Asus GL551JM Review

This latest piece of machine attempts to yet again revive the 15.6″ version of the famous ROG laptops. The reviews this laptop has received are, as expected, flawless.  Some of its salient features include a thin profile (quite rare for gaming laptops), a top of the line hardware and one of the best value for money in the market. If it is high end gaming you are looking for at an economically sound price point, then ASUS GL551JM-DH71 will not disappoint you.

Hardware Configuration

The reviews for this laptop has generally been very positive. This laptop features Intel Core i7-4710HQ processor. For those of you unaware of this processor, suffice it to know that it one of the most powerful processor out there in the market for laptops. This is a quad core processor with hyper-threading enabled. It has a clock speed of 2.5 GHz per core with a turbo boost to 3.5 GHz. Turbo Boost is basically a technology that ramps up the processor to 3.5 GHz during strenuous tasks. Under ideal condition, the processor will function at 2.5 GHz to conserve battery. Furthermore, ASUS GL551JM-DH71 features a whopping 16 GB of RAM to kiss performance lag good bye.

What good is a gaming laptop without a good graphic card? This notebook, fortunately, features one of the best and latest graphic card from NVIDIA, the GeForce GTX 860M with 2GB GDDR5. To give you an idea about the power of this graphic, it can support all of the latest demanding games such as Watch Dogs, TitanFall, Crysis 3 at High-Ultra Graphics with ease and at a respectable frame rate of 40 and even above 50 on certain games. At low graphics, well, it surpasses even 100 FPS. 

Unlike some of the not so old versions of ROG laptops, ASUS GL551JM-DH71 features a 1 TB of HDD with RPM of 7200 instead of 5400. Just as everything in a system benefits from a faster processor, it also benefits from a faster HDD.

Features

All ASUS GL551JM-DH71 reviews have welcomed the red stripes along the stealth black color of this laptop. This laptop has 15.6 Full HD, IPS screen. The IPS screen promises the best viewing angles and also rich and vibrant colors. Additionally, the design of this laptop is second to none and features the signature cooling design along with a brushed aluminium exterior and a red backlight for the keyboard. This is a much welcome addition in comparison to all-black color design featured in the previous versions.

At 1.30 in thickness, ASUS GL551JM-DH71 is also quite slim for a gaming laptop. It should be noted that many multimedia and budget laptops have the design profile of 1.30 inches; therefore, for a gaming laptop to have the same size it is quite an accomplishment.

This laptop does feature a Multi-DVD optical drive, along with a Webcam, SD card reader, Wifi and all other standard connectivity and interfacing options. 

Conclusion

If you are looking for a gaming laptop that can run almost anything that you throw at it and yet manages to give you a good price point, then ASUS GL551JM-DH71 is a good laptop go for. You can hardly expect to find a good multimedia laptop at this price, so a gaming laptop is worth every penny. This, of course, is my opinion. 

Asus G750JZ Review

The Good The Asus G750 is one of the first laptops with Nvidia's new top-end GeForce GTX 880M graphics cards. The hefty keyboard is great for WASD gaming, and a generous selection of ports makes it easy to add accessories or external monitors.

The Bad For a $3,000 laptop, this still looks like a thick, clunky box. The screen skips the higher resolution and touch functionality we're seeing more often in premium laptops.

The Bottom Line The Asus line of gaming laptops has always offered excellent high-end configurations, along with custom software and hardware tweaks. This latest version of the G750 bets on Nvidia's brand-new line of GPUs, and includes the current top-end card for great gaming performance.

While much of the public discourse about laptops and mobile PCs is taken up with ultrabooks, hybrids, and other ever-slimmer devices, there's still room for the traditional 17-inch gaming desktop replacement.

As it happens, we tend to see an influx of such systems just after Nvidia (or AMD) introduces a new generation of mobile graphics cards. In this case, it's a new GeForce 800M series from Nvidia, and we've almost simultaneously seen new gaming laptops from Asus, MSI, Razer, and others.

Alienware Area 51 Review

We rarely cover gaming rigs here at Pocket-lint, but there's something so iconic and, well, downright insane about the Alienware Area-51 that we couldn't resist. Or maybe the Greys have taken over our brains.

