XoticPC’s G73JW: A Good Gaming Notebook Made Better?

Features
By Thomas Soderstrom
published

XoticPC offers gaming notebook buyers an alternative to the boring and heavy Clevo-based units sold by most of its competitors. Asus’ hefty (but not grotesquely-so) G73JW is the starting point for the custom build XoticPC sent over for our evaluation.

The Xotic Solution

In addition to its performance-enhancing mods, XoticPC offers custom lighting options that really make its version of Asus’ hardware stand out. Most apparent is the custom “flag” pattern keyboard lighting under Asus’ premium LED-backlit, 1080p, 17.3” LCD.

A two-megapixel webcam along the G73JW’s top edge makes video conferencing easy.

Asus left a clean front edge on this design, placing only a few activity lights in a non-obtrusive fashion.

A gigabit Ethernet port, headset jacks, and two USB 2.0 ports frame the 4x Blu-ray reader, which is also capable of writing DVDs at up-to 8x speed.

The G73JW supports only analog and HDMI output for added displays, limiting external monitor resolutions to a maximum 1920x1200 resolution. That’s still better than the official 1920x1080 the HDMI interface was designed to enable.

Also found on the right edge are a multi-format card reader, a USB 3.0 port, a USB 2.0 port, and the power jack corresponding to the included AC/DC adapter.

Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom
Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.
27 Comments Comment from the forums
  • the_krasno
    Add another 460M in SLI and then you have the punch needed!
    Reply
  • fstrthnu
    With all of the flair going on over Sandy Bridge, one might as well just wait till someone comes out with the Sandy Bridge gaming notebooks
    Reply
  • adribhel
    @fstrthnu:
    The new Asus G73SW on Xoticpc has sandy bridge ;)

    I'm waiting for a possible "G73SH" with Radeon 6970m, though it might never happen. :/
    Reply
  • Crashman
    fstrthnuWith all of the flair going on over Sandy Bridge, one might as well just wait till someone comes out with the Sandy Bridge gaming notebooksXoticPC just wanted to show off its custom work and sent this in December. We're looking forward to the G73SW to be delivered in a similar configuration in the near future, so please stay tuned!
    Reply
  • joytech22
    That is a pretty amazing laptop, I could definitely use one of those for LAN's.
    Reply
  • curtis_87
    Is it me or has the print button suddenly disappeared from these batch of articles?...
    Reply
  • Is the problem a lack of strength? Or is it a heavy level of apathy? You can build the same machine in desktop form for significantly less.
    Reply
  • kkiddu
    Although it's totally not fair to compare it with a desktop PC, but I've been confused on what to go for as I'm going to college next year, one option being the bare $1500 version of the G73, and the other being a netbook + a desktop. The problem with the desktop is that I'll have to haul it back home every vacation.

    But seeing that performance for $3000 is just 'good', I'm gonna stick with a $1400 desktop. I think I can get a 50% performance increase with half the price.
    Reply
  • nevertell
    Why oh why didn't they fit a larger keyboard ? Look at the room on the sides of the keyboards, waiting to be filled with keys.
    Reply
  • Big Daddy Rhino
    $3600? I literally LOL'd. Just built a Sandy Bridge, GTX 570 desktop that will smoke that laptop and I've got $2400 left over for hookers and booze.
    Reply