstream users who happen to enjoy gaming will find a lot to like with this system.
The Asus G1S looks the part of a gaming notebook, with a mix of matte-black and high-gloss carbon fiber plastic that does a decent job of resisting smudges and fingerprints. A carbon-fiber print covers the touchpad, while brushed aluminum highlights the touchpad buttons and palm-rest area. Lime-green accents behind the built-in 1.3-megapixel webcam offset the darker colors well At 13.9 x 11.2 x 1.5 inches and 6.8 pounds, the G1S is small for a gaming machine but still manages to squeeze in a full-sized keyboard and a 15.4-inch screen. The keys provided a good feel; they offered a satisfying click with each press, and weren't spongy. You'll find a full complement of media keys, along with a bright green font on the WASD movement keys for gaming in lower light.
On the back of the G1S are four USB ports, as well as ports for eSATA, VGA, and HDMI. We wish the USB ports were a little more accessible, but we're pleased that there are four of them. On the left side is the 8X LightScribe SuperMulti DVD drive. The right side has a 4-in-1 card reader, ExpressCard slot, FireWire port, S-Video port, and the standard Ethernet, modem, headphone, mic, and line-in jacks. A small OLED screen above the function keys shows the system time and Asus logo at startup. The sound system produces decent volume levels but lacks bass.
The 1680 x 1050-pixel, 15.4-inch LCD is well suited for movie watching, gaming, Web surfing, and general computer work. Graphics via Nvidia's 8600m GT with 256MB of dedicated memory and Windows Vista Home Premium allows for DirectX 10 gaming. Our F.E.A.R. gaming tests delivered an average frame rate of 69 fps with autodetect settings and 1024 x 760 resolution; maxing out the settings dropped the frame rate to 40 fps. These scores are good enough for most 3D games, but serious gamers with money to burn will still look to Alienware or Voodoo for three-digit frame rates. Nevertheless, these scores are an improvement over the 55 and 30 fps we got from the previous Asus G1.
Intel's 2.2-GHz Core 2 Duo T7500 with the Next Generation Centrino chipset (Santa Rosa) and 2GB of DDR2 PC2-5300 RAM helped the G1S earn a PCMark05 score of 5,244 and a 3DMark03 score of 6,061. This graphics score is considerably lower than its predecessor's 10,012 on 3DMark03, which makes us wonder how much Santa Rosa really makes up for Vista's shortcomings. We have no complaints about the 160GB hard drive, though, except that a 7,200-rpm speed would have been better than the 5,400 it comes with, and there's no option to upgrade.
Intel's 2.2-GHz Core 2 Duo T7500 with the Next Generation Centrino chipset (Santa Rosa) and 2GB of DDR2 PC2-5300 RAM helped the G1S earn a PCMark05 score of 5,244 and a 3DMark03 score of 6,061. This graphics score is considerably lower than its predecessor's 10,012 on 3DMark03, which makes us wonder how much Santa Rosa really makes up for Vista's shortcomings. We have no complaints about the 160GB hard drive, though, except that a 7,200-rpm speed would have been better than the 5,400 it comes with, and there's no option to upgrade.
The G1S has 802.11n, also part of the new Santa Rosa chipset, and here we saw some improvement over the previous version. At 15 feet, the G1S managed 19.1 Mbps of throughput, and 18.4 Mbps at 50 feet--a slight bump from the 17.3 and 16.7 from the original G1. Battery life is disappointing, though. With an eight-cell lithium-ion battery, we saw only 1 hour and 13 minutes of runtime with Wi-Fi off on a DVD rundown test.
Asus backs the system with a two-year warranty for global coverage, pays shipping both ways to the nearest repair center, and includes a 30-day replacement offer for any bright spot pixels. Tech support is 24/7, but it's not a free call, and Asus includes a laptop backpack, a gaming mouse, and software for playing movies and burning CDs/DVDs.
All told, the G1S isn't the fastest rig in town, but it's a solid gaming notebook that offers portability at an affordable price. If you don't mind its short battery life, the Asus G1 is an excellent choice.