ASUS N71JQ-X1 17.3-Inch Versatile Entertainment Laptop (Dark Brown)

Full Description

5 Reviews

1. This is a great laptop (with an unadvertised USB 3.0 slot!) except that the glossy non-polarized screen is *extremely* reflective in all conditions, including indoors.

   It is so bad that the screen is completely unacceptable to me and this laptop must be returned. An alternative is to replace the screen for about $400 — note the new kind of “recessed” hinge ASUS uses makes it _impossible_ to get to the two bottom screws to remove the screen — thus you cannot replace it yourself (as per instructions on ASUS-recommended site [...] which works for other brands) and must send out the entire laptop, adding about $200 to the expense of the screen replacement with a compatible matte screen. For a tiny extra cost, ASUS could have polarized the glossy screen but unfortunately decided not to. It also would have been nice to not have the disk/cpu/etc indicator lights be so bright or on top of the keyboard (they should be on the side with a green/yellow color — not piercing white as now); however they are easy to cover up.

   I bought this laptop since I really liked the feel (and features) of the keyboard that I saw at Best Buy (but bought on amazon since Best Buy did not have this exact model in stock). Too bad I didn’t know that the reflective screen (which was not turned on at Best Buy) was not like the 6 year old Sony Vaio VGN-A290 17″ laptop I have which has a polarization coating so that the reflectivity of the glossy screen is greatly diminished. So my 6 year old 17″ glossy screen is far superior to a brand-new ASUS laptop screen! Not only that but the ASUS is limited to 1600×900 but my old laptop has 1920×1200 (16:10). My next laptop will have a better screen dimension ratio of 16:10 (1.6) rather than 16:9 (1.77) so that it is significantly higher — better for reading email and other docs (versus just watching movies).

   How to test whether a glossy screen is polarized (polarization minimizes reflections and eyestrain):
   – Shine a flashlight onto the glossy laptop screen when it is off. If the reflection shows rainbow colored bands or other patterns around the center of the light, then the screen is polarized. Wish I had discovered this earlier to test the screen in the store!

   I hope ASUS will understand that a matte or at least polarized/anti-glare glossy screen is hugely important to many — it should be an option on their new laptops. It’s too bad because the other features are so great on this laptop.

2. I purchased this laptop after unknowingly buying a stolen Dell Latitude 830 from Craig’s List. Thanks to Dell’s Lojack service, the police came to my house with a search warrant and confiscated the Latitude after I would not return the detective’s phone calls. (I wonder why they didn’t find the Latitude from the guy who sold it to me??) Anyway, if you own a Dell, the Lojack service does work. After this experience, do you think I would buy another Dell? -NOT ON YOUR LIFE. The police treated me like a common criminal, indicated that they thought I stole the laptop, and trashed my house. The 5 police officers who raided my home were not interested in helping me recover the $$$ I paid for the 830.

   At any rate, I decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy new, unstolen, and get a warranty. After researching Tom’s Hardware, Newegg, Amazon, Laptop review and others I settled on Asus with the i7 processor. I intended to buy the N61 and save $100, but finally decided the 17″ screen was worth the extra money. The Egg people still had the N71 when I ordered, but are now sold out of this machine. However, Amazon had free super saver shipping so they got the call.

   CONS: Don’t like the side plugin for the power cord; the fan exhaust gets quite warm. Both exhaust and power cord would be better if configured from the rear IMHO. Bloatware is easy to remove, but performance is simply amazing, and the best buy out there for this level of hardware BAR NONE.

   FINALLY: I would not recommend anyone buying a used laptop unless it would be from a member of your own family. It is not a crime to buy a used laptop, but if it happens to be a stolen laptop, you will be treated like a criminal and you WILL NOT be able to recover your investment. I suppose you could take the seller to small claims, but that is a lot of trouble and aggravation, plus who is going to enforce the judgement if you do win?? I will add that I thought Dell should have given me a discount on a new laptop after fingering me for having a stolen machine. FAT CHANCE.

