X-bit labs

Portable Gamer’s Dream: Asus G2 Gaming Notebook Series Review (page 7)

Category: Mobile

by Alexander Britvin

[ 06/01/2007 | 11:15 AM ]

You can spot bright red pieces at the left and right edges of the lid. Looking like pure decoration, these are actually Direct Flash indicators that become highlighted when you launch a resource-consuming DirectX application. If you don’t want this illumination, you can disable the Direct Flash feature in the ASUS Direct Console.

On the notebook’s right panel you’ll find a power connector and an optical drive with an activity indicator, eject button and emergency ejection hole.

The following is placed on the back panel of the G2Pb:

• Kensington security slot (to protect the notebook with Kensington-compatible locks)
• TV output (S-Video)
• 15-pin D-Sub connector for an external monitor
• DVI-D connector
• Four USB 2.0 ports

The dense placement of USB 2.0 ports resembles the A6 series (read more about it in our article called ASUS A6Jc Notebook: New Reincarnation of the Popular Family). It’s not convenient to use all of these ports at the same time.

The elongated battery has a capacity of 4800mAh. The battery is located in the front part of the notebook’s body, so the hand-rest won’t get hot during a long play.

You’ll find the following on the notebook’s bottom panel: a cover of the compartment with the WLAN module and the TV-tuner, covers of the memory compartment and HDD compartment, a battery module with two locks, a Reset hole, a personal card holder, two stereo speakers, and stickers with information about the model and the OS serial number.

The bottom speakers add to the sound of the top ones. You can control the sound volume using the Fn, F10, F11 and F12 buttons. The adjustment process is indicated on the screen as follows:

There is only one module in the memory compartment. It is occupied by a 1024MB module. The other slot is under the keyboard and cannot be accessed easily. It is occupied by a 1024MB module, too. The total memory amount – 2048 megabytes – is actually the largest amount the G2Pb can support, so you’ve got no upgrade opportunities here.