Review of HP Envy 4-1115dx 14-inch Touch Ultrabook

Customer Ratings:

After poking around a store and peeking in the returns cage, I found my HP Envy 4 at a heavily discounted price due to a missing battery? Really? The battery is built in. I had been shopping for literally months for an affordable Ultrabook with a touchscreen, backlit keys, small footprint, an I5 CPU, and for under a grand. The closest one I could find was an Acer M5, but that one has all the USB connections in the back (yes, under the monitor hinge), and the power button is on the front edge?!? Silly design.

The HP Envy Touch 4 is nearly perfect for me, especially after the minor tweaks I have made, and plan on making. It would be perfect if it had an IPS screen. Like most TFT screens, you have to angle it right to get the most contrast. However, the screen looks better out of the box than the Acer M5. 4GB of ram is a little light for my Photoshop needs, but I can add more ram with the removal of the bottom casing. The first and easiest tweak involved a little angelic program called Classic Shell, which not only boots straight to the Windows 8 Desktop, but also adds a Windows 7 style Start Button! I have NO use for the Start Screen or Screen Formerly Known as Metro. I didn't when I beta-tested it, and I still don't. Metro is a shameless marketing ploy to get on the app bandwagon. Silly Microsoft! Apps are for kids!! With Classic Shell, you get all the familiarity of Windows 7, with all the speed of Windows 8.

The backlit keyboard is hard to find among the plethora of laptops out there, and this keyboard is perfect for me. I had considered an Asus Q500 laptop once, but the grey backlit keys were a turn-off. My last laptop was a 17-inch with a 10-key number pad, and I never used it as much as I thought I would. This keyboard is just the write size for the writing I do.

The sound is nice through the headphones, and okay without. How much sound can you expect from a 14-inch laptop anyway, Beats Audio non-withstanding?

The battery life is adequate. I haven't timed it, but I've easily used it for over 3 hours with still plenty left. It is a 4-cell Lithium Ion Polymer battery, much better than Lithium-ion alone.

I really don't use the touchscreen that much since I installed Classic Shell.

Boot-up is under 15 seconds!!

Pros: I5 CPU, super fast PC3-12800 ram, touchscreen, 2 USB 3.0 on the left, 1 USB 2.0 on the right, and SD card reader. Small, thin form factor.

Cons: Nearly 5 lbs, Windows 8, no access doors, no IPS or hi-def screen. Hey, it costs under $800 everywhere, less for an Open-Box deal!

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Dell Inspiron i17RN-5647BK 17-Inch Laptop (Black) Review

Customer Ratings:

I have this exact laptop which I use on a regular basis. I got it from Dell.com for 200 dollars cheaper than it is on amazon. However I had to go through and delete alot of spam stuff from it the day I bought it because it was so stuffed with ads and what not that the computer had a hard time running. It would freeze up trying to pop up all the crap that they want you to buy. Other than that it's a great laptop. I've been using it for a year now and I haven't found any problems. But you can find it cheaper at

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Very slow when you start the PC, but later of 10 minute is very fast. Is good for the work !!

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I love this machine. It's a big improvement over the Dell laptop I was previously using, which I shipped to my grade school age nieces and nephews. Lot's power and storage space, but like all new products, it is skimpy on Microsoft software. Luckily I was able to add the products i needed and can upgrade to the next level when I want to.

Honest reviews on Dell Inspiron i17RN-5647BK 17-Inch Laptop (Black)

When buying a new laptop, the first thing I do is either reload the OS or immediately begin uninstalling all of the extra programs and trial software that come on installed on the laptop out of the box. With all of the standard software Dell loads on their image it runs slower than it should. I'll never understand why these companies do this, it adversely affects the user's experience when their computer runs slow. You would think they would get that, but they continue to overload you with extra software and trial versions of stuff you don't need/want. Plus, Dell installs McAfee products. My experience is that McAfee software tends to be a resource hog and always seems to conflict with some piece of software I install now and then. They also have a habit of releasing AV definitions that crash Windows. I have used Symantec for many years and never had the issues I have had with McAfee products. Sorry McAfee... gotta go. So I go to the hardware list and write down the drivers for things like audio, video, network, touch-pad, Bluetooth, USB 3.0, web cam, etc. Then I go to their site and download them. After reloading the OS and installing the drivers, this laptop screamed!

I use it for recording music with an 8-input interface for drums. Lots of plugins for audio effects and mixing. My software couldn't run when installed on the standard Dell image that came with the laptop. After reloading it runs like the laptop was made for this software. I've had this laptop for three months now and haven't had a single issue since reloading. Note: Dell usually doesn't send the recovery disk anymore, they only send you one if there's a hard drive issue. But even after reloading with a recovery disk, you usually have to go to their website and download some drivers to finish the reload.

Another note: I bought the 15" version of this laptop and the touch-pad buttons are silent but the keys click louder. With this 17" version, the keys are silent but the touch-pad buttons are loud. Go figure. All the reasons above are why I gave this laptop 4 instead of 5 stars.

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I am really pleased with this laptop. The webcam is good, the keyboard is well sized, but I don't like the placement of the screenshot button. I'll reach up for the backspace key, and hit screenshot too often. It's annoying. Anyway, the only other thing that I didn't like is the touchpad. It works fine, but just didn't please me as much as the one on my acer. It was worth it for what I paid.

Discount Dell Inspiron 14z i14z-2100sLV 14.0-Inch Ultrabook (Moon Silver)

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $673.99
Sale Price: $509.00
Today's Bonus: 24% Off

I bought the 14Z Ultrabook. It came with WINDOWS 8 installed. I bought a Microsoft Pro Pack to upgrade to WINDOWS 8 PRO. When I put the code, the computer lost its original activation and the upgrade was not installed nor activated.

I called Dell and they told me that their Laptops now are not compatible with any thing related to the WINDOWS 8 OS, even if it is from Microsoft. They could not help me to get the original activation again either, because they are not using the 25 digit code anymore. The Sticker comes without that number too.

I called Microsoft and after a few minutes working with my Laptop, they found that the number for my OEM windows code was empty. They asked me to call Dell again and ask for the number.

Dell told me again that they don't use that number any more. I asked for technical support (my Laptop was one week old) and they told me that it was going to cost me because when I installed the WINDOWS 8 PRO Pack I LOST MY WARRANTY.

Then I went back to Microsoft and they transfer me to a specialized techincian located in India, and they Waive all fees. The technician worked for more than 4 hours to restore my Windows 8 without loosing all the info and software licenses that I already had installed, They succedded, but they were unable to install the WIN 8 PRO Upgrade.

I had to keep my computer because I have installed a lot of software and loaded it with information, but I wont buy another computer from Dell in my lifetime. By the way this American Laptop is produced 100% in China.

Conclusion: Excellent service from Microsoft and no service at all from Dell; the worst I have ever had from anyone. They only gave me headaches.

My recommendation: NEVER BUY A DELL COMPUTER.

I want to add two comments, because today May the 3rd. I am still having problems: The activation done by Microsoft lasted until Dell did its first automatic update, Then I lost it again.

Then I received this "private message " from Dell through Facebook

Hi,

Sorry for the late reply. On your system, you may go to Control Panel> System and Security > System . Look for the WINDOWS ACTIVATION at the bottom of the page and click on a hyperlink. That should activate the Windows operating system.

Let me know if it helps.

Regards,

Fernando Thursday 4:50am

My Reply to Fernando (DELL):

Jorge Ros Sr.

No Fernando. It doesn't works. First, on Windows activation it says that Product ID is not available. I don't have That ID and there is no way to enter it. Also there is no hyperlink.

I have taken the problem on my own and decided that it requires a Radical Solution. I bought two different software: 1) A Windows 8 System Builder Disk and 2) A another set of discs for my Windows Office (Amazon already delivered this).

I expect the Windows 8 disks today (They will be delivered today Friday the 3rd. by Amazon). I already backed up all my files and documents.

