Buy Acer Aspire S3-391-6676 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Champagne)

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $739.99
Sale Price: $499.00
Today's Bonus: 33% Off

I agree with the other positive reviews about the size and looks. I had been searching for months for the perfect laptop for me [lots of surfing and several windows open, but no gaming] at the perfect price. I read lots of reviews in my search. Kim Komando, [from whom I get most of my computer info] listed several must have options. One was Core i5 over Core i3, because i3 is old technology. Just before I bought this one, in my Amazon search, I specified i5. This recommendation popped up and I assumed it was I5 and bought it because all of the other specs were just right, without realizing that it was not what I intended. In fact, it was only after several days of use that I realized my error. My ram meter indicated that I am normally using 60-70%. I decided to improve that by adding another 4 gigs of memory. I discovered that the memory is soldered in instead of plugged in therefore I could not do it myself.

My first laptop was an Acer, and after getting a hard drive replaced due to early failure, it worked well for 3 years, but the battery got to where it wouldn't hold a charge. I decided Acer deserved my business again.

Pros:

1. Perfect size and weight.

2. Looks great.

3. Fast and mostly intuitive in its operation [after adding a Windows 7 shell to the Windows 8 OS, because it was easier for me to use good choice].

Cons:

1. Locks up frequently and requires a hard shut down. Sometimes I get the message during reload that I had a Service_Exception_Error, and they will shut the computer down for me and restart it. Sometimes I have to do a hard shut down again when it fails to continue loading but goes gray screen on me for an extended period.

2. Loses my Wi-Fi connection frequently each day, so that I have to disconnect then reconnect, which always fixes it. I upgraded my router thinking it could be the problem, but the new, fast, super-duper one does the same thing. The Fire does not have that problem.

3. I want more memory but can't add it myself.

4. It would be nice to have a backlit keyboard.

I'm writing all these issues down in the hopes that someone can suggest fixes for me. I had a couple of issues about my Kindle Fire HD, which I mentioned in my review, and got a couple of really good responses which fixed my issues totally. Thanks guys...

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For the money, this laptop performs well, is a great size, and seems to be very reliable (Given I have only owned it for a month). It was a present for my fiance, and given she is pretty picky and usually prefers a larger form factor, I was concerned that she may be disappointed by a smaller ultrabook. To my suprise (and hers) she has actually taken to the size of this book well, and after getting used to Windows 8, seems to prefer the book over her previous Lenovo Thinkpad. The battery life, she charges it once every couple days (doesnt use it continously though). All in all, I dont think for the cost I could have found a better book.

Best Deals for Acer Aspire S3-391-6676 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Champagne)

A great value for an ultra-book. Its very fast, thin, and built very well with good materials.

I was considering the S7 but i didn't think it was worth the HUGE increase in price from this one.

I paid $553.98 here and i was not able to find any other retailer that was offering anything close to this price for this model.

I would highly recommend it.

Definitely a buy!

Honest reviews on Acer Aspire S3-391-6676 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Champagne)

I got this because I really wanted a 13" ultrabook. There were problems with wi-fi even when I was in the same room as the router my internet kept getting disconnected. The speakers are not very good the sound quality is very tinny. I do not recommend this at all. I decided to invest in a mac-book pro rather than having to replace a windows laptop every couple of years

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Acer Aspire S3-391-6676 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Champagne)

This is a very nice ultrabook that mostly meets all of my expectations. It is very light weight and compact, has a bright high res screen, and a very nice user friendly keyboard. The touchpad is a little oversensitive and can interfere with keyboard entry, but it is readily deactivated (F7 key) if you prefer to use and external (usb) mouse, as I do. A few features that are less than delightful are:

-speaker sound quality is dreadful--I always use headphones

-volume control requires two hands (function key plus up/down arrow)

-there is no light to indicated caps lock on/off

-there is no Ethernet port--not a big deal as WiFi works great, unless you are doing initial setup of a router or gateway, which requires a wired connection.

-system is equipped with Windows 8, which just stinks, but with a couple of mouse clicks you can get to a desktop environment and ignore Windows 8 metro (tiles) screen for the most part

On the positive side performance is very good; the system starts from off state in about 30 seconds, and wakes up from sleep mode in about 5 seconds. The system is unfazed by heavy multitasking: I typically have several websites open in my browser, an email program, a couple of spreadsheets, accounting software, a photo editor, a media player, and sometimes a CAD program, all running at the same time with no loss in speed and no crashes.

The system is advertised as having a 500 GB hard drive plus a 20 GB SSD, but file explorer shows only a single drive totaling 455 GB. Clearly the SSD is present, else the system could not start up and wake up so quickly, but Acer has done something to hide it.

HP ProBook 6565b 15.6" Black Notebook Review

Customer Ratings:

I have had my HP Probook for over a year and absolutely love it. It is powerful and well designed. I have avoided retail HP laptops. I found them to be poorly constructed. I am a developer and push mine to the limit everyday. The only draw backs are the hp battery only lasted about 9 months, it is not light and the edges of the aluminum case are bit sharp.

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I wanted an inexpensive computer I could use on job sites to track excel spreadsheets. This purchase met my budget goals and allows me extra capacity to do all of the computer functions I need in the field. I am pleased.

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Brand new in the box ,Computer keyboard did not work at all. Had to return and wait 3 weeks to get another one.

Acer Aspire 5734Z 2.3GHz Dual-Core T4500 3GB 250GB WiFi DVD+R 15.6" Reviews

Customer Ratings:

I have been doing some comparisons with other models of the Acer Aspire laptops and this one is a better value than the Acer Aspire AS5251-1805 which costs $100 more. For anyone who does some research on this model and others, you will see the value.

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Cheap Toshiba Satellite S55-A5255 PSKJSU-005001 15.6-Inch Laptop (Ice

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $719.99
Sale Price: $639.95
Today's Bonus: 11% Off

I have had this computer less than a week, so my review is limited. Delivery & packaging were terrific. I have had no problems at all so far except for the nasty Windows 8 that wants to dictate my life...my email has been a nightmare because W8 will not accept any pop accounts. I am not interested in changing my email at the present time so I spent a lot of time trying to get my email set up. I tried an app which is not working for me so I can't have my email sent to my desktop. Bummer! But enough about the evil W8; the computer is working great! With Toshiba you can actually have a similar desktop like pre-W8 and that helps. I really like the lighted keyboard and I found the speakers to be much better than what I have experienced previously. Previously I had a 17 inch screen and I was afraid that I might not be happy with a smaller screen, but I am. The slimness & lighter weight of this computer makes it worth the slight loss. I really haven't found anything yet that I don't like except having to have W8. This computer has most everything else that I wanted for the price. I'm not a game person, so I can't tell you anything about that. I will update if I find anything different. My opinion right now is that this is a great computer for it's price. I did a lot of comparing in stores & online and felt this was the best buy out there. I am a Toshiba fan though and I am sure that my needs are not identical to yours so shop, but look closely at this one.

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I received the computer just as the company said that I would. I am very pleased with this product. I will have to get use to the new Windows 8 program in the computer. I will order from this company again. Thanks.

Review of Lenovo U310 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Cherry Blossom Pink)

Customer Ratings:

I bought this laptop on a whim when my acer timeline x broke.