Far from flying in from a land far away and making its home in a US desert, the space-age Alienware Area-51 could setup base in your home, if you have the space and ego to show it off.

You'll also need money, as the starting price of £1299 will quickly escalate when you cram in all the top-of-the-line kit.

Every Area-51 comes equipped with a factory-overclocked eight core 4.0Ghz Intel Haswell-E Core i7 K-series processor, but you can build from that by loading plenty more in besides. Liquid cooling, DDR4 memory, Gigabit Ethernet, multiple AMD/Nvidia graphics cards, even multiple hard drives - it's all available here.

The two side panels to the Area-51 come off with ease for access to graphics and RAM on the one side, hard drives on the other. There's space for three full-sizegraphics cards (AMD Radeon 290X, Nvidia GeForce GTX, or even dual GeForce Titan Z) and up to 32GB quad channel DDR4 2133Mhz RAM to ensure mad-crazy power. Up to four storage drives can be accommodated should you need them too.

The six-sided shape of the Area-51 means graphics cards' fans won't be pumping heat directly to a wall should the Area-51 be positioned as such, instead giving more breathing space for those heavyweight gaming titles to bring everything to the boil without needing to worry. Except for your electricity bill, that is.

Front and rear ports are also easily accessible, as the Area-51 can be literally tilted forward - it's really heavy though - to gain access to the rear. There are eight USB sockets to the back, an additional two to the front making 10 in total. Blu-ray, SD card, headphones and microphone 3.5mm jacks also all feature to the front. If you want to go the whole hog with audio then a optical out to the rear can be synched to a system for extra boom in the audio department.The exterior also shows off Alienware's usual coloured lighting, which adapts based on what you're running, alongside the recognisable Alienware "alien face" logo. The black slatted front panel doesn't exude the kind of geeky cool of the side panels, but does its job just fine - it's plastic, after all, for keeping the heat at bay.

Seems like the Alienware Area-51 has got the power to abduct you and place you in a gaming world like no other… if you've got the cash to fill its innards with the best kit on offer.

Asus ROG G751 review

Asus uses Nvidia's latest mobile graphics to push games at 4K

The Good The Asus G751 has excellent performance, can drive games at 4K resolution, and includes a few handy shortcut keys gamers will appreciate.

The Bad You could buy about a dozen game consoles for what this costs. Battery life and design are stuck in the past. You'll need an external 4K TV or monitor for the highest-res gaming.

The Bottom Line One of the first laptops that can drive games at 4K resolutions, the Asus G751 is an expensive but capable alternative to gaming desktops.

Near the end of an already great year for gaming PCs -- and gaming laptops in particular -- we're starting to see the first wave of systems that look forward toward a 4K future. Many of these laptops don't look a lot different than the previous few generations, which is a shame, but they feature Nvidia's new GeForce GTX 980M graphics card, which is the first mobile GPU capable of truly driving (some) PC games at 4K resolutions.

Asus N550JV Review

Design

The ASUS N550JV is a solid, handsome notebook that is cool and smooth to the touch. While the bottom is plastic, ASUS clad the rest of the design in aluminum. Its dark gray lid has a beautiful brushed finish, but is unfortunately smudge-prone, making it lose some of its sheen.

The silver aluminum deck features two speakers at the top with ripple-effect dots surrounding an Instant button on the left and the power button on the right. The Instant button can be customized to launch any app of your choice and by default launches the ASUS Console.

Thanks to its generous width, the N550JV accommodates a dedicated number pad along on its island-style, LED-backlit keyboard. A 4.5 x 2.9-inch touchpad is centered with respect to the QWERTY keyboard, and just below this is a row of indicator lights. The silver keys lend a futuristic vibe to the laptop.

Sony PlayStation TV Review

The Good PlayStation TV has an affordable starting price point, works with existing DualShock 3 and 4 controllers and can play hundreds of games. It also offers game streaming from a networked PS4 or via PlayStation Now, and a handful of video services.

The Bad A surprising amount of content for PSTV is not available in HD, and the Vita's interface doesn't make a graceful jump to the big screen. Remote play is laggy in Wi-Fi mode and PSTV still relies on an expensive flash storage medium. Major streaming services such as Netflix and Hulu Plus are noticeably absent.