I will reformat the Hard Drive and will do a clean installation of Windows 8 that will be activated with a license ID provided by Microsoft. Then I will reinstall Office. Transfer again my files to the Lap Top, and 3 or 4 other programs that I use and Voilá Dell.

I am only sad that because I HAD TO SPEND MORE MONEY THAN WHAT I PAID FOR THE LAPTOP; TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM that got worse due to the ignorance of all the people from Dell's Technical Support and the Poor service that I received. (For your Info: Just having to buy a new Windows and an Office amounts to: $207.00 dollars plus my other software, plus my time. All this just to fix problems that should have been taking care under warranty but due to negligence and ignorance.

A Few minutes later I added this additional comment:Thursday 4:53am

Jorge Ros Sr.

One more thing: Trust me, to abandon the use of the 25 digit key for an embedded key in the Motherboard that no one can reads has been one of the worst decisions ever made by your company (with the complicity of Microsoft). And almost all of the technicians at customer support were unaware of a solution and lacked the proper training to deal with it.

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I really like this computer. I was a little hesitant about getting a Windows 8 machine, but found it very easy to learn to use. Once I got the hang of it I found it very fast and responsive, easy to move between different applications. The display is very bright and crisp and the speakers are a big improvement over my older Dell laptops. Since my last laptop was 5+ years old, I'm enjoying this light, fast little Dell.

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Run and run very fast from this computer and any Dell product. Their customer service must be the worst in the business as I type this I have been listening to crappy dell music for over thirty minutes. Brand new computer for my son and it has already frozen up and doesn't work. Will never buy another dell product no wonder they are in such crappy shape

Honest reviews on Dell Inspiron 14z i14z-2100sLV 14.0-Inch Ultrabook (Moon Silver)

Notebook starts fast, is lightweight and met all my needs.

It is for sure not a gamer notebook, but for someone looking a fast terminal for using the web, emails, powerpoint and excel, it is just the right thing. Go for it, price is a bargain.

Regarding the battery, it is not the best thing in the market, but for price paid is more then enough.

Only con is Win8 that is quite cumbersome. Waiting for the 8.1 to go out.

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So far, no issues with this computer. We've owned several 14-inch Dells previously, and each does the job. Good value, I think, for the price. Windows 8 takes some getting used to.

Reviews of Gateway NE57006u 15.6-Inch Laptop (Silky Silver)

Customer Ratings:

So I decided I would do a review on here even though I didn't purchase this product from Amazon.

Overall, this is a strong machine with low price. 4 Gigs of RAM is a huge plus. CPU is not bad with 1.8 GHz Pentium 2117U (2 cores. Beside that, 500Gb storage is great for music and video in normally.

About the battery, the advertiser told 4 hours. I never used one program or just start the laptop to check it, the actual battery of my laptop is over 3 hours. I think, it depends on the way you use the laptop. About the windows 8, windows 8 was designed for touching, but this laptop is untouchable. If you want to experient on touching laptop, you can see this laptop

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EY50ISG/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00EY50ISG&linkCode=as2&tag=best-refer-20

This machine is not include windows 8 VCD, so you have to care full if you want to restore the system. In short, this laptop worth money.

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Best Samsung Series 7 NP700Z5C-S01US 15.6-Inch Laptop (Silver) Deals

Customer Ratings:

The laptop out of the box looks amazing, very thin, about 0.1 thinner than the Macbook Pro (non-retina) version. The Intel i7 3615QM is extremely fast, almost as fast as my desktop i7 2600K (without overclocking). 6GB RAM is good for the average user, but graphics/design and game intensive users, it is a bit low. There is only 1 RAM slot, a 2GB DDR3 1600Mhz stuck in there, the other 4GB are on the mother board. So, if you want to upgrade, you need to buy a single PC3-12800 1600Mhz 4GB or 8GB stick to perform the best. It is a bit of a hassle because a single 8GB 1600Mhz for laptops are hard to come by at a cheap price. The screen is pretty nice with sharp colors, 1600x900 resolution is actually a plus for this laptop compared to 1920x1080 resolution. Why? This laptop comes with a dedicated Nvidia 640M graphics card with 1GB of GDDR5 VRAM, it is a mid-range chip a bit slower than the 650M. At 1600x900, the GDDR5 640M can outperform a 650M at 1920x1080. Max Payne 3 and Metro 2033 ran smoother on this Samsung compared to the retina Macbook Pro with 650M set to 1920x1080.

The construction is a bit flimsy, thin aluminum screen assembly and plastic bottom. If you are considering upgrading this with an SSD, you have to be VERY careful. This laptop is equipped with a 8GB Express Cache mounted to the motherboard for speeding up load times. It does not do a good job, it is a Sandisk 8GB iSSD that reads about 110MB/s and writes 70MB/s with latency of around 10ms random read. Many SSDs today read and write well over 400MB/s with latency under 0.5ms, so you are stuck with a 8GB flash drive on your mother board pretty much... It is very tricky to work around the express cache when installing Windows 7 to the upgraded SSD without some sort of problem. If you look on Sandisk's website, the lifespan of this 8GB iSSD is well under 3 years with heavy usage everyday. You'd just wish Samsung charged $200 more and sold you a laptop with a 200+GB SSD installed.

With all that aside, the keyboard is very responsive and a plus with the full keyboard. The keyboard back-lit is nice. The mouse pad however is disappointing. It's got all the features like an Apple multi-touch pad, but so much less responsive and inaccurate at control. The ambient light sensor is a joke, either too dark or flash me with the brightest setting... The sensor software sometimes takes about 45 seconds to 1 minute to load with the stock 7200RPM 750GB Hard Drive.... imagine that... The Express Cache does not help at all.

The laptop runs dead silent. Samsung provides an option to only charge your battery only to 80% full to extend battery lifespan over the years, I feel like this is kind of ironic. The system comes loaded with useless software, deleting some of those actually speeds up the start-up time.

At the given price, it is still a good bargain system. Good for PC professionals.

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I am currently typing on my new Samsung Series 7 laptop, and what a joy it is. I spent over a month extensively searching for a laptop that would meet all of my needs as an incoming college student studying engineering, and I found this laptop is the champion in that regard. I plan to use this laptop for heavy programming, moderate gaming, and needing something powerful that was portable and rugged.

Hardware:

-Intel 3615QM Processor-clocked at 2.3 but turbo boost to 3.3; this processor can handle anything you throw at it, while the fan stays very quiet and the heat output is minimal

-nVidia 640M with Optimus Technology/Intel Graphics 4000; the Intel saves battery power, but I've noticed it's able to handle most of my programs anyways, and the nVidia only kicked in when it was actually needed. Optimus saves me a lot of battery power.

-6GB ram=No nonsense. Running a couple graphics intensive games, one compiler, and ms word and chrome uses about 5.2 gb. And in no situation would I ever be running all of these at the same time. It's DDR3, fast and plentiful. Upgradeable if you want

-750 HDD; Plenty of space, not much more to say

-8GB ExpressCache SSD: Having it disabled and enabled I can tell it makes a real-world difference in the use of this computer. Chrome, Word, and bootup are very quick and convenient

-Keyboard: very responsive and fun to type on. I wouldn't be typing this much without it. The add-on of a numeric keyboard on a 15 inch machine is awesome and the function keys work as well as I can hope. High build quality and no lag whatsoever.

-Screen: Matte, great viewing angles, can go super bright, not much you can ask for. I wish all manufacturers went matte and 1600x900 looks great. Because of the 16:9 ratio, the computer itself is more rectangular than others. But that just helps it fit into my backpack better. Colors are reproduced well, and I can use it in intense sunlight. But the high brightness eats battery like no other.

Touchpad: A lot of users have complained about the touchpad, but after you alter the settings and practice with it for a week, it's well tuned and works rather well. I was frustrated the first couple days but I learned and am pleased with the response and abilities of the touchpad. Decent palm rejection. Surface is smooth matte, click is clicky.

-Speakers-get pretty loud. For a laptop, quality is pretty good.