It was the cheapest ultrabook that I've ever seen, $490 is what I paid including shipping.

First of all, this laptop is extremely fast and very attractive in person.

I am NOT disappointed at all. I kept seeing reviews about a wifi issue.. ?

I do not have one. I'm about 60 feet away from my router, and my speed is like lightening.

Anyone considering getting a Windows 8 pc should know to disable the gestures.

It is not the laptop with the problem.. its the windows 8 software that's annoying.

If you swipe the trackpad the wrong way it will pop into something else.

Once I disabled the gestures, I no longer have any issues.

Loving my new ultrabook YAYYYY!

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Edit on Feb 6, 2013: I reduced number of stars from four to three because of a small bug and lenovo has not found a solution for it yet.

If you start using MS Office products, the synpatics touch pad loses its advanced ability to scroll, gestures etc. This makes scrolling very annoying. In general the touch pad program exits and does not come back until you manually restart it from the Program files or restart the computer, and then it loses the ability as soon as you start working on MS Office. There have been several complaints about it online, but it has not been resolved even in the latest update.

End Edit

I bought it on Frys for $598. It is still expensive at most stores. This is a very light and good computer. The battery can actually last for more than 5 hours. I have still not gotten used to Windows 8 so there is no point in reviewing that. The laptop is light and doesn't get warm.

Discount APPLE MACBOOK NOTEBOOK - 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4GB DDR3 SDRAM

Customer Ratings:

Look, I knew I wasn't getting a new computer. I wanted an Apple, I wanted a white computer & I wanted something compact but not too small. I knew this was the computer I wanted the second I saw it. I read the reviews from others & according to how many this company has sold...there are not many complaints.

I was a bit nervous but took the plunge anyway & I have to say that I'm pretty happy with the results. The computer itself works pretty good. When I got it I had to update the system programs but that was quite easy. The computer was shutting down on its own but that problem has since gone away...how it did this, I don't know but I didn't do anything to help it along. A few other glitches were; having trouble cutting & pasting, putting pictures on fb and a few other things like that. All of which I have figured out. I am about 95% happy. The cost was easy, it fit right into my budget. And now I"m sitting here on holiday typing out this review to you. I didn't like the refund policy or that I had to pay for shipping had anything happened or been wrong with my lil computer but luckily that wasn't the case.

I should also mention that as soon as I made a complaint to this company they were pretty quick to answer. Pretty happy about that. They gave some good solutions to my computer shutting down on its own. Glad I made the purchase, no regrets :)

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Reviews of ASUS VivoBook S550CA-DS51T 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $749.00
Sale Price: $599.95
Today's Bonus: 20% Off

I own three of the latest tablets/laptops and this is by far the best of the bunch in terms of balancing power, weight, and usability. The other two laptops I own are a Microsoft Surface Pro (too dinky and unstable) and a core-i7 Dell w/ a maxed out graphics card (too big and heavy).

Before I begin the technical part of my review, let me say how I use my computers. As an information systems & digital media professor I use my computers for basic tasks like writing papers, lecturing, and presentations. With it's 15.6 inch touchscreen, it's perfect for those. However, as part of my research and teaching, I also use my computers for programming, 3D modeling, animation, visual effects, digital inking, and video production.

My computers need to be powerful enough to not only run Microsoft Office, but Adobe Photoshop, After Effects, and Premier, as well as Autodesk Maya, and the Visual Studio programming environment.

Rather than just list features I'll describe why I feel the ASUS is better than my other computers.

Why the Asus is better than my Surface Pro: Both the Surface Pro and the Asus S550CA have core-i5 processors running at the same speed. The Surface Pro has better screen resolution (1920x1080 vs 1366x768). HOWEVER, the Surface packs 1080p into an 11 inch screen, which is too small to use especially in desktop mode where it's hard to touch the tiny icons. I find the ASUS's 1366x768 *perfect* for selecting icons in desktop mode. Of course the Surface Pro is more portable, but you pay for that portability. It only has a single USB 2.0 port, whereas the ASUS has 2 USB 2.0 ports and a USB 3.0 port. The ASUS also has a VGA port, which is still the standard when you're hooking up to projectors. If you want to hook up to a VGA projector on the Surface, you need to buy a $40 adapter. So to summarize, the ASUS is just as powerful, easier to use in terms of the touchscreen, and has better connectivity.

Why the ASUS is better than my maxed out Dell: the Dell's too heavy and gets too hot. Yes, when I need speed for my apps and when I want to play games I use my Dell with it's quad-i7 and discrete graphics card. But the Asus is fast enough for all the applications I mentioned and I only notice the lack of power when I render videos & animations--not while I'm creating them.

Anyway, I don't want this review to get too long. I want to end by saying that I compared the features of my Asus to other ultrabooks at the same price point like the Acers, HPs, and Lenovos, and what I found, to my surprise, was that these other ultrabooks were missing the DVD writer and the VGA port that my Asus had. You may not need these features, but they're important for what I do.

Bottom line: Highly Recommended!

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I have owned an Asus laptop previously (a 2007 model) and used several HP laptops in the recent past. I will be basing my review on my experiences with these and the Asus S550C.

The Asus S550C looks beautiful with it's aluminum finish and is light weight. the screen is very nice and bright and colours are correct with good contrast. The touch screen is very nice and responsive. I feel the touch screen is an excellent feature to have if you are running windows 8, as the apps work beautifully with that and closing an app is easily done using the touch screen. (in case you are not familiar with win 8 apps; they do not have a close button like the windows programs, and always run fullscreen. to close an app you have to left click at the top of the screen and drag the curser to the bottom of the screen. this is not easy if you use the touchpad only.) Plus this being a laptop, you don't have to hold the screen up with one hand.

The laptop is very very fast, 10 second bootup from shutdown, and 2 second wakeup from sleep. Core i5 is very powerful. 6GB RAM is more than adequate. the sound is good and loud. (Some HP have ALTEC LANSING speakers that do a better job though.). And has one USB 3 port, HDMI out port, which are all very useful.

But...

it is not without drawbacks either. The screen has a gloss finish and is reflective (not a major issue though). If you touch the Alumunium cover with oily hands, it will get print marks and these are really hard to remove. The camera is crap compared to HP. (this is just like the one I had in my 2007 model with poor low light performance and bad in backlit conditions.) the DVD drive open button need to be pressed quite hard to open it. The touch pad is slightly mal-aligned (probably in my copy only) and the SD card slot is under the power/charging light set and you have to tilt the laptop up to see it. And to see the SD icon you need to turn the laptop upside down (Initially I thought this was a defect in the cover until I realized it's the SD slot. the SD slot is not marked in the manual either!!!!). There is only one jack for headphone and mic. So if you have an old headset with one jack for speakers and one for the mic, you need to choose which is more important to you , or buy a new headset. The keyboard is not good. the feel of key-press is not good and sometimes the key gets half pressed and you miss a letter. the HP laptops had better tactile feedback and the keys feel more precise. I think even my old ASUS had better keys.

If you can live with these limitations this laptop is a very good buy for you. It would be best for you to try out a few laptops at your local store before deciding on one. And do compare the keyboards before buying as it may be a game changer if you do a lot of typing.

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I purchased this s550 vivobook from Costco a few weeks ago. I got it from Costco because the assurance if I do not like the item, I can return it (up to 90 days, was it?).