The Bottom Line The PlayStation TV sounds great on paper, but out of the gate, it underwhelms as both a gaming and an entertainment box.

With the PlayStation 4, Sony already has a credible claim to conquering your living room with its do-it-all gaming and streaming entertainment box. Now the company is going after the other rooms in your home with the PlayStation TV.

It's a tiny box -- smaller than a deck of cards -- that has Roku and Apple TV comparisons written all over it. It connects to your home network over Wi-Fi or Ethernet and sports an HDMI port (there's also a cable in the box) for easy plug-and-play with your TV.

MSI GT72 Dominator Review

NVIDIA just launched their new GTX 980M/GTX 970M GPUs, and unfortunately we were unable to get a notebook in time for testing… which just changed this morning a couple hours after the launch article went live. We've covered MSI's GM204 notebooks already, and now we have a sample GT72 sample from MSI for review. The GT72 Dominator is available in seven different configurations, two "Dominator" SKUs with GTX 970M and five "Dominator Pro" SKUs with GTX 980M. We received the GT72 Dominator Pro-208 for testing, which has the following specifications:

CPU	Core i7-4710HQ (2.5-3.5GHz)
GPU	NVIDIA GeForce GTX 980M 8GB Intel HD 4600 (Manual Switching)
RAM	32GB (4x8GB) DDR3L-1600
SSD	512GB M.2 SATA SSDs (4x128GB SSDs in RAID 0)
HDD	1TB 7200RPM
Optical	Blu-ray Burner 9.5mm
Display	17.3" Full HD eDP Anti-Glare (1920x1080)
Networking	Killer Gaming Network Killer N1525 Combo (2x2 802.11ac + BT 4.0)
I/O Ports	6 x USB 3.0 Flash Reader (SDXC/SDHC) HDMI 1.4 2 x mini-DisplayPort 1.2
Input	Steel Series Keyboard Multi-touch Touchpad
Power	9-cell battery 230W AC adapter
Extras	Full HD webcam (1080p30) Configurable Multi-colored Backlighting Anti-Ghost Key
OS	Windows 8.1 Multi-Language
Dimensions	16.85" x 11.57"x 1.89" (428mm x 294mm x 48mm)
Weight	8.4 lbs. (3.82kg)
Pricing	$3000 MSRP $2900 Online

Nintendo 3DS XL Review

The $200 3DS XL is a very good gaming machine, possibly the best portable gaming device ever, which, yeah, maybe we said about February's PlayStation Vita, but back then we'd have only been talking about a piece of hardware and its gaming potential. The 3DS XL isn't just full of potential. It's a well-designed machine that plays an absurdly rich array of excellent video games.

The 3DS XL, set for release on August 19 in North America, is Nintendo's latest incremental upgrade. The company has been doing this kind of thing since before the iPod upgraded from the model with with the select wheel that moved to the one that didn't. Nintendo put out a Game Boy and then squeezed it down as a Game Boy Pocket (Game Boy Color, too, of course). They released a Game Boy Advance that was so ridiculously dim that, at gaming conventions, they'd put these silly miniature desk lamps over each one so you actually see the games on their screen. Then, a couple of years later, there were like, "oh, yeah, now we'll sell you a GBA that doesn't suck. It's called the GBA SP." They'd put out a hunk of plastic and call it a Nintendo DS and then, a couple of years later, kind of say, "whoops, here's a DS Lite that isn't hideous" and then, a couple of years after that put out a DSi (now with cameras and some storage so you can download games to it!) and then make a DSi XL because, hey, maybe someone wants their portable gaming system super-sized.

There is a 3DS in my left pocket; a 3DS XL in my right pocket. This really is the best way to show you this comparison, I think. Bonus fact: I sat down with a 3DS XL in my back pocket on a New York City subway and the console didn't break. In fact, I forgot it was there, much as I might forget that I have a wallet in my back pocket. But this is not ideal and I tend to carry the 3DS XL in a pouch in my bag.

Alienware 13 Review

Alienware is back at it, launching its newest gaming laptop. However, you wouldn’t think that this notebook is fit for fragging foes just by picking it up.

The Alienware 13 weighs just 4.5 pounds, which is impressively light for a gaming laptop. It’s also roughly an inch thick, so you shouldn’t have any problems wrapping a single hand around the body if you lug it around with it packed underneath your arm.