-Build Quality: Fantastic. Great aluminum body; yes, the bottom is plastic, but it keeps the weight lower and actually might keep the computer cooler. It's not really noticeable. Very stylish and smooth. The extra thin bezel is great, actually gives it a smaller form factor. And theres just a simple SAMSUNG logo on the lid, and just below the screen. No nonsense design. All around beautiful computer

Actually not much bloatware was installed compared to others, and Windows 7 ran well. Samsung Easy Settings is pretty useful. More convenient than control panel.

I enthusiastically recommend this computer as a high functioning, highly portable machine with great build quality and rock solid performance.

EDIT 1: I forgot to comment on the battery life: with brightness at 70% and wifi on with continuous web browsing, I get 5.5 hours. That's impressive. With brightness at 50% (which isn't as bad as it sounds) and no wifi and watching a movie, I get 6 hours straight video viewing.

-Webcam: Viewing is smooth and the image quality is great for a webcam. Colors can sometimes get grainy when the surroundings are dark, but that's to be expected. The microphone is decent.

-There are some reviews complaining about the wifi reception and strength, but I found it to be strong and reliable, and comparing it to my family's macbook air and iMac, the wifi strength was on par. Using speedtest.net on all three in the same room yielded equal speeds.

Best Deals for Samsung Series 7 NP700Z5C-S01US 15.6-Inch Laptop (Silver)

I recieved this computer today and let me tell you exceeds my expectations! Just to expand on the specs:

from the box:

Intel Core i7 3615qm duh

300nit screen

Nvida GT640m Gddr5 1Gb_hybrid

6GB memory

750GB HD

Intel 6235 Wirless and 4.0 Bluetooth

I immediately replaced with a SSD and this thing is blazing! I also own the np700z3a-s06us which is the slower 14inch model but worth every penny! Also to note it appears they fixed something with the track pad because it is a billion times better than the one on my np700z3a! Glad I went with these Series 7 Laptops from Samsung, Thin and Light... Beautiful!

Update: I did have a slight issue with the screen having a defect, dark spot along the edge. I noticed it after about an hour, but Amazons awesome customer service had me a replacement at my door today! This one looks better, I know the display is a deal breaker for some but I encourage you to check this system out before you buy if you can, I think you will see it will be far past 90% of people's expectations. Although, being very computer savy and deep into the tech world I do have to agree that this screen coming from the top High Def TV manufacture is very disappointing. This for me is not the deal breaker; I think it's still hard to find a package that provides a thin sexy platform along with still having a optical drive with excellent battery life. Along with the third gen intel i7 this machine is incredible in the performance category.

I still give samsung 5 stars for this laptop but if I could they would get 41/2 for the display!

Update 06/13/2012: OK reducing my rating to a 4 star review because of some reliability issues. Maybe its because this is the first run of the third core edition? First time it was the screen not its the DVD drive. When I received the second unit everything appeared to running AWESOME had zero issues until today. I decided to load a program from a cd media and found that the drive was dead. I thought maybe just my cd nope i tried everything and nothing. So Im waiting on my second replacement, I still have faith in Samsung and this particular computer because I own the 14in version and it is ROCK SOLID! So I am reducing my rating to 4 stars because of my personal experience and the display as i mentioned earlier. I think third times the charm! Fingers Crossed!!!

As an added kudos for Amazon, I have never had this many problems with an item before that i purchased online, but Amazon has got to be the most efficiently and helpful company I have ever delt with even in brick and mortar stores. THANK YOU AMAZON FOR THE EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!!

Honest reviews on Samsung Series 7 NP700Z5C-S01US 15.6-Inch Laptop (Silver)

I have used many brand new PC's in the last year including a samsung series 9, but I thought given the price this series 7 would be worth it. I was wrong. My issues are:

1. Windows/Samsung software issues. When first received, I couldn't change the brightness level on my computer. The button simply did not work. I thought it was a manufacturer defect until I googled it and found out I had install samsung's "easy settings" program, common with such computers. I did so, but I have to start that program every time the lighting issue comes up.

2. Power Management. 80-90% of the time when I plug in, windows recognizes its plugged in, but it won't charge and the extra fans turn on, about 2 seconds later the fan is off and its charging, less than 5 seconds later it reverts back. It does slowly charge the battery, but not efficiently. This messes up the brightness of the screen as well, even with the easy settings program. I have checked google and the other samsung and windows power management settings and couldn't figure it out.

3. Touch Pad I have used many touch pads where the pad itself was used to click and haven't had problems. But after 2 months, this one is starting to stick and windows beeps sometimes when I am scrolling. I'm not heavily using the item, maybe 2 hrs a day, so there is no reason that this should be happening.

Stay away from this product, there are many better ones out there with similar features. I'm stuck with it due to Amazon's return policy.

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I did a lot of research before finally deciding to buy this laptop. I looked at HP's DV6 line with Ivy Bridge, the new Asus UX-32VD, and other Asus thin and lights with dedicated graphics, and none of those met the price to performance benchmark laid out by this machine. It's well built, incredibly fast, good for gaming and is portable with good battery life. With a few minor drawbacks, this computer is among the best I've ever owned.

PROs:

Construction:

The construction and build quality are booth excellent. The front and palm rest are brushed aluminum and feel / look great. Some have complained about the plastic on the bottom, but I count it as a plus. It was designed this way intentionally to keep the laptop cool. Ever felt the bottom of a MBP while under load gaming? That thing can burn skin.

Speed:

This is a fast laptop. For those concerned with processing speed for their work, be it photo / video editing or compressing, encryption or modeling, this will be just fine. This is one of the fastest mobile chips available today and will handle just about anything.

Gaming:

I've maxed out Skyrim, Diablo 3, Starcraft 2 and Battlefield 3 on this machine without much issue. Diablo 3 and Starcraft 2 run at 40-50fps with AA, and can easily push past the 100's with lowered settings. Battlefield 3 isn't really playable at Ultra settings (FPS in the 20s), but is perfectly playable on Medium (60fps in 32 man MP maps). Skyrim runs at ~30fps at max, but is 50+ on High. All games were played at the native 1600x900.

Keyboard:

The keyboard is large and incredibly comfortable. The keys have good travel and are made of a soft-touch plastic-type material. They don't get cold, and aren't very loud to type on. The number pad is nice, though the keys are a bit smaller than the letter keys. The autodetecting backlight is a bit finicky but overall works well. It illuminates the keys well and isn't too bright on the eyes in a dark room.

Sound:

The sound is overall good. Yes, it's a little bit tinny and gets distorted when the volume is maxed out, the quality and bass are excellent for a laptop. It has stereo speakers and a built in subwoofer, and gets the job done for casual multimedia. I wouldn't consider this laptop a full-fledged entertainment PC, so sound quality wasn't a huge issue to me.

Price:

I got this PC for $1200 plus a free xbox (Mom is doing continuing ed, hehe). This is a great price for this much power and quality. Though I hate to do it... the best comparison may be the 15" Macbook Pro. For similar specs, you'd be spending over 2k for the MBP equivalent. Not bad Samsung, not bad.

Hard Drive:

This computer comes with a 750GB 7200rpm drive, and an 8GB 'express cache' soldered onto the motherboard. I've noticed that my most commonly used programs load instantaneously (Chrome, Outlook, Excel, Skype), and Windows boots fast. I haven't timed it but it is certainly sub-30 seconds.

RAM:

My version came with 8GB of 1600mhz DDR3--some of the fastest ram you can buy for laptops. Multitasking is fast, and I tend to keep a lot of things open. With 100 tabs in Chrome and a bunch of emails open and big spreadsheet and a 1080p YouTube video, everything is butter.

CONs:

Battery:

Samsung claims 8hrs battery life on this machine--I haven't been able to get that. With wifi on, screen set to 1/2 brightness, I can do web-browsing, email and productivity for 7hrs max. This isn't horrible by any means, and is great for a machine this powerful, but keep in mind that it's hard to get the advertised 8hrs.

