Acer Aspire One AO722-0022 Notebook AMD Dual-Core Processor C-60 Review

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List Price: $469.99
Sale Price: $449.00
Today's Bonus: 4% Off

The Acer Aspire One 722 may be small in size and price, but don't let that fool you. With it's 500GB hard drive and 4G memory it's larger than any desktops we own, and faster too.

Though I haven't had the Acer long, it is continually impressive. Out of the box, I was pleased to see it lacking in much of the bloatware that came on my HP netbook and Gateway laptop. The desktop was blissfully vacant, leaving me to populate it with my own selections of programs.

Connecting to any WiFi has been a matter of a couple of clicks, including our sometimes difficult home wifi that treats new devices with deep suspicion. The Acer was accepted onto our home network with no issues at all.

Whether loading on photos from sd, using the built-in webcam, or utilizing 3rd party readers such as Kindle for PC and Overdrive Media Console, everything works seamlessly.

I've read some reviews recently that laptops can run annoyingly hot, but that is not the case with the Acer. It's quiet and cool, even when streaming videos. If you are a person who, like me, is easily bothered by excessive electronic noise, you will especially appreciate this quiet little Acer.

A early drawback was the whiteness of the background. Even after turning the brightness all the way down, the whiteness was too intense. Fortunately, it is completely adjustable in the Control Panal where you can customize themes, colors etc. I was able to choose a background with a gentle glow much like the color on my favorite e-readers.

For many, the multi-gesture function is a good selling point and many will enjoy it. I, however, could not get accustomed to it and was happy to discover I could disable the features one by one until it functioned perfectly for me.

Certainly, this is not a high end laptop and it shows in the plastic and hinges, we well as the plug for the ac adapter. I'm gentle plugging it in because the connection feels a little frail. Same with transporting it. The shell is light plastic so I am extra careful. But for such an outstanding low price it's worth it. I only paid 250.00 for mine with a rebate, but it is a good value even at a higher price.

If you plan to listen to music or videos without headphones you'll want a good external speaker, but this is true for many laptops. I used my Jawbone Jambox speaker and it sounded great. I don't think this Acer model has bluetooth, so I used a cord into the audio.

Comes with Windows 7. Finally, Microsoft has produced an operating system I like almost as much as XP. It even has a built in security suite from Microsoft.

And lastly, there are amazing desktop background photos including landscapes and screens from around the world that automatically rotate through the day. I never know what dynamic desktop scene I will treated to next. It's an unexpected pleasure.

The Acer Aspire One is an excellent choice for the budget-minded person who also wants some speed and storage space. I'm so impressed, I would consider Acer in the future for my higher end electronics.

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This is the exact model with the 500G HD, 4G ram that was sent out to all the tech magazines and bloggers for review. Beware that other retailers might have other versions that not only have a smaller HD but also half as much ram for a minute difference in price.

Acer vs Asus

Obviously the this machine is 2 1/2 years newer than the Asus 1000he and wins the spec-war hands down. However below are a few key points that really stand out for me as a casual user (word processing & websurfing):

My main peeves with this new Acer over my old Asus are:

a) Reflective glossy screen with lots of glare.

b) No light indicator for camera on/off

c) Function key is only on one side of the keyboard so to adjust a function, both hands are needed

d) Fewer screen brightness options darkest setting on Acer is still too white in low-light conditions

e) Soft flexible keyboard key's not as springy or responsive as Asus' chiclets.

f) Shorter battery life. My old Asus started at 10hrs+ with Wifi at second to lowest brightness and still squeaks out 8hrs. This new Acer only pushes 7hrs at a comparable brightness setting.

g) Lack of built-in BT (I use for tethering)

h) There is no pre-programmed function button for resolution or display size adjustment. It all has to be done through the Control Panel

Despite all of the above, I do love my new netbook. I love the 11.6" screen (compared to the 10.1") and the better resolution. I also love how there is an HDMI-port in addition to a VGA-port. The new water-drop design and tapered edges make the Acer look smaller and thinner despite being the same as the Asus.

Overall this is a lot of computer in a small package at a reasonable price and I would not hesitate to recommend this to others.

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If you want an incredibly fast 11.5 inch netbook this is the one. I can't believe the speed. Also the display is very bright which some have complained about but I happen to like it as I work in low light conditions often. My impression is that due to the blazing speed this is a keeper. Just about everyone will be delighted with this, as am I.

I want to mention a few tiny things that kept me from giving this five stars.

I am replacing a three year old Asus eee PC netbook with this.

Cons:

1. The case isn't as sleek as the streamlined little Asus. This is more boxy and the hinges in particular are downright ugly. I wonder why any computer manufacturer wouldn't include great design of the computer as an obvious way to help sell them.

3. This is way heavier. Of course I am willing to lug around an extra 1.5 pounds for that extra 3 gigs of ram and faster processor. This is truely a speed demon.

4. This one seems unforgivable: there is no light to tell you when the cam is on!

Come on, those little LED lights cost what, 10 cents? There were a few times when the only way I knew my cam was still on was that little light! I don't know how to check to make sure it goes off on this.

6. It is RED HOT on the bottom. The fan is on but it is hot enough to iron clothes with.

I am wondering if those tiny circuits are going to quickly fry.

But after waiting around forever for that little Asus to get around to doing it's job this is wonderful. Everything happens in a flash on this. Loving it! And I suspect just about most people will too.

I got mine at the local "big box" store that starts with a W and I feel it was a fair price. I had to order it online and pick it up. There are lots of different similar models of the Acer Aspire One so make sure you get one with 4 gigs of ram for about $50 more, it's well worth it, and the processor is slightly faster too. I paid around $400 for mine. Amazon has a model about the same for the same price, but a different model number.

I can't tell it's any different from the one I got from reading the description.

Some models have Bluetooth but if I need it I can get a Dongle that plugs into the USB port here on Amazon for twelve dollars.

Seems to be a great incredibly speedy netbook so far.

And it has an HDMI port to stream movies to my TV with. Love that!

I think you will be pleased with this netbook.

edit: I've been using this for about five weeks and it appears the hard drive suddenly died. I was afraid of this since it heats up so bad. It just died and won't boot no matter what. Started making a little hiccup sound every few minutes then while watching a movie on it, then whamo, dead. I'm very upset.

Now I have to deal with the whole mess of customer service. I spent a couple of hours trying various ways to boot it without luck.

I've never had any computer die before after a month. So my new recommendation is DO NOT BUY.

I now see many other reviews here for various Acer Aspire One models where the exact same thing has happened.

edit number 2: After struggling with this for 3 whole days I finally got the

"eRecovery Partition" to function, which is the recovery partition of last resort that

Acer includes for just such an emergency in a non booting computer.

As the computer is just starting press ALT while you at the same time press F10 multiple times to bring up the eRecovery screen. From here you can basically re install windows.

I had to try this twice before it works. I have no idea what happened. I would have sworn the hard drive was fried. My data was lost but at least it is working again.

hmm.....I think I would look at a Dell or Gateway after this experience.

Honest reviews on Acer Aspire One AO722-0022 Notebook AMD Dual-Core Processor C-60

This machine packs power. Acer has given 4gb to this netbook which make up for the processor, however the processor is much better than you see on many netbooks. It is dual core which lets it out-compete intel atom single core processors. In addition the processor is very economic with its energy usage, as is the small screen, which allows this netbook to get a true 6.5 hours. The 4gb memory means that it comes with 64-bit Windows 7. Also the display is a full 1366x768 which means it has the same resolution as almost every 13.3" notebook. At the same time all of this remains in a 11.6 inch, 3.4 pound unit, which is light enough to make it feel the same as basically any other netbook. It doesn't feel cramped and the touchpad's features work well enough to make it an easily navigable system. It plays HD internet video and has both VGA and HDMI connectivity plus ethernet and 3 USB 2.0. It also has a 500 GB hard drive which is very uncommon in netbooks. This machine can easily be compared to many 13" notebooks in its speed and hardware while a netbook in size and energy consumption. At the price point there is nothing better on the market.

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Very good option to consider if like me, you want a Windows 7 machine before they disappear from the marketplace, and you want a travel size notebook (11.6" screen is perfect for me) with a full keyboard, but don't want to shell out the bucks for the sleeker ultrabooks or settle for a Chromebook. Another key feature for me on this model is that it has a 6 cell battery which effectively allows me to use it most of the day untethered from the power cord. Very beefy Memory (4 GB) and Hard Drive (500 GB) for this price point, but one shortcoming is that the Processor is just adequate (listed as 1.00 GHz but really 1.37 it would be better to have one 2.0 or higher.) It's fast enough for email, surfing the web, downloading music and e-books, watching You Tube videos, etc., but don't even think about gaming. The machine runs cool and quiet and the fan rarely comes on. Nice that it has an HDMI output so you can easily hook it up to a HD TV. A potential shortcoming is that it doesn't have a backlit keyboard but the keyboard is easy to see in dim light and shouldn't be a problem unless you're completely in the dark. The touchpad is not half bad, but easy enough to add an external mouse (the mouse and touchpad can operate simultaneously, making it seamless to switch back and forth). Screen glare is about average, shouldn't be a problem for most unless you are in very harsh lighting. Stylewise it's OK, but certainly not a sexy choice compared to the touchpads or ultrabooks which are sleeker and about a pound lighter. Then again, you don't have to worry as much about this one getting swiped, and even if does get lost or stolen, at this price, it's not such a big deal. In any case, it suits my needs quite well, and I'm very glad to not be lugging my old laptop around with me anymore when I travel.