However, there’s a price to be paid for better-than-average portability, and that shows up in the Alienware 13’s specs. While the Intel Core i5-4210U 1.7GHz dual-core CPU that comes standard with the Alienware 13 may be sufficient, Alienware’s decision to include an Nvidia GeForce GTX 860M GPU in its newest offering is a bit disappointing. You can’t upgrade either of these components, so you’re locked into them.

The 860M is no longer a part of Nvidia’s newest series of GPUs. Recently, Nvidia launched the GeForce GTX 980M, and 970M. The former GPU offers impressive performance, equating to roughly 75 percent of the power offered by the GTX 980, which is a desktop-based card.

The Alienware 13 will be available with one of three displays, all measuring 13-inches. The standard model includes 1,366 x 768 resolution panel. From there, you can upgrade to a 1080p model, or a 2,560 x 1,440 screen. Keep in mind that, the higher you go up on the resolution scale, the lower your battery life will drop. Plus, the GPU here, which isn’t a top of the line unit, will have to push even more pixels, which will bring down frame rates.

The Alienware 13 can be configured with a 500GB hybrid hard drive, a 1TB mechanical hard drive, or a 256GB or 512GB SSD. There’s also an option to pair a 256GB SSD with a 128GB SSD. The base model Alienware 13 includes 8GB of RAM, but you can double that to 16GB if you wish.

Related: Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 review

Port selection consists of three USB 3.0, Ethernet, mini DisplayPort, and HDMI 1.4. There’s also a special addition here, dubbed the Alienware Graphics Amplifier Port. This connection allows you to plug in an accessory made only by Alienware that lets you upgrade the Alienware 13’s GPU with a desktop graphics card.

Windows 8.1 is included by default, but you can go for Windows 7 if you want. Power is provided via a four-cell battery.

On the plus side, the Alienware 13 isn’t exorbitantly expensive. The company’s latest mobile PC gaming rig starts at $999, but the amount you pay will depend on how you configure it. You can order it starting October 28.

ASUS G750JZ-XS72 Review - Special Gaming

The gaming arms race continues, and the latest to escalate this never-ending battle is the ASUS G750JZ-XS72, a $2,999 system with Nvidia's newest and most powerful mobile graphics card. But in addition to the GeForce GTX 880M GPU, this 17-inch rig also features a 2.4-GHz Intel Core i7-4700HQ processor, a whopping 32GB of RAM, and dual 256GB solid-state drives (SSDs) in a RAID 0 array. Will this notebook ensure destruction for the competition?

Design

Part Lamborghini and part stealth fighter, the ASUS G750Jz is just as menacing as its predecessors. Its angled design is identical to that of the G750Jx, with a soft-touch black lid that tapers on either side. The lid feels comfortable to the touch, but has a tendency to show oily fingerprints.

Inside, the unassuming deck is made of black, brushed aluminum, with a triangular power button sitting in the upper-right corner. On the back are the two iconic, oversize air vents that have come to symbolize ASUS' high-end gaming rigs.

Measuring 16.1 x 12.5 x 0.67-1.96 inches and weighing 9.4 pounds, the G750JZ is a beast of a laptop. It's smaller but heavier than the Alienware 17 (17.9 x 12.9 x 2.26-2.23 inches, 9.2 pounds), and is also slightly heavier than the G750Jx, which weighs 8.8 pounds. The MSI GT70 (16.85 x 11.34 x 2.17 inches, 8.4 pounds) is the lightweight of the group.

Razer Blade 14 Review

With the Blade 14, Razer remains on the cutting edge of gaming notebooks. Currently the world's thinnest gaming laptop, the Blade 14 offers more than just a slim, soft-touch chassis. This machine also crams a fourth-generation Intel Core i7 processor and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 765M GPU into a svelte, 0.66-inch frame. Is this portable gaming experience worth the $1,999 price tag? 

Design

The Blade 14 retains the alluring design of its big brother, the second-generation Razer Blade. We're still fans of the black aluminum chassis, which is both stylish and lightweight. The center of the lid is dominated by Razer's hypnotic three-headed snake logo, tantalizingly backlit in green. The insignia sits between two elegant ridges, which give the notebook a muscle-car aesthetic.