Screen:

This is a pro and a con. The resolution is excellent. I think 1600x900 is a good resolution for a 15" laptop. I would take 1080p if it were available, but really this is probably more comfortable for long-term use. Unfortunately, the viewing angles aren't amazing. Colors can wash out quickly on the vertical end. Horizontal is a lot better, but nothing compared to the IPS screens found on the MBP and HP Envy series. Also, there is slight light bleeding in the middle of my model, which is only visible on an all-black screen. I could probably return it for a replacement with these issues, but honestly I just don't care enough :P

WiFi:

WiFi connection seems to be a little spotty so far. When this laptop is sitting right next to my desktop (connected to my WiFi network using a cheapo $20 WiFi dongle), the desktop gets a better connection than the laptop. It's been so bad sometimes that I'll have to leave BF3 or SC2 games with latencies above 1000. Not good. I'm hoping this gets some driver updates in the near future.

Overall I am one pleased customer. I would recommend this laptop to anyone, especially enthusiasts who want a thin and light machine with some oomph. It's probably overkill for 99% of the average consumer's uses, but computing in excess is the hallmark of all enthusiasts in the first place. I give this baby 5/5 stars.

Buy HP G60-530US 15.6-Inch Black/Silver Laptop - Up to 3.75 Hours of

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $822.00
Sale Price: $759.00
Today's Bonus: 8% Off

I purchased the HP G60-237NR notebook PC in February for less than 550.00. This laptop has all the features and ports I needed. I have had good customer service from HP when I had questions. I have Vista and we bought this same laptop for my Mom last month at Amazon with the new Windows7. I would recommend this laptop for the average user. I use it for email, shopping the web, MS application software, Skype, LinkedIn, DVD play, and watching Hulu tv over the web. The volume was not loud enough to watch a DVD movie while on vacation in our RV so I bought small external speakers to plug in at a cost of less than $30.00.

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I'm quite happy with the laptop as-shipped. The packing was good, and the laptop arrived in good condition. It comes with a little pad of paper, some other misc junk, and a cloth for polishing the case. The shiny case, by the way, is one of two drawbacks. It looks pretty with most surfaces being shiny, but the glossy black cover constantly has fingerprints (and palm prints) on it. A positive to the shiny surface is that it's relatively easy to peel off all of the NASCAR-level of sponsor labels. The other drawback to this laptop is that it doesn't have built-in Bluetooth. Seriously. It has a Wireless N interface which I'm pretty sure wasn't even an approved standard when this was made but no Bluetooth? Oh well. I had a Kensington Bluetooth adapter which is one of those little ones that you leave in a USB port, and it works well (under both Linux and Windows 7).

That leads me to the good things. Ubuntu 9.10 installed on this machine with no problems. The volume keys and hardware graphics acceleration work fine, and multiple monitors (using the internal LCD and an external display) work out of the box. The button to disable the trackpad and the wireless disable button both work under Ubuntu (as do the corresponding LEDs). The indicator LEDs for things like caps lock, num lock, the trackpad, and the wireless all blend into the laptop nicely. Wired and wireless (B and G, at least) both work properly. NTFS resizing also worked fine. The machine is fairly fast with both operating systems, though the 5400 RPM drive does hamper application start-up time. Graphics performance is very good for business applications; I don't play games on a general purpose computer, though, so my standards may be lower than people who would spend more on a video card than I did on this whole laptop. I like the track pad pretty well, and the laptop feels reasonably sturdy. I haven't tried the built-in HDMI output or media card readers under either OS yet. I'm assuming they'll both work; I'll post a follow-up if one fails. For the record, I would be willing to trade HDMI for Bluetooth as well. :)

The only other thing of note is the keyboard layout. There is an "end" key shared with the number 1 on the number pad, and another end above the number pad (sharing the scroll lock / sys req button). I'm fond of the "shift+end" (and shift+home) keyboard shortcuts to select everything from the cursor to the end (or beginning) of the line. However, pressing "shift" and the closer "end" key actually makes the keyboard type a 1. That's minor, but it does annoy me.

Speaking of minor annoyances no Windows install media is shipped (I'll bet a CD costs less than the paper notepad and microfiber cloth HP chose to bundle). You can create a set of install disks if you want using an included tool, though (only single-sided supported by the tool, even though there's a dual-layer burner here); make sure you do that before you wipe Windows off of the machine to install Linux. :) If nothing else, it's easier to sell your license if you have media to go with it. ;)

Overall, if I could get another one of these at the same price I bought this one for (a Black Friday deal, with a couple of other discounts including the current rebate deal) I would not hesitate to do so. Yeah, I spent most of this review griping about little things, but the main good things are already patently obvious. The CPU and memory included are very good, the drive capacity is good (despite being slower than a 7200 RPM drive), the screen quality is excellent, and the sound is good for a laptop. Windows 7 doesn't suck as much as Windows has in the past, and the Linux support on this device is very good.

Update: I finally got around to testing the HDMI (translation: I finally got a TV with HDMI support), and both video and audio work fine out of the box under Ubuntu 9.10; plug the cable in, start up the display preferences, and you have another monitor you can either extend or clone your desktop over to then go to the sound preferences and change the default output device from the on-board sound to the hdmi output if you want sound over HDMI. Multiple monitors work fine with the RGB cable on the back as well. However, I haven't attempted HDMI and RGB external connections simultaneously; I suspect that such an arrangement won't work as expected. :)

Best Deals for HP G60-530US 15.6-Inch Black/Silver Laptop - Up to 3.75 Hours of

I purchased this Windows 7-64 bit notebook to replace a crashed desktop. It's nice enough that there's a sleek design with its black case and aluminum touchpad and trim, but there's a lot more "under the hood" of this budget-priced model. 4GB of installed DDR2 @SDRAM with 1MB of installed memory cache, a 320 GB hard drive and a 2.1 Ghz speed on its T4300 processor. The 1366 x 768 BrightView is crisp and clear with a 15.6 display size. The G60 weighs less than seven pounds yet has enough bells and whistles to perform like a desktop. In fact, I am using it as one with a purchased flat screen monitor and wireless keyboard and mouse.

Ports/Connectors:

3 USB 2.0

RJ-11 modem

RJ-45 LAN

HDMI

HDDB15 VGA

headphone

microphone

Additionally, there's a webcam and a 5-in-one media reader (alas, not large enough for a compact flash card, but an external card reader solved the problem).

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit edition is pre-installed and took a little getting used to after my XP machines, but I think it ultimately will make home networking a much easier install as the system is quite intuitive.

This is my second HP computer and I am impressed with its performance. I especially like the software compatibility feature that allows me to run older programs in XP mode.

Gripes? Very few. The 5400 rpm drive speed seems a little slow after a 7200 desktop speed and I would not recommend it for serious games, however, for the beginner to average user, it's a good solid machine.

Recommended.

Honest reviews on HP G60-530US 15.6-Inch Black/Silver Laptop - Up to 3.75 Hours of

Not sure if its a great product. I got it for my wife, she is fine with it. I feel its a bit heavy.

Twice we faced a strange problem, the computer will just not turn on. I removed the battery and then reinserted it. It started working. Not sure if its a manufacturing defect or some user fault.

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purchased as a gift for my son.

Totally works for him.

He loves the performance and speed.

Reviews of HP Mini 1000 Notebook (Intel Atom Processor N270 1.60GHz, 10.2" LED

Customer Ratings:

I just picked up the HP Mini 1000 with 10-inch screen, 1GB of system RAM and 60GB hard drive today for a family member and it's a great notebook. Technically, it's a "netbook" because it uses the low voltage Intel Atom processor and uses a smaller screen. Basically, a "netbook" is just a compact, lightweight notebook that has a weak processor and generally a smaller hard drive and less RAM than a full notebook.

The benefit of the Mini 1000 is that it's extremely easy to take with you everywhere, and unlike most netbooks this computer actually has a reasonably large keyboard that makes it easy to type.