Buy Acer Aspire E1-571-6853 15.6" Notebook PC

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This computer has an amazing camera and works as expected. For the price it's an awesome computer! Shop around for the best price, you won't be disappointed.

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I bought this laptop as a mid-range work laptop. The processor is fast enough for my intents, but the Windows 8 OS is pretty much the worst thing ever, especially for a laptop that doesn't have a touch-screen interface. I am actually typing this review on my beloved ipad. Oh, the irony!

Best Toshiba C855D-S5103 Laptop Computer / 15.6-inch Display Screen Deals

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List Price: $529.99
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If you want a basic laptop to cruise the internet and manage photo's and music this is perfect! Audio not the greatest but WHO CARES!

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I've had Toshiba Satellite laptops for years, and I'm less than impressed with this one, so say the least.

First, I don't care for the keyboard setup. The size and configuration of the keys makes it less than comfortable to use. While I normally type at 50-60wpm, this keyboard makes that difficult, and I'm frequently having to go back and correct mistypes.

Second, I thought that the 4Gb of RAM included would make it faster than my A55 series, which has only 1Gb. NOT!! This thing is soooo sloowww it's just not funny. In fact, it's very frustrating. Thankfully this C855 supports 16Gb so I've ordered more RAM. Hopefully it will improve the operating speed of this laptop. Will comment more when I've received and installed the additional memory.

I would NOT buy this laptop again.

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I bought a similar model a C855D-S5950. Same CPU, graphics, memory and stuff. I bought it at a local retailer for $259 and found it to be worth that but not much more then $300. You can get much more in speed for less then $100 more. I was looking for a cheap back up and for that the Toshiba is perfect. I actually like the 16:9 format screen and lower resolution. Eye's at 50 don't like small fonts for the sake of more space on the desktop. As for Windows 8 I absolutely loth it and installed Windows 7 immediately. I had a little trouble finding a couple system drivers and Toshiba was NOT helpful with my Windows downgrade. I really thought they may have helped me with a option to at least purchase OEM Windows 7 restore discs to help a customer? I guess now I can verify that Toshiba is on par with the rest for customer service. I think this is a OK laptop for basics, and the nice screen is good enough for watching video. The CPU is a bit slow but with a decent graphics side to it the video won't suffer unless you try and do too much while watching video. I am perfectly fine with AMD although they still trail Intel in many areas in mobile.

I don't game on PC's so as long as Netflix plays and Google Play works I am golden. Any computer in this price and performance only deserves a OK rating at the most. Its just the nature of what it is. To give some comparison I also bought a Samsung Chromebook a few months ago. The Toshiba is most definitely the better performer.

In closing, the keyboard is spongy and flat keys are harder to type on. But they are big so that helps. The track pad is OK but the left button on mine is harder to push and get a recorded click then the right? Its a bit small so gestures are a joke and I wonder why they even try? But it came with Windows 8 so I guess that's why.

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Not a techie, won't say a thing about the innards except it seems to perform well for someone who doesn't know what the heck it has on the inside. Windows 8 is truly as awful as everyone says. If you can, partition disk and put Linux in there. Pros, having a numerical keyboard is great, wonderful monitor size. Cons, the keyboard layout is odd (nothing is where you expect it to be), horrible track pad, no volume keys. Then again, for that price, I suppose it's OK.

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it works fine, but some time when you are using more than 2 apps at the time it collapses. Battery last long and the screen is good. I guess is exactly what you pay for.

Acer Aspire AS7741Z-4643 17.3" Notebook PC Review

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I've owned this laptop since May 2011 and to me it's the only model under 500 bucks worth buying for one reason: you get a 17" screen with a nice 1600x900 resolution. Almost every other laptop in the price range is 15"+ with that awful 1366x768 res which feels like you're workihg on a postage stamp. Please don't expect this laptop to be a workhorse speedster, it won't happen at this price. But when I was searching, I was after a big screen with real estate for under 500, and you get that with this Acer.

But I was also surpised that this Acer has an acceptable amount of performance. I do a lot of photo and video editing on my desktop PC with Photoshop and Premiere so I'm used to an i7-980 6-core processor with 24Gb ram. But when on the road on business trips I also take my camera and therefore I wanted SOME sort of photo editor on this laptop. I bought Adobe Lightroom and to my surprise, it runs quite well! Granted, I did upgrade to 6GB of ram (pulled the 1GB stick and put in a 4GB next to the existing 2GB stick) which helps, but as a measure of performance this inexpensive Acer pulls it off decently. So does Photoshop Elements, I downloaded the trial and it runs just fine. I realize that not everyone reading this may use Lightroom or PS Elements, but it's a way to portray what this laptop can handle, as opposed to just saying "yeah, it's speedy"... compared to what? lol! It's quite acceptable, seriously. I also run Microsoft Office 2010, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL Server 2008 on it! Those are software development tools, but it basically means that this Acer can do the job, just get enough ram, the 4gb stick is under 40 bucks.

CONS: Not many, this is a lot of laptop for under $500, but there has to be downsides, and to me there are just a couple: The trackpad is annoying to work with. I'm not a trackpad fan anyway, I just plug in a mouse and turn off the trackpad. But if you're stuck where you have to use the pad, the static from your hands will DEFINITELY cause the cursor to jump to another section if the page (or another field in a webpage) while you're typing. I use this Microsoft Wheel Optical Mouse and disable the trackpad. problem solved. Also, the laptop's exterior plastic shell on the screen side of the unit bends in easily, meaning, if the laptop is closed and on your desk, don't set anything heavy on the closed laptop (like a heavy hardcover book), the case will sink in! Other than that, this is a fine laptop with a nice big screen. The graohics are built-in, not a separate beefy card, so while you can watch DVDs on here with ease, huge video like the 1080p footage out of my Canon 5D Mark II will not run, it just grinds to a halt. This isn't a gamer laptop for one for video editing, but for everyday tasks and photo editing it's quite good. The only thing I wish it had was an Expresscard port or even PCMCIA, but it has neither. But for the price it's a superb entry-level or college student solution.

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Bought this laptop for watching movies, huge monitor and the picture is better than HD. Now I use it for everything and because i got a great deal on it i ordered another for the wife. This Blows away an iPad for sure!!!!

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I personally love the big screen size. This was the best laptop I've ever had. I highly recommend this laptop.

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bought this laptop and it is stuck in a bootmgr missing problrm and say to press ctrl/alt/del/ and it does not work i ordered restore disc today hope that will solve problem !!!

Review of ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH53 13.3-Inch Thin and Light Ultrabook (Silver

Customer Ratings:

First of all, there's have been a lot of dispute regarding this laptop. Many have said that this laptop is a pure copy of the Macbook Air. I personally think not. Just because Apple was the first company to make something so small and so thin like the MBA, it doesn't mean that any other company who does something similar is a copy. The build quality on the chassis seems much stronger and of much more quality when compared to MBA. And, I must claim that this is the best looking notebook on the block. Much better looking than any computer with the Apple logo on it.

Touchpad Update the driver (downloading it from the Asus website). Before doing anything, do updates on the computer first. Some may say that this is absurd and that it should work out of the box. But, I think it's correct to say that you need to update the driver! Same goes for keeping your virus definitions updated for your anti-virus program! After the update, almost flawless trackpad. It's just as good as any Windows trackpad. Obviously not as good as a Macbook with it comes to smoothness (but Mac trackpad doesn't work well in Windows either since it doesn't have the drivers).

Sound Very very good sound for the form factor. For something so thin, I don't think you can find anything that matches the quality of these speakers!

Screen I personally did not have any viewing angle problems. The screen is very bright and high resolution, but I did have a dead pixel on the top left edge of the screen. This can be verify by the video I made for it! Also, there's a small quirk... The screen hinge is a little loose and when typing on your lap at a wider angle, you might experience the screen to fall backward. I also made a video of this.

Now, the worst of all! Keyboard! What were they doing with the keyboard? There's very little travel on the keyboard and absolutely zero support on the side of the keys. Longer keys like "Enter", "Shift", and "Spacebar" would experience problems where the key is pressed but it doesn't registered. This happens on other keys as well, but less occasionally. I made 2 videos of this problem and posted it on Youtube as well. You can see a few examples where FN + F11 (volume), I should be able to adjust the volume. But, when the FN key is pressed on the side and not in the dead center, it won't register. Therefore instead of changing volume, I get full screen! This goes the same for the enter Key where pressing it on the side or edge it doesn't move the words to the next line. Yes, you can argue that I just need to adjust my typing, but how hard is it to make a keyboard that works? Other manufacturers who use chiclet keyboard don't have this problem (Sony, Apple, HP). Also, how are you to guarantee that while typing 50-75 words a minute, your hitting dead center of every key including enter or shift.

