ASUS G71GX-RX05 17.1-Inch Refurbished Laptop - Black/Red Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Well, I received the laptop in a nicely packed box.Which the laptop then was inside another box with tape saying "refurbished".

This is all good, [...] has been selling the G71s too and they ship the laptop in the original refurbish box in comes in.So I was glad to see J&R did not do this, seeing as it was packed in much better all while still offering free shipping like [...].

The reason this only gets 2 stars is because the laptop itself was crap.

1 Star for the performance and parts in laptop. Which would be incredibly more awesome if there wasn't so many cons. :(

1 star for J&R, they helped me get my money back with no hassles. And I really appreciate them being really nice even if a crappy laptop is not their fault, as I blame Asus for doing a bad job at manufacturing the G71 with so many defects and problems.

First off, the specs list its 6gigs, but I was only seeing that it had 4gigs in system properties.I can only assume either the Ram stick was missing, or that it was loose inside or something(supposed to be 3x2gig sticks inside).The bezel near the web-cam was coming off, kinda seemed like it was only glued on, and since it was up top, it somewhat affected how the lid closed.The HDD made a terrible clicking noise a LOT, this is a known problem for the 500gig Seagate hdds, but it still gets super annoying.Some even fail within the first week to month with the first signs being clicking, while others just annoyingly click.When the screen is dark, like during a dark scene in a movie, or just in general darker.You could clearly see to white smudges, that wasn't from a dirty screen, but guessing something to do with the back-lighting.

Which leads me to also add, the colors and contrast ratio of this monitor SUCKS!Black looks gray, and the colors when working in Photoshop were just completely off compared to my other monitor. Certain shades of blue weren't coming out clearly, and grays were harder to tell at what exact gray level was. Red blended in with orange, telling those colors apart wasn't the easiest. I have to admit, I am noob at PS, so I'm no pro at detailing all about different colors. But on this screen, it wasn't very hard to spot the colors being off.

The DVD-Rom drive would click very loud on boot-up, or when coming out of sleep mode. Which also should add, Asus never did fix the down-clocking of the video card when coming out of sleep mode.Therefore, only way to play a game with no troubles after your lappy has been asleep for a while is to restart.

Overall, the specs are really good, and I really wish it was a better laptop. But I simply CAN NOT recommend someone to pay $900, or I guess close to $900 since the price has dropped since I bought it, for a laptop that will give you more problems then make you happy.
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>Pros<
- Good performance in games.

- 10,346 in 3dmark06 stock everything.

- The specs you get for price is amazing.

- Can overclock the CPU with built in program, easily OCs 15% from 2.53ghz, to 2.888ghz.

- Lights on front bottom can be changed to different colors or completely off.
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>Cons<
- Screen contrast, and colors are very bad, and make laptop screen not fun to look at.

- Screen also had the occasional flicker, there is a youtube vid showing this, and on notebookreview, Asus section forums many users reported this issue also.

- DVD-Rom drive makes loud clicking noise on bootup and and when coming out of sleep mode.

- Even on latest BIOS, the video card still has downclocking issues after coming out of sleep(has to hit 82c before it starts to DC,which is super easy to do in this heat machine), unless you reboot.

- Some hard drives either fail as soon as you get it(read about it on Asus forums), or just really bother you with loud, constant clicking.

- Bezel around webcam was coming off on mine, but I have read others webcams were just off center from the bezel on other G71s.

- The GTX260m is downclocked at 500/1275/850 vs Nvidia's standard clocks supposed to be 550/1375/950. Can easily be OCed to normal clocks, but this thing already has high temps, and dont recommend it until your fully sure your temps are ok.

- Only 1 fan to cool CPU and GPU. Thus results in high temperatures.Even with $70 dollar cooler, the GPU rose to 90c in game benchmarks.Best I got was 87c when playing DeadSpace.*Note, some other users aren't lucky, and it can heat up to 96c just in 3dmark06, and in worst cases just keeps heating until it bluescreens/shutsdown.(didn't happen to me, but have read about others getting this)

- Along with con above^^, with only 1 fan, it gets Super loud when in games. But almost sounds scary loud to me.Obviously its just from the small fan having to do so much work, but still, I was worried about how long a fan could last when it sounds like that.

- HUGE, the screen is only 17 inches. But the laptop chassis is about the size of what you'd see in 18inch laptops or bigger.

- Can't turn off all the lights on back of laptop, can turn off the ones on the side, but the Logo, and strip light stay on 24/7. And most annoying blink when in standby(which prob also hurts battery more because of it(

- Battery life(already new this, still consider it a worthy con) is only like 1.5hrs. Less if your actually doing stuff on it.

- Fingerprint magnet on front lid, and on sides of the keyboard.

- Touchpad buttons are loud, hard to click buttons.
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In conclusion, you can see there is more than twice as much cons as there is pros.So if you can get this laptop and be ok with some of them, or get super lucky and get none of them, Great.But I had a friend try 3 different laptops from [...], each one had same problems to worse problems.
As for me, I didn't want to keep trying, and therefore, even with knowing some of the forewarnings, I didn't listen, and bought it. Learned quickly it was a horribly, bad mistake.

Thankfully, in the end, J&R was great. They gave all my money back, and didn't give me any hassles.

Would I buy this laptop or recommend this laptop to anyone?Hell No!

But, would I buy/recommend J&R as a good company to buy from?Yup, 100% would.

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Product Description:
The Asus G71GX-RX05 Notebook PC is the perfect desktop replacement to make you more productive whether you're at home, in the office, or on a business trip. This high-powered Notebook PC comes with the Genuine Vista Home Premium operating system, a Intel core 2 Duo P8700 2.53GHz Processor, 6GB of memory, and a 500GB hard drive. The attractive Asus G71GX-RX05 Refurbished Notebook PC features a 17.1" Display, a DVDRW Optical Drive and webcam. Other essential features include 802.11b/g/n wireless technology, built-in stereo speakers, and a comfortable U.S. keyboard. If you need full-throttle productivity no matter where you go, you'll love the Asus G71GX-RX05 Refurbished Notebook PC. This powerful Notebook PC offers the complete digital multimedia package, including a breathtaking image quality on a 17.1" Display, and an outstanding DVD burner you can use to watch movies, view videos & photos, or create your own business presentations.

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