Although the Atom processor isn't as fast as other new dual-core processors found in full-size notebooks, the Atom has more than enough power for web browsing, working in Microsoft Office, listening to iTunes, or very basic photo editing (although I wouldn't suggest buying a netbook for Photoshop work).

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the built-in speakers on this netbook. You can listen to iTunes songs and movies without needing to use earbuds (unless you don't want other people to hear what you're listening to).

There are only two minor issues that I have with the Mini 1000. First, the mouse buttons are located on the sides of the touchpad rather than underneath the touchpad ... which takes time getting used to. The other is the fact that the "Infinity Display" is highly reflective which makes it hard to read the screen outdoors in bright sunlight or while you're inside your car during the day. Under normal indoor lighting the screen is gorgeous, but take it outside and you can't see what's on the screen because of the reflections on the screen. If you don't use your notebook much outside this isn't a problem.

Overall, this is a great netbook.

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I've been keeping an eye on this "netbook" market for the past 6 months, watching dozens of various models hit the retail stores. I stumbled upon this little gem in a local Costco it took about 3 minutes of messing around with Costco's floor model before it was apparent that this is currently the best netbook on the market right now. Here's why:

1. The keyboard is almost full sized, and is true to most industry-standard layouts. Several of the other netbooks have tiny right shift buttons and smaller buttons, and I honestly don't know how people can type efficiently.

2. The screen is 10.2 inches, whereas most netbooks are right around 9 inches. Note that the resolution is still the same; however, the extra inch is welcomed.

3. The touchpad is a decent size, and has a built-in vertical scroller, which comes in VERY handy while surfing the internet. One gripe is that the mouse buttons are located on the left and right sides of the touchpad, and they feel very awkward at first. However, after a day or two, I started using both hands to manage the mouse controls. I use my left finger to click the left mouse button, and the other to move around the mouse. So, the button placement actually didn't turn out to be a dealbreaker for me.

4. The form factor and exterior design of this netbook is far better than any others. The computer is less than an inch think, and has a very sleek look when closed.

Now, here are a few minor complaints:

1. Currently you can only get the computer with a 3-cell battery, which will get you anywhere between 2 and 3 hours. I highly recommend picking up an extra AC adapter ($49 on the HP site) in the event that you need a quick charge.

2. there is a lack of external ports on the computer the biggest issue being the lack of a VGA port. So, if you're looking to hook this up to an external video source, then you probably shouldn't go with this model.

So, if those last 2 issues won't affect you, then I can definitively say that this is one of the best netbooks on the market right now.

Best Deals for HP Mini 1000 Notebook (Intel Atom Processor N270 1.60GHz, 10.2" LED

I had been considering buying a new Macbook to replace my ageing iBook G4, which at 3 years old is getting ready to be retired. My ventures into the electronics shops to play with the Macbook brought me into contact with netbooks... and was I amazed at their price!

Although I was an Apple convert of 5 years these tiny gems seemed to be able to do everything I wanted with a mobile computer (remember I still have a functioning iBook... and a new iMac). I wanted something that was very portable and light. I wanted to be able to surf the net, read emails and type the occasional document. And I figured I could live with Windows XP at a push, so I started my research. I read all the reviews. I flipped through every PC Mag I could find. And I tested them in-store.

The HP Mini 1000 got my attention for three things

a) The stylishly compact design and high quality build

b) The almost full size keyboard

c) The amazing screen with glowing colours

Now to be honest I must admit that it looks a lot like the black MacBook (which has been discontinued) and as a Mac user I do like design. But the keyboard is so easy to type on compared with the other ones on the market. And the case is very very stylish and professional looking (unlike some of the other netbooks out there). And the edge to edge glass covered screen makes it look even more impressive. The build is solid and it is sturdy enough to throw into a backpack.

I also appreciate the lack of extra pre-installed trial software as well so I don't have to spend hours removing it.

Oh, but I forgot to mention the price! It's about 1/3 the price of a Macbook! Not bad in these bleak times.

Honest reviews on HP Mini 1000 Notebook (Intel Atom Processor N270 1.60GHz, 10.2" LED

I've been using this HP Mini 1000 Netbook for a while now, and decided to write a review for Amazon because I'm so impressed with the device. If you are considering a "Netbook" like this, chances are you've never owned one, and are perhaps a bit skeptical about the device. So was I.

First off, let's set the parameters. This isn't a multi-core Pentium processor machine with a high end dedicated graphics card. It isn't meant for running the most processor intensive applications faster than any other computer on the market. Most of you have one of these number-crunching machines at home already, or perhaps a high-end laptop with all the power-intensive support. This is a "Netbook," which means a slimmed down laptop that can be used for basic functions, such as web browsing, e-mail, and some minor picture viewing.

That's a bit deceptive, because when you read descriptions like that, you expect that the HP Mini 1000 will essentially be a performance "dog" that can handle only a web browser, and perhaps Picasa. I can tell you, that's a real mistake.

There's no doubt this in one of the lightest and smallest computers you've ever seen, but, surprisingly, it is also one of the most sprightly performing laptops you're likely to find in the price range (and speaking of price, it's basically a steal at between $400 and $500; I had two other laptops not long ago that were both sub-3 pound devices, and they each cost over $3,000). I went ahead and just took a gamble on loading all of a trial copy of Microsoft Office 2007 (Outlook, Word, Excel, OneNote, etc.), and then just piled on other applications I typically use on my regular laptop (a dual core T8100 processor in an HP Dv2000 body), including picture viewers, utility programs, etc.. Surprise. It not only handled all the software, but it runs the programs remarkably well, with little lag time and surprisingly deft performance. The Intel "Atom" Processor powering this thing can easily be seen as a "sleeper" technology that people are going to increasingly talk about.

Boot time is also surprisingly fast. Mine usually loads within 20 seconds, certainly faster than my "powerful" laptop. Of course, the Mini is running Windows XP, not Vista, but still, that's pretty impressive. (By the way, I also installed Windows 7 RC1, and it worked just fine.)

The wireless has thus far worked without problems. I connect to my home network with high security settings, and to public locations using open networks, all without a hitch so far. (The unit, however, does not support draft-n specifications, so you'll be connecting at g speeds.)

The physical construction of this unit is excellent. Yes, it is small and light. But it is also sturdy in the way it feels, with little squeaking and a solid construction. The screen is bright and clear. And the keyboard is one of the best I've seen in any laptop. How did they do this?

Finally, when youfeel the tiny weight and size of the battery as you take it out of the box, you'll be thinking that it will run 30 minutes, tops. Well, with the Atom processor sipping current at exceedingly low amounts, you'll likely see some 90 120 minutes on a single charge. It's amazing.

You can probably tell I'm impressed with this device, because I am. If this is the beginning of "Netbooks," then I think they will become increasingly popular as people discover them.

Rating for Size and Weight: Five Stars

Rating for Price: Five Stars

Rating for Configuration: Four and 1/2 Stars

Pros:

1. Exceedingly light and small

2. Beautiful physical appearance

3. Clear and bright screen (but glare can be an issue)

4. Remarkable performance, even with software suites such as Office 2007

5. Excellent keyboard with good tactile feel and large size layout (how is this possible?)

6. Wireless that actually works

7. Lightweight adapter cord (you've been stung on this before, haven't you? They finally got it right.)

8. Two USB 2.0 ports, plus a network port and a HP adapter output port

9. Built-in webcam

10. Can put in a 2Gb memory card (even though it claims 1Gb is the limit)

11. Very good battery life for such a dimunutive battery

12. Great price for the package

Cons

1. No draft-N wireless available

2. Bluetooth not on every model

3. HP Proprietary connector required for VGA output

4. Non-common 1.8" hard drive format limits upgrade options to the 1.8" format

5. Screen resolution, though very good, is not as high as we might wish (but is good enough)

6. Display does not fold back as far as most laptops

7. Outstanding performance probably drives us to push the unit past its stated purposes (i.e., just don't be upset if you can't run a C++ compiler while listening to Windows Media Player and editing an Excel spreadsheet)

To sum it up, this is truly an outstanding breakthrough if you understand what the unit is designed to do. I'm already seriously considering substituting my main laptop with the HP Mini for most out-of-home tasks. Five stars.