I had an HP DV6 6119wm before I Got this laptop. I purchased the HP a year ago and was so upset with the quality and lack of HP backing their own product, I actually just decided to sell it and get a new one.

Things certainly changed since a year ago. Most of the laptops now are touch screen and with windows 8, which when I was at the store I had to spend about 20 minutes just trying to get used to how to navigate windows 8. The touch screen was nice and it had 10-key which I need. It's fast enough and light with a sleek design that is not cheap looking like some laptops in this price range are.

The good:

Slim, light and ample amount of ports including VGA

Has optical drive and card reader

10-key

SSD makes for SUPER fast resuming.

Quiet! this laptop is very quiet and that is very nice to have.

The bad:

The 10 key is nearly useless because the arrow keys actually take up space within the 10-key's real estate. I REALLY hate this. The ZERO key should be horizontal and twice the size, the shift/ctrl keyes should be made smaller and the arrow keys should take up the rest of that extra space to make this a PERFECT 10 for me, but since these design mistakes are there it's just shy of that for me.

The ugly:

Battery life is so-so, but then when you see how big the battery is you'll know why. I don't need to be mobile and i'm almost always near an outlet but it would be nice. Perhaps I could play with the settings to increase this?

The touchpad is too far to the left. It would be nice if the divider of left/right click was raised because unless I look at the pad, I often times are clicking to far to the right and end up right clicking, problems I haven't had with other laptops.

The 6GB of memory is the max this line can take and that is terrible. My last year's HP DV6 I maxed out to 16gb. 6GB seems oftly small of a limitation for new hardware.

In short, this laptop is a good buy for the price. You get a lot of features and I don't feel like i'm missing much.

Honest reviews on ASUS VivoBook S550CA-DS51T 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

Okay, already own hmmm over 8 notebooks ranging on the small side: Viliv N5, Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 10.1" 64GB Win 8 Pro Tablet (367927U), Alienware 10 inch notebok and Apple MacBook Air MD760LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop (NEWEST VERSION). On the mid size Samsung Series 9 NP900X3E-A02US 13.3-Inch Full HD 1080p Premium Ultrabook and Apple MacBook Pro MD101LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop (NEWEST VERSION) and on the large size Alienware M17x R4 AM17xR4-8424BK 17.3-Inch Laptop (Stealth Black with Soft Touch Finish),Sony VAIO Tap All-in-One Touchscreen SVJ20217CXW 20-Inch Desktop (White) and 17 inch Macbook Pro.

However, for appointments where I need to meet with clients and do anything other than book and appointment or take notes (where the Lenovo ThinkPad Tablet 2 10.1" 64GB Win 8 Pro Tablet (367927U) is used).

The size of the Asus Vivobook is a little larger than your standard 15 inch notebook (15 x 10.5 verse 14 x 9.5 for my Samsung Series 9 NP900X3E-A02US 13.3-Inch Full HD 1080p Premium Ultrabook) but not to big for most notebook bags (but perhaps check the size specs).

I would suggest the ASUS VivoBook S550CA-DS51T 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black) instead of the ASUS VivoBook S550CA-DS51T 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black). Only differance is that the ASUS VivoBook S550CA-DS51T 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black) has a CD/DVD drive.

As far a boot speed, good. Not the quickest but not the slowest but lets remember SSD and HDD configuration instead of straight SDD drives.

Keyboard layout is slightly smaller than normal but I am a 6'3, 210 lb male with large fingers and no major problem takes a bit to get used to to using the numerical keypad and the numerical keypad keys are slight smaller and closer together than normal.

Love the number of USB ports, hate notebooks with only two ports (Apple take note)!

So the Pro's and Con's:

Pro's:

-Fast boot time from SSD

-Good Memory size

-Numerical keypad (for anyone in the numbers business this is key)

-Bright clear screen

-Touchscreen have to keep reminding myself that I can touch the screen)!

-Trackpad, actually not bad love the vertical line on the bottom to let me know left and right sides very smart!

Con's:

-Slightly smaller than normal keyboard

-Screen resolution would love to see higher resolution but understand that limits with touchscreens

-Would love full SSD version.

-Would love to see higher memory configurations.

Basically, I keep on the leading edge of technology and when it came to looking for a slim notebook that includes everything (touchscreen, numerical keypad, SSD, slim size), this notebook was the closest on the market.

Hopes this help :)

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for ASUS VivoBook S550CA-DS51T 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

I wanted to say that as someone who has owned multiple laptops in the past, none of them can beat this one.

I was very hesitant to buy this laptop because of bad reviews on windows 8 but since I am the type of person who likes to see, test and review for herself I thought "Hey, why not give it a try myself and if I don't like it...well what can be worse than my last laptop dying on me after only a year of use, right ?"

Pros and cons:

At first I was very surprised at the finish and body of the product, it seems to be made of aluminium, this stuff seems resistant to random falls or hits, it gives the impression that it can withstand any blow (I wouldn't try to drop it on purpose though...just for the sake of finding out if it can lol).

Aesthetically, the aluminium finish makes this laptop look very posh, I feel like I own a Lamborghini in the form of a laptop. The design is just plain gorgeous.

The thing is, for an ultrabook I was expecting something lighter than a regular laptop but this laptop is heavy, no joke ! Compared to my previous laptops, this is the heaviest laptop I have owned (It's probably because of the aluminium finish).

The other thing that pleasantly surprised me is the size of the laptop screen and bottom part, is this laptop really a 15.6 inch laptop ? Nope, it's slightly bigger than this, I compared it to my old vaio 15.6 inch laptop and the asus is a lot bigger, the screen is wider, and the quality of the screen better.

The touch-screen is so responsive and amazing, My little sister owned a lenovo touch screen laptop and because the touch wasn' very responsive I was afraid to buy a touch screen laptop but I was very pleased with the asus touch screen, I barely use the mouse now. It makes accomplishing tasks so much easier.

I'm not too fond of the keyboard though on my old laptops I just had to press the keys lightly for them to respond, with this keyboard you have to somehow apply full pressure for the keys to respond, it's annoying for people like me who type quite fast because of that I like to use the on-screen keyboard instead.

The speakers...when I first opened my laptop, I did not pay attention to the speakers, I like to listen to music while drawing and working, my last laptop had poor speakers not to say the least, so when I decided to put some music I was not expecting the next thing that happened. The music blasted out of the speakers so loud and clear that my little sister and I were taken aback, shocked and panicked because my mum was asleep next door and you could hear the music from miles and miles...ok, not that far but you get the point.

The integrated camera is also good for a webcam, the quality is better than most laptops' webcams I have used so far.

Overall, only positive things to say about this ultrabook. Asus has done great on this one.

Reviews of Toshiba Black 15.6" Satellite C655D-S5200 Laptop PC with AMD

Customer Ratings:

I've had this computer about a year and a half, and I think it's pretty spiffy. I bought it at Walmart for $330-ish, I think. After about a year of using it with no problems, the hard drive crashed, and it needed replacing (about $200).

