Discount Dell 15.6" Inspiron i15R-1847MRB Intel Core i3 Laptop 4GB Notebook

Customer Ratings:

Screen resolution is very good. The web camera has excellent image quality. Very nice appearance. The weight is appropriate to the size of the equipment. 4 hours duration battery is discrete.

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Best Sony VAIO EG2 Series VPCEG23FX/W 14-Inch Laptop (Glacier White) Deals

Customer Ratings:

This is the most beautiful laptop I've ever seen. I spent a lot of time searching for something that was both stylish and practical and now I'm happy to say I found it. I use this laptop for my daily activities such as work reports, online shopping, web browsing, skype chating and movie watching. The overall performance of this laptop is excellent, the only thing I would have to say is that the sound could be a little better, although is good enough. The fan doesn't make any noise at all and I admit I was a little concerned about this 'cause I had heard that the fan in Vaio's was loud, but this is not the case. I would recommend this product to anyone interested in buying a great machine.

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This Sony Vaio is hard to get your hands off of. First of all, it looks so sleek and it's so well designed you don't want to get your fingerprints all over it. Secondly, you notice that you can run several programs at once like firefox, aol, etc. etc. and the computer still functions at a relatively fast speed. I would like to see if adding the 4 GB of RAM would do anything significant but I can't say that I'm displeased with how it's functioning right now. It also comes with a Windows 7 product installed; unlike other computers where you get the starter kit and then you have to pay money to get it going. I hooked 2 decent speakers to the Vaio and boy O boy the sound blasts you away. It comes with a very well built media center and lots of little applications you can use to organize your media files. Anyway, I hope you love yours as much as I'm enjoying my new computer. I give it 5 Stars.

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Expected Sony quality. Thank goodness it is only Windows 7. I am disappointed that Sonly dropped the Firewire and Memory Stick connections standards Sony promoted and that several of my Sony products use. To add insult to this, there is no PCMCIA slot to add an adapter. So for as far as meeting my expectations of these standards, I'd only give the laptop a 2.9. But I compromise at 4 because otherwise it's of highest quality.

Honest reviews on Sony VAIO EG2 Series VPCEG23FX/W 14-Inch Laptop (Glacier White)

Don't have enough room here to express how very happy I am with Sony! especially with my pink (shiny) Vaio laptop! Not only does it catch every eye with the beautiful case, but the company has been extremely great with helping me with all my questions and assisted me for a year now! My pink Vaio is light weight and very convenient. Most recently while staying at hospital with family, had many people asking me about it. Caught the eyes of several doctors and they asked about it. One of them told me he is placing order for the silver metallic "James Bond 007" Vaio. Sony hotline and Vaio help center have been patient and most helpful. Mine is almost a year old and I still love it!

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DON'T BUY A SONY VAIO.

Last Christmas I purchased this Sony Vaio. It worked fine with no problems until last week I opened up the computer to use it and the screen was black and white with lines across it. Nothing worked on the computer anymore, you could not type or login the screen was frozen on this background. I had not physically damaged in any way but no longer worked at all.

I called the sony repair center as it is still under the warranty. I was told it would be $600 to fix the issue with the computer. I told them that it was still under warranty, and they said because it was physically damaged I would have to pay, even though nothing physical happened to my computer, it just stopped functioning. I suggest you buy any other, less expensive computer that will help you if you need any repairs done.

Best Asus X501 Notebook PC Deals

Customer Ratings:

After having attempted the several ways to potentially indentify the problem, it finally comes down to either the laptop has a symptom similar to the commonly refered "graining screen" by wide experiencers. Though if this system uses deficient screen is my misunderstanding, and the display is normal for the specs it has, I'm sorry I am mispersuading for the quality the manufacturer ought to present. Then the incentive for me to return this laptop would be the lack of display quality of this specific model.

All in one, the spec of this laptop for its price is easily a shimmer in the pool of laptops at the 400$ range, known for their unreliability and the usually expected blockage to better performance due to little investment. The top reason being it is Asus, differentiating itself from the other for its sturdy quality.

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Is not too bad. The space has to really be pushed but other than that I am happy with my purchase

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My first laptop with an Intel i3 and wow this computer is fast! Coming from a guy who constantly bought HP after getting my first Asus I'm never going back. The quality build of this laptop and the way it performs is fantastic. I highly recommend this laptop to anyone searching for a great laptop at an incredible value. I paid $499 so anything under that is a steal! Cheers!

Sony VAIO Pro SVP13213CXB 13.3-Inch Core i5 Touchscreen Ultrabook Reviews

Customer Ratings:

**UPDATE**

The temps on this laptop can get very hot if you don't watch them. I got to 73C today just watching Netflix. I even wiped the drive and reinstalled from the recovery partition and it still does it.

And to comment on other people saying the screen is glossy, I actually don't find it glossy at all. Its actually a weird middle between glossy and matte. I don't know what Sony did. Its nice though.

**OLD REVIEW**

Just as a intro, I didn't buy this laptop on Amazon, so it wont say verified purchase, but I did buy this laptop and still have it with me, so you can be assured that this is a real review. I absolutely love this laptop. Everything is amazingly fast and snappy, the trackpad is smooth and gestures handle very well, almost as well as a Mac.

The keyboard is also pretty great. It feels like I'm typing on a desktop keyboard because of how much travel the keys actually have. I think this is the most I've ever seen in an ultrabook. Now for the best thing about this laptop.

The weight. Its incredible. When I took the laptop home with me, I was actually worried that the box didn't have the laptop in it! (It did). This thing feels as light as my tablet.

Now for the screen, its a full 1080p screen, the clarity is good, and so are the viewing angles. Surprisingly, they're not as good as an IPS screen, but more than acceptable. The touch is also responsive. The one thing that I did have to do is when I got it, the screen was really sticky and I couldn't slide my finger on it. I cleaned it with some rubbing alcohol and now its as smooth as anything else.

But, there is one major (to me) issue. The fan noise is horrific. Even when I'm just browsing the internet, the fans are on at ~4000-5000 RPM according to Core Temp. And the weird thing, is that they SHOULD be on at the temps I'm getting. On idle, its around 50C. I've used many other ultrabooks and I know that's not normal. In fact, I unplugged the fan of a Lenovo Yoga (It was also loud) and it never exceeded 55C even when watching movies. This can't be fixed with an update because the laptop actually DOES run hot, so the fans are needed. I checked for any CPU hogging apps, but the CPU is never over 10% utilization in Task Manager. I know I don't have a defective unit, because I already took it back and replaced it once. Oh, and the SONY Vaio Control Center fan options don't do anything to control the fan.

I think other than that, this laptop is amazing. If you never use your laptop in a Library, Classroom, or another quiet place, It would be 5 stars for you. But Its just way too loud for me.

I feel that to deserve 5 stars, it need to be perfect, and this laptop comes close, but isn't. If anyone/Sony somehow releases an update to quiet those fans, I'll change my review. It would be 5 stars, but the fan and the flex on the body knock off one star for me.

To sum up:

PROS:

Amazing Screen

Roomy and comfortable keyboard

Smooth trackpad

VERY light

Looks great

No bloatware at all (since I bought it from the Microsoft Store)

CONS:

Fan noise is terrible

Some amount of flex in the body makes it feel weak

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SECOND UPDATE

===================

(1) Speakers

(2) Build

(3) Temperature/fan noise

(4) Tips

(5) General Thoughts

(1) Speakers: I know some of the professional reviews said they aren't the greatest but they are not terrible for the size. No, you're not going to get blown away and you're not going to get deep bass. The built-in speakers are located around the hinge, facing up and slightly toward the screen. The sound doesn't get distorted at max volume and fills a standard room pretty adequately at max volume. I'm sure the small size also provided some challenges for the engineering team, so I'm not disappointed.

(2) Build: The more I play with it, I'm not convinced that it's mainly carbon fiber. I sense that there is a decent amount of "plastic-y" material in there but I'm not complaining. The only issue it gives me is the accuracy of the trackpad when not on a hard surface (see the second update to this review below).

(3) Temperature/fan noise: OK, I'll concede a little here with some of the other reviewers. I'm not so concerned with the noise as much as I am with the durability of components that heat up this much. Yes, when the fan gets going, the exiting air temperature is very hot, and the underside of the laptop is as well. SpeedFan reported temps as high as 78 degrees Celsius (172 degrees F)!! That's hotter than any other desktop or mobile computer I've owned without additional heat-mitigating mechanisms. I just hope the components are able to handle that temp--at least it's an SSD instead of a traditional platter. It's also a little bit away from the hot components. The extended battery gives a little relief since it pushes the laptop up a little like a stand.

(4) Tips: There are quite a number of Sony updates to install including a firmware/BIOS update. When you click on the assist button the updates are listed under "software" instead of "updates". I got an error message installing Intel Anti-Theft indicating that the device was not compatible with it. It is. I was able to fix it by going into the BIOS settings and clicking on enable TPM and AT (even though it already was). After a few reboots, it recognized it OK. One thing that drove me crazy until I figured it out... the only way to get to the UEFI and BIOS settings was from a "shutdown" state, then pushing the "assist" button.

Another tip, this doesn't use the camera for light sensor as some have speculated. It uses the dedicated sensor next to the "assist" button. I personally do not like this since if a directional light is shining down on the device but not lighting the surrounding, it is thrown off. I have LED lighting in the main room of my house and it is constantly auto-adjusting the brightness. I believe there is a way to turn this off but I haven't played with it. It also has issues with adjusting brightness when your arm blocks the light for a few seconds. Why would your arm do that you say? Oh, I don't know, maybe because it's a TOUCHSCREEN laptop!! Come on Sony, so perfect in every other way! Again, not so bad that I would return it. I still think it's one of the best Haswell Ultrabooks on the market.

Purchase tips in the first updated review below.