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This is a great little netbook but for the price HP should include bluetooth and wireless n in addition to the installed b/g wireless of yesterday.

First I should mention I didn't pay the price Amazon is asking, I bought it direct from HP's site for $450 (built to order, same configuration as this model).

I also own an Acer mini with the same processor, ram, and XP.

Well after using both the Acer and the HP I much prefer the HP simply due to the beautiful screen. In other departments Acer got it right like having three usb ports, a 100GB larger and faster hard drive, and a 6 cell battery to name a few. But did I mention the beautiful screen on the HP? I love it! This doesn't come (or at least mine didn't) loaded full of ad's and crap which was very nice, there was very little to uninstall before I went to work configuring it to my personal taste and loading my software. Thank you HP for not bogging this one down with useless crap, it is very appreciated and will keep you in mind next time I'm looking for a similar product. Also I love the fact that the Windows Install CD came in the box, Acer wasn't so generous in that department.

HP really should include a nice slip case in the box, unfortunately none of the manufacturers do so I was forced to buy a generic third party case off of Amazon like everyone else, I'll post a review on the case and how it fits in a week or so once it arrives and I've tested it out.

Does anyone know if there is a way to upgrade the ram on this one yet? As far as I know there isn't but it would be nice to have 2gb verses the 1gb that it comes with. I should mention it runs pretty good on just 1gb I simply am a demanding consumer.

I usually buy most of my electronics on either Amazon, Newegg, or eBay but this time the price difference was remarkable I actually saved $250 by buying directly from HP.

I hope this review is useful to those of you out there debating which one to get, remember none of the other netbooks will even come close to this HP as far as screen quality goes but for the dollar Acer gives you a little more bang for your buck in the other departments.

Reviews of HP Pavilion DV7-7023CL 17.3" Notebook (AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M

Customer Ratings:

I'm still putting it through it's paces, but so far it is working flawlessly. It looks brand new. Far faster than my 4 year old 15" laptop. It has a big, beautiful screen, and a full size number pad along with enough ports to take care of most needs. After a weeks worth of researching, I bought it as it was the best "bang for the buck". I wasn't looking for the fastest, only the best deal I could find. I got it for $450 through another dealer. It came with a 8550mAh HP extended battery. It runs Starcraft II well on low settings. For a another $170 I could have gone with an refurbished Intel machine, but I wasn't interested in paying a premium for the Intel name. I have a desktop that takes care of the programs that need a speedier processor.

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I really wasn't expecting such a great looking and great operating laptop like this for the money I paid ($479.00) It can handle multiple tasks at a time, without missing a beat. It's nice to have a number keypad, just like a desktop keyboard. The sound is awesome if you like to listen to music or watch movies. The screen is huge and bright, and the brightness can be adjusted with the F1 and F2 keys. This laplop looks much more expensive than it is, and has a real expensive quality look and feel to it. Lots of ports, including an HDMI port to connect the laptop to my HDTV for Netflex or whatever. The built in integrated webcam gives a very good HD image, and also has a built in stereo mic. I guess the only con, is the weight of this laptop, but in my case, I don't have to lug it around much, so I can live with that. So if you're looking for a fast, efficient, great looking laptop for under $500.00, this is the machine to buy. Time will tell how long this laptop will last, but if it's anything like my desktop HP, it'll run great. Both my desktop and this laptop HP run so quietly...which is great, because I do a lot of studio recording work, and my condenser mics are extremely sensitive to any noise. The laptop arrived within 2 days from ordering, and the unit was very well packed. Set up was a breeze (and I'm technically challenged).

Best Deals for HP Pavilion DV7-7023CL 17.3" Notebook (AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M

Arrived in excellent condition. Big, sharp screen; AMD processors very responsive even when I have several tasks running. Wireless communications.excellent. Only (very slight) complaint is touch pad, which seems a bit quirky (I don't like touchpads so...)problem fixed with good wireless mouse. Very strong battery. Overall an enthusiastic recommensation,

Honest reviews on HP Pavilion DV7-7023CL 17.3" Notebook (AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M

I have had this computer since 2009 and I loved it for the last 4 years but once it began to fall apart

It progressed quickly. First the power cord slot got loose and the connection become iffy. I took it to my local PC repair shop and they tell me it has to be soldered and only HP can do that because it is such a sensitive area, they also said this is a common problem with HP laptops. Then the DVD burner quit working. Then the keys began to stick or break then the mouse pad became sensitive and sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. This was not a cheap laptop when first purchased and I expected it to hold up for more than 4 years. I am very disappointed that it seems to have gone into 'self-destruct" mode so soon. And I have not been that hard on it so that it should be falling apart. So if you want a good laptop and won't be troubled by the fact that it probably won't hold up for more than 4 years I would say go for it. Otherwise look for something that is made to last.

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Four 2.2 gHz cores and a 17.3 inch screen for just $500 is a nearly unbelievable deal. 6 gigs of memory isn't right, but I replaced them with 16 gigs and added another hard drive. Unlike some other HP laptops, this has a black keyboard, which makes the keys easier to see under low light. Whoever created their hard to see silver keyboard should be horsewhipped.

Refurb machines are an excellent deal, because some tech has actually looked at it and made sure it's working correctly.

I don't care for HP, who lies. When you look at their website, it says you can download a reinstallation disk set, but they won't let you do it. You can make exactly ONE set on your own, and are prevented from making any more. Of course, HP will be glad to sell you a set (more profit for HP), but I resent being lied to. Fortunately, I generally install Linux on my machines and frankly, I hope HP doesn't like it.

Cheap MSI WorkStation GT60 0NG-294US 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $1,999.99
Sale Price: $1,834.99
Today's Bonus: 8% Off

First I would like to say that this is a good brand, not known to the masses like a Dell, HP, etc but I bet you could find a MotherBoard made by MSI inside them so if you are doubting this product because you havent heard of them then take my words for it or you could still do a google search on them.

Now that out of the way I bought this laptop not for me but for a cousin however I was given the task to look for a laptop good enough for her (she is studying architecture ) and within a $2000 budget.

After careful research and learning I did (I needed to know about the programs people in her field use AutoDesk etc) I came to the conclusion that this laptop was the suited for the job, first and foremost because for the applications they use, the NVIDIA Quadro was made for that and they are actually certified by them.

I compared this laptop with a gaming one and to me this one was just the better choice, of course that depends where your priorities are since the owner of this laptop isn't into gaming this was no brainer however despite of that this Nvidia Quadro GPU is strong enough for some current games.

MSI nailed a good combination of work and gaming into a solid machine, it has all the pro's of a gaming machine along with enough seriousness to be used in a professional environment.

The only thing I didn't like about it was that they just put 1 750HDD, though they left one empty slot for a second one in case the need of more space arises. (I bet a 256GB SSD or 512GB SSD if you can, coupled with 1TB HDD would be nice on this laptop)

Overall, it was a good purchase and I highly recommend it if you find yourself looking for a good laptop that could last you at least 3-4 years without a hassle.

My Samsung Series 7 has enough juice in the meantime and I don't regret the purchase one bit(amazing good looking laptop) but my next upgrade in 3 years will be a MSI gaming laptop I really like how this guys build theirs even if the GT60 0NG-294US is a workstation it really leaves a good impression.

Keep doing a good work MSI!

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Definitely worth the price...all the features you can possibly want and more..fast..fast.great picture ..it is a bit heavy and yes it can be a little noisy but well worth it.

