Despite being enormous, the G74SX is a bit skimpy on ports. On the left side, the computer has only two USB 2.0 ports, as well as a Kensington lock slot, the Blu-ray drive, and headphone and microphone jacks. On the right side are two more USB ports (one 2.0 and the other ), along with HDMI and VGA-out ports, a gigabit ethernet port, and a multiformat card reader.
The G74SX's keyboard is full-size and backlit, and it features big keys. Asus has also put the keyboard at a 5-degree incline for better ergonomics. The keyboard is generally comfortable to type on, and the keys give good tactile feedback. I have only a couple of complaints: The keys are a little slippery for fast typists, and the keyboard is quite loud. (The latter issue is unfortunate, because the machine itself is otherwise very quiet.) The laptop has a number pad, too, and the machine's generous width leaves enough room for that number pad to sit about 1.5 inches away from the keyboard.
Below the keyboard, and slightly off-center, is the roomy touchpad. The touchpad's smooth black surface is very responsive and supports multitouch gestures. Below the touchpad sit two rubbery soft-touch mouse buttons, which are large, easy to press, and quiet. If you're not a touchpad kind of person, Asus also supplies an ergonomic Republic of Gamers gaming mouse; the USB-wired optical mouse uses the same soft rubbery material as the laptops' cover does, and it has six buttons, including the scrollwheel.
The G74SX sports a glossy 17.3-inch screen with a native full HD resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. This is one of the best laptop screens I've seen in a while: It's bright but not too much so, it has good off-axis viewing angles (both vertical and horizontal), and its images look extremely crisp. However, on our test machine, in certain power-saving modes (Quiet Office, for example) a bit of shimmering appeared in the lower half of the screen--it looked like a faulty LED backlight. This is regrettable, because aside from that shimmering the screen is fantastic.
Video playback looks good on the G74SX's full HD screen, but audio playback is a little disappointing. Don't get me wrong--the built-in stereo speakers located above the keyboard produce clear, crisp sound. But remember how Asus claimed that it specifically engineered the G74SX's cooling system to keep noise away from the user? Well, the speakers may be located just a little too close to the cooling system, because audio is much louder from behind the screen than from in front of it. Sure, it's a little troubling, unless you plan on using the laptop to broadcast music or audio to people sitting in front of you.