ASUS Climbs Mt. Elbert, Sets Record For Highest Elevation LAN Party Using New G550JK Gaming Laptop

ASUS is so excited to promote its G550JK gaming laptop that it felt compelled to shout it from a mountain top. No, seriously -- ASUS's Republic of Gamers (ROG) division scaled Mt. Elbert, the highest peak of the Rocky Mountains at 14,440 feet, with the G550JK in tow and set a world record for the highest elevation LAN party. Talk about an extreme way to get the people's attention!

Hey, whatever works, right? And certainly this quirky feat has piqued our curiosity. To our surprise, this isn't a rugged laptop sporting a bulletproof chassis and 900 pounds of heft, but a relatively thin and lightweight machine, at least for a gaming notebook. The G550JK measures 15.1 inches by 10 inches by 1.1 inches and weighs 6 pounds (with 4-cell battery installed). Not too shabby.

ASUS on Mt. Elbert

As you might have surmised from the dimensions, the G550JK sports a 15.6-inch display. It also rocks an In-Plane Switching (IPS) panel with LED backlight and Full HD 1080p (1920x1080) resolution. That translates into a wide viewing angle (178 degrees), and there's an anti-glare coating to keeps your eyes comfortable for extended gaming sessions, ASUS says.

Sitting inside is an Intel Core i7 4710HQ quad-core processor (2.5GHz to 3.5GHz, 6MB cache) and 8GB of DDR3-1600 memory. It also brings to the LAN party an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 850M GPU with 2GB of video RAM, 750GB hard drive (7200 RPM), DVD burner, HD webcam, 802.11ac Wi-Fi + Bluetooth 4.0, 2-in-1 card reader, three USB 3.0 ports, HDMI and DisplayPort outputs, GbE LAN port, Kensington lock, and Windows 8.1.

ASUS ROG G550JK

You can find a list of online vendors selling the G550JK (along with pricing info, which is currently about $1,100) by going here.