Realistically, if keyboard is 100% registering every key, dead pixel wasn't there, and tigher hinge... I would recommend this as the Number 1 laptop in it's form factor (including price). I will be returning the laptop because of the problems above as I think it's pretty annoying correcting my typing as the keys don't register!...

~~ If you want to check out my video of the problems I listed above. Go to youtube website and int he search bar, look for "twkidM3". You should be able to pull up my username and it will have 5 videos of the problems. Enjoy!

EDIT~~~~~*****

11/23/11

Need to write an update. I ended up sending this thing back because the keyboard and a dead pixel problem. I did not have WIFI issues or other issues such as the computer shocking you when plugging in the power. But those two reason I listed which I did not like ended up to be a real pain in the butt. Key registering problem was huge and I would miss enter key or shift key left and right. Even FN+F9 sometimes did not register volume buttons.

Now many of you may ask, "Why don't you contact ASUS before returning it to Amazon? Get them to RMA the system because of DEAD Pixel Guarantee!" Truth be told, I did all that. I submitted a query to ASUS 2 days after I bought the system and made the videos. I posted all the videos on all the ASUS fanpages that you can find on facebook. I've also contacted Asus Corporate in Taiwan. They called me at midnight and told me that they will resolve the issue and have someone from Fremont, CA contact me regarding my issues. 3 days later, no response and no contact. So technically I was expecting someone to talk to me around the 9th of Nov. No response so I send it back to Amazon. Customer service? yes or no? you decide! Dropping from 3 stars to 2 stars... Still a beautiful unit with a lot of flaws and lack of customer service!

I decided to give Asus another chance on November 17, 2011 and bought another version of the Zenbook line called UX31-DH72. See my review there, it get's more interesting! =)

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After reading the mixed reviews, I decided to purchase this laptop anyway. I loved the size and features and decided to risk it. Very glad I did. The slimness and weight make it super portable, and I have been impressed with the battery life. The keyboard isn't perfect, but after typing on it for two weeks I don't have a problem with it, just took some getting used to. Reviews that dislike the trackpad confuse me, as it's the best one I've ever used. I know I have the Elan trackpad with the newest drivers, but I find it perfect. It's responsive, spacious, clicks are accurate and it is smooth. The screen too is bright and I love the extended resolution. This is my first metal computer, so I'm worried about my metal watchband scratching it while I type, but other than that I am very impressed and would highly recommend it.

Best Deals for ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH53 13.3-Inch Thin and Light Ultrabook (Silver

First, let me say I am not a computer nerd trying to find everything wrong with a laptop. Now, about the Zenbook, it is built very well, love the design and solidity of this ultrabook. The lid opens easily, there is a small tab on the top to open the screen from the bottom, so don't believe anyone when they say they can't open it. So I turned it on, I did the updates which were very easy to do, they were almost automatic. The trackpad and the wireless work with out any problems, I really like that the left and right click buttons on the pad actually click. Typing on the keyboard is different, but I have had no problems. The battery seems to last forever. Now for the best part, this thing starts up so fast, even after I loaded the Norton Antivirus on it. It wakes from sleep very fast, it connects to my wireless home network almost instantly. So, it does what a laptop is supposed to do, plus it's light, fast, and looks really good. I am probably going to buy one for my boyfriend for Christmas. Hope this review helps. Oh yea, the screen on this is really crisp.

Honest reviews on ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH53 13.3-Inch Thin and Light Ultrabook (Silver

After owning this zenbook for less than three months, the a/c adapter stopped working. Although covered by warranty, trying to get it replaced promptly for my daughter in college was ridiculously difficult. I called and opened a claim and was told I would get an email with instructions to follow. A full day passed. No email. I called them and asked them what happened and then they sent the email. I followed their instructions immediately which were to send back a fax. Two days later, they still said the fax hadn't been processed. At first, they said that process took 24 to 48 hours but then started to say it would take up to 72 hours. I could not get a supervisor to do anything to expedite the process. By the time they finally processed the fax, I had made other arrangements through Amazon to get a replacement shipped to my daughter so I told them not to charge me for expedited delivery. If they had sent it overnight or even two-day air at no additional cost to make up for the delays and inconvenience we had experienced, as I asked them to, I would not be posting this.

I will definitely buy my next ultrabook from Amazon but it will not be an asus product.

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EDIT:

Update my review:

I love everything about this notebook except for the fact that mine died after 40 days of use. One second I'm installing Adobe Reader then next I can't even boot into windows. I tried using the recovery partition to no avail. It turned out to be a defective system board so I had to RMA it. When I recieved the RMA unit back it was broken, physicially broken. The screen bezel is cracked and it seems to be getting worse. I contacted ASUS right after I opened the box and now I'm waiting for this "investigation" to finish. ASUS is HORRIBLE at giving me any kind of information as to what is actually happening. I do not know how long this investigation is going to take or if they will actually take care of me and give me a zenbook that is both free of defects and isn't broken. I was told that someone was supposed to contact me from ASUS yesterday and that never happened...

I changed to review from 5 stars to 1 considering I got a defective unit AND have had a horrible experience with this RMA process.

********Old Review Below************

I have been waiting for the PC market to catch up with Apple with a notebook comparable to the "Macbook Air". I believe that the Air has set the standard for what these new ultrabooks coming out are trying to achieve. However, I do believe that while the Zenbook is "like" a macbook and was definitely inspired by the Air, it is also different and unique with its own sense of style. I will try to briefly go over what I like and dislike about the Zenbook.

One thing I will recommend above everything else is going to a local store that has this beautiful ultrabook on display and getting a hands-on feel for what you will be buying. This way you can see for yourself if the keyboard/trackpad will be a problem for you and if you like the look of this beautiful machine. If you decide that this is the ultrabook for you then I would recommend shopping around for a price or buying it from amazon.com. I do NOT recommend buying it from a Bestbuy, Office Max or Costco store for the fact that you will NOT get the FREE 1 year accidental damage warranty that ASUS offers for purchase of this machine. (Please check comments for more information regarding the warranty or check the ADP warranty site for ASUS and read the fine print...)

Likes:

Build Quality and Design The build quality for the Chassis/Frame is second to none and matches that of the Macbook Air. Total WIN in this area.

Lightweight and Portable I will be using this for work meetings and college course and I will definitely appreciate that I will no longer have to carry around my old, large, bulky and heavy laptop as I did before.

Thinness Not only is it beautifully thin, it is also practically thin meaning that it won't take up very much space in my travel bag and it adds to the portability.

Screen Resolution I was a little worried when looking for a netbook/ultrabook to replace my old laptop that I would struggle when working in excel documents due to screen real estate. However the zenbook has a 1600x900 display which offers more than I could of hoped for in a 13" notebook without making the text too small.

Battery Life I never expected to get anything over 5 hours of battery life from any kind of notebook/netbook that would meet my needs. It is simply amazing and I feel "free" from having to constantly carry around my power cord.

Mouse Trackpad my Zenbook came pre-loaded with the latest drivers. I understand that there used to be an issue with the track pad, however I have noticed no issue what-so-ever. Infact I am really enjoying the feel and functionality of the track pad. I use the two-finger scrolling all the time and I am starting to use the three-finger functionality of it now. I will mention that I did need to bump up the speed of both the mouse pointer and the two-finger scrolling to make it "feel right" to me. So I would recommend that you play around with those settings until it feels right for you.

Thermal Design I was a bit afraid that being made out of metal, the bottom of the zenbook might become a little "hot". It surprised me that the thermals for this ultrabook are quite good! I guess the credit should go to the low voltage CPU from intel. Simply amazing and quiet!

Noise Level Most of the time the fan is off and when it does turn on it is barely noticeable. The loudest thing for me is my typing! No need to be concerned that it would be disruptive in a meeting, classroom or library.

Keyboard I really love that the keys for the keyboard also have that metal finish to them. I really pulls the design together for me.

Accessories All the accessories that ASUS decided to include with the Zenbook are just icing on my cake. I love the envelope that the Zenbook can slide into, very nice quality and does not feel "cheap"

Instant On Most ultrabooks will probably have this feature. No more waiting for my machine to "start-up"

ASUS Warranty A "free" one year accidental damage warranty. Nothing one could complain about that, expect that you must be careful where you purchase your Zenbook from to ensure that you will get this warranty. (Don't buy it from a BestBuy or OfficeMax or Costco)

Dislikes:

Webcam Poor quality webcam in my opinion. I honestly never use a webcam anyway on any of my computers so it isn't a big deal for me. However why put such a horrible webcam on such a beautiful and well though-out machine?

Viewing Angles (Up and Down)All laptop screens have issues with viewing angles in my opinion. All of a sweet spot range, some have a wider range than others. I will tell you that the range for the "sweet spot" on this machine is a little narrower than I would like.

