Notebook Trio: ASUS A8JS and G2P and ABS Mayhem Z5

Closing Thoughts

Having played around with these laptops for the past month or two, we're happy to report that all of them are good quality products. Each one of them has a potential market, from the multimedia enthusiast to the mobile gamer as well as those just looking for an all-around decent solution. Most people aren't going to be happy with just going out and getting any old laptop, so it is important to make sure you get the type of notebook that will fit your particular needs. Here's a quick summary of our feelings on each of these notebooks.

Starting with the ASUS A8JS, this is the proverbial jack of all trades, capable of handling just about any task you might want it to do. It certainly isn't the fastest notebook on the planet, particularly when it comes to things like playing games, but if you're willing to run at reduced detail settings it can handle gaming without too many difficulties. As a 14" model, the A8JS is lighter and more portable than the other two notebooks we looked at today. If you plan on carrying your computer around a lot, a smaller laptop or even an ultraportable is definitely the way to go, although some people might feel that the smaller keyboards can be a bit cramped. Outside of gaming performance, the A8JS was the fastest laptop we looked at today in running other applications, no doubt helped by the 7200 RPM hard drive. If you can find one that comes with 2GB of memory that would be preferable to the 1GB models we're seeing online, but worst case you can always spend a bit of extra money to upgrade the memory on your own. About the only other complaint we have in regards to the A8JS is that the display is definitely less pleasant to use after sitting down in front of the G2P. We don't mind the 14" size so much, but the LCD is not as bright and the colors appear washed out in comparison to the newer ASUS model. Overall, however, the vast majority of people would be very happy with this laptop, and we can easily give it our recommendation. It is competitively priced and has all of the features most people are likely to need in a modern notebook. With a price of around $1700, this is a good midrange notebook.

The ASUS G2P is a newer offering than the A8JS, but it happens to be a case of one step forward one step back. It comes with a larger 17" chassis, which may be good or bad depending on your personal tastes. The exterior styling is also more eye-catching than a lot of other notebooks, which again could be either good or bad depending on how you see things. Our biggest complaint with the G2P is that ASUS labels it as a "gaming notebook", but it was clearly the slowest of the three units reviewed today when it comes to gaming. ASUS would have been much better off including a faster GPU if they are serious about their notebook "Gaming Series" offerings. We definitely wouldn't recommend this particular notebook to gamers, but it still performs just as well in other tasks as the A8JS. The best part about this notebook is without a doubt the LCD, which is bright and vibrant and makes all the other notebook LCDs we've seen lately pale in comparison. The resolution is a bit low for a 17" laptop, but if that's the price you have to pay in order to get this level of brightness and contrast, quite a few people will definitely be interested. Rather than looking at this as a gaming laptop, we see the best fit being people who are interested in viewing movies on the go. The larger display combined with the brilliant colors makes for a great multimedia setup. Unfortunately, battery life suffers compared to notebooks sporting a smaller LCD. The G2P costs a bit more than the A8JS, but most of the difference almost certainly is going into the improved LCD, so the final price of around $1800 is still quite reasonable, particularly when you consider the three-year warranty that you get.

The ABS Mayhem Z5 is almost the exact opposite of the G2P: it is a true gaming notebook, with one of the most powerful mobile graphics chips currently available stuffed into its chassis. There are a few games that are beginning to tax the GeForce Go 7900 GTX these days, particularly if you want to run games at the native 1920x1200 LCD resolution, so if you really want extreme gaming performance in a laptop you might consider upgrading to a 7950 GTX or else look at some of the SLI offerings on the market. We are very hesitant about actually recommending that anyone look at getting SLI in a laptop, however, as we would much rather have a single fast GPU rather than two slightly slower GPUs in SLI - not to mention the amount of heat two high-end graphics cards can generate. There are two pretty serious drawbacks to powerful gaming notebooks. First is that their battery life is generally poor at best, in some cases not even managing to reach one hour during heavy use. The other drawback is price: you can find laptops that basically have everything the Mayhem Z5 has except for the graphics card and save $600 (possibly more). Mobile gaming definitely doesn't come cheap! With a current price of around $2900, the Mayhem Z5 is worth considering if you are in the market for a gaming laptop, and it is priced competitively with similar models from other manufacturers. Unfortunately, apparently a one-year warranty is all you can get with an ABS system, so unless you're willing to live with a one-year warranty you will want to look elsewhere.

There are definitely other laptops that are worth considering that offer similar performance and features to these models, but we aren't reviewing any of them today. As is often the case, however, determining what laptop to get is a matter of balancing compromises against each other: do you want longer battery life, a more lightweight laptop, more performance, a brighter display, more storage, etc.? For most people, out of these three units the A8JS would get our recommendation, with the caveats mentioned above. It is a well-rounded laptop that will fit the needs of a large number of users. What we would like to see now is more laptops that offer LCDs like the ASUS G2P, preferably with higher resolutions for 17" models. If that can be done without killing battery life, so much the better. ASUS might also want to consider a revision of the G2P that uses the GeForce Go 7700 or a GeForce Go 7900 GS instead of the somewhat feeble Radeon Mobility X1700, at least if they are truly interested in targeting laptop gamers.