Review Asus G46VW Notebook

[SepticBurrito]

First, I want to thank you for not only being the first review on this thing, but making the review as in depth as it is.  It's going to take weeks to months for everyone else to get around to this machine.  Good job.

Now, I have a couple questions.

The portability of this aggressively priced mid/high gaming laptop is very appealing to me, but I'm would to hook it up to a much larger screen from time to time at home.  That screen, being my 3D-TV.  The TV handles the surround sound incoming from HDMI and sends it out via optical to my receiver.

Can this Laptop output 5.1 surround over HDMI when playing games?

If this Laptop is closed or mostly shut and running games, I assume it will damage the machine over time.  Does this assumption seem reasonable?

[Allen.Ngo]

hi Burrito,

Unfortunately we did not explicitly test 5.1 output through HDMI, so we can't give a definite answer. This is however an excellent suggestion for future gaming notebook reviews.

There shouldn't be any stability issues if running the laptop with the lid closed. I have run many laptops this way without problems.

[dclanz]

Solid review! I purchased one of the first units when Best Buy released for sale and I am still pretty impressed with it. As reported by another user, I just ordered a 500GB SSD to toss in. I'm glad ASUS recognized that there is an emerging category of gamers who value mobility and power above all else. Like it was mentioned, I intend to enjoy this laptop for a few years to come and will recommend it to anyone else (along with a SSD upgrade). :)

[Secretstash]

I bought this machine a week after the line came out for $950 at best buy. Two days later while attempting to switch the onscreen text size the built in monitor shorted producing a grey line across the whole screen.

I will be taking this thing to best buy by the end of the week.

Otherwise an absolutely great machine. Works great as a media center machine plugged into my flat screen.

I'm just very frustrated that something as minimal as adjusting my settings cause my gpu to die. Oh well at least asus has industry best customer service.

[Ed]

 :(Returning one of these today.    The space bar and touchpad keys both stick.   the positioning of my hands on this is not good.  It is fast.

[Lance]

When is notebookcheck going to review the y400 SLI? It's a far more impressive competitior to the G46 than the MX14 is and its base model costs less as well.

[ronmccord]

This is by far the best 14 inch gaming laptop out there, better then Alienware M14x and new gygabyte 14 inch. since you can have this built with a ssd there is no negatives. Now as far as the one negative that is the built in battery you can buy an external battery for around 150 dollars that will double the internal battery for 8 hours of heavy use.

[James_wood]

My first laptop and I'm dissapointed. The USB port are not working correctly, the space bar sucks.
This shutdown out of the blue and wasn''t able to backup any of my information, all was lost to the hands of the repair center. Never buying asus again.

[emi]

Can this run FF14 ARR. It is at my bestbuy for 698. Thats all i need it for. Just need a laptop to be able to run that game smooth.

[Heath]

Can this run FF14 ARR. It is at my bestbuy for 698. Thats all i need it for. Just need a laptop to be able to run that game smooth.

Yes, it can run FFXIV on high settings smoothly. The screen resolution would be the only disappointment but that may be because I'm use to my 1080 monitor. I'll try hooking it up to it to see how it runs.