ASUS G73JH vs HP Envy 17: a photo shootout

lowteckh

Supreme [H]ardness
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Because there are those out there wondering...
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I would pick up an Envy 17 if HP didn't hate Canadians and make it nearly impossible to get a laptop with a screwed up keyboard.
 
based on pictures alone, the Envy would be my choice ;) just looks so much cleaner, and thinner
 
So which one do you like? Im actually looking at both of those two. I know the Envy has horrible battery life but how is the Asus.

Im leaning towards the Envy based on all looks even though I know the Asus outperforms it.
 
I dislike both.

ASUS
- Skipping keystrokes
- Keyboard layout, keep hitting all the wrong keys (stupid numpad)
- Uber stiff as hell mouse buttons, too spread apart as well

Envy
- Gets hot as hell
- Trackpad is the worst I've ever encountered, ever. Ever.

Battery life for either is going to be sub 2 hours.

I wouldn't give much thought about the looks and size. Yes, the HP is thinner, smaller and lighter but make no mistake, it's still a gargantuan notebook and only .5 lbs lighter than the ASUS. The ASUS imo has better build quality and will probably withstand the test of time better; I feel that I can abuse the ASUS a bit more than the fragility of the HP (despite the materials), along with the ASUS runner far cooler than the scorching HP. I've also read about a HP Envy 17 that ate a disk (slot loading, all looks no brain).

As for performance, comparing only SC2...
[Single player, Delta Quadrant, 3 AIs, 1600*900, Ultra, Catalyst 10.10, first few seconds of map (5 SCVs, 1 in queue)]
ASUS (i7-720QM, 5870) gets 60fps
HP (i5-450M, 5850) gets 35fps

Go figure.
 
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Play around with the trackpad settings in the synaptics drivers, you can get them set up pretty well. Mine has deadzones for clicking and dragging, two finger right click, two finger scrolling, and more multi finger gestures. It's pretty awesome.
 
The asus g73 has around 60 to 90 min bat life. However, it is a kick ass notebook for gaming and fast as hell for everything else. As long as the GPU is properly pasted heat is not an issue.

Just Beware if it has any problems and needs to be RMA'd, remember it is asus, so be prepared to wait.
 
Play around with the trackpad settings in the synaptics drivers, you can get them set up pretty well. Mine has deadzones for clicking and dragging, two finger right click, two finger scrolling, and more multi finger gestures. It's pretty awesome.

Already did, disabled everything. It blows, period. Both are going away :)
 
Hm that's disappointing. so you didn't get the 1920x1080 screen either huh. Damn I don't know what to get now. I was looking at the envy 14 but it has that shitty screen now
 
I have the ASUS G73JH-RBBX05 and I love it :). Thing is ultra super fast and I havn't had a single problem with the keyboard skipping key strokes as said above. Also from the looks of it, both laptops have the glossy screen. My choice was the ASUS G73JH simply because I wanted a fast gaming laptop. For being bulky it sure doesnt weigh that much. My smaller P-6831fx weighed more then my G73JH. Theres my 2 cents. Personally I say go with the ASUS :)!
 
Hm that's disappointing. so you didn't get the 1920x1080 screen either huh. Damn I don't know what to get now. I was looking at the envy 14 but it has that shitty screen now

I prefer lower resolutions for small screens (17" is a small screen).
1. Things are bigger, less squinting
2. Less GPU power required

I've had a 17" 1920*1200 laptop previously and I remember it being tiresome to work on because of the resolution

and...

The 5870 (being a lower clocked desktop 5770) is going to have a littttttle trouble pushing out good fps numbers at native 1080p. And we all should already know that [for LCDs], lower resolution from native is going to look worse than a native lower res screen.
 
I prefer lower resolutions for small screens (17" is a small screen).
1. Things are bigger, less squinting
2. Less GPU power required

I've had a 17" 1920*1200 laptop previously and I remember it being tiresome to work on because of the resolution

and...

The 5870 (being a lower clocked desktop 5770) is going to have a littttttle trouble pushing out good fps numbers at native 1080p. And we all should already know that [for LCDs], lower resolution from native is going to look worse than a native lower res screen.

I play everything at 1920x1080 on the even weaker 5830M. It's not that bad unless you're pushing ridiculous amounts of AA.
 