Buy Sony VAIO SA3 Series VPCSA3AFX/BI 13.3-Inch Laptop (Jet Black)

Customer Ratings:

This machine has a solid, all metal construction, with the only plastic being the keys and the bezel surrounding the screen. It is quite fast with a 2nd gen core i CPU and an AMD 6630 GPU. Keyboard is one of the best I've ever used, and easy match for any thinkpad, and backlit to boot. The 1600x900 matte screen is bright and very clear, but lacks color depth and contrast for any kind of high quality, color accurate display.

Other reviews have referred to it as flimsy but honestly, this is a pretty solidly built machine. Pressure on the back of the lid produces no distortions in the display, the base is very very stiff, especially for such a thin machine. Overall this machine reminds me of the T4x series thinkpad I used to own, but with a much brighter screen.

The speakers are terrible, even for a small 13" machine.

Linux compatibility has some issues that will hopefully get ironed out. Nothing that makes using it unusable, but a few things like the trackpad not having any suitable drivers, and really poor battery life (under linux) that make it a questionable choice if Linux on the go is your primary reason for using this machine.

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I have used my laptop for a few days now and put it through some different trials. I tried videos, no problems, the only thing I wish could of been a little better was the sound of the speakers, but that's just the style of the laptop, it's hard to concentrate on both light and slim and at the same time have insanely large speakers. Next I inserted a few CD's including a movie which played perfectly and very clear, again the speakers are loud enough, just a little high pitched. You can always plug in a set of aux speakers if you wish. I installed a couple simple action games to make sure they would load and play and again no problem. I miss the old Sony power switch on the end of hinge, now it's like most other laptops positioned directly above the number keys. One more adjustment I had to make was getting used to a dedicated dvd eject button above the number keys again. You can't just push in on the dvd play door any more. Not a big deal and once I get use to it I'll be fine. I really like the 1600 resolution option on this particular model, if your wondering about text size, my philosophy is that you can always turn up the zoom of the page to 125% and most web pages still fit on the screen. The keyboard is nicely backlit and the keys have enough space between them so you don't hit two at once. I only wish with the new hinge setup that it didn't have that plat in the rear of the laptop, it's centered and runs better than half way across and sticks out a bout an 1/8". Not a big deal, but again, I liked the old style Sony hinge better personally. The new hinge cover is finished nicely though, looks like brushed metal. All of the input/output connections, except for the dvd player are on the right side of the laptop, I prefer this because it's easier for me to remember what side it's one. There are 3 indicator lights in the front left and look nice. There is a cap key light above the numbers. The laptop feels well made to me and I have no regrets.

Best Deals for Sony VAIO SA3 Series VPCSA3AFX/BI 13.3-Inch Laptop (Jet Black)

I looked at all similar units in the 800 to 1200 price range, and chose this one for the keyboard ease, backlight, and robust construction. It is substantially made, mostly of aluminum/magnesium alloy, and the matte display is outstanding. Other units had the gloss and the glare is quite distracting. You pay a bit more for the Sony name, but it is worth it. It has the usual bloatware, but not overly intrusive, and one can disable these pesky bits easily. It is remarkably light, yet not flimsy in the slightest. I'm using it in my surgical office for electronic records, CT scan image review and other fairly processor intense tasks and the i5 handles all quite rapidly. I did up the RAM to 8mb, and that was $14 well spent! Got mine from 42nd street photo in NYC, and all is well. I would recommend it highly.

Honest reviews on Sony VAIO SA3 Series VPCSA3AFX/BI 13.3-Inch Laptop (Jet Black)

Purchased this laptop because its basically the only machine out there with the combination of features I wanted, and it costs less than a grand to boot.

-Backlit keyboard very difficult to find in this size, much more effective than the little thinklight on Thinkpads

-Hi resolution 1600x900 screen just try find this feature outside of Dell enterprise workstation models

-USB 3.0 onboard

-Fingerprint reader

-Dedicated Radeon graphics seems like nearly every PC is using the crappy Intel HD integraded chips in their 13.3" and smaller models

-Aluminum unibody I'm really confused by the reviews describing this laptop as "flimsy" or claims that its not actually metal

Have been using the machine for about a week now and its simply impressing me at every turn. After uninstalling the bulk of the Sony bloatware, Ive got it setup quite cleanly rather than doing a full clean windows install (as mentioned by another reviewer who was having difficulty).

Runs every game I've thrown at it in native resolution (1600x900) so far, including BF3 and MW3, which is jawdropping. Having a portable gaming system thats this svelte is going to make traveling a heck of a lot more enjoyable. It quite simply blows the doors off my last "thin and light" acer timeline.

All in all, a good purchase and a happy camper. Thanks Amazon for a great price versus the Sony website!

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This is my second LAPTOP from SONY VAIO, First one was F series but I had to buy new one because F series if is big and i need one smaller

I have bought this laptop SA Silver(color) for 1 month, first I was surprised of its shape. It is very thin and light. Silver color is amazing. All my friends love it when they saw at the first time.

It is very fast,

this graphic card is strong, so I can play on it strong games like (MW3, The RUN .etc.)

I have photo shop program, but it doesn't affect on the performance of Laptop

I believe that SONY is best company for Everything

Best ASUS B23E-XH71 12.1-Inch Laptop (Black) Deals

Customer Ratings:

I have had so much trouble with this machine (**3** trips to Asus repair center and it's still not right!) that I have to rewrite my review. Lest anyone think I have a vendetta against Asus, nothing could be farther from the truth. I just opened my ASUS VivoBook X202E-DH31T 11.6-Inch Touch Laptop and THAT machine is behaving the way I would expect from the more than a dozen other Asus notebooks, laptops, and tablets I've bought for myself, family, and friends.

I am one of the closest things Asus has to a fan-boy without (as this review demonstrates) actually being one, so if I'm giving this notebook 1 stars, and recommending against buying it, something's up. It started out as the trackpad. Now, it's that and more.

Whenever I'm in the market for a product, I'll buy an Asus model if they make one. So, when I was looking for an i7 notebook, it was only natural that I'd get this one. It's i7 fast. While I wish the hard drive were larger, 500Gb is nothing to sneeze at. Nice screen. Fingerprint reader, if I ever decide I want to try it. But then there's that *&%&*% trackpad.

It's hard to type a full paragraph without the cursor jumping around the page at some point. It's bad enough that I wish I'd never bought this machine. I'm getting really good at using Ctrl-z to erase the messes the trackpad makes.

* It's not the driver. I've tried three different ones at all range of settings, all with the same results. Right now, I'm back to the original with Smart Detection as great as I can make it, and the cursor has still been jumping around nearly a dozen times (with me having to go back and make corrections) as I type this review.

* I don't think it's me. As I've said, I've got a bunch of Asus notebooks and netbooks.

* I don't think it's this particular machine because I've searched the Web to find others with the same complaint. If I turn off the trackpad and use a mouse, everything is fine, but if I wanted to turn off the trackpad and use a mouse, I wouldn't have bought a laptop.

* This machine has been back to Asus TWICE and each time it has come back as jumpy as before and now the left button sticks under the top (bad alignment) unless it's pressed just right. I'd send it back again but I just sent it back for that problem and it came back the same way.

I'm sick and tired of pressing Ctrl-Z and Ctrl-Y to recover after the cursor goes off on its errant way.

I tried the *free* utility Touchpad Blocker, which locks the touchpad for a short period (from 0.1 sec to 3 sec; I like 1 sec) after a keyboard key is pressed. At one point it got me to upgrade my review to 3 stars, but do you know the joke about Sam the Tailor? (Credit: I cut and pasted the text from iamlearningdisabled dot com and tweaked it a bit.)

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A guy goes to Sam the Tailor to have a suit made. He comes back and....

"This suit doesn't fit me at all!"

"What's wrong with it?"

"Well, the right sleeve is too long"

"So, raise your shoulder and it will be fine". He raises his right shoulder.

"But the left sleeve is too short!"

"So, hold your arm like this and it will be fine!" He holds his left arm in that position

"But it's too big in the chest!"

"So arch your back and stick out your chest and it will be fine". He arches his back and sticks out his chest.

He pays.