What compelled me to write a review was the comments that the laptop hinges broke. I had the same problem with mine. The plastic at the hinges on the laptop base separated and the screen became loose. I couldn't close it without the computer making breaking noises. After a little examining, I realized that the one of the screws on the bottom of the laptop that hold the hinges to the plastic had came out. I "borrowed" a screw from a different part of the laptop (oops) and it's been fine since. If you have this laptop, I strongly suggest tightening the display hinge screws, which are located right underneath the hinges on the underside of the laptop, with a jeweler's screwdriver to make sure your screen doesn't get floppy, or so that you don't lose a screw entirely.

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I bought this Toshiba laptop brand new from a local big box vendor. Avoid buying the laptop if at all possible. If I could rate it at less than 1 star I would.

Cons:

1. Battery stopped charging less than 6 months after purchase. A replacement battery

from Toshiba requires a $176 holding charge on a credit card even though Toshiba customer

support never bothered to determine whether the problem was the battery or the latop itself.

2. LCD screen broke after a tap to the *back* of the laptop. Toshiba's repair depot charged $325, nearly the cost of the laptop itself, to repair. I bought a screen here on Amazon for $72 and fixed it myself in 40 minutes.

3. The absolute worst customer support I've ever come across.

Pros:

1. cheap and efficient if used for basics (web browsing, document handling).

This is the last Toshiba item I'll ever purchase. Toshiba customer support and the product and customer support have been nothing short of infuriating.

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I bought this laptop for college so my spouse and I don't have to fight over using the desk PC when we have to do our school work. I was under the impression that the laptop would start-up on the fast side and load programs even faster. I was disappointed to see that everything seems to load on the sluggish side. Since this will not be my main computer it should be OK.

Honest reviews on Toshiba Black 15.6" Satellite C655D-S5200 Laptop PC with AMD

Love this computer! I've had it for almost a year and no issues. works great and easy to keep clean!

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Toshiba Black 15.6" Satellite C655D-S5200 Laptop PC with AMD

I bought this laptop because I am a student on a budget. It works fine but there is a problem. My hinges on my laptop have been broke for about 8 or months. My laptop also make strange beeping sounds too.

Discount Asus K55A-RHI5N13 Intel Core i5-3210M, 8GB, 750GB, SuperMulti DVDRW

Customer Ratings:

Purchased this Asus Laptop as it seemed to be an excellent configuration for the price. Mine came with 8GB and not the 6GB listed. Screen is nice and bright, It is speedy and easy to use. Setup was a breeze. The keyboard has a really nice touch. Not liking the Windows 8 all that much so I installed "Classic Shell" and it made it much easier to use and gives me time to play with Windows 8 when I have time. Great Value for the price.

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I bought an option with 6GB RAM, and so far it is doing good. GrAphics are good, speed is satisfactory. Battery life is less than I expected tough, realistically it lasts for about 3,5 hours. W8 is a bit annoying to get used to, but performance of this configuration is pretty good. The only downside are speakers that are really bad, but thats expected in laptops, and is a small price to pay for configuration as good as this one.

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Really like my computer however it took a while to get used to the new windows 8. I like it but it is different and has a few quirks to get through but I figured it out.

REFURBISHED DELL LATITUDE C610 Review

Customer Ratings:

Bought this Laptop in June 2006, and I am typing my review with it now.

Search around for best prices I paid $499 during one of Dell Days specials. It was reg. $859. I use this computer for surfing the net, emailing, and video editing.

the only thing I have experienced that is a problem is that my cat chewed on the charger cord, I ordered one off eBay, but dont waste your money... they fit at first but soon wear out FAST. you will see that the plastic ring is a different color and will not fit tight. I ended up splicing the original charger cord together and back in business!

The battery lasts for about 50 mins. but I dont have a need for that as I am always near a outlet.

No overheating at all. Quiet fan

NOTE: FOR FULL SYSTEM RESTORE HOLD " CONTROL + F11 KEY " AT BOOTUP.

SPECS:

Intel Pentium M 735 (1.70GHz/2MB Cache/400MHz FSB)

15.4 inch WXGA Display

1GB,DDR2,533MHz,2 DIMM,

Integrated Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 900

60GB 5400rpm Hard Drive

8x CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability

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i lost my money on it,it did not work and it would have cost me more to fix it than it was actually worth!

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I am an IT person, and have used and tested many and many laptops. My Dell B130 works well as any other Dell I have had on the past (about 4) However, I know its keyboard will fail within 1 year or so. The reason I know is that all my Dell laptops did. I still have an Inspiron 700m which I already replaced its keyboard twice in 3 years. The average is if you use the laptop daily, you will start having problems with your keyboard in about 1 year.

I am not saying that the rest of the computer is bad, but I believe Dell is making a lot of monye just selling keyboards for $25.00

GOOD TIP:

========

If you want to know if your laptop has a WEAK keyboard, just go to ebay and look for its keyboard... if you find MANY of them, it means that it has a weak keyboard and will fail some keys in 1 year or less. This tip works for any laptop.

I believe my next laptop will be a LENOVO.

Honest reviews on REFURBISHED DELL LATITUDE C610

Order was filled and shipped within promised time and arrived in good condition. Will be glad to recommend seller anytime to my friends, etc.

Buy Toshiba Satellite R845-S85 14.0-Inch LED Laptop - Graphite Blue

Customer Ratings:

I bought this Laptop when it was the Amazon Deal of the Day for $599. I couldn't be happier with this purchase, especially at that ridiculously low price point. Instead of going over all the specs, I'll highlight some pros and cons of this laptop for potential buyers.

Pros:

Construction/Look: The chassis and chiclet keyboard (spill-resistant) feel real sturdy and of high-quality. The construction of this laptop doesn't have a cheap "plastic" feeling like some laptops out on the market.

Battery Life: The battery life on this 6-cell battery is unbelievable, especially for a 14' laptop. For the first few charge cycles, I've been able to consistently get over 7 hours of battery life surfing the web and playing music with headphones. The ecoUtility app really helps with prolonging battery life.

Intel WiDi capable: I really wanted a laptop with this capability so that I can wirelessly stream to my TV while working on my laptop. Note that you need to buy a WiDi adapter to connect to your TV/display (~$100).

Performance: The i5 processor coupled with 6GB of memory gives this laptop plenty of juice for 99% of computing activities.

SIZE of hard drive: 640GB of space is more than you'll probably even use.

Weight: 4.2 pounds and just about 1 inch thick makes this laptop pretty portable.

Optical Drive: This may not factor much for some people, but as more and more companies opt to remove optical drives from their laptops, it was nice to see Toshiba put in a full DVD burner/drive on this machine.

Connectivity: 1 USB 3.0 port AND capability for USB Sleep-and-Charge (charge stuff while laptop is off) AND an e-SATA/USB combo port AND an HDMI input is awesome!

Value: For the 600-800 price range for a 14 inch laptop, you'd struggle to find a laptop with this much under the hood.

Cons:

No Bluetooth: a tiny external USB dongle runs for about 10 bucks, but I wish Toshiba would have built-in a bluetooth receiver.

Screen: 1366 x 768 resolution (720p). Not bad by any means, but for a 14', It would have been nice to see a higher resolution offered.

Speakers: Sound can be a bit tinny at loud volumes. Noticably better than Portege R835 speakers though.

SPEED of hard drive: the 640GB hard drive only runs at 5400 rpm. I would have liked to see that be at 7200rpm or even a SSD drive, but all things considered, I can't complain much...just a nagging annoyance.