Glossy Screen I really wish that ASUS would have Zenbooks with BOTH a glossy and a matte screen so the consumer could pick which screen would fit his/her needs best. Glossy means that any outdoor use for my Zenbook will be limited to overcast days only. I would have preferred a matte screen. In fact I almost didn't buy the Zenbook because the screen was glossy.

Power Connection I wish that the power connection into the Zenbook was a little more "firm", I worry that overtime it might have problems charging due to a wobbly power connection.

Wants:

Different Color Case I hope that ASUS might sell the same cases that they include with the Zenbook in different colors. I am not the biggest fan of the brown color that is sold with the Zenbook.

Better Webcam

Matte Screen

ASUS F75A-EH51 17.3-Inch Laptop Review

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $599.00
Sale Price: $536.49
Today's Bonus: 10% Off

it was a gift for my mother and she loves it.Seams to be a great machine,no problems so far.Shipping was fast.Thank you!

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The title says it all. You get good hardware for the money, but the nightmare was a holy nightmare. After unistalling all the "multi-gesture" features and software, it's at least usable. I can't recall if I ended up using a synaptic driver or default windows drivers after it was all said and done. It was for a customer, and I told her to return it to me if it was unusable. So far she has not. Maybe everybody is not as picky as me?

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It's a nice laptop at a good price, but Windows 8 is everything it shouldn't be. An entirely unintuitive operating system. I installed a start button, on a 7 emulator, which helps but doesn't fix it.

I would happily give the laptop itself 5 stars.

Honest reviews on ASUS F75A-EH51 17.3-Inch Laptop

Awesome I would reccomend this. Very easy to use and I love the app style where everything is right there in front of you where it's quicker to get to the things you need to.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for ASUS F75A-EH51 17.3-Inch Laptop

I have a 4 1/2 year old Dell laptop and I thought it was time to replace it with a newer laptop. I have had no problems whatsoever with my Dell in all that time. I fully expected and wanted to buy a new Dell with a 17 inch screen but the prices seemed a bit high. By the way I'm a "Make or buy American" guy and I have been in Austin, Texas where the Dell headquarters is/was(?). I made the minor mistake of asking one of our computer whizzes at work what he thought about Dells and he gave me that vague look and speech "Dells are OK" but then he said "I've heard a lot of good stuff about ASUS". So I looked up ASUS up on the internet and all I saw was an address in California...my search stopped there and I thought I was getting an American brokered (at least) computer. ASUS was cheaper because it's all foreign.

Epilogue:

-The DVD player skips and burps, even on brand new disks.

-Going to the Start screen interrupts or stops other functions.

-I'm not sure if the Instant On feature is giving me the good and refreshing benefits of a cold start.

-It just doesn't seem that much faster than my 4 1/2 year old Dell laptop.

I'm just kinda' surprised.

Dell Latitude E6400 14.1" Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.53Ghz, 160GB Review

Customer Ratings:

Looks like it is new, not a scratch, operate good, i like the feel of it just two problems the technician told me that the 2Gb memory was (1GBX2) instead i got it as (2GBX1), i also got DVD reader and not a DVD burner, and i had to reinstall the OS bcuz it keep crashing when it was booting, it also used came Windows 7 64bit n not Windows XP

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Buy HP 2000-2a10nr 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

Customer Ratings:

Like I've said this is the first actual laptop I've ever owned just for me! Of course I've used a few in my day but this one's all mine. Now I will quickly go into pros and cons and then sum it up with what I thought overall from the 3 or so days I've owned it.

PROS**

~Decent speed for surfing the internet and overall meets my needs

~Quick for downloading things (I haven't tried very huge files yet)

~Attractive laptop that looks more expensive than it was

~Plays movies with no fuss

~Easy set up

~Beautiful screen that's pleasant to look at when surfing and wonderful to experience while watching a movie in WMP. Ex: I was watching Spider-Man 3 yesterday and things look excellent.

~Youcam is simple AND addictive to use.

~Can use Skype (haven't yet but will when my aunt wants to)

~For you music heads like me the laptop has play/stop, skip forward, skip back, volume up, volume down and mute buttons so you don't need to go into iTunes or Spotify to adjust things.

~Comes with 2 months worth of Norton Anti-virus program free of charge (after it expires you can register with them for a price). Some say this is far from the best Anti-virus program though so maybe it's a con and when you get the computer you can uninstall it.

CONS**

-Strong glare on screen from certain angles when there is any amount of light coming in through the window

-The computer itself is a smudge-magnet. Fingerprints abound.

-While the computer is pretty fast there are occasions when the loading isn't as fast as you think it should be

-The max sound when watching movies/listening to music is slightly inadequate and you will require speakers to get a better volume. The reason for this is probably because the speakers are located at the bottom of the laptop which I found strange.

-Takes *up to* around a minute before the Wi-Fi connection is found. Most of the time it takes a bit less though.

-Webcam takes just OK pictures that are sorta grainy at times. What can you expect from most laptop computers though?

-The option to adjust the lighting sometimes does not work whether the power supply is plugged in or not. I don't know what that's all about.

Overall, this is a pretty good computer and made for a fine purchase. We got it for just over 400 bones (with everything like tax included) and it fulfills all my basic needs. My old Dell desktop (while good while it lasted over the past 9 years) has been slow as crap for the past few years and using it was complete torture. This one has much improved speed in every way and lets me use all the basic apps like Spotify and Last.fm for my music needs. iTunes loads quickly and applying my own cover art for each album happens in 2-3 seconds if it doesn't happen instantly! At worst my old computer could take up to a minute or so to load this stuff. If you haven't noticed I'm a music head so if these things matter to you then by all means get this. It was easy to set up and is just fun to play around with. May I mention again that it's such a beautiful laptop? It has a nice coat and a shine like no other. This computer makes me feel like a professional! The buttons are very light to the touch. It has a 15.6 inch screen so it has a nice, big view. But it's also very light. I used it without the power two or three times and I must say that it definitely doesn't last 5 hours without the power cord connected. I usually have the brightness on nearly as high as it goes (who actually uses this with the light extremely dim?) so I'm sure it would last longer with less power being used. But I still don't think that it will last a full 5 hours.

(10/20/12) Just now I noticed it said it was going to last 7 hours and some odd minutes. About 15-20 minutes later it says 5 hours and some minutes. So yeah. Not gonna happen.

(10/28/12) After almost 3 weeks of owning it I can't believe by having 2 or 3 programs open that the CPU slows things down and stuff. The absolute no go here and reason I'm knocking its score down from a 4 to a 3.75 is because when I type on Internet Explorer sometimes the computer has to play catch up. On other occasions I type a letter and it doesn't even compute. In that sense it's a big waste of time and no one should go through this with a new computer!!

(11/1/12) It's a new month and I just want to say overall if I had the chance to buy a computer all over again, I wouldn't pick this one. About an hour ago Norton said that Internet Explorer was using too much of the CPU and pretty much ever since, typing successfully has become somewhat of a chore. I have to keep backspacing because not all the button presses are going through. :/ I type like 60 wpm. Shouldn't be too hard to compute. I deducted the score from a 3.75 to a 3.5 and I think that's where it will stay unless the computer blows up or something.

(11/17/12) The slowdown problem has been completely cured now that I don't use Internet Explorer anymore. I'm getting rid of the icon in a minute and now will only use Safari or Google Chrome. I swear IE was causing me hell when I typed most of the time. All the problems vanished though and I'm elated/relieved! =) I'm upping the score a little beyond what it was to begin with (from a 4.3 to a 4.4).

Thanks for reading. =) And long story short: DON'T USE INTERNET EXPLORER WITH THIS! You MIGHT have PROBLEMS! So basically I recommend using Internet Explorer to get Safari, Google Chrome or your favorite web browser and then not even using IE. It sucks!

4.4 stars.

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Sure there are better laptops out there, but not at this price. I'm your average laptop user and was looking for a product that is both reliable without a lot of "bells and whistles", HP offers this and more. Only down side is the high gloss case. While the case is beautiful, it is a finger print magnet. Aside from that, which is really no big deal, I highly recommend this to anyone who is looking for quality from a reputable manufacturer without breaking the bank.

Best Deals for HP 2000-2a10nr 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

Well knowing all the specs on this laptop i decide to buy it!! Surprise even when has a small processor is very fast, and the video is stunning!! Can reproduce a video from a MKV File at 1080p smoothly via HDMI in a 42" LED TV!! Has a 5+ hours battery that enhance time without energy connected!!

Pros: Almost every thing.

Cons: Medium Hard Drive and Glossy housing. This is a fingerprint magnet. Cpu is dual-core but sometimes barely speed like mono-core!

However i will buy another one for a family gift!!

Honest reviews on HP 2000-2a10nr 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

I bought this for myself and I really enjoy this computer. I have not had any issues with it and it was a great price. If you want/need a computer and don't want to spend too much money, I would suggest this product.

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After much deliberation, I finally decided which laptop to buy, and this HP was a great choice, as soon as i turned it on it connected to the internet which was fantastic! I didn't like that Norton was already installed though, I found it a bit annoying and deleted it and installed ESET virus protection instead. Windows 7 is so cool :-) I love it! The laptop is sturdy and everything it said it would be, and pretty!