3. ASUS N71JQ-X1 17.3-Inch Versatile Entertainment Laptop (Dark Brown)

   The reviews prior to this one say what a great laptop this is but that it lacked a Blu-Ray player. The description must have been off when most people first ordered this, and I would be upset if I had thought I was getting blu-ray player, but didn’t. That being said, and I knew what I was getting. Let me be clear; this is an AMAZING value for what you’re getting…even without Blu-Ray. Think about it; you’re getting an Intel Core i7 laptop, with a 1GB ATI discrete graphics card, 17 inch, high def screen, and a 500GB hard-drive…oh and 4GB of Kingston RAM…all for under $1200 (as of this writing)? Are you kidding me?

   I love this laptop, and I was a lifelong HP guy, until my screen died after 2 years of use…the build quality on this is incredible, the screen is beautiful, and as for Blu-Ray…meh. Everything’s going disc-less digital anyway. A few years from now, and everything will be download only anyway.

   Don’t let the other reviews fool you, this is THE value in laptops, from one of the most well-decorated manufacturers of the last few years. Check out some sites on the net, do your research, and I’m sure you’ll come to the same conclusion I did…this is the laptop to own.

   Good luck and happy hunting.

   ADDITIONAL INFO (Posted 3/22/2010) after using this laptop for the past few days, I can safely say that this was a great bargain. It’s faster and more responsive than my previous HP that cost 3x as much. Also, it came with DDR3 1333 RAM instead of the advertised 1066. Nice little bonus. Point being, if you buy this laptop, I doubt you’d ever regret it.

4. This is a bit long, but please read so that you know what to expect when you get the N71. I wish I had read something like this before buying.

   I researched computers for weeks and weeks. I decided on an Asus because they didn’t seem to have any bad rumors floating around. They are new, their other product lines boast great reviews and high quality products. For example, I hear some brands have screens go out early, other brands have software problems, others are rumored to just be crap. Asus, however, didn’t seem to have any bad words being spread. So I decided on them and landed on the N71. This is not a cheap computer, and for spending this much I would have expected close to perfection.

   So I ordered one, and the first thing I noticed was that the disk drive rattled dramatically. While installing software, the entire computer would shake and make a loud buzzing sound. This and a boot up error (not quite the blue screen of death, but similarly terrifying) when coming out of hibernation made me return it for a replacement. Amazon was great, they replaced it overnight and compensated for return shipping.

   So I’m now on my second N71.

   First thing…the quad core is not blowing me out of the water like I’d expect. It seems like it’s just a fast processor, not the remarkably stupendous speed that I’d expect from the current top of the line.

   Second, I realized that the express gate feature isn’t as cool as I thought it would be. It’s an early 90s looking browser with little to no functionality.

   Third, this amazing multi-touch touch pad is disappointing. I really had high expectations for it, how cool would it be to swipe three fingers to the right and switch applications, to swipe three fingers up and bring up My Computer, to scroll using two fingers (like on a Mac), etc, etc, etc. I was really excited about all these convenient features. The truth is that it’s about as responsive as a crappy touch screen cell phone (you’ll know exactly what I mean if you’ve played around with one of the first phones that came out to compete with the iPhone). Most of the time the multi-touch operation fails, you do the motion and nothing happens. The two finger scrolling is great (about the only feature that works well) but when you pause the screen jumps up and down very quickly, like it’s stuck between one tick up and one tick down on the vertical scrolling.

   Lastly…the multimedia hard buttons are actually broken!! There is a “expressGate” button, Mute, Vol Down, Vol Up and Play/Pause button at the top of the keyboard. The Mute and Volume Up do not work, and the others I don’t use. So of the three buttons I’d use most (Vol Up, Vol Down and Mute)…only one of them works. This is really annoying and I don’t want to have to mess with returning it again since I’ve already got this computer all set up. I am going to call Asus to see if there is something I can do to fix it, but it looks to be a hardware problem which means I’m probably screwed (since I don’t want to have to mail the computer all over the country for a couple broken buttons).

   So, sorry for the long review. All in all, I am completely UNDERWHELMED by this “priced close to top of the line” computer. But, it still does all the normal stuff you need a computer to do. It just comes standard with some constantly annoying things that make me regret the purchase, just not enough to return it and start my search over.

5. The Laptop is a very good computer, very good resources, the screen size it’ correct but the computer is actually smaller than the specs given, and is not as heavy as it looks. It dosen’t have a Blu-Ray combo though.

   A nice laptop if you’re not so interseted in the blu-ray!