Bloatware/Volume of Apps: Toshiba seemed to have cut down on the total amount of bloatware they put on this machine but they have too many apps pre-installed on this machine for my liking so I ended up manually uninstalling some that I knew I would never use.

I would DEFINITELY recommend this laptop to anyone considering it at the $600-800 price point, as you'd be hard pressed to find significantly better deals. As another reviewer said, this is basically the 14 inch version of the Portege R835-P81 laptop (also sold on Amazon). That's just a smaller version (13.3' 3.2 lbs), but overall there are a LOT of similarities, even with the look. If you're in the market for a laptop with comparable specs but want something smaller, check that out. I hope this helps potential buyers out!

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First let me tell you that this laptop not only looks good but it's also powerful, Thin and light weight.

I watched a bluray file and a 1080 mkv file at the same time with no stutter and with only 18% CPU load. My Quad core Desktop would start stuttering when I do this and cpu load goes to 100% (it's a Q6600 intel quad core cpu)

Had to instal java 64bit edition and directx runtime environment. Just make sure that whatever software you're instaling is 64bit compatible. had to increase color saturation to add more color but led display looks great. Tweaked touchpad settings a little bit to make it the way I like it. Theres an eco button that doubles your battery consumption to 10 hours with light use but dims the display brightness but you'll get used to it. Also it seems that pushing the eco button disables one core of the cpu. The computer wakes up instanly when you open the lid and resumes whatever it was doing. the wifi is very strong and picks up a lot of networks. Hard drive is easily accessible, only two screws. It runs very cool. I ran two 1080p bluray files at the same time through wifi N streaming from another computer with ease and no stutter. This laptop looks thiner in person and looks good. you can carry it with one hand from the corner and it doesn't bend like some do. you have esata, usb 3.0-2.0 combo. The speakers are loud, just make sure you enable loudness in audio properties and also select equalizer and increase the treble a little bit. No inputs in the back. when you rest your hands on the laptop wihile typing feels solid. Keyboard is very nice and I'm pretty picky when it comes to keyboards. After adjusting the color settings in the onboard video properties I watched the planet earth bluray streaming from my media server the display was crisp and clear with vivid colors like I was watching my 1080p led tv. Here's the color adjustments that I'm using, Saturation 10, contrast 1, brightness 0 and see the difference.

Update 6-5-12

if you do a lot of typing and word documents, I won't recommend this laptop because the cursor jumps all over the place while typing and you're constantly trying to get back to where you are to continue typing. It's not the way I type either because my fingers are away from the touch pad while typing. This is a major flaw with this laptop.

Best Deals for Toshiba Satellite R845-S85 14.0-Inch LED Laptop - Graphite Blue

Pros:

Fast i5 processor

6 gigs of RAM, a spacious HDD

Long battery life (at least 4.5 hours on full blast; up to 7.5 hours if not used aggressively)

USB 3.0 (w/ sleep and charge)

HDD protection gizmo allegedly protects the hard drive from minor accidents

Cons:

Squishy keyboard beware if you're a regular touch typist!

The wireless antenna works only on the 2.4 GHz band even my 3-year old HP Pavilion can connect to the 5 GHz band! However, this laptop has far better reception, so it's not such a big deal. Just a tad disappointing.

Everything seems cheap the hinges creak, the plastic looks cheesy. When I lug it around closed, I'm afraid it will crack open.

A really silly choice of dedicated shortcut buttons (there are only two; one is for turning on the Eco mode why would I need to do this in a hurry? why? the other one switches on the WiDi; IMHO a mute + wifi antenna buttons would have made much more sense)

Despite all the negative remarks, the laptop gets the job done without breaking a sweat, and if it weren't for the horrid keyboard I'd have given it 4 stars.

Honest reviews on Toshiba Satellite R845-S85 14.0-Inch LED Laptop - Graphite Blue

I payed a little extra for this computer thinking faster speed etc. compared to my 2 year old 15.6 inch toshiba we bought on sale from Best buy for $350. I was wrong. So far, there is absolutely no advantage compared to the lesser version from two years ago. It's not just the Core i5 processor either, as I bought my brother-in-law the HP equivalent (same processor, memory, speed etc)and that computer performs much better than this one. Something is just off with the design or this specific model as previously I have been happy with Toshiba products (why I kept this one and gave the HP as a gift). Battery life promised 10 hrs but I get 8 hours at best (when relatively inactive and only on the Eco mode where it shuts down every 30 seconds and the screen is dimmed to point where you can barely read). I get 3 hours of battery at most when online.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Toshiba Satellite R845-S85 14.0-Inch LED Laptop - Graphite Blue

With an SSD Upgrade (I'd recommend Crucial 128 GB for around $160), this baby just flies.

Windows boot-up time is around 14 seconds, programs open almost instantly, and even programs that take up a few gigabytes install in seconds. By far the best laptop I've owned, comes to around $800 with the SSD upgrade. Besides you'll have a free 640 GB external slim hard drive for all your storage (movies, music, photos) purposes. (Don't forget to order an HDD enclosure for around $5-10)

The power usage while browsing with wireless on and brightness at half averages around 7 Watts, so I'd expect to get a good 8.5-9 hours of usage with the 66 Wh battery. (SSDs consume less power than HDDs)

Compared to various higher-end ultrabooks costing around $1200, the R845-S85 has a slightly better CPU, same Graphics (Intel HD 3000), better battery, and more ports (3xUSB, HDMI, VGA, ethernet). Besides the Crucial SSD also outperforms other brands in benchmark tests. OK, it's a pound heavier, quarter of an inch thicker, and doesn't have the "looks", but it's hundreds of dollars cheaper despite the higher performance&quality components and the build quality of Toshiba. (owned an Asus before buying this, which fell apart because of the cheap plastic case, poor DC Jack and bad build quality overall)

The only downside is that the GPU (Intel HD 3000), which won't allow new games with high settings. But then again, sub 14-inch notebooks almost never have dedicated graphics cards.

If you are looking for a portable and inexpensive powerhouse, this is the one to go with. Highly recommended.

Buy Asus G73JH-BST7 LAPTOP COMPUTER / Intel Core i7 Processor / 17.3"

Customer Ratings:

As my first computer I've had in about 5 years, I was pretty worried that I would buy a bad laptop, and I wanted a gaming laptop too, so the selection for something under $900 that could play newer games on Medium-High settings were slim. Luckily I ran across this laptop, and for about $800 with a free upgrade to 8gb of RAM, I bought it, and I'm not regretting it at all.

Two weeks now having used this thing, and while at first I had some problems updating drivers, but after finishing everything, it runs absolutely fine. Better than fine! So far I've played Killing Floor, Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2, World of Warcraft, Fallen Earth, and a few other F2P games that were graphically intense. All of these games, I was expecting to be able to run no better than on Medium with smooth framerate, but guess what? Not just High settings, but MAX settings on everything, online, Anti-Aliasing, on the max resolution of 1600x900, with about 40fps. Which, if you don't know, is damn near incredible.

The huge screen, fast processor (which it states in the specs is up to 1.73GHz, but it's actually with the "turbo button" or whatever, ups that to around 2.4GHz), the fan that keeps everything VERY cool, and doesn't heat up even during my long 6-8 hour gaming sessions, and great backlit keyboard all combine into the perfect gaming laptop if you ask me.