The 5870 (being a lower clocked desktop 5770) is going to have a littttttle trouble pushing out good fps numbers at native 1080p. .

I don't disagree with the logic of the rest of this post, and the first half of this sentence is correct (5870m is slightly < Desktop 5770, both at stock), but I can tell you that it has little trouble pushing native rez. The classic games that are notorious even on beefy systems aren't going to magically work on this, but a 5770 is more than adequate at native res and smaller levels of AA and AF, for pushing a single 1080p monitor.

Like the poster above me said. Once you crank up the AA, it starts to suck. I keep mine at around 2x to 4x and I've never seen a game slow to a crawl (unless that game was Fallout 3, right before it'd crash).

I agree with the lower res of a gaming laptop though, with the lack of viable upgrades for laptops having a lower resolution prolongs the gaming life of the laptop. I can't imagine if I had tried to push 1920x1200 on my Inspiron 9300 back in the day, I'm so glad I went with the 1440x900 (I still play WoW on it today). I almost went for the 900p resolution in my G73, but I decided against it. I still don't know exactly why I did, but I'm sure either way I'd have been happy.
 
You can always scale down the resolution on a 1920x1080 panel too. I play at 1600x900 and 1280x720 in more demanding games like Crysis and Metro 2033, and it looks perfect on my laptop...you don't have this kind of flexibility on a lower res panel.

Not to mention, bluray on 1080p screens is awesome...fullscreen native res :cool:
 
I agree with the lower res of a gaming laptop though, with the lack of viable upgrades for laptops having a lower resolution prolongs the gaming life of the laptop. I can't imagine if I had tried to push 1920x1200 on my Inspiron 9300 back in the day, I'm so glad I went with the 1440x900 (I still play WoW on it today). I almost went for the 900p resolution in my G73, but I decided against it. I still don't know exactly why I did, but I'm sure either way I'd have been happy.
That's exactly what I had too, before going desktop. Inspiron 9300 with a 6800 Go. That's when Dell was still a legitimate player :D

You can always scale down the resolution on a 1920x1080 panel too. I play at 1600x900 and 1280x720 in more demanding games like Crysis and Metro 2033, and it looks perfect on my laptop...you don't have this kind of flexibility on a lower res panel.

Not to mention, bluray on 1080p screens is awesome...fullscreen native res :cool:

I'd be going to hell and back up to Jesus' ass, then back down to hell with a pineapple up my ass if I watched any sort of media on a 17" screen vs. the 26"... or the 50". :D
 
Envy
- Gets hot as hell
- Trackpad is the worst I've ever encountered, ever. Ever.

Not true any more with the re-engineered models. That said, it depends on what CPU you load up with and your own personal taste when it comes to track pads.

The envy is a quality piece of kit. HP's biggest issue right now is with their screen resolutions. I've personally turned to the new Dell XPS for reasons of practicality.

Yes, the HP is thinner, smaller and lighter but make no mistake, it's still a gargantuan notebook and only .5 lbs lighter than the ASUS.

That's an extemely subjective remark. Let's be a bit clearer here. The more you need to do (I mean doing real, non-trivial work) the more attractive a 17" becomes. i cannot use anything below a 15" because the machine is just too small to do real work on.

So, the OP probably has very good reasons for going down the 17" route and there is nothng wrong with that other than fashion. Second guessing that choice really makes no sense.

Regards,
Dave
 
@laserbeam: I'm pretty sure lowteckh *is* the OP.

Ha, thanks for pointing out my error. It never occurred to me that an OP might contradict the apparent purpose of the opening post and therefore the drive behind the whole thread.

This thread is a confused mess. I'll step away before I misinterpret much more;)


Regards,
Dave
 
I dislike both.

ASUS
- Skipping keystrokes
- Keyboard layout, keep hitting all the wrong keys (stupid numpad)
- Uber stiff as hell mouse buttons, too spread apart as well

I fixed the skipping keystrokes by disabling the touchpad in the bios. I'm fairly sure that later bios updates (that I haven't grabbed - probably should) fix the problem though. In my opinion, the keyboard layout is great.

