.... And the continuation!
Suggestions and such
Ok, so now that that ranting stage is over with. Lets talk about some of the things I'd like to see in a new custom built laptop.
Info:
First off, I need a laptop, because I need mobility. I live in the middle of no where using a scam like internet service that barely provides me any service at pretty high rates compared to what you get in town. So I need a machine that is powerful, can handle my gaming, can run 24/7, and does not contain useless functions on it.
Now, when I say useless functions, I'm talking about the things hardly anyone uses, or things that you can get external devices to do. Like the DVD player. Gamers tend to use Steam now, and other digital sites to get their games. My DVD Drive is all dusty and unused, I'm pretty sure my laptop started coughing when I opened it up because of all the dust in that particular component. This doesn't mean I don't air out my machine, I do that once a week to keep the temp down below 160F when everything is maxed out.
I also have a plug for those old time monitors. You know, the big useless square things that are 10 times heavier and no one wants them? Yea. I don't need that. Don't put that on my laptop. I don't think ANY GAMER uses that. This is Republic of Gamers, is it not? I'm just glad i don't have those other legacy ports on my machine.
First Suggestion: Replace DVD Drive with other more useful device.
So, this is my first suggestion. Instead of a DVD Drive, offer either SLI GPU, or 3rd HDD slot. In place of a DVD Drive, use that space for something more useful. CPU, GPU, HDD, those things are much better than a DVD/BD drive, which you can just go buy a USB version for $30-$100 at any electronics store. I mean, you don't give out operating system disks anymore anyway. You uselessly put them on the hard drive for some reason. So it's not like anyone ever actually uses these drives but once or twice in their life time.
Second Suggestion: Move ports around for people with external mouse.
My second suggestion. I am right handed, and I don't like using the touch pad. So what I've done is I've made a custom Halo 3 mousepad, and got the M325 Logitech mouse with unifying receiver. Before we had tiny recievers though, I had this giant stick out the side. The issue being that my USB ports are right there, where my mouse is. So I had to use the other side. What makes it worse, is the ONLY USB 3.0 port, is on that side, and right where my mouse is. I can't plug anything in, because I have to move my mouse away or onto a different table. My suggestion is that you move USB ports closer to the top end of the machine, away from where a user may place a mouse (or even for left handed users) and put other less used or flatter object ports towards those areas. Like SD cards and such. After all, no one games with a touch pad, all of us gamers have an external mouse. Am I right gamers?
Third Suggestion: Move SD card slot out just a bit.
My 3rd suggestion, is quite a basic one. I'm not sure if this was a G74Sx flop or not, but my SD card slot, is too deep. I have to use a pen to push the card all the way in and to get it back out. This goes for ANY SD card I put in. So it isn't brand related. It's directly related to the SD card slot on this machine. So, put that a bit further out. So that the end of the SD card will stick out at least 1-2mm. On my mother's laptop, it does, and it is easy to push it in and click it back out and causes no problems because it's close enough to the machine, you won't even notice it is in there.
Fourth Suggestion: Add media keys, not function keys.
My 4th suggestion, if you've skipped the above rant, I'll give a short quick version. Add media keys. No one wants FN keys to be required to use your media functions that are hidden throughout the keyboard. Linux recognized every one of my media keys without me installing ANY software. Even recognized that I needed the FN key to use them. It had no problems with any of them. So why do I need 8 exe files on Windows to do this? My previous machine just had a single driver to run the media keys that were on the front of the machine so they could be accessed while the lid was closed.
Fifth Suggestion: Modular Keyboard, not integrated keyboard.
My 5th suggestion, if you've skipped the above rant, don't worry about it. Basically, I want a modular keyboard. Pop the plastic off where the power button is, unscrew the screws securing nothing but the keyboard, and pull it out without ever even having to turn off the machine. Then you can replace and clean your keyboards much easier.
Sixth suggestion: Include recovery disks, or method of downloading them.
So as I said above in the rant, recovery drives are essentially useless. If your HDD dies, your recovery drive dies with it. If your machine dies, you have to send it in for repairs anyway, and there is a 10-40% chance your drive died with it depending on the error. On top of that, the recovery drive is always going to be out of date, and you will end up needing to install every update over the last however old that machine is. Providing a way to DL the ISOs, even if it costs a few bucks for the bandwidth, would be a great way to support your customers in getting the most up to date recovery software for their particular machine without them having to go buy a new copy of the machine just because it's easier than waiting for a new recovery disk to be sent in and then have to sit there installing years worth of updates.
I may add things here later, I'm probably forgetting some things at this moment, being very tired and such.
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Conclusion and Final Remarks
I'm hoping that the Asus development team see this, and will provide some comments towards my criticism and complains, and I'm hoping that the community can also support some of my suggestions and provide some useful information regarding everything here.
On a side note, I'd like some software that can control my Asus G74Sx's fan. My fan is slightly damaged, and grinds very loudly at night. I have to raise my CPU and GPU temp to 160F by maxing them out with Seti@Home to get the fan to run at 2500-3000 RPM, which makes it silent enough for me to sleep. when idle, it drops between 300RPM and 2000RPM. If it goes above 700RPM, it grinds, if it goes above 2000RPM, it is a softer quieter grind. When it hits near 3k RPM, it is almost totally quite. I'm pretty sure the fan is on it's way to dying, but, it still works. My machine has never exceeded 160F when maxed out, if I keep airing it out weekly to get the nice, fresh scent of burnt dust out and about in my room. 😐
One last note, I am sorry if any of this comes off abrasive. I say what's on my mind, and am somewhat annoyed about some things. Including how hard it is right now to touch my laptop cause of the heat emanating from the keyboard. 😛 I don't mean any disrespect however. I did my formatting after I finished, so I hope it isn't too hard to read. If any staff/moderators have any tags they could add to this, that'd be good. I'm not very good at tagging.