My ONLY complaint is the trackpad buttons, which are quite hard to press. Luckily, I only use my mouse really, so it doesn't affect most people.

If you're looking for a good gaming laptop, or even just a laptop that's fast and has a 17" screen, I'd highly recommend this one!

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The product was what I wanted. It was in good functioning condition and was timely deliverd. The router bit had two blades as compared to some inferior types with only one blade.

Reviews of Dell Inspiron mini 9 - White

Customer Ratings:

First off, I need to mention that I am a big fan of Linux and in particular Linux mint 6 (a version of Ubuntu) for it's free assortment of software and improved security over windows and OS 10. Linux lets me do everything I need to do with a computer such as Internet, office, bit-torrent, videos, and music. If it had software to let me use/sync my iphone to it's fullest I would probably never use windows again ... but I digress. I was in the market for an affordable netbook for my wife. All she uses a computer for is to word process, do email, and surf the internet. She isn't the most savvy internet surfer and I'm concerned when she shops online about her letting hackers gain access to sensitive financial accounts. I initially considered a mac but decided against it for financial reasons. The Eeepc was also a choice but the odd arrangement of the touchpad was a turnoff. After seeing a similar linux netbook made by Dell (with their great reputation), I was sold. The netbook was easy to purchase from dell with plenty of options and arrived promptly. It worked great right away and behaved perfectly. It has it's own flavor of Ubuntu 8.04 and made it easy for my wife to interact with it according to her limited needs. Eventually the Ubuntu automatic update kicked in and wanted me to update. Being a pc user this was not out of the ordinary since pc users are used to daily antiviral updates, firewall updates, spyware updates, and windows security updates ... so I updated. After the restart it would not start, oops! I also did not have an external dvd/cd drive, double oops and couldn't restore with the provided backup disk!! I called dell tech support but they told me that they did not support the os and that I should call canonical. Canonical said that they didn't have a financial arrangement with dell and would not be able to help me. Being used to making linux flash drives I tried to make a flash drive out the provided dell software ... didn't work. I checked online for the dell linux OS iso image but dell deleted it. I called dell and they were of little support and didn't know why the software was removed. Eventually I used an Ubuntu 8.04 flash drive and reinstalled the OS. I Could not get sound to work but my wife doesn't do music or youtube and was content so I stopped there. I tried a Linux mint 6 flash drive but even it with all it's extra drivers could not get the sound to work. Probably in time the necessary dell drivers will come out with one of the Linux versions and I'll try again. The purpose of this review is to let potential buyers know that dell will not support you if you go the Linux route. If you do you may have a lot of work to do on your own to get it running once it crashes. Lastly even if you have an external drive you probably will still not be able to restore the OS. See the following link.

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Reviews of ASUS Taichi 21-DH51 11.6-Inch Convertible Touch Ultrabook

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $1,099.00
Sale Price: $879.65
Today's Bonus: 20% Off

UPDATED ON 6/9/2013

This is a quick update of how things have evolved with the Taichi and I guess a final feeling after five months of use.

-So far I haven't had any technical issues, the laptop is holding up very well. I even dropped it on its side once and it dented the housing but the screens didn't break and all works fine. Lucky break I think, this is not a laptop you should be dropping for sure!

-I'm still getting 3 to 4 hours of battery life, so I haven't seen any degradation, which is great because I'm plugged in must of the time and I was afraid of battery degradation and no way to replace it. It's only five months though, we'll have to see.

-I haven't seen many software upgrades from Asus, so what was buggy is still buggy. Like the palm rejection when using the pen, that's still there, I thought I had fixed it but nah, let's not kid ourselves, I have even stopped using my pen as much because it's just not as great of a experience as I'm used to. With that said, it's good to have the pen for signing things and what not, but I wouldn't recommend it for prolonged note taking.

-My gripes with the Asus management software kind of went away, no more brightness issues, etc.

All my other comments remain. I still love this laptop and don't think, even to this day, that there's anything better on the market for my needs. I hope they make a new version and keep improving on this design over the years, I would certainly love to buy a new one in another couple of years with longer battery life, better digitizer and a bigger SSD.

Written in January 2013

-------------

I ordered my Taichi just two days ago from us.ncix and they supposedly only had one in stock which I luckily got overnighted to me. They were top notch with service and went the extra mile for me by shipping the item right away and even making a special trip to UPS to make sure I got it the next day as the pick up for that day had already been done.

Now onto the Taichi.

Pros

-It's a great laptop all around, as long as you can live with some cons.

-The keyboard is outstanding. I type a lot, all day long really, and the keyboard couldn't be better. And this coming from a Thinkpad owner of 10 years.

-The touchpad is flawless, it works like a charm. I've never used a touchpad this good. I think it's pretty on par with mac touchpads, both on desktop and modern areas of Windows 8.

-The build quality seems top notch and it's a gorgeous piece of hardware. Sure, you have to handle it with care because of the screen on the lid but overall it's a great build.

-The 1080p Screens are top notch, the viewing angles are great, the colors look great, the text is sharp, a lot to like there.

-UPDATED: The size is good for a laptop. Enough space for a great keyboard. I got good vision, but the screen on desktop is very useable at 1080p resolution. I don't have to zoom or anything, that said, I am young and have great vision. My IE browser seems to be auto zoomed in to 125% and thus I didn't have any issues reading web pages, however, after installing chrome I see that at 100% zoom you really can't browse the net, it's too small. The 125% zoom works well though, and everything in the desktop looks good.

-The lid collects finger prints but you can't really see them from a far, so that's great because I was concerned about the laptop looking bad all the time due to finger prints.

-It has a tablet on the lid! Sure, this is not your light and small ipad, but it works well, the colors are great and I do plan to replace my tablet and laptop with this one device.

-Backlit keyboard. This is a huge pro for me and one of my requirements.

-Comes with a good quality laptop sleeve, VGA and Ethernet adapter. That's $100 in accessories right there.

-Comes with a one year accidental projection damage warranty, that's another added value/bonus there.

Cons

-UPDATED: Battery life. After some use, I seem to get from 3 to 4 hours of battery life while working full steam, typing, listening to music on headphones, backlit keyboard on, wifi and Bluetooth on and screen in medium brightness or so. If I dial things back a bit I can get past four hours just a bit, but I'm not sure how they got their five hour estimate though. For me this is fine as I'm plugged in most of the time and I may buy an external battery for long trips or meetings. Using it on and off as a tablet (and putting it to sleep when not in use with 2 second smart resume) I can get through most of the day.

-UPDATED: I had some big issues with the digitizer pen at first, but I recalibrated the pen and touch input under windows settings and ever since it's working great (as intended). I no longer have lag when writing and the palm rejection is much better than before, although not quite all the way there in my opinion. Is it as good as Wacom? No, at least not in my opinion, but it does the job. One thing I'm not happy about is that it has no eraser head and the eraser button doesn't work on Microsoft's metro pdf app, there's no way to erase in this app with the pen, I can erease just fine with my Wacom pen on my thinkpad on that app. That said, the eraser button works fine on pdf annotator and onenote.