To be honest, I don't see the point in complaining about the touchpad on a desktop replacement gaming laptop. If you're using the touchpad, you're Doing It Wrong (TM) in my opinion.
 
i enjoy my g73. i have a smaller tm2t by hp for tablet/mobility and i find this to be suitable to me :)
 
Ha, thanks for pointing out my error. It never occurred to me that an OP might contradict the apparent purpose of the opening post and therefore the drive behind the whole thread.

This thread is a confused mess. I'll step away before I misinterpret much more;)


Regards,
Dave
The sole "purpose" if you want to put a purpose to it was to just show the size difference between the Envy 17 and G73 (and that's a 13.3" on the last pic).

Then I was asked how I liked them.
 
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I just got both of these laptops at $900 each (through a special deal), now I'm gonna need to choose which one to pick...
 
azn and lowteck, did you decide which laptop you like? If you are looking to get rid of the envy 17, I would be interested in taking it off your hands.
 
I just got both of these laptops at $900 each (through a special deal), now I'm gonna need to choose which one to pick...

I'd say the ASUS. The ENVY will light your hands on fire, run as loud as a a riced up Civic, and run as fast as one too (stupid underclocking/gimping courtesy of HP). The HP will probably die and blow up before a jar of pasta sauce expires too, again courtesy of HP's legendary crap quality (like the gaps between the casing in mine).
 
the new envy 3d has added cooling via an extra copper-esque cooling pipe. it gets much cooler and isnt really an issue (at least on mine). the 3d is awesome and gaming on 120mhz is something to be seen
 
Hz, not MHz. I'm very skeptical that an added pipe will do much about managing heat output without an extra fan; esp. if you want your 5850 running at stock clocks instead of gimped-to-shits clocks. The brief time I had the ENVY, I would have burned myself if I left my hand at the vent for more than a second. That kinda heat just doesn't scream longevity, more like... designed to melt asap so you buy another. From just that standpoint (and raw performance), the G73 is it. No gimping and you've got room to O/C. The ENVY will look prettier (absolutely nothing wrong with form > function), so I suppose it all boils down to priorities.

3D
small

vs.
Regular
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Based on looks, I like the envy better. But I have the Asus, it stays nice and cool, however you might have to repaste the gpu yourself to have it run cool. I have never had an issue with missing keystrokes, ever. I have also never used the trackpad on any laptop I have ever had, and don't understand why anyone would. So I don't give a crap how bad they are, using them is against my religion.
 
The envy 17s internal layout is poorly thought out. They got it right with the envy 15 (partially due to the lack of optical drive)

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azn and lowteck, did you decide which laptop you like? If you are looking to get rid of the envy 17, I would be interested in taking it off your hands.

I got the Envy 14. I actually like it a lot as its a compromise between power and portability. I can play my games at decent settings and its still light enough to move around. Battery is decent and I got the Slice battery too and it can last about 9 hours.
 
i just got my Asus G73JW-XA1 and in love with it, looks much bigger at the house then it did when i saw it at bestbuy.
 
based on pictures alone, the Envy would be my choice ;) just looks so much cleaner, and thinner

Problem is, getting a 17 inch machine it's almost certainly going to be a desktop replacement. I'd prefer something beefier that growls a bit and screams 'POWER!!' which would be the ASUS :cool:.

Reminds me of a lambo reventon, or that case mod over on bit-tech.
 
Both of them sound terrible. My old asus netbook (1000he) is damn zippy with 2gb ram and a custom win7 ult install. The new versions of that same netbook cost around 300-350 now, screw the expensive crappy laptops get a slick netbook. PS the 1000he had 6-9 hours batt life depending on what your doing. Thats with wifi running ofc..It ran my full pc desktop including utorrent when needed, digsby/trillian, avira av set for low resource usage (same as my home pc), firefox, thunderbird, media player classic for playing any possible video, on and on. People go thru so much trouble and spend so much $ on all kinds of portable devices (tablets/ipads) that struggle to do those things, and the "older" invention the netbooks do all that and more quite well, without any of the issues of running apple phone OSes or andriod :)
 
@ malakai
That's so utterly silly I don't even know what to say...you need a netbook for a completely different purpose than people need a desktop replacement for. Sure, your netbook worked for you, but if you're a gamer, a designer, a scientist, or someone who needs a bit more power for any other purpose, or someone who types for long periods on a full sized keyboard, a netbook just won't do.
 
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