Discount ASUS ZenBook UX31A-R5102F 13.3" FullHD UltraBook

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $999.99
Sale Price: $899.99
Today's Bonus: 10% Off

So far a great laptop. I am using it with a Logitech wireless keyboard and mouse and an Asus 24" LED monitor. I also hooked up Lenovo's Hub to it, so it is basically a workstation and a laptop when I need to take it along. After installing all of the MS Office and other software I use, I still have more than 50 GB of free space on the SSD. However, I hooked up a Toshiba 1TB portable (2.5") drive to it via Lenovo's USB 3.0 hub and the space is not an issue. It is also connected to my home server, so it is truly a workstation. So far so good. One thing I was surprised by... It is really thin, yet weighs almost as much as my 15.6" work laptop. Still, since I do not have to lag it on regular basis, it is not on issue.

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Excellent keyboard, nice feel. 1920 screen. Great battery life.

Refurbished unit has Windows 7 Pro-64, which allows the PC to be productive.

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The size, the touch, the feel, the resolution are great. The more I use it the better I like it. The default screen was difficult to read with its minuscule font and the magnifier was awkward until I found I could readily increase the size with the touchpad. My only complaint, expressed by others, is the sensitivity of the touchpad when inadvertently grazed as I type. If I change my technique in a way to overcome that objection I'll give it the other star.

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I am very happy with this laptop. It is thin and light and look great. The build quality generally feels very solid, though there is a bit of hinge wobble, not enough to worry that the screen will fall down, but more than there should be.

Performance is acceptable, though not overwhelming. I haven't tried too much to stress it, but the built in processor and graphics are just strong enough to play Civ V in 1080p on medium settings (after a driver upgrade; out of the box there were some issues). Normal applications load quickly off the SSD and I haven't ad any issues with the machine being unresponsive. You can hear the fan spin up when doing CPU intensive tasks, but it never gets loud enough for me to be bothered by it.

The screen is wonderful. Crisp with good contrast and viewing angles. I do sometimes wish it could be brighter, but it is not dim by any stretch. The machine ships with DPI scaling set to 125%, but I found that using it at 100% is fine for me. After using this screen, going back to my old laptop's 1600x900 display really hard, the extra room is so much nicer. Somehow, even when watching video, it feels bigger, though both are 13.3" screens.

The speakers are louder than most laptop speakers and provide crisp, rich sound.

The machine comes with a nice enough laptop sleeve, a 100MB usb ethernet adapter, and a VGA adapter. If you want HDMI output you will need to buy a micro-HDMI to HDMI cable. The charging brick fairly small and plugs directly into the wall, rather than being a multi-part affair. The power port itself is small and is not compatible with most third-party power kits (forgot mine somewhere, so went looking. Ended up buying a no name charger from Amazon that works well).

Battery life has been good, I'd guess 6 hours or so, though it is not a user removable battery, so I do worry about where it will be in a couple years.

The big downside is the touchpad which simply isn't very good, especially on soft surfaces like a bed. It is very overly sensitive, and as it is large, easy to hit by accident. It frequently thinks that using the buttons while you have another finger on the pad is some attempt at a multitouch gesture rather than a simple button click. Using the Samsung driver recommended by another reviewer helped, and provided many more configuration options and gestures, but ultimately it still isn't great.

Also while the machine is very narrow, and definitely light, in the other two dimensions it is large for a 13" laptop. There is a significant bezel around screen causing it to take up more space than I would like. Compared to my old Vaio Z which is a little smaller in terms of width from left to right and much smaller in terms of front to back depth, but more than twice as thick, I think I like the Zenbook more, but it does feel a lot bigger in some ways.

There is another Zenbook prime model (UX31A-DB51 I think) that has the same basic specs as this one, but which is normally more expensive. I was only able to find a few possible differences. One said that the DB51 has a 4 cell battery compared to the 6 cell here (though with basically identical capacities). The other said that the DB51 is the USA model while the UX31A-R5102F is a foreign market model that people import to the US (everything is in English, and I didn't see anything in the packaging to confirm this though). The R102F has all the important features so it seems like price is the only reason to prefer one over the other.

All in all, it is a pretty wonderful ultrabook, and while I'd love a Thinkpad X240 or ASUS Zenbook Infinity or some other high res, Haswell based ultrabook, those are almost twice as expensive. For the price this is a spectacular machine.

Cheap Sony VAIO VGN-UX380N Core Solo U1500 1.33GHz 1GB 40GB 4.5"

Customer Ratings:

Hello,

I bought my Sony Vaio UX380N back in the beginning of 2008, and I haven't regretted it one bit. Even now, after having it and using it all this time, i still keep finding newer and more exciting ways to use my UX380N. Sony had a real winner on their hands with this model, but they were quite outrageous on the prices of them. If they would have lowered their prices to a more reasonable amount, and maybe have upgraded the RAM to 2Gb instead of just giving up on the UX model idea, they would and could have probably sold them like hot cakes. Everyone that I have talked to and showed my UX380N to really loved it, and they really were interested in purchasing one. But the Sony price of them, along with Sony's decision to discontinue the model rather than make a few upgrades to it and lower the price of it, drove them away from buying one. Sony could have made a killing profit with this model, but their poor business and tech practices, once again, put a damper on their sales.

Personally, I don't know or understand why Sony thinks so much of their cumputers that they raise their prices wayyyy above everyone else that builds computers with the same or better quality, and sells them cheaper, but Sony needs to come down to reality and notice and see that their brand name doesn't have the quality or known-ness as it once had. Sony just needs to come down to reality period. Until then, not too may people will pay their outrageous prices for things that they can just go to other manufacturers and get the same quality mwith a much more reasonable price tag. But still, that doesn't take away the wonderful computer that the UX380N is. If you can find a UX model UMPC at a reasonable price (Maybe @ $799 or less), then I highly recommend that you buy it. You will not regret it. Thanks for reading!!

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Bought my UX380N back in 2007, this is an excellent micro-laptop if you travel much. I usually bring two laptops when I travel a bigger 13" or 16" laptop to do serious work and this guy is my entertainment laptop to play video, light games and serve as my BACKUP laptop just in case anything happens to my main machine. In this regard it is perfect I could fit both laptops on my back pack and barely know the UX is there.

To fully appreciate this laptop, you MUST upgrade it to Windows 7 Vista Business is WAY too SLOW. Once you put Windows 7 it is a totally different machine snappy, performs well and is a joy to use. The 1G RAM is sufficient for Windows 7 but not Vista Business. Oh, I did a clean install as well for Windows 7 and loaded all Sony drivers, everything works perfectly, actually much better than under Vista.

The screen is small indeed, the keyboard tiny, but what do you expect it is a micro-laptop, it is supposed to be small. The quality of components is superb the screen is crystal clear, the keyboard slide action is great, can't expect better built quality than this. Never tried out the EDGE modem, but it is too slow to be of any use anyways.

By the way get the extended battery. It makes it slightly heavier but much more practical. I could get 5 hours of light use out of the UX. With the standard battery, it is slightly smaller and lighter, but not practical with only 2.5 hours of juice.

I wish Sony would continue production it is sad to see it discontinued....

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I've had a UX-380 for 3+ years, and it hasn't been used much the past year because of newer toys. But the first thing I did when I bought it was to rip out Vista and put in XPpro. Machine surprisingly fast, and is a REAL PC running all my desktop/laptop apps.

HP G62-435DX Laptop Notebook / AMD Turion II Processor / 15.6" LED Review

Customer Ratings:

this is a very good computer for the price, it certainly has all the bells and whistles and speed, but it has it's less then perfect features as well. the keyboard for oneit seems cheap and frail as if the keys may fly off any time. and the roller/mouse pad is hidden making it a bit difficult to use, it is also centered on pc instead of offset to the left as many laptops position their pads. lastly the right and left keys are hard to press, instead of a mere flick on them you must give a firm, centered push to activate them.

one last thing, this laptop is a 64 bit system, running windows 7, so before you use it. dont forget to make recovery discs (5), a windows repair disc (1), and (7) system image backup discs. none of these will help if the keys fall off but will restore the programs to as new in the event of failure from virus, trojans or whatever.

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I've been using this computer for almost 2 years without issue (other than an itunes Win 7 conflict) and I wouldn't hesitate to by this or any other HP product again. Granted, all I use it for is browsing the "computer interweb" and watching downloaded movies, but, for the money, this is a great laptop. The speakers aren't bad either compared to my previous Toshiba laptop.

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i have this model laptop and i've had for about 6 months. the battery DOES NOT last 4-4.5 hours, you have to replace it with an 8 cell battery. as for performance though, it's amazing. i can game and run 13 other programs with the gaming client that draws 3/4 of the processor attention. it DOES have a recovery partition in of which you immediately lose 20 gigs right there unless you create the recovery discs. overall, the only things i dislike is that i had to buy an 8 cell battery and the fact that it does get hot after gaming.