-UPDATED: The Asus "management" software is a bit buggy, it seems to be fighting with Windows for authority. The main issue I see is with brightness, sometimes you set it to something and then it comes back to something else, this is due to power profiles not acting correctly I think. Also, auto brightness never ever gives you the top brightness even if you choose to get full brightness. The only way I got full brightness was by disabling auto brightness and then the brightness still changed some times on its own, mainly on tablet mode. Maybe there are two light sensors and the tablet one can't be disabled? Don't know. The screen switcher was a bit off at first but after some updates it seems to be doing fine.

-UPDATED: The brightness is said to be a bit low, and it is mainly if you leave the auto brightness on, however, I find it adequate on both tablet and laptop mode, even on bright sunlight it seems adequate in my opinion.

-The size for a tablet is a bit big, but if you want mainly a laptop and second a tablet then this is the best option in my opinion. I was expecting it to be lighter for some reason, as I have a HP TouchPad with a cover on and that package seems like two pounds to me, so you would think another .75 pounds wouldn't be so much, but it feels a bit heavy, that said I can live with it.

-I had read on some tech sites that using a tablet with 16:9 aspect ration on portrait was a bit ridiculous, and you know what, it kind of feels weird. I guess it's something to get used to, but don't expect it to feel natural right off the bat.

Subjective Items

-UPDATED: No touch screen in laptop mode. To me this is a pro as the laptop screen doesn't have finger prints and it's matt which I love, I don't think I could stand a glossy screen for work all day. Also, the touchpad works so great that you may not miss touch so much in laptop mode. I can easily pinch to zoom, scroll, pull up charms, etc., all from the touchpad. You will want to touch the screen sometimes, specially after spending some time using the touch screen on the lid, but I'm happy with the way it is, another touch screen would've added more weight and a glossy screen in the front and that would've been a big issue for me.

-The audio is a bit low for my taste. I had read that the audio was pretty loud, but I wouldn't consider it loud, I would consider it adequate but that's about it. I was expecting a bit more bang. That said, I listen to a lot of loud music and may be a bit deft already, so your mileage may vary.

-This vs the surface pro? I went with this one because for just another $150 (vs surface with cover), I get a backlit keyboard, two screens and an adjustable screen that I can easily use in my lap, bed, couch, anywhere at the craziest angles, which I tend to do. The surface wouldn't work for me in the same way and I would've had to adjust. That said, I wanted mainly a great laptop with a nice enough tablet. I think the surface pro is a good tablet (not great due to low battery life too)and an OK laptop.

-UPDATED: The keyboard lacks media buttons for pause/play/next track, etc. Those are useful while playing music. It also lacks the new windows keys that come with some keyboards for charms, search, etc. That said, it's a small keyboard and they couldn't have put everything in there. The other thing is that the function keys, F1 to F12, are primary vs the other items like brightness and volume. I prefer it the other way, but again this is subjective. I did fine a tool called KeyTweak which allows you to remap your keyboard keys however you want, and I have changed F10 through F12 for media buttons, so that problem is solved!

**Lastly, this is a warning. The 128gb version, which is the one I have, only comes with 63gb of available space out of the box. This is crazy! I was expecting more like 90gb after windows, etc., but Asus has a 20gb recovery partition and a 4gb OEM partition in there, so that's pretty substantial and I plan to kill at least the recovery partition and get my space back**

So the final verdict.

I love it so far. Sure it has some drawbacks, but there's no perfect hybrid out there right now. I was planning to wait for second generation models but come on, life's too short to be waiting and waiting, I've been waiting long enough and this is 90% what I wanted so I'll take it and enjoy it. The battery life is the biggest limitation/con in my opinion, but I plan to buy an external battery of some sort to have around for emergencies or long meetings/seminars.

To me this laptop is just AWESOME and I wouldn't buy anything else on the market over this for my own needs.

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I would like to say that there are some misconseptions about this laptop and some very skewed reviews that I have read.

Here is my take on the laptop.

First, I have had the previous laptops before this and they pale in comparison to the Taichi.

The Samsung ATIV PC Pro 700t. (Horrible keyboard)

The Samsung Series 9 late 2012 edition. (second favorite ultrabook)

Lenovo Twist, Lenovo Carbon x1, HP Spectre 14 with Ivy bridge(late 2012)(Heavy), The yoga (I call it the horrible bouncing screen), the ASUS Zenbook UX31A (Excellent), and my media laptop the HP ENVY 17 3d (Ivy bridge) spec'ed out.

Why am I telling you this?

I have come to find out that the laptops with the touchscreen right in front of the keyboard has become an unused option for myself, especially when you have a good windows 8 compatible touchpad. The new touchpads have all the screen moves with no arm movement to reach out to the screen, and once you learn to use the efficiency of the shortcuts there is no real reason to take the time to reach up to the screen. (I did less and less over time.) I did however want the touchscreen tablet version for the new OS and the desire for the touchscreen but not in the way that it is presented behind a keyboard. The touchpad is great for taking notes, touchscreen games, Drawing, and just plain fun to use with the windows 8 fluent OS. I really do love it. For those of you not liking the windows 8 yet, give it time. I have come to love it for its efficiency and ability to go PC, Tablet, Phone. With the learning curve mostly past me, there is nothing else that compares in my opinion. I would think that everyone would feel the same way once they put the time in and get past the learning curve of the new Awesome OS. I certain would think so at least.

This leading me to why I love the Taichi so much. I have a great ASUS Zenbook with a great touch pad and I blow through everything windows 8 style and never even think about wanting to have to reach up to the screen. There is no reason I have to do so. I am writing Documents, Surfing the web, Productivity, anything keyboard related I really have no need for the screen to be a touch screen in front of me. Now, when I am done and I have a craving for a touchscreen or I just want consumption with a touchscreen I close the lid and Voila, a tablet for bedtime, table, anywhere. I play with the stylus (try that upright with a keyboard in front of you.) I swipe through the games, web, and I love to draw (have you tried the Fresh Paint app by the way). The awesome stylus the Taichi comes with is the perfect tool for the tablet.

When I need to go back to writing emails etc... I open the lid and instantly have my awesome Zenbook back in front of me to do so.

My next desire in a laptop cross over would be to prop the tablet up at just the right angle to watch a movie without the keyboard in front of me. Taichi does just this.

Turn the laptop around hit the outside screen switch and I have a tablet at the angle I want and can watch movies or still just use the tablet as it was meant to be used.

I hope this is making sense to some of you.

To summarize, I don't want a touchscreen when typing and doing emails and regular laptop functions. I do want a tablet when I can touch it easily, write, swipe, and draw properly. I also want the ability to look at the tablet at my preferred angle for plain viewing. That is turn it around and there is the tablet. (note; with the bottom still on the bottom, unlike the lenovo yoga with the keys down on the table, yikes!)

This is another reason why I love the Taichi.

It is the perfect tablet for me and I have not covered the dual screen (My kid loves this part). The ability to have a movie playing on the back side while I am working at the table or sofa is a very cool thing for my 3 year old. I also can do some teaching with him like this as well. He also sits and watches a show sometimes while I work. OK, OK, that is not the top of everyone's list, but who cares, that part is still cool.

