Thoughts?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230142&Tpk=ASUS%20G74SX-NH71

I've always heard good things about the new ASUS Republic of Gamers series of laptops and this one is pretty awesome for the price. Size/weight of the laptop doesn't really matter to me.

I cant speak for their laptops but their tablets are down right junk.

Judging by the specs it looks like it should do great for games. I personally would look for similar specs with a slightly lower 720p resolution.

Considering screen size you won't see that much difference. A lower resolution with those specs would play newer games well for longer and older games even better.

Ordered a new lappy. I went with an older G73 instead of the G74. Pretty much the exact same specs except the resolution is 1600x900 and not the full 1080p and about $600+ less. Got a refurb'd one from Newegg so we'll see how it goes with the one year warranty. Also got a 120gb SSD that was on sale to throw in as the primary OS drive.

Looks like a good buy and ssd was a great idea.

Got things sorted out last night. Since it was a refurb there was no recovery partition and no backup stuff provided. It was just "here's the laptop and battery and the OS is installed".

Ugh. So I downloaded an ISO of Win7 x64, burnt it to a DVD and used an Automatic Backup/Recovery program (ABRbeta) to make copies of the MS certificate and authenticity. Downloaded all the drivers I needed to a flash drive and put the new BIOS on a seperate one.

Took awhile, but I flashed the bios and did a complete fresh reinstall of the OS after I switched around the HDD and installed the seperate SSD.

But yeah, the thing screams now. Soooo much of a difference with the SSD. Never had one before but I can tell the difference. Takes less than 10 seconds to boot into Windows from when I press the power button.

Sounds like it was worth the trouble. And yes ssd is the way to go. The momentus xt is a good hybrid if you want more space.