Ultra-quiet notebook in business look with gaming performance

Yesterday I received this notebook and put into operation, therefore it is here a first impression - and that is very positive. I was looking for a notebook with a business look (the gamer design is me often adolescent) with high power, so that it is also fully suitable for gaming. For this me a notebook with Geforce GT 650M appeared suitable, as this is the latest and thus most efficient generation of chips from NVidia. Less suitable appeared to me the GT 630M, as it has only 96 shader instead of 384, providing probably 75% less power. The almost 600 EUR more expensive Asus Notebook G75 told me by Design (gamers) to not so, also of there built graphics chip (GTX 670M) is in fact an old GTX 580M with high consumption, even if the power is still higher than the GT 650M.

The key follows in brief.

Pro:
+ Extremely quiet and cool even under full load. Such efficient cooling seems to be a specialty, which provides only Asus. The warm air occurs mainly on the left side and reached even at full load is not a particularly high temperatures.
+ Very powerful and energy efficient CPU (Intel Core i7 3610QM, manufacture in 22nm) and graphics card (GeForce GT 650m, production in 28nm) of the latest generation. The new manufacturing processes lead to the relatively low power consumption (about 100W max). My older desktop with water cooling consumed in comparable power about 350W max.
+ Very elegant design: Brushed aluminum in reddish brown with white illuminated ASUS logo outside, aluminum chic hole pattern inside. Not only great for the appearance and tactile a pleasure.
+ For a notebook outrageously good sound. The external subwoofer is much more than just a noble Gimmik - the speaker Bang & Olufsen have a clear, rich sound.
+ Very nice high-resolution screen, vivid and rich colors. The viewing angle is much less than in the 4 year old 15-inch Aldi notebook (which has previously tasted about 700 EUR), whose successor takes up the N76. However, you can already at an oblique viewing angle (for example, when you sit in pairs in front of the screen) color deviations. The Aldi-Notebook that was not possible because at oblique viewing angle of the screen is completely black. Nevertheless, my Asus advertising seems somewhat overdone with a viewing angle of 150 ° - can be the screen contents while still clearly visible, but must color shifts (blackout) accept. On my 30-inch desktop screen of Dell (about 4 years old), there is the problem, however, has the alone also cost significantly more than the whole notebook.
+ Beautiful and useful illumination of the keyboard, the brightness levels are changing comfortable hotkey. The keyboard itself is fine.
+ Diablo III runs smoothly at maximum resolution with maximum settings. Other games I have not tried yet.
+ Beautiful, rugged packaging as a carrying bag made of cardboard.

Cons:
- Missing Windows installation CD. A new installation of Windows without preinstalled software is garbage so impossible.
- Software installation - the plague of the notebook industry. The installation of the missing Windows updates lasted 3-4 hours. The uninstall the pre-installed crapware (garbage software) also took 3-4 hours, including many games, useless Asus tools for photos, videos, music and what-I-know-not-all. The worst part was the preinstalled McAfee antivirus software (presumably a trial version, but not interest me), because the left does not uninstall itself. When uninstalling appeared a white, blank window, the hard drive was permanently active. After about 45 minutes without any discernible progress I have resorted to self-help and download a specific uninstall program from the McAfee website. That this disease away fortunately within a few minutes (hopefully) residue. After the removal of garbage software start and stop Windows become wonderfully fast. My opinion: In contrast to the majority opinion harm antivirus more than good. The calculator is clearly limited - the power is greatly reduced and errors occur etc .. In addition, a new virus is anyway not recognized either, or he exploits a vulnerability in the antivirus software to the first place to take action. Also it seemed to know that the virus scanner Windows recognizes as a virus and thus the computer almost irreparably sabotaged. Therefore, I just use the Windows Defender. Who content suspicious emails opens etc. has anyway no chance to escape from the virus, whether with or without a virus scanner.
- All connections are located on the side, the back has the notebook no. This is a big disadvantage, because depending on whether one is right or left handed you can only either the left or the right connections to use if you have an external mouse in use. There are left and right two USB ports. The network connection is left, which is bad for left handed with external mouse. Strictly speaking, remains only one USB port, because in the other already infected mouse.

All in all: strong buy recommendation, for this price (1,199.00 EUR) a very powerful and elegant notebook in an elegant business look with excellent gaming capability. Uncompromising gamers are perhaps better off with the Asus G75, as it has a little more 3D performance.

-Reviewed article: Asus N76VZ-V2G-T1031V 43.9 cm (17.3-inch) notebook (Intel Core i7 3610QM, 2.3GHz, 8GB RAM, 2x 750GB HDD, NVIDIA GT650M, DVD, Win 7 HP)