There are few ways to make a hulking, 9.5-pound desktop replacement attractive, but Asus does a decent job of it by giving the G75VW a wedge-shaped chassis with slick angles and a soft, rubberized plastic black cover. The G75VW looks a lot like its predecessor, the , but it's a tad lighter (9.5 instead of 9.9 pounds) and a bit thinner (2.04 inches at its thickest, versus 2.4 inches). It still comes with a hefty 2-pound power brick, however.

The interior is also attractive, with a brushed-metal keyboard deck, a rubberized wrist-rest area, and a silvery Republic of Gamers logo. A few pinprick-size white and green LEDs on the bottom-left corner of the computer indicate battery status, Wi-Fi, eco-mode, and the like. The LEDs are bright, but not distractingly so.

As for ports, the G75VW is fairly packed, with four USB 3.0 ports (including one sleep-and-charge), ethernet, headphone and microphone jacks, and a three-in-one card reader. You also get HDMI-out, VGA-out, and a mini-DisplayPort connection.

The G75VW sports a full-size backlit keyboard with matte-black island-style keys. In addition, the keyboard deck is large enough to fit a 10-key number pad, which is located about an inch and a half to the right of the keyboard (some computers cram the keyboard and number pad right next to each other, which is inconvenient for users--especially gamers). The G75VW's keys are widely spaced and easy to press, and offer good feedback.