(5) General thoughts: I haven't bothered to fix my Android tablet yet (the Asus TF300T is a pain to replace the digitizer unlike any other device I've owned). This has all but replaced my netbook and tablet that were used previously for separate tasks. All in a footprint smaller than either one individually. I am looking forward to the Windows 8.1 improvements. I have not installed the preview. I want to wait for the more stable release. On another note, the Intel Anti-Theft is $6.99 for one year on Amazon here.Intel 1 Year Anti Theft Service for Ultrabooks and Laptops Totally worth it for me. I take this everywhere.

FIRST UPDATE AFTER flying with this (and for the first time, without an additional tablet)

===================

(1) TRAVEL THOUGHTS

(2) CASES

(3) OTHER QUIRKS ("Flex", touchpad, wifi, fan)

(4) TABLET REPLACEMENT?

(5) PURCHASE TIPS

(6) TAKE APART/DISASSEMBLY

(1) TRAVEL THOUGHTS At first I thought a 13.3" device would be too big to use on the airplane comfortably especially if someone in front of me reclined. I must say this was not the case--furthermore, this is where the touchscreen really shines. Since it is very light, I can hold it closer to me and use it like a tablet without having the keyboard get in my way. The on-screen keyboard also helps for this. I had to ask my colleague to hold the laptop for a second and when I handed it to him he was shocked at how light it weighed!

(2) CASES: The EasyAcc 13.3 inch Laptop Sleeve Bag Case Cover Neoprene Shock Resistant Pouch Protective Handbag for Apple Macbook Air 13, Macbook Pro 13, Acer Aspire S3, Asus Zenbook UX31, Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, Samsung SERIES 9 NP900X3B, Toshiba Satellite Z830, SONY S... did NOT fit this ultrabook so be careful which MacBook Air Cases you choose. I ended up using this Case Logic QNS-113 13.3-Inch EVA Molded Laptop / Macbook Air / Pro Retina Display Sleeve (Black) because it also lets me use the ultrabook in the case itself and I can also stash my second really thin screen (GeChic OnLap--read my review there) GeChic On-Lap 1302 13.3 USB Powered Thin Slim LCD Monitor with ThunderBolt/Mini Display Port Adapter for Apple Macbook Pro Air 13 in the same case! I can also use the Case Logic 14" Case Logic LAPS-114 14-Inch Laptop Sleeve (Black) but it doesn't let me use the laptop in its case. TSA had no issues with either case and I didn't have to remove the ultrabook.

(3) OTHER QUIRKS: So, I think I have figured out the problem with some people reporting touchpad sensitivity and issues. The chassis is carbon fiber and has some "flex" to it. Therefore, if the ultrabook is not fully on a hard surface, and more specifically, half on a hard surface and the palmrest hanging off, the touchpad must be getting compressed inside somewhere as it bends between the palmrest and the touchpad. That is the only time I had issues. If it were fully on a hard or soft surface it operated normally. Imagine taking the laptop and pushing down on the palmrest while it is half over the side of a desk. That is what seems to be happening with me at least. Easy enough for me to adjust so it's a non-issue for me.

The fan noise that people are complaining about I must admit can get annoying sometimes, but I have not tried too much in the way of intensive operations yet. The initial DropBox sync (about 7GB for me) kicked up the fan a lot and it was noticeable. In airports and other areas, it wasn't too much of a distraction, but time will tell if I will be the "weirdo" with the noisy machine in day to day meetings, etc. Ah well, I guess I will have to avoid playing video games during my business meetings!

I did not experience any major Wifi issues other than with networks that do not broadcast SSID's. There are a large number of Sony firmware updates available so I would suggest installing them if you are experiencing issues with bluetooth, wifi, and NFC (which I haven't tried yet). My problem is that the Sony Vaio Update app keeps getting an error so I will contact Sony shortly.

(4) TABLET REPLACEMENT? My Asus TF300T's digitizer broke prior to my flight and it's a pain to replace so I haven't done that yet. Needless to say, I've used the Sony Vaio Pro 13 in many situations that I would have used the tablet for and honestly, I feel less restricted than under Android limitations (read: multitasking, productivity office apps, etc.). I have all but replaced it and since it actually weighs less than my TF300T with keyboard dock, I'm happy to be using this. Yes, it's a little bit large for some situations, so I might hold out and get a decent 8" Bay Trail tablet when they are released later in the year.

(5) PURCHASE TIPS: So, after playing with this for a while, and knowing that some options are pretty expensive, here is what I can offer: most of the components are fixed and not upgradeable. If you can afford it, go with the highest processor and memory that you can. The memory is soldered to the main board. The SSD, however, is Samsung's new XP941 PCIe "M.2" form factor SDD. While they are not available for sale (that I could find) other than to OEMs right now, it is likely they will appear in the market soon. Going from the base 128GB, it costs $220 for 256GB and $720 or so for the 512GB. While the speeds are among the fastest you will see today for SSD, I might be willing to hold off on that, especially since it appears to be user-replaceable (no confirmation on that but see below). Your best shot is to keep searching for them online and see when they pop up cheaper in the future.

(6) TAKE-APART AND DISASSEMBLY: While I have not tried it yet, there is now a good tear-down video and pictures so you can see for yourself.

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

===================

In this review:

(1) In the box

(2) PROs (+)

(3) CONs/Quirks (-)

(4) Windows Experience Index Ratings, Battery Life, and Performance Observations

(5) Extended sheet battery thoughts

(6) Thoughts on travel/portability/business use

(7) General Thoughts and Thoughts on tablet replacement

(1) In the box: power cord and adapter with neat USB port in transformer, brief setup pamphlet, VGA Adapter.

I thought I would include this section because there was some confusion as to whether the USB-powered Ethernet wireless router that attaches to the power adapter was included. Sadly, it is not. It is also not listed as available for sale (as of this date) in the US. If you need the part number (since it's hard to find), it's VGP-WAR100 and is available on Sony Asia's website

(2) PROs

Great battery life (later)

Super thin AND great battery life!

full-size spacing on keys

Tight integration between hardware and Windows 8 (even some 8.1 features done Sony-style on Windows 8.0)

Screen lifts for the most part with one hand (better than I could have expected)

brightness is decent

Carbon fiber build seems flimsy (because it bends) but actually feels and appears to be durable (if that makes sense)

Really light.

Did I mention that it's really thin and light?

(3) CONs/Quirks (not all are really terrible and I've overcome some as described)

Yes, there is a known WiFi issue. Supposedly, Sony is working on a fix though not all their stores and call centers are familiar with it. However, that being said, I did not experience any major issues. Just in case, I have a WiFi adapter I can use if needed.

For me: lack of Thunderbolt port is a disappointment but I understand that Sony had to sacrifice some things for such a thin laptop. I would have preferred Thunderbolt over HDMI but that is just me and the market supports the decision to stick with HDMI right now.

Lack of Gb Ethernet. Really wished it had this but a lot of ultrabooks are forgoing this option these days. To overcome this, I purchased a nifty Asus USB router (see below under travel)

The large amount of flex in the build makes using the touchscreen difficult to use or at least not as "seamless" as it could be. The screen vibrates back and forth a lot with each press making for a slightly uncomfortable but bearable experience. It certainly does not replace a tablet feel (nor is it meant to so no stars deducted). It's just that it feels like the touchscreen could have been left out altogether but I must admit I still use it extensively over the touchpad (but maybe not over a travel mouse).

The sheet battery is not flush to the device (more on that below under the "extended battery" section).

The keyboard is a little awkward for me, but to be fair, I'm accustomed to a 12.1" netbook keyboard. The keys for me are spaced too far apart but I can still type pretty fast and it doesn't seem like it will take a lot of getting used to.

The lights for the backlit keyboard are visible from underneath the keys when you are looking at the device. It's kind of annoying and I wish it were just the letters that were lit instead of an outline of the keys.

Silly dedicated "assist" button launches Sony's troubleshooting and repair/recovery apps. I'd rather be able to customize a dedicated hardware button (and maybe I can?)

(4) Windows Experience Index, battery life, and other performance measures

Overall: 6.3 (internal HD4000 graphics being the limiting factor)

CPU: 7.1 (NOTE: This is for a Core i7 model, the rest of this review is relevant to this model)

RAM: 7.6

Graphics: 6.3

Gaming Graphics: 6.3

HDD: 8.6

It isn't meant to be a super high-end gaming machine. The idea here is thin and light...but seriously, it does a pretty darn good job at everything else while it's at it. Data transfer rates are extremely good. If I get a chance, I'll post some samples.

Battery Life is really really good. I use Battery Bar and it varies it's estimate based on use but going from a full charge on just the main battery without the extended sheet battery, it varies between 7-8.5 hours, way over Sony's 6.5 hours estimate. To be fair, I have only been installing software and not anything otherwise intensive. With the extended battery which is almost double capacity, I would easily believe Sony's 13-14 hour claim and then some. Time will tell and I will update if this changes.

Performance is pretty snappy and I haven't noticed any major hiccups but to be fair, I haven't done a whole lot other than web browsing and software installation. I'll update as time goes on if it changes.

(5) Extended Sheet battery thoughts:

Honestly, I have mixed feelings. Since there are really no pictures for this model, I thought I would post this so you have a good idea of what it is like. I will post a picture soon as well. For starters, it does NOT sit flush with the laptop. In other words, it adds a significant amount of depth (almost double) but at least it is a smaller footprint and not the whole side of the laptop. It serves as a stand while it is attached. One thing I do wish: the cover for the connector for the extended battery can be difficult to remove form the laptop (it has a spot to reattach to the extended batteyr to hold it in place but even that is a pain to do in a hurry. If I have to switch batteries in a hurry or switch to the extended, it can be irritating. A sliding cover would have been more practical (but I'm not sure if it's feasible space-wise)

(6) Travel and portability thoughts:

For me, extended batteries are almost a necessity and I'm so used to just ordering them that I ordered it with the device. As I am using this, I am actually thinking I wouldn't need it if I were just replacing my netbook/laptop. Since the sheet battery adds such significant battery life, I might use it to replace what I normally defer to my Asus TF300T tablet for (notes, travel, work on airplanes/trains, etc.).

I will update this review soon--I have ordered two different MacBook Air cases and will see how they fare.

I also ordered the Asus WL-300NUL pocket WiFi router (ASUS Multi-Mode Pocket Router (WL-330NUL). This can be used in much the same way as the Sony part I mentioned above with the added benefit that it can also be used as a USB ethernet adapter and standard WiFi adapter as well.

For travel, I also ordered a USB combo mini outlet surge protector Satechi Compact USB Surge Protector for Charging MP3 Players, iPhone, Blackberry, Android, and Windows Mobile Phones and an inline surge protector TRC 90510-10 Lap Top Surge Protector 3-Wire which should arrive soon.

(7) General Thoughts and Thoughts on Tablet replacement:

I was really hoping for a Haswell ultrabook convertible that would double as my desktop via a nice Thunderbolt dock for two monitors, GbE, USB 3.0 drives, etc. I was hoping for said ultrabook to also double as a tablet and take advantage of Window 8 handwriting recognition with a digitizer (this does not have a digitizer). In the end, while this may have been a purchase out of frustration in waiting or the "perfect" device to come along, I think I am happy with it. The near-instant on feature is nice so that certainly helps in pushing the case to replace my tablet. I can still think of a need for a decent tablet with digitizer (perhaps a future "mini" Windows 8 tablet with Bay Trail?). I thought about the Sony Duo 13 as well but the limited one angle kind of was a dealbreaker for me. In retrospect, it might be more of what I was looking for. The trackpad is becoming more and more of an after-thought for me as I use the touchscreen more so the fact that it is much smaller on the Duo may not be bad. At least it isn't behind the keyboard like on the recently announced Samsung device. The Asus Transformer Book Trio is probably the closest to what I wanted but it may not be released until much later this year. For now, I would say I'm very happy with the purchase and will continue to evaluate my needs as I go on in terms of living without a tablet.

I do hope that Thunderbolt becomes more common and is standard in the near future. Partly due to cost and partly due to ignorance, I think people are missing out on something great that might be too early for it's own good. It's almost like the "Apple Newton" was way ahead of its time and didn't succeed because of ignorance and cost until Palm released their version of the PDA when the market was "ready" for it. I'm hoping this is the time for TB.

Best Deals for Sony VAIO Pro SVP13213CXB 13.3-Inch Core i5 Touchscreen Ultrabook

I absolutely love this ultrabook. If you need to have the most portable laptop, look no further. At 2.3 pounds, this Vaio feels like nothing in my bag. The weight was the main selling point for me. I'm a student who constantly traverses campus with books and a laptop, and having something that weighs far less than my textbooks is a dream. Coming from a laptop that weighed nearly 6 pounds to this featherweight is a huge burden lifted from my shoulders.

I would like to address some issues other owners are reporting with this machine. I have absolutely zero wi-fi problems. I'm getting exactly the same reception, speed and stability from this laptop and every other wi-fi device I own. It worked great for me out of the box.

Some others also say the trackpad is awful. Honestly, I'm not really sure what kind of problems they're having with their trackpad. Mine works near flawlessly. There is an occasional hiccup when it fails to recognize my two-finger scrolling gesture for a brief second, but it happens rarely. Tracking is solid and smooth. Palm rejection is also excellent. No more jumping four lines of text while typing a paper!

The fan noise can be an issue for some. Honestly, simple web browsing or word processing, this machine is silent. I have it running on the battery most of the time in the "silent" mode located in the Vaio control panel, and any ambient noise drowns out the whisper coming from the side of this device. Now, any type of huge processor strain will make the fan whirl just like any other device. My only complaint is the fan can be a little to aggressive while watching HD videos, but the noise from the video still drowns out the fan for the most part.

Speaking of HD videos, the screen on this Vaio is absolutely sublime. Compared to the Macbook Air, screen quality is no contest. The viewing angles and sharpness on the Vaio are unmatched by the Air. Only other Windows ultrabooks(Acer S7, Samsung Ativ 9, Asus Zenbook Inifinity) can compare in screen quality. Some of those might have a higher resolution than the Vaio, but at 13", 1920x1080 looks as sharp as I could possibly imagine. Colors are vibrant, blacks are deep, and whites are pure. There is a slight grain to it, but that's just an anti-glare coating. It's no matte display, but it does a better job at reflecting rays of light than a standard glossy display. For me, it's worth the trade off.

The keyboard, for an ultrabook, is way above my expectations. I've felt some very shallow key strokes on other machines, but the click-clack from this Vaio is satisfying. Key travel is plenty for such a thin device. I have no problems with keystrokes not registering. The back lighting is also very nice. It is very even with very little bleed when looked at head on. I love having the lighting dim when not in use, then suddenly illuminate my keyboard when my fingers begin striking the keys.

Port selection is decent enough. Two USB 3.0 with one supporting sleep charge, full size HDMI, a deep SD card slot with no stick out(unlike some Apple machines), a headphone/mic jack and charging. There is also a very handy USB 2.0 port on the power brick, so I can charge my smartphone from the brick instead of having to take up a USB port. Great add on feature!

Build quality on this laptop has been a highly contested issue. Yes, the frame of the laptop can flex if you put ample force on it. But at normal typing pressure, the keyboard flex is minimal to nonexistent. It's a trade off for the 2.3 pound package. The carbon fiber keyboard deck has a nice matte, textured finish to it. It feels very premium. There are no panel gaps to speak of. The palm rest has a contrasted brushed aluminum which never gets too cold or hot to the touch. Sony also made the design so when the lid is closed, the screen is lifted slightly above the keyboard, so the keys do not rub against this beautiful display. I also love the slight angle created by the bottom of the hinge when the laptop is fully open. It makes for a lovely typing experience.

Overall performance from the machine is blazingly fast. It boots in around 3 seconds, wakes from sleep instantly and opens apps in the blink of an eye. The new PCIe SSD gets 1000 mb/s reads and 900 writes! The processor and integrated GPU are enough for anything you would normally throw at an ultrabook.

Battery life is probably the only let down on the device. I usually can get around 6-8 hours on my normal usage of web browsing, watching videos, and typing. It's enough to get me through the day, but it's no 10 hours from the MBA. If you need more runtime, Sony offers a sheet battery that doubles the runtime, and keeps the total weight of the device equal to the MBA.

Overall, I am extremely happy with this laptop. I was worried reading the horror stories online about the terrible wi-fi and so on, but they are extremely small sample cases. My machine works flawlessly. I would without a second thought recommend this Vaio to anyone looking for a premium Windows ultrabook.

Honest reviews on Sony VAIO Pro SVP13213CXB 13.3-Inch Core i5 Touchscreen Ultrabook

Bought the laptop in a Sony store after falling in love the moment I saw it. It is simply stunning. There is no going back to my Ideapad now. This is the kind of technology that Sony stopped producing in the last decade. Boot up in 3-5 seconds. Shuts down in 5. Applications start instantaneously, excellent wifi range. Killer display. Responsive touch(on internet explorer, Firefox unfortunately isn't optimized for Win 8)

Seven hours battery .

The body is a bit flexy-but I think that was the intention, to keep it flexible so it can stand the rigors of being handled around, and at 1 kilogram-it WILL be handled around.

Track pad misses some tapsbut it is by far one of the best non-apple trackpads.

I went to the Apple store to see if I let my heart rule over the mind (the supposed 12 hour battery life of the new Air), and I simply came back, clenching my Vaio closer to me. Drab heavy silver slabs. No innovationimagine my frustration when the chunky screen didn't respond to my gentle prods.

Believe me-this is the new Z.

Sony, welcome back.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Sony VAIO Pro SVP13213CXB 13.3-Inch Core i5 Touchscreen Ultrabook

I was in the market in a powerful yet light laptop and this one seemed to fit the bill. Got it home, and was rather impressed by how light and thin the laptop was, and how beautiful the screen was. Then I started typing and found I really didn't like the keyboard layout, the bottom half of the large return key was notched out in the bottom left quarter, so I ended up often missing the return key hitting the quote key.

Then came by far the worst part, the track pad. I don't generally use mice with my laptops and a good trackpad is critical for me, and this one is terrible. It is not very sensitive, the cursor jumps around at times, and clicking often doesn't work. Even worse is that when you lightly press on the trackpad, you can feel the whole trackpad move, and it makes a noise when doing this. It does this the whole time you are moving your finger around the trackpad and drove me crazy. And just to be clear, I am talking about pressing lightly enough to where you are not actually "clicking" the trackpad.

The way Sony got this laptop so light is by making it "supposedly" out of carbon fibre, the problem is this makes the entire laptop flex, and really badly at that. I don't know how much it can actually take, and it could end up not being a problem, but just carrying the laptop from one of the corners feels like you are going to snap the palm rest. There just isn't much structure here, maybe it will make it take a fall better, who knows, but it feels horrible.

Lastly, sony loads this up with their software, and that software is terrible as all their applications are slow and crash often. There is one application that gives you a bunch of messages about your system, this program took over a minute to load.... On a laptop with a very fast SSD that can boot in something like 7 seconds.

With all that said, the keyboard itself was pleasant enough (aside from the layout I am not used to), and the screen is great. If anything 1080p might be too much for a laptop this size because some text was just straining to read, hopefully windows 8 will get updated with better scaling for high resolution, smaller screens. The touchscreen also works well enough, but I wish the screen's hinges were stronger as the screen would wobble around a bit when touching it.

The fan was also rather noisy, even on the silent profile in the Vaio Control Center, and speaking of loud the speakers weren't. Battery Life was also rather unimpressive, especially for a Haswell chip, but I'm sure windows 8 has more to do with that than anything.

The SSD is awesome, fast as all heck, and 8 gigs of ram (4 will suffice for most too) is more than enough for pretty much any regular user. The CPU and GPU seemed to hold up to normal use just fine, but will not handle gaming very well.

Overall, the cons just outweighed the pro for me (get it?). Ended up returning the laptop.

*************

I should also note that I experienced no issues with Wifi, but I believe sony or intel patched that issue. I am not sure if all the reviews complaining of horrible wifi are relevant now.

Buy Toshiba C655-S5507 Satellite Laptop / Intel Pentium processor B960

Customer Ratings:

You have found it!

I say single-tasking because you need to know that it is a single-core computer and set your expectations accordingly, do not expect it to work as well with multiple programs open at once.

This gets a very admirable 5.1 on the Windows Performance Index, where all of the other laptops that I looked at in the sub $400 range get 4.4 to 4.9. Desktop Graphics is the lowest of the scores at 5.1, and suprisingly it picks up a 5.9 for Gaming Graphics! Surely you won't do any hardcore gaming with a computer in this price range, but since I will be doing light vector graphics work as the primary use of this computer, I was very happy to see this.

I was fortunate and found it for $330 at a local retailer, and IMO it becomes the best option with considering cost to performance of similar laptops. Also to my suprise, the SATA controller had AHCI mode already active, so I will probably look into getting a low capacity SSD to boost the performance a bit more, although it already seems quite snappy on the 320GB 5200 RPM drive that it comes with.

For tinkerers, there are two panels on the bottom with one screw in each, one gives you access to the two RAM slots, the other gives access to the HDD. There was a lot of pre-installed "junk" that I got rid of for the most part, but I hung on to a few of the apps as they seem useful, such as a hardware setup wizard that lets you adjust BIOS settings from within Windows, and the native driver updates application.

Of all of my WiFi devices, this one seems to pick up signals that I have never seen before, so I imagine that a lot of this is due to the low density and therefore unobtrusive materials used for the chasis and body rather than a super-powered WiFi module. Regardless of the reason, it is a nice bonus.

UPDATE: Installed 8GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD without issue. I have also had an opportunity to work with the computer a little and after selling my first generation ASUS zenbook after several months of ownership and use the only difference I notice is aesthetic. One more positive that should be noted about this laptop that I have noticed after some use is the screen. It is not the highest resolution, but it is crisp with very good color reproduction and max brightness looks very usable and good.

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I purchased this laptop at Best Buy on July 7, 2012. 5 months later in December it stops burning dvds. I called 800-457-777 given under properties in My Computer for Toshiba support. Don't waste your breath. The little laptop did well for 5 months, but even with the one year warranty which he acknowledged covered all hardware issues you have to pay $49.95 for the phone call if you want them to "fix" this issue over the phone.

There is no yellow exclamation mark in device manager it says the device is working properly. It will read cds and dvds and will burn cds but stopped burning dvds about a week ago.

I would suggest looking around to see if there is any company left where you can understand their "tech support" and will honor their warranties. If you are just looking for an inexpensive laptop to search the internet and get email then this one may do just fine for you.

Cheap HP Pavilion dv7t Quad Edition Notebook,Intel Quad i7-2820QM 2.3

Customer Ratings:

I reviewed the Specs for this item to consider purchase, however, when I noticed that the 160SSD was set up in a Raid 0 with the 500 HDD, I became very displeased. For anyone who doesn't know the standard detail of a Raid Array, here it is. The HD with the LOWEST RPM is the average for the array, which means, though it may have an expensive SSD in the array, it is functioning at the rate of the average HDD. The best idea for this perticular system, to make the value actually tolerable, would be to install the OS on the SSD, and create a Mount Point to lets say My Documents from the HDD, so that way the extreme ability of the SSD would be used to load up the OS and the Programs, and the other HDD can be used as storage.

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Apple MacBook Pro MD213LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop with Retina Display Review

Customer Ratings:

UPDATE: 12/11/12

After following Anandtech and their WebKit beta benchmarking awhile back, I've been testing all the newer WebKit builds over the past week and the scrolling gets better and better every few releases. The Pinch to Zoom on text is actually MASSIVELY better than the current actual Safari release. I think it goes a long way in proving, the point that better threading, Intel 4000 drivers or GPU off loading or all the above making everything much snappier on Ivy Bridge SoC retina machines. Surely not too far from an actual Safari update. You can grab a webkit download for free and test it yourself. Updates come out nearly everyday or more often.

***

If you don't own the machine don't review it. You are polluting the purpose of why Amazon has these here in the first place. To all the people who have "tried" the machine out for 30 seconds scrolling web pages and claim the 15 inch Retina is a better buy you are wrong. The 15 inch model which I also use at work also depends on the Intel HD4000 for everything on the OS aside from video rendering, Photoshop GPU load or games. The UI performance and web browser scrolling is THE EXACT SAME on the 15 inch model if not worse. You have no business "reviewing" a product without using it for an extended amount of time.

If you are buying this you are paying for the display. That's all there is to it. I reviewed the 15 incher Retina when we received it at the office and just about everything I said there applies exactly as it does here. The unit I purchased with my own money direct from Apple has been configured with the option Core i7 and 256gb SSD. I will reiterate my standings. I am a daily news and sports photojournalist and also an IT Manager. I work long days and long hours on both. I work with Linux, OS X and just about every flavor of Windows desktop or Server. I need fast, portable and reliable machines for tearing through my .NEF images from my D3 and D700. I need something fast and friendly for accessing Windows via Bootcamp. This 13 inch Retina Macbook is exactly what I need. But just like all of Apple products, it is not for everybody. That is why Apple has such a diverse catalog of machines somewhere in there, you will find something for your needs at the right price.

PROS:

This is a Macbook Pro through and through. It has a speedy processor that blows through most tasks. Though it's only a dual core, unlike the quad core 15, I/O is still really fast: startup, Application launches, saving, exporting they are all blisteringly fast for something this small. I can process batches upon batches of RAW images in my now "old" copy of Photoshop CS4 with zero hesitation. It just wipes them out.

Size and weight are PERFECT. The 15 inch Retina is a freaking boat anchor compared to this. It's simply too wide to be truly portable. My 11 inch Macbook Air is a cramped pain to edit more than a few dozen images at a time. This 13 inch Retina weighs marginally more than a 13 inch Macbook Air but not enough that feels significant.

It has a chunky keyboard and comfortable palm rest area.

Who needs a CD drive anymore? Dirt cheap and fast USB flash sticks are quickly becoming the new swappable storage. If you do need one the USB superdrive isn't bad, but a normal 15" model may be better in this price range.

Speakers and sound quality are simply astonishing for a laptop. I can't hear half what I play on my 11 inch air, here, you can Smokey Robinson or Vampire Weekend boom throughout the room with a real attention to clarity and low distortion.

It's built like a vault and feels more expensive than you will ever pay for it.

The display is just stunning. It's silky and subtle you don't notice fully until you see something else. I had a field assignment yesterday and packed in the Macbook Air 11 because I don't yet have a protective case for this Retina. I about threw up in my mouth for how bad terrible even the display on that Air is compared to this. You simply cannot go back.

CONS:

Battery life isn't that great. The five hour range isn't out of the questions, but don't expect a whole lot more than that.

I prefer the Magsafe connector that is parallel to the chassis and not perpendicular like this. That's picky but most Apple users are.

8 gigs of RAM forever sounds scary, but with the fast SSD, it is far less important than it would be with a slow platter drive. The soldered RAM is more of a talking point than actual problem.

THis is not a gaming laptop. PERIOD. I have owned EVERY SINGLE form factor iteration of the Macbook and a good deal of the Pro line, even back to the freaking Powerbook 160. Yes a 160. I can say with authority, the 13 inch Macbooks have NEVER done gaming or video on any level more than passable. I have a fire breathing GTX 670, SSD and 16gb of RAM PC at home for games and we have MacPros at work for FCP and Video.

Though most things are snappy, because of the Ivy Bridge 4000 Graphics, expect Mission Control and some scrolling on graphic heavy websites to drop frames. You can tell there's a struggle to push all those millions of pixels. The 15 incher performs EXACTLY like this. The nVidia discrete graphics acceleration is only called for heavy lifting apps, it isn't used for OS navigation at all. The biggest issue with the graphcs power has nothing to do with Apps the slower UI navigation shows up most obviously in the "MORE SPACE" display res mode of 1680x1050. Same as the 15 incher. This not a deal breaker though.

If you like to use your machines for work this is a fantastic computer in most ways. If you like buying computers to stare at how quickly Launchpad comes up while pressing the button for it really fast, then this is an expensive machine for that. If you want a gaming laptop buy a Razer. This computer does just about everything well, save gaming, with a display that is just in a class of it's own. This is totally in line with Apple's product DNA going back the old late 90s Cinema Display driven off crappy ATI Rage graphics with 16(!)mb of VRAM. If you don't like it, don't buy it.

8/10

UPDATE 3:

After living with this machine day in and day out for some time, I am 100% satisfied with my purchase. I will address the "whys' Apple chose the supposed "cheap" Intel 4000 over another discrete unit. Agree or not, this is why:

Manufacture, dev costs and higher margins. Duh

Lower power, better battery

Apple is in love with integration. They are pushing Intel and trying to give them incentive for bulking up their SoC silicon.

High spec gaming is niche. Fact. Metro 2033 and Battlefield 3 are MIA for Mac and few designers or photographers I know even know they exist.

iOS devices have great integrated graphics and in two years after Haswell and later Broadwell, I would think discrete graphics are facing complete extinction for all X86 mobile computers. Time will tell.

UPDATE 2: Well I had to amend my review. Turns out this thing is in fact pretty good with video. Exporting and manipulating files in FCP is pretty swift. I would say gaming and the CoreAnimation performance are the only two relative weak spots.

UPDATE: Just some Geekbench numbers to toss out there. On the free 32-bit suite, my Retina 13" i7 kicks out a 7759 score, within striking distance of 8580 score for my homebuilt Sandy Bridge i5 3.3ghz quad core with SSD, GTX 670 FTW and 16gb of RAM. Pretty impressive. My Sandy Bridge Air 11" with i7 comparatively scores a 5870. So for the numbers people, this is a reasonable indicator that the machine is a performer. Just not if you're trying to run Battlefield 3 on Ultra in Bootcamp.

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The new Retina MacBook Pro is outright gorgeous in terms of its form factor and screen resolution. There are several improvements in this version compared to the 2011 MBPRO 13" that I owned previously:

SIZE Feels significantly lighter and thinner. Somewhere between the MBAir and old MBPRO. It's almost a full pound lighter than the 4.5lb older MBP. A much more portable feel to it compared to the old MBP.

RESOLUTION No question, the resolution is what this device is all about. Refreshing new look as the screen is incredibly crisp (and that's an understatement) with it ridiculously high pixels and also more on-screen real estate to work with. The screen is less reflective compared to its predecessor, making it easier to work in bright conditions.

PORTS Great improvements in my opinion addition of an HDMI port and moving the second USB port to the other side, giving a USB port on both sides. Makes using them slightly easier. Firewire port replaced with an extra Thunderbolt port. Ethernet port and optical drive eliminated.

MAGSAFE 2 Original MagSafe connector replaced with MagSafe 2 connector. I personally am not aware of any advantages of the new connector in terms of charging/data transfer speed, but this was annoying because I had to buy another $80 MagSafe 2 charging cable for my office I leave one at home and one at work.

SPEED Flash storage makes using this device significantly faster. Boot up time and loading time for apps is super fast. Opening up the screen from standby takes less than a second.

BATTERY not sure of the battery specs but I get about the same use on this as I did with my older MBP. If I am away from a wall outlet, a full charge is god enough to get me by the day with 20-30% battery remaining. This could of course vary depending on personal usage.

STORAGE and RAM The rMBP comes with 128GB of flash storage and is also available with a 256GB configuration at an additional $200 or so. A device with higher capacity storage can be configured but that pushes up the price pretty quick and pretty steep. The processor is a 2.5GHz dual-core i5, the Apple rep told me there was no option to get a quadcore processor for this device. Only upgrade possible was I think a i7. If the storage or processor is a deal breaker for you, consider getting the 15" rMBP which comes with a i7 quadcore processor and 256GB flash storage. Performance wise or based on configuration options available, the 15" fares significantly better than the 13" but it is quite a bit more expensive.

Bottomline the 13" rMBP in my opinion offers a good balance across all MBP and MBA devices it offers fantastic portability (only slightly thicker than MBA) and great performance (falls short of rMBP 15 but better than other models).

At the end of the day, whether or not to buy this device is entirely a personal decision based on several factors. IMHO, if portability is a major factor for you, the MBA might be better suited though I think if you try both devices side by side, the difference is insignificant. If performance is a must-have in terms of computing power and storage, the 15" is definitely the better option with the additional $500 price tag . If you don't care about either and just need a good functioning Mac, the older version MBP would be perfect and it's much cheaper at $1199. That being said, once you see the resolution and form factor of this rMBP, it would be difficult to go back to the old MBP!

Best Deals for Apple MacBook Pro MD213LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop with Retina Display

WARNING: My laptop which I fully stand behind the 5 star reveiw and am in LOVE with was STOLEN during intenrational travel. This is just a warning to other users, turn on your find a macbook feature during setup!!! It does work abraod. I am not sure if I set it up in mine but it is not showing up in my icloud :( neither is my other stolen apple device. Only the device that wasn't stolen is surfacing. The device has to be connected to wifi for it to show on the map which is the one downside. Consider installing other anti theft software as well. A huge investment down the drain if you have it lost or stolen so be VERY careful with it!! Once I can afford it I plan on buying the same one again. I paid $2012 for this laptop at the apple store and for this current amazon price I would DEFINATLEY recommend this laptop.

Got my hands on the new macbook pro retina 13 inch 8gb i5 256 today retailing at apple for 1999.

First impressions:

PROS:

-the screen is indeed INCREDIBLE. Images and text appear crisp sharp and stunning. I can't look away. It makes anything look so vivid.

-the size is a plus, the footprint is a little bit smaller than the macbook air. you can probably find pics of the comparison online.

-keyboard is easy to type on, backlit as the others. There is no backspace or page up down key so far those are the differences Ive noticed from my other non mac computer.

-sound is also pretty nice so far. It is actually coming from little slits along both bottom sides of the computer. Although its on the sides it isn't touching the bottom because of the tapered design of the sides. Pretty cool design. Doesn't muffle the sound I find so far.

-it is very thin at first glance from the sides when you look closer you see that the sides are tapered so there is more to it that kind of goes off at an angle underneath.

-weight is about 3.57 pounds. it is noticeably heavier than the macbook air by a little, but not enough to break your back or rule it out as an option for an ultraportable powerful laptop. you can hold it in one hand but it def isn't as fabulous as holding the 11 and 13 airs, few things are.

CONS:

-price, about 2k, yikes!! The odd thing here is that with the apple education pricing for about $7 more you get the base configuration of the 15inch rMBP which gives you more screen, speakers on the sides of the keyboard, an NVIDIA graphics card and an i7 processor in the base model. The 15inch is about a pound heavier a little thinner but longer and wider. It seems like the better deal at this price point so the contemplation will be over how much size and weight matters to you comparatively with the specs you will gain. Ultimately this will depend on how much you will carry the laptop around and what you are buying it for.

-the bottom seems to be heating up quite a bit while streaming videos. I hope this doesn't become a big issue since I really like this laptop!

UPDATE: the part near the screen top and bottom does heat up a bit, I think that is where the battery is. I noticed when I stream videos it can get quite hot, but when I used the HDMI cable to stream videos onto a large tv it did not heat up at all. You have to be careful to make sure not to block the vents at the back of this laptop which are in the hinge area under the screen. I found it not enough of a reason to take it back.

TBD:

-battery life. not sure if it lives up to the 7 hours, so far its still going strong since I pulled it out of the box earlier today. check into professional reviews when they put it through the paces, not many are online yet but will likely be popping up tomorrow and onward.

UPDATE: while streaming videos the battery can be quite short like around 5 hours depending on the settings, but while traveling and without video streaming I was finding it was about 7 like promised.

-HD 4000 graphics cardthe biggest concern of mine for this laptop and probably the biggest reason most people won't choose it over the air is that it only has the one HD4000 graphics card which people seem to think may not be enough and no separate NVIDIA graphics card. I am not sure how much this will effect the graphics and video streaming etc in the long run so this is still tbd for me. The apple people said that the extra NVIDIA card is only needed or noticeable when doing 3d gaming or intense video editing so in that case it may not be a problem. So far the videos I have streamed look great and have been playing just fine. Will have to see how much this matters in the end.

UPDATE: video streaming on this was a dream. I only had it stream slowly once I think it may have been the internet connection, but for my usage light editing of pics and vido streaming while watching movies and shows I did not feel like the HD 4000 card was underperforming. Also as other reviews have noted to those who are screaming that just the 4000 card in this machine is a downgrade for a pro, currently all 13 inch mac laptops have the same 4000 graphics card and no other supporting graphics card from what I saw. If you want the extra graphics card go with the 15inch rmbp.

Comparison with 13 inch macbook air:

Graphics quality: I had both the 11inch and 13 inch macbook air previous models but took them both back because although the design of the computer is beautiful there were a few things that I couldn't get past, mainly there was too much noise and fuzzy quality to the graphics when streaming videos which would always catch my eye and bother me. For most people I don't think this will be an issue and although the retina screen is prettier, I don't know if it will be pretty enough to justify $400 and .57 pounds heavier. But for me this was a real sticking point and in this category Pro wins. Although they use the same graphics card everything seems to look better on the pro.

Price: Since you can configure the airs with the same specs as this pro for around 1600-1700 there is def a premium price for a few more ports (mainly addition of HDMI port in the pro) and the screen. Air wins in terms of pricing and for most users the air will likely be the way to go for now. The price is the biggest disappointment in the pro laptop. For the $300 to upgrade the flash storage, you still only get an i5 processor. I think the price/value will improve after a few refreshes but I guess the premium price is for whoever is willing to pay to start using this laptop right away. The education pricing for the pro also only takes $100 off for the 13 inch as compared to $200 for the 15inch. The 15 inch offers a much better value at this price point but for ppl going between the air and the rmbp the size and weight of the 15inch may rule this out leaving you with the option of paying more for less specs in the 13 inch.

Design: Another prob I had with the airs is while the tapered design was beautiful the bottom edge would dig into your wrists while typing and it would be noticeable after a little while and very comfortable. I got around this by putting a case over it which had a soft cover for everything but the trackpad, so it is not an insurmountable problem. So far I don't notice the same problems on the retina pro because the edge is thicker than the pros. I think the airs do look extremely sexy as a laptop even though the external design is pretty much the same as 2008 it is still the best looking laptop out there. The two are kind of tied here. The air and pro are both very beautifully designed computers.

Screen: besides the pixel/quality of the screen, I don't think much can surpass the retina screen in terms of quality but the air screen holds up well on its own, for most users. If you mostly do web browsing email and document processing, I don't think you will miss all of the pixels on the retina screen, even though it makes things look nicer. Where it really is noticeable is in video streaming/editing and picture editing etc. One thing I was worried about was what websites, apps, videos etc that are not "optimized for retina" would look like on this computer since there is some talk that they look terrible and fuzzy. However so far everything I've viewed from many different types of websites and a few apps looks great. No fuzzy jagged edges. I also haven't noticed glare on the screen which is a def plus. A minor difference is preference between the silver bezel and the black bezel edges. The airs silver bezel edges are wider and more noticeable. I think the black looks nicer in terms of it is much narrower and when putting things into fullscreen barely noticeable. Pro wins.

Those are just some first impressions to help others who are thinking of buying this laptop. I waited months and months and months for the air refresh (to see if the graphics improve) and then for the rMBP 13 inch to come out once rumors surfaced so I am glad to finally have found what I think may be the right mac for me. I think most users will go with airs but the pros may be for some users who need just a little more especially in terms of image and graphics quality and are willing to spend extra for it. The price/value/purpose is something that should merit some serious reflection though before pulling the trigger on this one since upgrading to the 256 flash storage takes you above 2k. So far I am very happy with this laptop and find that it addresses everything I wanted in a laptop and then some. If the price was a little less it would def be more palatable. But I hope that this will be an excellent laptop and investment that will last for quite awhile.

Honest reviews on Apple MacBook Pro MD213LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop with Retina Display

First of all, I'm an Apple-addict :) Have almost all their products. 1) Don't agree with those that the price is too high. MAC's have never been cheap. If you don't have enough money, go and get yourself a Lenovo... 2) Design, feel, all at usual for Mac levels. I personally just hate touching my employer's PC after a weekend home. Feels like plastic that is working 3 times as slow as a thin and great looking piece of art. And the tactile feeling that you get! unmatchable! 3) All flash architecture really works it's literally lightning fast. Even with 20-30 MB RAW photos in Photoshop, not to mention pages and keynote applications. The new rMBP is a great machine, but...

1) I don't know what i'm doing wrong but never ever came even close to proclaimed 7 hours, even when web-surfing... 3-4 max. It's not that bad, but I can spend the whole day using my I-Pad and I want the same flexibility with this machine. It's promised by Apple, but not fulfilled

2) Somehow, if you use your gestures to increase the text size on a web page, not the "command+" combination, the web pages start to scroll really slow!!!! as if somebody turns off your graphic processing capability... try the hockey news site for example

3) Fully agree with those that say that the new MagSafe2 power cord falls off every time! I believe, it's because they made it perpendicular to the machine. I bought their adapter for 9.99 and use the old charger. It hold as it used to...

Hope you find it useful. And final hint. The Macrumours site says "wait" as cycle is approaching its end. Carefully look at the number of days and don't wait, if you decide to buy this machine. MacBooks have never been renewed in less than a year. So, don't expect the new one until 2014...

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Apple MacBook Pro MD213LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop with Retina Display

Skeptical from reviews by those such as Vicky, I still went with this machine and have been settling into it after a week now. All I have to say is wow, if you think this thing is not worth it and you're just paying for the screen that is ridiculous! SSD are expensive, because they are new technology! What a difference this is, I hold it up to my ear and it does not even make a faint hum it is completely noiseless. The responsiveness is incredible with many tabs open in Safari as well as other programs.

I have been an avid PC enthusiast/builder and PC gamer since i could click a mouse, and I finally went to the dark side. I hate to love this thing! I would not even consider it a "laptop" its so much more! The connectivity with my iPhone effortlessly setting up this machine was amazing. It's like my gadgets were talking to each other and I didn't have to worry about the nitty gritty tech details. The first time I opened the calendar on my retina, it already contained everything scheduled on my iPhone!

The retina display is phenomenal. The text is so crisp it makes everything a pleasure to read and write. This machine went way above and beyond my expectations and surprised me with things I didn't even consider like noise level, comprehensive track pad navigation, incorporation of iPhone style layout apps, and incredible responsiveness...this thing is worth every painstaking penny. Also, the speakers sound great just to add another observation. Can't wait to really max out the potential on this thing because I feel I've just scratched the surface.

Reviews of Toshiba Satellite C855-S5214 Pentium Dual-Core B970 2.3GHz 4GB

Customer Ratings:

The laptop in question is by no means a gaming laptop nor does it do well running multiple tasks like my previous toshiba. For someone doing basic work tasks, school, this is the laptop for you. The reason I'm giving it only three stars is because after buying it refurbished from a featured seller, I discovered the one problem that frustrates me to the point of shooting it (again!). It has a freezing problem and only stays on for 10-20 minutes. I contacted the seller who turned out to be quite helpful, but in the end, we couldn't find the problem. He suggested buying an original Windows Recovery CD, but I'm not the kind of person to buy more things for a troublesome issue. So no hard feelings to the seller, but this is another classic example of crappy Toshiba products.

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Reviews of Asus N56DP-DH11 15.6-Inch Laptop

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $1,043.08
Sale Price: $962.99
Today's Bonus: 8% Off

Bought this last weekend after my old Acer decided to have a screen failure. I've been using it pretty heavily and can say without a doubt in my mind that this is a very solid product. ASUS has built one beast of a machine for a very good price (picked mine up for $800) and I have zero regrets.

PROS:

1. The boot time is exceptionally short. I've gone from a completely dead machine to booted to my lock screen in probably 3 seconds. It advertises 2 second boot time, but give it some slack. It's still fast.

2. As a gamer, the way this laptop handles games is PHENOMENAL. I've played ARMA 2 on pretty moderate settings and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 on maxed out settings and had no issues. It's worth it to play with the sliders a little to find a good frame rate, but it's pretty capable. I have yet to try it on really power-intensive games, but from looking at the specs it should be able to handle most current games without issue.

3. The overall design is great. The surface is clean and minimalist, and the speaker surrounds look fantastic. The button on the left side serves as an all-purpose button and allows you to set it to whatever you'd like; from simply muting the computer to launching a web page of your choice. It's an eye-catching computer to say the least.

4. Windows 8 is honestly a great OS. I've always used Windows and occasionally find myself using a Mac OS, and I find 8 to be a great bridge between the two. 8 runs cleanly and minimally, and the laptop's trackpad makes great use of the features Windows 8 offers.

5. The screen. Oh god the screen. Matte HD with the ability to crank out the brightness of the sun. I've sat and watched 1080p movies and enjoyed every second of it. Because of the matte design, there's not much glare at all, and allows for it to be viewed from almost any angle. If you're someone who usually ends up sharing their screen with others, I'd recommend it.

CONS:

1. The battery life is a little shorter than I would like, clocking in at somewhere around 3 and a half hours depending on what brightness it's set at. It's enough to make it through a movie, especially if it's on airplane mode. But moderate to heavy use makes it go quick, so I'm usually not too far from an outlet.

2. Windows 8 likes to update. A lot. That's not a knock against the computer in any way, but it's kind of annoying having a brand new laptop and having to reboot and install updates once a day.

Honestly there's not a whole lot of bad things I could say against this computer. As a student and a gamer, I'm exceptionally happy with it. It can handle most tasks with ease, and runs very quietly. If you're looking for a solid entertainment PC, this might just be the one you've been looking for.

UPDATE: 6/25/2013

About three months in to owning this laptop and I can say I'm still very pleased with it. I've had to do a lot of tinkering and updating with the video card in order to have it run games at peak performance, but it holds its own. Battlefield 3 runs at around 30fps on 768p resolution, and other games run pretty much without issue.

Issues that have popped up: My number one most obnoxious issue is the fact that the spacebar and backspace keys have started squeaking. At first it didn't bother me hardly at all, but now after about two weeks of it persistently happening it's gotten to a point where I prefer wearing headphones so I don't have to hear it. Every time I hit space on this review is like a little nail being put into my coffin. Additionally, one of the USB ports doesn't seem to want to work 100% of the time. There are 3 other working ones, but one of them is a bit picky.

Another more minor complaint is the misuse of the media keys (FN+arrow key to play/pause, skip, stop etc). Most laptops utilize this function, but the N56DP seems to think these keys should only be used for the ASUS DVD program (which I have never used). It gets to be a little bothersome to have to alt+tab over to a music program to skip songs instead of just being able to swap over.

That being said, I'm still very pleased with the product. I use it more or less every day for any number of things, be it gaming, surfing the web, watching a movie, or doing some coding, this laptop serves my every purpose.

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First off, let me say this is a review of the Asus N56DP-DH11 Laptop Computer. It is NOT a review of the Windows 8 operating system.

The Laptop comes well packaged and protected. The documentation and instructions from Asus are more than adequate.

Amazon's description listed this computer's weight as 10.2 lbs(!) with a shipping weight of 11 lbs. That is not accurate. Weight is about 6.1 lbs. I pointed this out to Amazon when I placed my order, but they have not yet corrected this glaring error.

Amazon also listed this as an LCD display in one place and an LED display in another. I pointed out this issue to Amazon as well. I called Asus tech support to get correct information prior to placing my order. The display is a full HD LED.

And a quick mention of Asus tech support is in order. My "wait time" was less than 3 minutes, and the tech (Robert) was able to answer my questions quickly and accurately. Total time on the phone was about 5 minutes. Well done, people. The speed of your response was a major factor in my choosing this laptop over a competing brand.

A few features not covered in the product description:

1. The keyboard is backlit (with an on/off control). GREAT for typing in a dark room, especially if you are not a touch typist.

2. There is a small "subwoofer" packaged with the Laptop. This can be plugged in or not, as you choose. With it, the sound is the best I have ever heard from a Laptop computer. No, it doesn't sound like Klipsch Pro-Media computer speakers, but we are talking about a LAPTOP. I am an audiophile. I have over 25K invested in my home sound system. Believe me when I tell you that the sound this little computer puts out will surprise you.

3. The touch pad is nice, but beware: if you are typing and you brush the heel of your hand(s) across the touch pad, you can lose what you have typed in the blink of an eye. Use a wrist rest, or disable the touch pad and use a mouse to avoid this. (There is a button to the left of the keyboard that can be designated to control various features. My suggestion is that you configure it as an "on/off" switch for the touch pad.) There are various 3rd party programs available that will allow you to add that feature.

That said, the touch pad functions like a hybrid between the traditional touch pad and a touch screen phone or tablet. Pinch to make things smaller, swipe to change pages...it's well thought out and works beautifully once you get used to it.

4. Keyboard layout: I defer to my wife for this part of the evaluation. She is the typist. (I am accurate at 30 wpm and not qualified to make a useful judgment.) She sat down and typed at her usual 120-130wpm with no errors, right from the start. She loves the arrangement of the keyboard and its "feel." She gives it 5 stars, except for the aforementioned caution about having your hands brush the touch pad while typing.

5. Battery life: adequate, but not stellar. 3.5 hours is about maximum. Nothing more really needs to be said about this. If you need more unplugged time, get a second battery.

6. Graphics: The Radeon really shines here. Gamers on a budget won't be disappointed. The 8 gig of memory is good for most applications, and it can be increased to 16 gig if needed. And the quad core AMD processor is plenty fast with a good size on board cache.

7. Hard drive: it's big, and at 5400 rpm, not real fast. When the prices come down, it will be swapped out for a good SSD. At that point, the laptop will be so fast it will leave skid marks. For now, it is still a fast enough to be perfectly usable.

7. Display quality: I am a professional photographer, and I use a LARGE Asus HD monitor with my desktop computer as my primary photo editing platform. The laptop's display, while smaller, is STUNNING. I have installed Adobe Photoshop CS6, and will now have an excellent photo editing platform when I travel or am on assignment. No more waiting to return to my office to produce finished photographs. I can now do them on the laptop, order prints, and have them delivered before I even return home.

The matte display is easy on the eyes, the colors are accurate and vibrant, and eye strain is not an issue. I use a lot of Photoshop plug-in programs like Nik Color Efex Pro 5 and Nik HDR Pro 2, and I have complete confidence that what I am seeing on the display is what I am going to get on my prints. Those plug-ins require a lot of processor power, and this laptop supplies all it needs. No more long waits as changes are applied to photographs.

8. Aesthetics: The combination of the black and brushed aluminum is gorgeous. I will put this up against a Macbook Air for "pretty" any day.

Now...a few words about Windows 8: I immediately removed it. (Actually, I had my computer service shop remove it.) Unless you are a skilled geek, I do NOT recommend doing this yourself.

Windows 8 was designed to be a bridge between a computer and a smartphone or tablet. As a standalone O/S, I think Microsoft managed to beat Windows ME and Vista for "Worst operating system ever."

The reason I recommend having a qualified shop do the removal of Windows 8 and the install of Windows 7 (I had 7 Professional installed) is that there are issues with how the machine boots, the USB3 ports, proper drivers, and a host of other issues with which you will need to contend in order to make the switch. It took my tech 2 days to get everything running correctly. But there is no need to use 8 clicks to in Windows 8 to accomplish what 3 will do in Windows 7. Having the hard drive wiped and Windows 7 Professional installed was money well spent. All of the Asus bloatware is gone, along with McAffee. I installed Eset Nod 32, which has kept my machines clean and safe for years.

Microsoft actually has a good thing going here. There are so many computer users who hate Windows 8, MS gets to sell TWO operating systems per computer. It's almost impossible to find a machine set up with Windows 7. So, like it or not, when you buy a computer you buy Windows 8. Then you remove it and buy Windows 7. In fact, there are signs outside my computer service shop and in their windows proclaiming, "WE HAVE WINDOWS 7!" And of the 24 computers on which they were currently working when my machine was in the shop, 14 of them were there to remove Windows 8 and replace it with Windows 7.

If you happen to LIKE Windows 8, then you are going to love this computer with no modifications really needed. If you want to supercharge it, add a SSD. If you HATE Windows 8, replace it with Windows 7 and you will have a terrific laptop.

I believe Asus has scored a home run with this machine. Don't hold them responsible for an operating system over which they have no control. The laptop is a fine blend of form, fit and function. Great job, Asus. You exceeded my expectations.

Best Deals for Asus N56DP-DH11 15.6-Inch Laptop

Asus brings this new A 10 quad core processer with a graphics processor that is an AMD HD Radeon 7730! I Love mine and it is built solid. The latches snap tightly and the screen is solid with a briliant display of 1920 x 1080 (Full HD). The touchpad that Asus uses on this is my favorite as it is sensitive to use but not too sensitive. 8 gigs of ddr3 ram is more than enough memory for business applications, videos and gaming.

I would recommend this as a computer to a business user to a student as it has all you need and even an easy way to purchase Office 2010. Office 2010 is already pre-loaded and to unlock it fully all you have to do is purchase a key...no downloading.

This ASUS style computer is easy to navigate and would even be a good choice for a first time buyer.

Asus has the best customer support in my opinion....only used them when I broke something though. lol. You will not need anything for a few years as this Asus was built to last.

Honest reviews on Asus N56DP-DH11 15.6-Inch Laptop

I'm a college student and a gamer. While researching for a new laptop there were several features I really wanted, and this has every single one of them. ASUS created a beast of a laptop, it truly is an all-star cpu.

Pros (Quite a few to list here)

-Great sleek and styled design. I'd consider it thin for a 15.6 inch laptop.

-The keyboard is backlight. Don't know how I ever lived without this feature in the past. I also really like the overall design, much better then my previous hp laptops.

-High resolution 1080p screen. It's beautiful and is great from every viewing angle.

-Responsive touchpad, nice design

-Excellent sound, love the design of the built in speakers. Also included a mini sub which adds great balance and kicks up the low end. I listen to A LOT of music and this is one of the best sound systems I've heard on a laptop.

-Handles most games with ease.

__ So far I have played minecraft, portal 2, half life 1 and 2, and bioshock. The graphics are killer.

AMD Radeon HD 7730 (2 gig memory) is typically fast enough for all but the most demanding games at high settings

8 gig memory and AMD quad core processor

__ runs smoothly, great for multi-tasking

4 usb 3.0

1TB harddrive

Seriously, what more could you want? This thing is a beast.

Cons

-Battery life is a bit short. Usually stays juiced for approx. 3 hours. For me, this isn't a huge deal. I already knew this before purchasing and it's understandable with the 1080p HD screen and monster specs.

-The harddrive is only 5400 RPM, opposed to a 7200 RPM. But so far I think it has been running just fine.

I highly recommend this laptop. I love it so much that this is my first time ever writing a review. I felt compelled to since it only has 10 ratings thus far (and one rating was a unfair and unjustified 1 star). This is my first ASUS and I doubt it'll be my last. I've owned it for three weeks so far and couldn't be happier. Fantastic laptop for people who want a brilliant looking screen, keyboard, touchpad and sound. With the ability to play modern games and multitask with ease.

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I've had this laptop for a few months and have basically fallen in love with it. When I first ordered, there weren't many reviews or any information available, so I ordered on a whim. This is a great laptop with some rather impressive hardware and features. It comes with Windows 8 and does not have a touchscreen.

Windows 8: I really don't like this operating system, I'm not a fan. I'm not here to review the operating system, just the laptop. If you want, you can always downgrade, or install linux. Windows 1 is also in Beta. The user interface is confusing at first and I'm used to having a start menu.

Build:

The laptop feels really sturdy in general. The bottom is hard plastic, which is nice and Helps me worry less if I were to drop it. The only cheap feeling part is probably the plastic surrounding the display. The plastic doesn't lie completely flush with the display and feels like cheap plastic. It's hard to notice, but might be an issue for some users. Otherwise, I'm really impressed with the materials they chose. It's sturdy and doesn't feel cheap!

Display:

This screen is 1080P HD with low gloss. It's crisp and clear, perfect for gaming and media.

Webcam:

I still haven't had a chance to really use it much, but from what I've seen on skype, I'm really impressed. It performs well in low-light conditions and provides fluid video feed.

Mouse:

The built-in touch pad is a little too touchy for me and can be a little difficult to adjust to. The nice thing is that you can change the gestures if you'd like. It's really solid and does not feel cheap.

Keyboard:

It's really nice. Flat-out awesome. I'm really impressed. It's a full-sized keyboard and also back-lite, which is adjustable. It was also the first thing I noticed when I unboxed my laptop.

Speakers:

I was blown away by these speakers. Sound quality isn't great, because it's a laptop. However, these speakers are incredible considering they're on a laptop. I'm impressed.

Wireless:

The wireless card is a little faulty, I think. It might just be my router that's the issue here (it's a few years old), but I've had some issues. I'm not a huge tech-person and my ability to trouble-shoot these issues is probably laughable to some of you guys. One day, I just couldn't connect to any networks. I tried updating/rolling back the wireless adapter, restarting, changing settings. I was about ready to reformat, and my friend told me to hard-reset the router, which worked. I've had to do it a few times now.

Battery life:

Yeah, it could be better. I get about an hour and a half two hours when my laptop isn't on the charger. My old Toshiba had a battery life of half an hour or less, so I'm not complaining. I'm used to lugging a cord around.

ASUS Support:

I was infuriated when I had to call them regarding my wireless issue. They told me that I'd have to purchase a $100 warranty (which I probably should, anyways) in order for them to even troubleshoot my issue. Some people out there might have some positive experiences with their support, but I was not impressed the first (and only) time I've had to call.

The hardware in this laptop speaks for itself. I feel like you're getting more for your bargain. In general, I feel like I should pay upwards of $1,000 for this kind of performance and hardware. I feel like it would have really helped if they increased the hard-drive speed, but, not a big deal for me. I really don't know what else to say. Performance is awesome, I've had no issues. Software can lag a bit sometimes (especially Itunes), but that's on that third party's end. The silver finish that outlines the keyboard means you'll have to be careful about staining and keep it clean. I'm seriously impressed with this laptop though. I honestly think that I'll be happy with this purchase for the next five six years. No matter what you're using this laptop for, I'd say it's a great buy!

Well, I hope this review helped. I'm not a huge tech-person like I said.

Best HP Pavilion g7-1365dx Laptop - AMD Quad-Core A6-3420M Accelerated Deals

Customer Ratings:

I bought this laptop several weeks ago, right after it came out on the market, as a replacement for my old, obsolete Lenovo Thinkpad R61e (and as a backup for one of my desktop computers that, at nearly 7 years, is really showing its age). I was attracted by the balance of price and features, and so far I haven't regretted this purchase for a single moment (though I did get a wistful moment when I saw a similar HP model at a local computer shop that had a Blu-Ray drive :) )!

The g7-1365dx is one of HP's latest entrants in its highly successful Pavilion series of notebook/laptop PC's, with a slightly less capable twin in the g7-1355dx model which came out about a week after this model did (the only difference is that the 1355dx has a 500GB hard drive as opposed to the 1365dx's 640GB hard drive). With a quad-core AMD A603420M CPU, Radeon HD 6520G graphics, 640GB hard drive, 17.3" display (bigger across than some desktop LCD monitors!) and 4GB of DDR3 memory installed, we have here a suite of features that's comparable or superior to a great many more expensive laptops, so much so that one hesitates to call this machine a "budget" laptop for fear of unjustly labeling it a cheap or corner-cutting machine, neither of which it manifestly is.

I strongly recommend adding another 4GB of RAM to this computer, a cheap upgrade which I performed within an hour of purchase. This simple upgrade will significantly boost the power and speed of a machine that is already highly capable. The Windows 7 Home Premium system starts up and shuts down quite speedily. The graphics unit is rated as "A6" by AMD, the second-highest rating on its scale, which means that this computer is at least theoretically capable of playing Blu-Ray discs with the appropriate hardware. You will need to buy an external Blu-Ray drive, however, and probably a HDMI cable to connect the drive to the available HDMI port (the computer also has a traditional monitor port for connection to an external monitor). The hard drive has more capacity than the internal hard drives on any of my other computers, but depending on how much data you have to store, you may want to purchase a compact external HD to take along. The machine is very elegant in design, with an attractive black/silver-pewter color scheme, and has a satisfyingly hefty, solid feel. While it weighs 6+ pounds, when stored in its laptop bag along with the peripherals I've purchased for it, the whole package actually seems to weigh less than my old Thinkpad!

Some users feel that the built-in speakers are a bit puny, but it's my experience that speakers on notebook PC's tend to be comparatively undersized/underpowered affairs due to the constraints of the design, so I'm not really bothered by that (plus which, since I'm hearing-impaired, the sound system is less important to me anyway than the graphics quality). And speaking of which, the LCD monitor delivers beautiful, crisp, clear pictures. Fans of cutting-edge FPS games might need to step down the graphics level to play their favorite games on this machine (notebook PC's, again, tend to have less powerful graphics than desktop PC's so are usually not the best options for playing highly graphics-intensive games in any case) but other genres of games (e.g., strategy games like the Civilization series) should play without any issues. I got Cyberlink PowerDVD, my preferred movie-playing software, installed it on this machine, and it works like a charm very important since playing video away from home is one of the more frequent uses to which I intend to put this machine. (At the time of this writing, I haven't experimented yet with the built-in webcam.) Take note, also, that the hard drive is actually _larger_ than its marketed size of 640GB; the usable partition shows up as 678GB in all reporting software, along with two smaller recovery partitions, totaling some 700GB (which makes me wonder if HP actually installed a 750GB HD in this model remember that usable formatted sizes on a hard drive are always smaller than the size on the label but decided to market it as a smaller one).

No computer is ever perfect, though, and I do have a few quibbles with it. The battery life is advertised as being "up to 5 hours, 30 minutes", but that's marketing talk; as it comes from the factory, battery life is probably going to be closer to 2 hours and you'll need to do some work with the power scheme to stretch out the battery (and be sure to buy a spare battery once they become available for this model). There are only 3 USB ports, a common limitation on laptops, but if you have several USB devices to run, you'll need to buy a USB port hub. The media card reader only accepts SD and MMC cards, so I had to buy a USB card reader that accepts xD picture cards (the type that goes with my camera). The arrow keys are fairly small, which can lead to some awkwardness with certain games and applications that require lots of arrow-key manipulation; a USB keypad with full-sized arrow keys might be in order here.

All things considered, this is probably the best, most powerful laptop PC I've ever owned, and right now it's the single most powerful PC I do own! I strongly recommend this machine to anyone who's looking for a notebook that delivers a sound balance of features, power and price.

EDIT: (February 25, 2012): Grab this machine while you can. It's *already* (!!!) being superseded by the dv7-6c95dx, whose main differences seem to be that the latter system boasts Beats Audio, a redesigned keyboard and 4G capability. However, the dv7-6c95dx appears to cost up to $350 more, which makes it a very poor cost-to-value choice for the relatively minor improvements. Also, watch for another model called the g7-1355dx, which is identical in all respects to the 1365dx except that the 1355dx carries a 500GB hard drive as opposed to the 640GB hard drive of this model (this is very likely due to the ongoing hard drive shortage which may have restricted supplies of the 640GB hard drive used in the 1365dx).

UPDATE (March 21, 2012): The hard drive advertised as being 640GB in this laptop is actually 750GB! I found this out this morning when I installed the PC analyzer program HWInfo64 onto my own machine (I recommend it, by the way). That explains why the primary partition is listed as 676GB, nearly 40GB more than the stated/marketed capacity of the HD in advertising, and why there are two additional smaller partitions available for recovery and maintenance. This is a GOOD thing it means that you're getting even more of a bargain when you buy this machine, because you're going to get a hard drive that's bigger than anything found on anything except high-end laptops. I have no idea why HP chose to advertise this drive as being so much smaller than its actual size; perhaps they were concerned that people might see the actual formatted size of the drive and, not being aware that formatted capacities of hard drives are always smaller than the unformatted capacity, complain mistakenly about malfunctioning parts or even false advertising.

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This computer is a pretty decent upgrade from my old 2.4 Dual-Core with Intel Extreme Graphics. My old Laptop was over four years old, and you could tell it had seen it's days.

So I decided to purchase the: HP Pavilion G7 1365DX.

How do I remember the name by heart? Naieve one you are, 'tis the fact that this computer is brand new off the lines, and has virtually no developer support for it as of yet. I've scoured thousands of Google pages looking for everything and anything about this laptop, but alas, to no avail.

I will give the Laptop a good year to mature, before I can port Mac OS and Linux onto the device.

My review:

-Stock: 7.2/10

-Upgraded: 8.6/10

Stock Hardware Review:

6 Hard Drive Speed

8 Performance

8 Battery Life

5 RAM Speed

9 Graphics

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

36 / 5 = 7.2 Rating

Pros:

-At these speeds, the Laptop was quite fast. Blazing actually.

-Plenty of Hard drive room, very slow access speeds.

-RAM is sufficient for everyday users.

Cons:

-The multi-tasking just isn't as good with only the original 4GB of RAM. (This is especially true if you set Windows to utilize all four cores simultaneously.)

-Power users will notice slow RAM access speeds, and will want to upgrade to faster/larger sized RAM.

-Normal/Slow HDD read/write speeds will cause slow down on games, and higher Graphically-based programs or Processor heavy programs will feel that wait time.

After Upgraded RAM and HDD Review:

9 Hard Drive Speed (Increased to Caviar-Black 1.0TB

9 Performance

7 Battery Life

8 RAM Speed

9 Graphics

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

42 / 5 = 8.4 Rating

Pros:

--The Laptop will set your house on fire by how Blazing fast it actually is.

-A Mushkin SSD sped Windows 7 up to Jesus speeds.

-RAM is sufficient for heavy multitaking, and RAM intensive programs.

Cons:

-Installation can be problematic for a novice user.

-Can be pricey for replacement parts.

Best Deals for HP Pavilion g7-1365dx Laptop - AMD Quad-Core A6-3420M Accelerated

I bought this in early February. I spent $450 on it, which is a great bargain. I previously owned an HP dv5-1235dx for $679, and due to a few viruses, I got credit for a brand new laptop with warranty, and bought this one. This laptop is twice as good as that one, which was very strong for me and I loved it and still love it, and its $230 less. Part of that is that computers become more bargains as the years pass, and the same price gets you abetter laptop year after year.

The 640GB hard drive is more than enough for me. Currently I have 498 GB free, and roughly 120 used GB memory. When this computer was purchased, HP had put about 30GB on it of its own software and windows 7 and etc... What I do is download 20 movies, watch them, and erase. So I do not foresee myself every getting half of this Hard Drive used up. Even if your someone that stores lots of data, 640GD(roughly 600 able to use) is still plenty. The graphics card is said to be very good but not optimal. In my opinion from what I can tell, it is very strong and impressive. The visuals are as good and better than my last laptop, and barring HD TV blu-ray quality, this wil suffice for most users.

The 4 core processors allow very high multi-tasking. I have had about 6-8 programs in the foreground running, and probably 4 or 5 in the background running with VERY minimal slow-down effect.

The audio and speakers sound great and pretty powerful for tiny laptop speakers. The dvd-drive is great, the 3 USB ports are enough for me, the battery life tends to be about 3 to 3.5 hours on average battery power savings(50% screen brightness, etc..). The webcam is as good as any built-in webcam usually comes. It has 6months of internet security on it. The best buy warranty is $270 for 3 years of the full, "black tie", broken, damaged, water damage, vitrus, full warranty that covers literally anything at all.

The many HP programs include so many that I wont list them all, there are about 12 or more off the top of my head. Some are new that I have never seen and still exploring them. The 17.3 inch screen size is larger than my last 15.6 and the difference is visually much better. It technically is 1.7inches but it feels like 2" or more difference. I love it. I have downloaded 5 or 6 games that are racing, golf, etc and they all play fantastically. Graphics are great even when there is alot of action on-screen.

The mouse pad is my first of this kind. Instead of the smooth pad, its bumpy and rough in order to detect motion better. You can only tell this in person, so try it out when you are in-store. I love the design.

The hard drive acceleration allows the processer to speed up when necessary. When it's not using accelerated mode, the copmuter is fast enough. When it comes on, there are no issues that it can't handle, seemingly(of course the biggest games and movies and everything playing all at once would be tough, but for any standard use it is great. I have absolutely no regrets with this computer and I will enjoy having it for the full 3 years of the warranty. I love this computer so much. Im nota HUGE computer guy, but I love my computers if you know what I mean. I think this computer is A) reliable, B) powerful, C)smooth and sleek. If your budget is $500 or less, I would HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend this. You can not be dissatisfied unless you expect $900 range while paying $500. Other than that, satisfied is what you wil be. Goodluck computer shoppers and I hope I madeyour decision easy..HP is a very reliable product and above all easily my favorite..

Honest reviews on HP Pavilion g7-1365dx Laptop - AMD Quad-Core A6-3420M Accelerated

I am very happy with this laptop. It runs quickly and smoothly. Downloading items from the internet sometimes takes a matter of seconds where with my last computer is took several minutes. The biggest problem I had was that this laptop is so big at 17.3" that I had a hard time finding a good computer bag that would fit it!

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This is my first HP and let me tell You I am very impressed with this performance. The Graphics are great. The speed is phenomenal, and just overall a great purchase. It was out of this computer, Samsung, or Toshiba. All had similar specs, but what sold me on this computer was better options for the price. I would recommend this computer to anyone.