From the outset it drips with panache, and its 3.59kg chassis feels every inch the luxurious powerhouse. There isn’t the slightest give, and the brushed-aluminum lid feels wonderfully taut. The design is simply stunning, too: the light metal lid gives way to an understated interior that plays matte greys against a dark metal sheen.
Once the Asus’ display lights up, you’ll be transfixed. Where lesser laptops struggle to do justice to the spectacle of James Cameron’s Avatar in HD, the N73SV puts in a jaw-dropping performance. Colors occasionally veer towards oversaturation; hut the 1,084:1 contrast ratio delivers images that look almost three-dimensional. Blacks look truly black, and whites sear the eyes at the panel’s maximum brightness of314cdArr.
The N73SV’s visual excellence is almost matched by its speakers. That Bang & Olufsen accreditation has clearly worked wonders, and while they don’t quite reach the heights of Dell’s superlative XI’S 15 the sound is crisp, textured and on another level» most here.
Amis hasn’t skimped mi performance either, and with a quad-core processor and 6GB of RAM, the N73SV racked up 0.81 in our benchmarks. Nvidia’s Oplimus steps in to marshal the Intel and Nvidia chipsets, and although the Nvidia GeForce GT 540M chipset can’t quite handle Crysis at Full I ID, an average of 34lps in our Medium test proves there’s ample power.