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this is not a bad computer. ive had it for a few days and its great for basic stuff. if your going to game or do video editing its probably not your best choice. but i like it a lot!!!

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I have the G62-457dx which now seems to be a limited edition model, because it is no longer available through Amazon or any other well-known sites. HP is probably the only company who still has my model available for purchase. Anyway, I don't see how anyone can really go wrong with a machine that is this powerful. Once again, I am still very impressed with the number of different tasks that I can run all at one time without slowing down, overheating, crashing etc. Many complain about the keyboard, but the only problem that I have with it is the number keys. I can run up to 4 or more downloads and 8 browser tabs and other services and applications without problems, and this is incredible. 4GB RAM, incredible. The dual core processor gives maximum performance speed and quality. It even works as a great gaming machine. Not the best, but I can run some modern day video games with graphics that rival PS3 and Xbox without much problems. However, there's a few games that get a little sluggish but are still very playable without causing interference. This strongly determines what kind of processor, video card, RAM capacity and other features that you have enabled. Also, if you want a perfect gaming machine it would be better and more affordable to just buy a console. As for my computer, I can run any and every task needed and I'm satisfied with that. Not much bloatware installed, built in factory reset option, Lightscribe drive, web cam, SD card slot, HDMI port, CD/DVD burner, 3USB ports, scratch resistant surface and so much more. It runs like a champion. Once again, I don't see how anyone could not be satisfied with having a computer that performs this good. Great for students, business owners and home users who need to multitask everyday. I've had my computer for a couple of months now, and there's been no major problems or issues with it yet. Even when I overwork this computer, the CPU usage barely ever reaches 100%; and if it does it's only for a couple of seconds. And the RAM usage barely ever goes over 50% usage but can be reduced by an optimization program. This computer has not failed me yet, and I'm not expecting it to. This is truly one of the best computers on the market right now, and it will be worth every dollar that you pay for it. Personally, I'd advise ordering a G Series HP laptop from Best Buy over Amazon if you'd wish to save about $100-$150. The only real difference between this computer and mine is the brand of processor, and both have about the same capabilities.

To those who posted before me:

You keep saying that the keys are cheap or not correctly placed, how? It's a standard QWERTY, and my typing is not affected at all by a QWERTY keyboard. As far as keys flying off, that's a total lie. If that's happening to your computer, then I don't know where you purchased it from or how many flights of stairs you dropped it down. Okay, did you buy your computer for the keys or for what it could really do? The keys are just fine. Also, the touchpad being in the center happens to be just right for people who type the correct way ASDF-JKL;. It's there between your thumbs and conveniently out of your way when you're typing, so I'm absolutely fine with it being centered. Even in the event that it did interfere with your typing, you have the touchpad lock sensor in the upper left corner of the touchpad that can be activated by a double click. Unless you have gigantic hands, I don't see how the placement of the touchpad can even be considered a legitimate complaint. Also, if it bothers you that bad you shouldn't have paid for it. I'm just saying that if you're gonna post a review, at least put some truth into it and have proper knowledge of computers. Always remember that a computer will react to what you choose to do with it. If you guys have been downloading and installing stuff that you shouldn't have, hey, you know? That's your problem.

Lenovo ThinkPad 234238U 14-Inch Laptop Reviews

Customer Ratings:

Purchased this product in April 2013 and I am thrilled with its performance. I have always like Lenovo when these machines were issued to the faculty at a University wherein I was employed. Performance was excellent. I can say the same the same for this model. It is fast, reliable and has no glitches of which I am aware. I had some trepidation about using Windows 7 since I have a number of legacy software which I still use the most notable of which is Lotus 123 the last edition (circa 2000). I have "tons" of spreadsheets and continue to create them. Although this operating system is 64 bit, the Lotus suite loaded just fine (using the exe file) and has been functioning well ever since. All of my legacy software functions without a hitch.

This machine is fast, lightweight, reliable and boots very quickly. I am also using an online backup service Crash Plan which I would recommend to anyone and everyone. Rates are very reasonable and back-up is seamless in the background. I am using the Lenovo as my main machine, retiring my previous computer (a desktop) to service for the purpose of watching documentary videos from Amazon Prime while I work on spreadsheets. I bought a small (used) 15 inch HP monitor (with speakers) on Ebay which sits next to my external monitor for the laptop. The two together fit very nicely side-by-side on my desk. I would rate this Lenovo laptop as 5 stars without reservation. I am very pleased with the performance. It is truly "solid!"

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It runs fast, especially after I deleted the annoying trial softwares. My first thinkpad was a T42 that showed me what thinkpad reliability is. But my second U series thinkpad was not satisfactory. This one seems to have inherited the T series tradition well.

Buy Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 13.3-Inch Convertible Touchscreen Ultrabook

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $1,099.99
Sale Price: $940.00
Today's Bonus: 15% Off

I got this after a real Odyssey searching for a new ultrabook. I owned the Samsung series 9, np900x3c, and my girlfriend has a Macbook Air (MBA), so I can also compare them to the Yoga.

At this price, the Yoga is a great product if:

you want a great quality ultrabook (parts are solid and well made and it is not as fragile as the Samsung 9).

It is not as light as others but unless you really need an ultraportable (like the Samsung 9) then the Yoga fares well as it weights just 0.3 lbs more than the MBA although it is a little bigger.

About the latter, it is sturdier in some sense than both the MBA and Samsung. The MBA actually delivers a good solid feeling (the Series 9 not much so, I felt like you can break it easily, especially the hinges of the screen) but I feel like I could drop the Yoga without having to say goodbye to it. I believe this is in Lenovo spirit, their laptop are renowned to be sturdy and long-lasting.

good quality control (my first the Samsung 9 came with a dead pixel, the second one had a crappy trackpad which selects things at random while you move the cursor and statics from the speakers and audio output!).

a great touchscreen, also in terms of quality of the LCD display (IPS with decent resolution). Notice that touchscreens reduce battery performance. The Samsung 9 has a brighter screen and more battery life, especially compared if you use the screen at the same level of brightness. That was a drawback for the Yoga to me, because I don't care about the touchscreen. However, overall, considering features and design, quality control, and price (!!) the Yoga wins easily.

a good keyboard. It is not as good as the X1 Carbon, but it definitely beats the MBA (which has a decent keyboard but shallower than the Yoga) and wins hands down the Series 9 (stiff, shallow and noisy).

IT IS RELLY A GREAT ULTRABOOK FOR THE PRICE with the competition out there at the moment.

You can also upgrade the RAM and SSD easily enough (especially the RAM, it's trivial).

What I would like to see improved in the future, in order of importance, are:

battery life! If you use 80-85% brightness and use it constantly (I mostly browse, type quite a bit -coding for example -and listening to some music) you might even wipe it in just 4 hours. That's not awesome. The Series 9 would last 1 hour longer. However, the battery is decent, don't let yourself down because of this. The OS and features drains the battery, the MBA would last 3 hours if it had a touchscreen like this and was running Win 8!

more brightness and bigger screen (the MBA has a slightly bigger screen but worse resolution and quality, that's for sure).

An even better keyboard, like the X1 Carbon thinkpad (with the nipple please!)

I would prefer a metal case in terms of design. It would make it just awesome.

Back-lit keyboard.

NOTE: I don't use the touchscreen much but the factor forms are really useful. Many times you are in a vehicle, or on the plane, or in a situation where you need to bend the laptop and use it with the screen closer to you, taking up less space and such. It is really useful! I love to use it on the couch and bed as tablet (otherwise a little heavy). Even if you don't love the touchscreen and would rather have a better battery life and lighter product (like I do), the Yoga still wins to such product like MBA and Samsung 9 because of its features and quality, for that competitive price!

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The Yoga 13 is an excellent computer, which works (almost) exactly as it should (with one minor wifi fix). My real rating would be 4.5 stars, but I'm rounding up because this is a 1st-Generation device, so small bugs are usually common. I've compared it extensively with the Dell XPS 12 and opted to keep the Yoga 13, even though I got the Dell for the same price ($1,000 for a Dell-refurbished unit + a coupon).

Design (9 out of 10)

The 360 hinge works as it should, with one minor complaint. The screen is a little bit "bouncy" when you have the laptop open at all and try to write on it with a stylus, which means you need to either have the screen "open" all the way and flat on a surface or you need to stabilize it with your other hand to use a stylus well. The Dell XPS 12 hinge does not have this same problem. However, overall, I slightly prefer the Yoga 13 design to the Dell XPS 12 design. In fact, I now find it silly to have a laptop with a touch screen that doesn't open all the way. The double joint feature that allows the fold back really can't cost more than $20 or $30; every laptop should have it. The criticism about the keys being exposed is blown way out of proportion. It feels a little funny at first, but that's it. Don't set your laptop down on a dirty, wet, or sticky surface and the keyboard will be just fine.

The one main advantage of the Dell XPS 12 design is that you can leave the base completely stationary and flip the screen. If the laptop is plugged in, this is handy. Still, the flip screen design on the Dell feels a little gimmicky (although it's still a fine alternative design to the Yoga 13 and much better than the Twist, in my opinion).