Everything else about the tablet is a 10. The quality, the touchpad, the three level backlit keyboard, the FULL HD SCREENS! The screens are VERY solid and I have no concern after using them that there will ever be an issue of two screens being on the lid. It is solid. I spent the 180 bucks for ADP coverage of course but I don't think it will be the screens that I would have to use it on.

This is the number one tablet in my eyes.

I hope this helps some people in making the right choice for their new Laptop crossover.

Best Deals for ASUS Taichi 21-DH51 11.6-Inch Convertible Touch Ultrabook

It kills me to write this review as I literally counted the days until this was released and I was so looking forward to how the Taichi could improve my productivity but after having to return 2 faulty Taichi laptops I am convinced that Asus rushed this product to market before they got their technology right.

This is supposed to be a productivity tool but instead it has been a black hole of wasted time. I spent hours setting up the first Taichi I received just the way I liked it with all the settings and Office applications I needed. Only to find out all the bugs and defects that Asus failed to address before shipping this product.

Imagine trying to concentrate on a meeting when your Taichi on Tablet mode is registering touch input that you did NOT initiate. So as you are having your meeting the Taichi is busy launching your applications, closing them, selecting various random parts of the screen and generally making the tablet most unusable. Good luck using a stylus with all this going on with a defective digitizer! And when I tried to actually use the mirror feature it bombed and again wasted time and was actually an embarrassment as I was fiddling with my laptop when trying to show something to a client when I could have just turned the laptop around.

The first Taichi was returned due to the faulty digitizer but the second one in addition to having the problems with the touch screen/digitizer also has a defective battery. It sometimes refuses to charge the battery above 79% or some other arbitrary % figure. Other times no matter how much the laptop is used, the charge is always some arbitrary % and never changhes only to have the power cut off completely while the Taichi is being used. So the second Taichi I bought is even worse than the first.

What makes the situation even worse is the ineffective Asus Taichi support. They call it VIP support but that is a joke and there is nothing VIP about it. Some times hold times are 30+ minutes. All their "solutions" come down to you reinstalling windows, resetting windows, and when they fail help solve the problem they want you to ship your brand new Taichi to them with your data and applications and pray that they will fix and send your Taichi back without trying to access any of your personal data on the laptop. When I found a problem with one of their chipset drivers not updating the chipset version installed, they refused to help me solve the problem other than suggesting wiping the laptop clean or sending the laptop to them.

I would never send a defective new laptop only days old to the manufacturer for repair. They can sit on the laptop and you could end up with a laptop with the same problems but you no longer have the benefit of the 30 day return window. If you buy a Taichi and it is defective, just return it to Amazon for a refund and don't bother wasting hours of your time with Asus support.

After two defective Taichis, no more for me.

I am waiting for the ThinkPad Helix. Hopefully it is a solidly built business laptop that works with a solid digitizer and touch screen. I have no more time to waste on a laptop that is more of a gimmick than a serious productivity tool.

UPDATE 6/6/2013: With Intel's 4th generation chip Haswell just released it does not make sense for me to purchase the Think pad Helix anymore. I am likely going to instead purchase the Sony Vaio Duo 13 that is coming out this weekend. Hopefully it is a solid laptop with a functional digitizer.

Honest reviews on ASUS Taichi 21-DH51 11.6-Inch Convertible Touch Ultrabook

After all the reviews I had read about the Taichi I was very hesitant; but I was compelled by the form factor. So when I found out that it was available at my local FRYS I went to their to take a look and I was pleased with the aesthetic and great build quality, so I purchased the I7 with 256 GB. These are hard to come by and I didn't want it to get away from. Asus does a great job in packaging the right materials most of which you need, the ballistic nylon case, the stylus, the USB dongles and pouch, cleaning cloth and Velcro strapping for the cables...great stuff.

When I took it home to set up it was easy and had no issues then had MS store techs do their PC tune up for $99 and the computer was cleaned out of all the bloatware and its just like getting a PC at the MS store with their Microsoft signature...it blazes now. OFFICE 2013 is great and works well with this form factor of a PC laptop, the screens are amazing both the matte finish and the tablet, you have to adjust the settings in the charm bar to stop having the system dim the display as I have read the reviews that pointed a dim display even with it being charged.

As for battery life its not that bad, 4-5 hours is good for me plus for what I use it for I can get up 6-7 hours, I didn't buy this to stream on line or gaming without the battery, this reason is a whole new PC itself, like a desktop but I use it more for email, and some web surfing, and fact finding, Sky Drive and Dropbox MS OFFICE, and travel.

Just give it some time, I think this the best form factor or "hybrid" PC laptop out their now, yes there is the Yoga and the Twist made from Lenovo and I have the twist but it doesn't compare to this, as for the Yoga I don't like the fact that the keyboard face down when in the tablet mode, this one the keyboard is not laying on your lap. And for now this is the only form factor that is out their that works the best, until the Lenovo Helix and the HP Revolve comes out, outside of that I am not sure whats out in the horizon, but I am sure ASUS will have an improved Taichi or a different named PC that has dual touch screens. I can live with one touch screen for now, the matte screen again is awesome..

The design is awesome and I am liking this more and more...again buy and give it some time and you wont regret it...

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for ASUS Taichi 21-DH51 11.6-Inch Convertible Touch Ultrabook

I have had the TaiChi for a couple days now and have to say it is everything I was looking for in an ultra-hybrid and am very satisfied with my purchase. I am the demographic that this form factor appeals to the most as I work for a large corporation, travel quite a bit, give presentations often, and like to play games at times. My goal with the TaiChi is to replace my HP EliteBook and my Asus EP121 tablet plus accessories when I travel. I won't go into specifics on the features as it has been covered very well by other reviewers but what is really nice for me is the power this device has, and the ability to put it into tablet mode and angle the screen for the perfect profile to use a touch device.

I am also planning on getting a USB with "Windows to Go" so I can have the best of both my work and play worlds. The idea is that I can leave my work PC behind and still have access to corporate resources when I need to without having to have my personal machine managed by corporate IT. This way they can be assured that I am not a danger to the network and I don't have to have VPN and the bloat of other IT processes slowing down my user experience. If you are thinking about going this route, make sure the USB you purchase is certified for Windows to Go, I will update when I have it all running.

The duel screens work very well and PowerPoint presentation mode works as you would expect with the two screens. The TaiChi comes with a micro HDMI to VGA adapter so I am good there, but I would also recommend getting a micro HDMI cable or adapter as well if you are giving a lot of presentations and need to be able to connect to various setups.

The only nitpicks I see to this experience has been:

1. Battery life – While it is not the same as my Kindle HD Fire I also understand that I have an Intel i7 processor and can run any PC software I own. I travel with my Kindle so it is not a big deal for me on airplanes and I am fine for power at work and hotels. I of course always want it to last longer!

2. Windows logo – I wish there was an option to turn down the brightness of the Windows logo that also acts as the home button for Windows 8. When I watch a movie in a darker room, or potentially in a darkened aircraft it is annoying as it can be right in my face with the unit lid screen facing me. It should dim it like the screen based on the ambient light.

3. Screen cleaning – I am always wiping down my screen but understand that it is a touch device for oily handed creatures.

4. Windows shortcut keys for moving apps between monitors does not seem to work, but maybe it is me.

Overall I would recommend this device for anyone that does a lot of travel and has to bring a lot of junk to support both your work and play worlds!