Asus laptop or MSI laptop+free xbox

[brisa117]

So I am a huge believer in the desktop form factor; however, I am being forced (haha) to buy a laptop because I am going to law school this fall. Now honestly, I am the type of person who expects to pick up a laptop and have the best performance (closest to desktop replacement) as I can get. I will be doing mostly school work, but I often find myself using my PC for video editing as I often shoot weddings for people and some gaming (Skyrim, Civ V, Portal, and whatever comes around the corner). That is why I have chosen two powerful laptops.

Firstly I found this Asus (favorite brand of all time) ivy bridge laptop which seems to suit my needs perfectly:
http/www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=&sku=855833&Q=&is=REG&A=details


But upon further looking, I found this nice machine on Newegg with very similar specs (better GPU, no Blu-ray), but the MSI laptop comes with a free Xbox 360.
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152349

Now, my question is this: do I stick with the brand that I know and trust the most (not that MSI is a bad brand, I just have no personal experience with them) or do I get the better graphics card and free Xbox. Now here's the twist: I already have a 360. One of the first ones actually, I bought it in January 06. And to complicate things even more, I KNOW that the Asus laptop comes with a 2 year warranty which even covers most accidents.

So I turn to you, my fellow TH friends. I need your opinions please! D :

 

[ignopius]

I would go with the Asus notebook. It has a more elegant design and you really don't need a 360 anyhow since you already own one.

 

[pcbzick]

Hi …,

I hope my story, Google search help you to take the right decision.

This is my RMA story.

Every third ASUS laptop is DIFFECTIVE.

I had a custom Asus gaming laptop G51JX-3DE/G60JX ($2351) from Xoticpc.com. I can’t say I have it because it has already been in the Asus repair station for more than 2 months and I don’t know when I will get it back. My RMA status is still the same: "Waiting-[WB1] Wait for Material/Spare Parts". I emailed the Asus representative Mr. Tien Phan cl-tien@asus.com and got the response that the issue with my notebook was duplicated, and it was currently at a repair station waiting for the necessary parts to come in.
Because of that I began to initiate some action and look at what I could dig up.
If you look at the Asus website you will see that now it only has 2 gaming laptops G75VW (17’) and G55VW (15’), but there were a dozen different models in 2010.
My friend’s computer market analyst said that the Asus repair station is piled up with defective laptops, transformers, tablets. Almost every third ASUS laptop is DIFFECTIVE.
Since 2008 Asus started to produce their own laptops in huge amounts, though previously it was focused on the production of motherboard and other components. The range of its products increased in many times. They tried to compete even with Apple (Zenbook, Pads). But the Asus team just can’t compete with Steve Jobs’ team. As a result the quality of Asus products begins to fall dramatically. Asus Customer Service just can’t cope with the avalanche of custom claims.

Unfortunately, the quality of the motherboards – diamond in Asus crown – became worse compared to what it was before 2010. I built three rigs with Asus motherboards, last one is P6X58D Premium and I am satisfied with their quality. But now days are different.

Now we need to think seven times before buying an Asus laptop.

Having every third ASUS laptop DIFFECTIVE is too much.

pcbzick.

 

[brisa117]

Idk how true that could honestly be. A company that prides itself as being THE enthusiast's quality choice for components is unlikely to just drop the ball on laptops. I've had so many Asus products, and I always move on to newer tech before they go bad.

Anyways, I ended up grabbing a Samsung Laptop that was about $700 and came with the free Xbox. I used the immediately saved money for a 256GB SSD for the laptop and I'm saving the extra money for a new graphics card for my desktop.

 

[pcbzick]

I like your choice. Why?

If you open iPhone 5 you'll see that 50% of components (retina display and even CPU A6) are made by Samsung. The same MacBook Pro. The Samsung TV panels are still the best in the market.

To get the highest satisfaction from the games, 3D emulation you need desktop with excellent graphic card.

Good luck.

 

[brisa117]

Thanks! And I agree. My SSD is a 256 GB Samsung drive. They're honestly rated as the best performers on the market right now. Win7 loads before the windows icon even forms from the glowing ball animation. It's very handy when I have to start my PC fast to take notes. And of course it doesn't hurt when I load up Photoshop or some other traditionally "large" application. I love me some ASUS, but I also have great faith in Samsung. In fact, I'm posting this from my Galaxy S3.