The overall feel of the Yoga is nice. It is not "premium" like the Dell XPS 12 carbon fiber, but it's not worth paying extra money for a slightly nicer texture, in my opinion. I actually prefer the interior texture on the Yoga 13 -very comfortable typing handrests that don't get cold or hot.

Screen (9 out of 10)

The screen looks very nice; the 1600x900 resolution works very well for a 13 inch screen. Side by side with the Dell XPS 12's 1080p, it's clear that the Dell has a better-looking screen. However, the resolution on the Dell is a bit high for a 12 inch screen, which means you need to increase font sizes for most text to be readable without squinting.

Touch/Tablet mode (10 out of 10)

This is where the Yoga 13 demolishes the Dell. If you plan to use a stylus and are considering the Dell please read this, since I've not seen it come up in any reviews. The Dell XPS 12 is unusable in stylus mode. I tried two different Dell units with the exact same results: jagged lines, missed lines, and illegible text if I tried to write anything small. This occurred in every program (One Note, Word, Corel Draw, Note Anytime), and 6 hours with tech support could not fix it (new OS, new drivers, etc.). The Yoga 13, on the hand, works quite well (although I would pay an extra $150 for a active stylus with digitizer -Lenovo, are you listening?).

Tablet mode has worked great, with no problems. With the Dell, I had problems with auto-rotate and auto-keyboard pop-up failing to work on two different Dell units. The only fix was a complete re-install of windows.

For some who have noted that there is sometimes a lag in the touch screen if you haven't used it for a while, follow these steps (found on a message board):

Open device manager

Expand Human Interface Devices

At the bottom of the HID list are two devices labeled "USB Input Device" On my system, the one we're concerned with is the second one, so the last item in the list, but just to make sure it's the right one:

Open the device properties

Click the Details tab

In the drop down menu, select Hardware Ids

The one we want will say USB\VID_04F3&PID_000A on the second line

Move to the Power Management tab

Uncheck "Allow the computer to turn off this device to save power"

Keyboard/Trackpad (9 out of 10)

Trackpad is great (I updated to latest drivers). Not sure what the mixed reviews are about. The Dell XPS 12 was not good. Keyboard on the Yoga is also great. I liked the feel of the Dell's keyboard a bit more, but I've had no missed keys on the Yoga.

I don't understand the criticism of lack of keyboard backlight. I've never had a scenario where I needed keyboard backlighting. In completely dark room, the computer screen illuminates the keyboard enough to see the keys. But if you really love keyboard backlighting, be aware that the Yoga 13 doesn't have it!

Wifi (7 out of 10)

While it sounds like some people are having bigger problems with wifi, my failure-to-reconnect on log-on issue was solved with this simple fix: Go to Device Manager (Charms Bar --> search for "Device Manager" in settings), Go to Network Adapter, Right Click on the RealTek, Click on Advanced Tab, Then set Selective Suspend to "Disabled."

Since I did that, I've had zero problems. It annoys me that Lenovo could ship a product that needs a fix for wifi that automatically reconnects at log-on, but the range issues people have been reporting are non-existent for me. In fact, for both my home network and work network, I have 3-4 bars of wifi in places where my Dell XPS 12 had 1-2 bars and would fail to connect at times. Since my fix, I've had zero wifi problems in the past 3 weeks.

Ports/Other Features (10 out of 10)

I like the full-size HDMI port. While DisplayPorts might be the future, everything in my house has HDMI (and HDMI to DVI cables are $6 on Amazon, if you have a monitor without HDMI). No VGA port, though, which is fine for me since it is no longer 2005.

SD card slot is nice. Seems silly that Dell left it out of the XPS 12.

Expandable SSD slot is amazing. I have a 128GB Yoga now, but it's nice knowing I'll be able to add a second SSD in the future as prices drop (see YouTube for instructions). Also, I plan to expand to 8GB of ram, although I've had no problems with 4GB for the time being.

Not happy about the charger (the unique style means I have to pay top dollar for a replacement, since I like to have two), but it works fine.

Final Thoughts

The upcoming Helix could rival the Yoga in terms of design (detachable screen, 10 hours of batter life, stylus), but if you're like me and do a decent amount of typing, an 11-inch screen is just too small. The Yoga 13's 13-inch screen is just right for productivity, and in tablet mode works really well on your lap. No, you can't hold it with one hand comfortably, but you can prop it up in a variety of ways. I find the 9-11 inch tablet size to be nice, but also too large for one-handed use. I hope the next version of the Yoga has an active stylus.

Best Deals for Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 13.3-Inch Convertible Touchscreen Ultrabook

I am a big computer enthusiast, and I have went through a lot of laptops/ultrabooks over the past few years. I have owned:

-Macbook pros and airs

-Asus Zenbook ux31a

-Dell XPS 13

-Dell Latitude

-netbooks and other lesser known notebooks.

My favorite out of the bunch was the Asus zenbook ux31a, and it still is if I am talking solely about ultrabooks. I prefer the yoga because of the touchscreen and future-proofing Windows 8 OS. I never really owned any powerful gaming laptops because I have a very powerful desktop sitting at home.

So now you know my techy background, here is my list of pros and cons for the Lenovo Yoga 13 after using it for about a week.

PROS:

1. Windows 8 on a touchscreen. I used Win8 on my XPS 13, which does not have a touchscreen, and I absolutely hated the experience, especially considering the XPS has a subpar touchpad. I think Win8 gets a lot of hate because people use it on a non-touch laptops. Using Win8 on a touchscreen laptop is very fluid and natural. Even in the traditional desktop mode, I can tell they made a lot of adjustments in the OS to make it work well. I do have some problems with the virtual keyboard not popping up sometimes when I needed it to. At rare times, it would even pop up when I don't need it.

2. Screen. 900p IPS glossy display. Not as good as the zenbook's 1080p IPS matte display, but the difference is not noticeable.

3. Touchpad. Some reviews say the touchpad is terrible. I actually like it quite a lot, and this is coming from someone who used the Macbook's touchpad for years. I like the zenbook ux31a's trackpad more, but just by a hair.

4. Construction. There are cons in the build quality (listed in cons section), but overall, it is a solid design. The entire laptop scheme of the construction is rubber. You can feel the rubbery friction on the top and bottom of the laptop, as well as inside on the trackpad and even between the letters of the keyboard. I am guessing they went with rubber instead of aluminum or some other metal is because the laptop is already heavy enough, and they did not want to add more weight to it especially since it's an oversized tablet. Also, the rubber makes for a good grip in tablet mode, something necessary for such a large tablet.

5. Battery life. Yoga 13 has the best battery life out of all the ultrabook/tablet hybrids to date (according to my knowledge at least). This is one of the main reasons I bought this over the XPS 12. HOWEVER, the battery life is still subpar compared to non-touchscreen ultrabooks like the zenbook or macbook air. I get about 5-6 hours, but I have pushed it to close to 7 hours if you use it very conservatively.

CONS:

1. Construction. As I said in the PROS section, there are pros and cons about the construction. I like the rubber scheme design, but there are some flex in the keyboard, making the overall product feel less premium. The size of the screen bezel is thick for my taste (I am spoiled by the XPS 13 thin bezel). The bezel size also increases the overall size of the laptop, and the width and length makes it much larger than my old xps 13, and is also actually larger than my old macbook pro 13. The size combined with the the thickness makes it noticeably heavier than my old zenbook and macbook air.

2. No backlit keyboard. The keyboard itself is alright, I am typing this review on it right now. The top of the keys are straight while the bottom is curved, which feels kind of weird to me, so my touch typing feels slightly off, but no biggie.

3. Bad factory partitioning, easy/automated fix can be found online. Google "Yoga 13 hotfix"

4. Fan. It does seem to be on all the time, but you won't notice it because it's a quiet hum. I only noticed it when I'm alone in my room, and even then it never bothers me. There may be a "fix" online, but I never looked into it.

5. Hard for User Upgrades. This can be argued to be a PRO considering a lot of ultrabooks doesn't even give you the option to upgrade anymore. Anyways, It's kind of complicated to upgrade the SSD. I haven't read too much into it, but I think it's doable, just not your traditional HDD/SSD swap. Also, it only has 1 RAM slot, so the max you can upgrade to is 8gb right now.

6. Hard to open! This is probably my biggest everyday gripe about it. I'm not sure what Lenovo was thinking. When the yoga is closed, there's a strong magnet to hold it in place. You definitely can't open it easily with one hand like you can with macbooks and the new zenbook. You'll probably have to use 2 hands. Furthermore, there is no LEVERAGE for you to hold onto! You basically use one hand to try and keep it down while using your other hand to pry it open, except they didn't make any sort of space you can get your fingers under for a good grip. It's a very slipper experience. This might be the hardest laptop I have ever used to open, mainly because of the strong magnet. I actually have to give a little attention to and focus whenever I want to open it up.

*I did not experience any bad wifi problems.

