A Couple of Big Purchases – Asus G73JH and Sennheiser HD555

Posted by icemonkey9 on Jan 20, 2010 in computer | 2 comments

I am notorious for never spending money on myself and buying family and friends things that they need that they can't afford.  It's not like I am doing really well right now, I'm definitely not.  It's just my nature to be giving.  However, there is one thing I will splurge on for myself and thats my computer and its accessories.  It's a nice thing because it does come with a heafty price tag but I only do it every 2-3 years at most.

The first big purchase was a new laptop.  I had my MacBook Pro for 3.5 years and although it is still running great, for what I do in my day-to-day activities I am just not a Mac guy.  Now, for general computing and all that, yes, Mac is awesome.  Video Editing? Mac all the way.  Gaming/Poker/Other stuff that I do, Windows is definitely the way to go.

So I found a site called Xoticpc.com which sells specialized high-end laptops and systems for a good price with excellent customer service.  I found the following laptop and was able to score it at a price I just couldn't believe:

ASUS G73JH

The Specs on this thing are through the roof:

• 17.3" monitor at 1920x1080 resolution
• i7 Intel Processor (goes up to 2.8GHz for single thread applications)
• 8GB of RAM
• Two 500GB 7200RPM hard drives
• ATI HD5870 Video Card (amazing!!!)
• Surround Sound
• BluRay Player + DVD/CD-RW Drive
• Windows 7

The price was $1,619 (I got a price match deal) which is just ridiculous because I priced out something similar at Alienware which came just under $3k for the same specs.  Asus is a good brand name and it comes with a 2 year warranty.  So, I bit the bullet, pulled out some poker money and had some saved and made the pre-order purchase.  It is expected to ship in mid to late February!!

Here's the pic:

The other big purchase was some new headphones.  I've been putting these off for about a year.  For the last year or so I have had these SkullCandy Hesh headphones which aren't bad.  They just aren't great and the comfort is "meh" at best.  I've been meaning to buy some excellent headphones and with the help of "Infamous" (a guy I know via forums) he turned me on to the true leader in headphones - Sennheiser.  All the reviews I read basically say Bose is just an overpriced mid-range pair of headphones that has great marketing behind it.  Sennheisers are the true leaders of the industry.

After what was probably 4 months of shopping around and reading reviews, I finally settled on the Sennheiser HD555 headphones.  They are the middle of the line for them, but a huge upgrade in terms of quality for what I currently have.   They came down in price to a reasonable amount ($110 on eBay) so I made the purchase on these tonight.  Fortunately it's shipping from Texas and should be here by Friday or Saturday at the latest.  Here's the pic: