Available exclusively from Best Buy, the Asus G50Vt-X1 ($1,249.99) has the look and feel of a high-end gaming notebook, and it has some cool features, like one-touch overclocking and interactive lighting effects. Although it can’t match the 3D performance of some high-octane (and high-priced) gaming rigs, it has more than enough chops to run today’s DirectX 9 (DX9) gaming titles with ease.
With a shiny piano-black lid sporting a touch of blue detailing and a glowing Asus Republic of Gamers logo badge, the 7.2-pound G50Vt-X1 has “gaming system” written all over it. A pair of blue light strips embedded in the sides of the lid completes the look. The same glossy black trim surrounds the 15.6-inch display, the 1,366x768 resolution of which is fine for most multimedia applications but a tad skimpy for 3D gaming (Alienware’s Area-51 m15x has a 1,920x1,200 screen but is much more expensive).
The screen is plenty bright and offers good viewing angles from all sides. A 1.3-megapixel Webcam and microphone array are built into its upper bezel. As is the case with most 1.3-megapixel cameras, image quality is grainy but adequate for e-mailing photos and using Skype.
The silver keyboard deck contains a full-size black keyboard and a nice wide touch pad, both of which are responsive and comfortable. The touch pad is framed by a strip of blue LEDs that match the exterior lighting. Above the keyboard are a small 3.1-inch Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) display and four touch-sensitive buttons that let you change the look and performance of the G50Vt-X1. The button on the left takes you into the Direct Console applet, where you can toggle among three processor modes—Normal (2.26GHz), Turbo (2.38GHz), and Turbo Extreme (2.49GHz)—on the fly, without having to reboot or enter the BIOS.
The console also lets you change lighting-effect modes to flash according to CPU and memory activity (Interactive), flash every two seconds (Fancy), or a combination of both (Advanced). You can choose to turn the lights off to conserve battery power as well. Direct Console is where you program the OLED to show CPU and memory usage, battery level, MSN Instant Messages, and the Sender and Subject header from incoming Outlook e-mail messages, if you so desire. The button with the lightning-bolt icon activates Express Gate, a Splashtop application that lets you surf the Web, play music, view photos, and conduct online chats, all without having to power up the system or boot into Windows