OVERALL, I do enjoy this Yoga. The PROS still outweigh the cons. The 2 biggest thing I look at in a laptop is the trackpad and screen because that's what people use the most, both are outstanding on the Yoga. While in laptop mode, it looks like a normal 13inch laptop, kind small and portable. But as soon as you use it in a tablet mode, its perception becomes a super huge tablet with tons of screen real estate...mind tricks. Anyways, I do like the machine a lot. I picked the yoga over the microsoft surface because I believe the keyboard and trackpad is an essential part of using a full-fledged windows machine. I can't see myself playing games or doing real work on the Surface even with the keyboard cover, too small and cramped.

Do I recommend you to buy this? I never recommend buying a first generation product. They are usually glitchy and highly priced. If you know you want a touchscreen laptop, get this. Buy the Surface if you really want portability with less battery life and screen estate. Otherwise, I would say to wait for the 2nd or 3rd generation. I can see Yoga 13 #2 having a thinner bezel, and a thinner body, lighter design, and longer battery life, maybe even a higher res screen. Hopefully, retail pricing will also start below 1k.

Honest reviews on Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 13.3-Inch Convertible Touchscreen Ultrabook

I read enough reviews on Amazon and other places to justify me having to write one here. First things first, I am an IT guy, so between hardware, software and networking it's easier for me to figure things out, so keep that in mind when reading the review.

As all of the other reviewers said, there are some known quirks with this computer. Yes, the hinges let the screen wobble a bit. I have a Dell XPS 13 and the screen doesn't wobble at all, but this one does. It's not a big deal. Secondly, yes, the keyboard is different. The keys don't appear to be as deep as other keyboards, so when pressing them down it isn't as much as a confirmed response back from the pc. That being said, I don't have a single problem typing on it outside of the backspace key being small. A few hours later and it's fine. The mouse is perfect fine for me. I actually prefer it over my Dell mouse. There are times when the tapping or click of the mouse doesn't respond, but it isn't to the point of annoyance. You can two finger scroll, two finger right click, pinch, zoom, etc all with it. I actually do like it.

The one I wanted to spend a little bit of time on is the wireless card. This thing is 2.4 ghz only. It's speed is limited to 150 mbps. My pc out of the box didn't have any driver issues, but for some reason when I installed the latest driver from the lenovo site, I couldn't get online anymore, so I had to rollback that driver. There is a combination of bad drivers, software and network requirements needed to make this thing work. Again, out of the box I was only able to connect at 65 mbps on my cisco frontier router. My xps 13 connects at 300 mbps. Obviously this is a Lenovo issue. What I did was turn off the suspend mode for the wireless card, then set my router to channel 11, upper threshold with 40 mhz width. That poppped me back up to 150 mbps on the wireless card. Unfortunately it took me about 3 to 4 hours with all the troubleshooting to get the answer.

The good. The screen is exceptional. The icons are glorious and it's even better in tablet mode. I'm not sure if the colors are right given that the white background has a bit of wash in it (like on this page), but when I look at this screen and then go back to my XPS 13, you can clearly see the difference. Tablet mode is also good and I was initially worried about the keyboard being on the bottom, but it's actually not a big deal at all. What I didn't like was when you have the pc in presentation mode (bent back 75%), the keyboard and mouse aren't turned off like they are in tablet mode, so you have to put it on a flat surface or it will start going nuts.

In summary, I'm not sure the pc is worth the $899 asking price that Amazon has it for considering all the tweaks that have to be done to it, but at a lower price, this computer may be worth the money. It's fast, the screen is gorgeous and the battery lasts a decent amount of time. Hopefully this review helps as all the other ones on Amazon did help me.

**Update 7/1/13**

Well, I must have been premature in my review. There are a few things wrong with this laptop I can't get over:

1) The fan runs constantly and it gets too hot. I literally start sweating with it on my lap if I'm watching a movie or using something intense like adobe flash player

2) The keyboard is absolutely terrible. The keys stick and aren't firm enough. Moreover, the flex in the keyboard itself makes it even worse to type. It feels like the engineers at Lenovo only typed on this laptop standing up, because the keyboard is virtually useless on the lap.

3) While the wifi card works, it has to be the lowest end possible. I only get 130mbps while my dell xps 12 gets 300 with ease. The data transfer rate is 10x on the XPS and in order to get those speeds, I have to plug in the Lenovo to a usb-to-ethernet adapter. At first I was willing to accept this issue, but after using the pc in a hotel with weak wifi connections, it wasn't worth it.

The pc is going back to Amazon as we speak. What a shame, because if they fixed the fan and spent a few more $$ on the keyboard/wifi, this pc would sell like hotcakes...

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 13.3-Inch Convertible Touchscreen Ultrabook

I have had this laptop for two months now and I love this computer. I mostly use my laptop for watching my digital movies, constantly searching the web, writing, reading and also use (very rarely) to play pc games. I will tell you that I highly recommend this computer despite any flaws I have found. So while this review my be a little bias I tried keeping with the facts only.

The Yoga's Flexibility

~Note: Flipping the laptop to each stage is very easy but also sturdy in any position you put it in. I have never had a problem in flipping, but I will make a note that it does automatically snap close if you push it to far down (about a centimeter) towards the keyboard, so to avoid damage (though unlikely) please do not push is partially closed and take you hand off and let is snap close.

1. Notebook/Laptop Stage: I use this one the most because I was looking for a laptop mostly and a tablet second. If this is something you are also looking for than this would be perfect for you. The keyboard is great. Easy to type and spacious without being difficult to reach other keys anywhere on the board. In fact, I make less spelling mistakes on this keyboard than on any other laptop I have ever had. The mouse is something I have had to get use to though. I do not like the clickers being fused with the touch pad. I go to far down and my mouse will not longer move and I'm click on a link that is an advertisement without me realizing it. Or I will start of hitting the clicker when I just wanted to move the pointer out of the way of text and end up highlighting an entire paragraph. This can be very frustrating, but I hope to get more use to it as time goes by.

2. Tablet/Touchscreen: I mostly use this when I'm playing a game or I am reading and want to view just the screen. I love the touch screen on this computer. I got addicted to it right away. It's really sensitive. When I want to click on a particular small link cluttered together with other small links it always gets it right. The only problem I have with the tablet view is that it's hard to carry around with the keyboard under it. You have to grip it from the corners by the mouse for maximum support. Lucky, you can have this support on top or bottom of the tablet as you can turn it anyway you want. I will like to note that even if you hit any of the keys it will not effect what the screen does as the keyboard will automatically lock.

3. Tent: Probably my favorite way of watching movies. This is something you would love it you are in the kitchen cooking along with a cook show you are streaming from the internet or if you just want the background noise while working on something else. I have use it's for reading as well.

4. Stand: Also a great way to watch movies, but with the added addition of being able to aim the screen in any angle you want. I have used this to watch movies on my back with the laptop on my chest with the screen angled down. Also good for setting the laptop up somewhere high and out of the way of anything/anyone my damage but still able to see what is playing clearly.

Weight

~3.3 pounds. Easily able to pick it up with one hand without strain. Makes caring the tablet version easier without hitting keys in the back.

Fan/Heating

~Fan is quiet, the only time I hear it is when there is no sound and it sound like a really small fan. Hardly noticeable. I also like the placing of the fan. All the laptops I have owned, the fan has always been on the bottom (causing the laptop to overheat in my lap or table) but because of the flipping you can do with the laptop, the fan is on the back edge which keeps the whole computer cooler. As for the heating itself I have had it in my bare lap for hours and not once was it unbearable or overly hot. I would say that it can get pretty warm though.

Problems Switching from Tablet to Notebook

~I have noticed that there are some switching problems when flipping from tablet to laptop forms. There are times when I touch the screen on a page for typing such as this review (after switching back to the notebook after having it in tablet form) and the onscreen keyboard will pop up instead of having just the text pointer blink there; not being able to use the pointer/touchpad and having to use the touch screen to click on what I want; or the keyboard will continue to be locked after taking it out of tablet form. I have not notice any problems switching from notebook to tablet, just the other way around. All around these are minor problems as I can still do what I need to do using the touch screen or by restarted the computer which literally only takes a minute.

Battery Life

~I would average it about 4 to 6 hours of continuous web browsing and movie watching.

Screen Quality/Stereo Sound

~I am watching The Avengers on it right now. The visual is amazing and clear in any form and at any angle. As for the sound, I have not had a problem with it. I wouldn't say I'm an expert on sound quality but this is also very clear. It also gets loud for notebook speakers.

Storage/Space

~I have never been good a looking a computer space and knowing what I can fit on there just by looking at the ram so I will just say that I fit right out of the package, 6 full length movies such as Batman The Dark Knight, 40 home videos (all under 10 minutes), 500-1,000 songs, 50 or so pictures, and 30 or so word documents. As well as the two games I downloaded from the Windows Store and the apps. No extra memory was added for me and no extra memory is needed.

If there is anything you want to ask me about specifically please don't hesitate. Please note that have stated I am watching The Avengers as I was typing this so please excuse misplaced/misspelled words or incomplete sentences. :)