He's walking down the street: One shoulder raised, one arm crooked, back arched, chest out.

Another guy stops him and says "You poor man! Who is your tailor?

"Sam the Tailor. Why?"

"Because if he can fit you, he can fit anyone!"

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Well, this machine must have been contracted to Sam the Tailor...and I'm tired of it. In fact, I'm SO tired of it that after I get the X202E up and running, this machine is going back too Asus again...and yet again, until they get it right! I'll keep you posted.

I try to keep reviews balanced. *IF* (that means a BIG "if") you would be content to never use the trackpad (that is, use a mouse, instead) 4 or 5 stars would be appropriate. It's an i7 and runs like it. The overall Windows score is limited by the graphics. But, if the trackpad matters at all, stay away!

Misc items from my original review.

Yes, it DOES NOT have a DVD drive. Other business models do, but this one does not, as can be seen on the Asus website. I'm guessing it's to keep the size and weight down, which is why I chose this model.

Battery life is mediocre at under 3 hours, but such is the price of an i7 processor, I guess, and that's what I got this machine for...its speed. If I need more battery life, I'll grab a netbook.

I could go on, but with the trackpad behaving the way it does and a "Don't buy!" recommendation, is there a point to it?

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I have had no problems with this computer. It is very fast, light and I am enjoying it. Sorry that I am not a tech person, so someone else will have to tell you those things. I sure can say that I like ASUS products.

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Think the only thing i didnt like about it is its a little heavy 4a little computer have a 10" single core internet labtop & its light as heck guess thats what u get when u actually pay for a real processor.

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First, everyone giving one-star ratings for the lack of an optical drive is obviously being unfair. This laptop is not marketed as having one. Do some research next time.

The performance on this laptop is top-notch, as should be obvious by the i7 processor and 7200RPM HDD. An SDD would obviously be faster, but then you'll have to settle for a lot less space. The battery life is decent, nothing impressive; but that's to be expected considering that this is quite a powerhouse for its size.

I think 12" screens are optimal for laptops. 11" and below are too small, and 13" and above are too big. This is compact and light, but also comfortable enough to type on.

But there are issues I have with the trackpad. I do not like that they do not have side-scrolling via the edge of the trackpad. You have to use two fingers to scroll. Side-scrolling is so much simpler, and I don't see why ASUS would switch to a trackpad vendor that uses such stupid scrolling methods.

Also, the placement of the headphone and microphone jacks is absolutely ridiculous. It's positioned right where the edge of your left palm will rest while typing on the keyboard. It's extremely uncomfortable, and I'm not sure who is the moron who designed this placement, but I hope they're out of a job today.

I'm on the fence of giving it three stars, but I have to give it four because it's next to impossible to get a powerful Windows 7 laptop these days. Everything is just moving more and more into Windows 8, and I don't want to put up with that. This is a fairly good machine for the price despite some stupid design choices.

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This laptop is absolutely killer. it's small size, rugged case, good power, docking capability and ease to swap out to an SSD makes this the best laptop I have ever bought. and I buy 20 laptops a year.

Reviews of HP Pavilion m7-1015dx Entertainment Notebook PC

Customer Ratings:

I need to buy a PC to run some Microsoft project and share point applications for my company. I've been a Mac only guy for at least 10 years, but I do know my way around the windows infrastructure. This is an i7 machine with a good amount of memory, and it does everything you need. The screen quality could be a little better although it is sufficient. The auto installed HP applications are a nightmare. I would strongly recommend disabling all of them. Warning, this machine is not only big but it's also pretty happy I had to switch briefcases in order to be able to carry with me on my last trip. As a desktop replacement it's a homerun but as a traveling computer just keep that in mind. I bought the refurb and so far no problems.

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HP Pavilion m7-1015dx Entertainment Notebook PC I started having issues about 6 months into ownership. After a plethora of phone calls to HP tech support, they finally determined a hard drive was failing. I won't even go in to that nightmare (getting the hard drive replaced when I need this laptop daily.) Anyway, the "new" hard drive is really putting out some heat and I'm afraid we're heading down the same path. I have installed all my software so many times that I have my 20 digit MS product key memorized.

I've decided that I'm going to buy cheap, cheap, cheap laptops from this point forward, and treat them all as disposable. But not everyone can afford that.

Other than the failure of the hardware, this is a great Win 7 laptop. Just too darn bad a critical piece of the hardware is not up to par.

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I bought this Refurbished Laptop and it's exactly like a new one!

I am using it for 2 month now and no problem!

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When I saw the rave reviews for this laptop, I thought this would be an amazing deal, and would be a laptop that could last for a long time. Sadly, this machine is plagued with problems that add up as time goes on. I actually purchased this particular laptop last year, but had to return it right away (less than 30 days) because of a faulty hard drive. Now almost a half-year later, many issues have arisen. I was no longer able to view pictures at first, and there were many software issues. Now not only is the mouse severely malfunctioning, but the sound card is completely out, and like the previous commenter, the HD is having major issues, and I've tried every possible way to fix it, and I consider myself pretty tech-savvy.

The previous HP laptop I had lasted me over five years, and that machine serviced me very well. That one had minor malfunctions, but they were all fixed just fine at little or no cost. However, this m7 has turned out to be a disappointment, and just managed to begin to majorly malfunction after a short time. Sadly, I will have to purchase another laptop that is not an m7. That is a real shame because there are so many quality features that the m7 has that most other HP laptops do not have like the backlit keyboard (which is a GREAT touch, but I can now live without it), the extended battery, the Beats audio, and the advanced Core i7. However, all of those features are overshadowed by the phenomenal failures that happen over a short period of time with this particular product. I really gave this laptop a chance, but it has now failed me twice.

If you want a top-of-the-line computer with amazing features that may only last you less than a few months, give this a shot. If you want a durable and longer-lasting laptop, then you are much better off looking elsewhere.

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I spent a lot of time reading reviews and researching a computer to replace my desktop. I finally decided on the HP Pavillion M7, based on positive reviews, price; it more than exceeds my expectations.

Review of Dell XPS 15Z X15z-5834ELS 15.6-Inch Laptop (Elemental Silver)

Customer Ratings:

I purchased this Dell XPS 15z a few months ago and have had enough time using it to properly review it. When I heard that Dell was releasing a slim line of XPS laptops I was very excited. The Dell XPS line has always impressed me because they are performance systems at affordable prices. Combine those two elements with a slim line of laptops and you get one heck of a deal. For a while I contemplated purchasing a Macbook Pro 13" because of it's aesthetic appeal but was having a hard time justifying paying the $500 premium for the design and operating system. That all came to an end when Dell finally released the XPS 15z. The laptop is a Macbook pro clone, it looks very similar to the 15" model that apple offers. All of the usb and peripheral plugs are on the left side (except for power and Ethernet plugs), the battery indicator with little lights is also on this side like the mac. There is a slot loading dvd drive on the right side and the dimensions are basically the same.

The new XPS comes with the second generation sandy bridge processors from Intel, unfortunately they are only the dual core processors but they are still plenty powerful for most applications. In addition to these new processors the laptop comes with a GeForce GT525M with 1GB of video memory. So far this graphics card has been able to handle everything that I've thrown at it seamlessly. I'm not a PC gamer and I've read other reviews to suggest that this card would be able to play most modern game at medium settings. Which isn't bad for a laptop of this size. One of the nicest things about the laptop that I own is the full 1080p resolution of the screen. That option alone basically sold me on the machine, not very many laptops come with this option and have all the other goodies that this comes with. Like the USB 3.0, Mini DVI, New Processors, Fast RAM, Optimus Enabled GeForce Card.

I've also had a good experience with the battery life on my laptop. Using the dell power management settings I can get around 5-6 hours of time on the laptop watching movies online, surfing the web, listening to music and doing work. That is very similar to my friends Macbook Pro 13", the times that the companies post online about 8 hours battery time is nonsense. Unless you turn the brightness setting down to the lowest settings and use word or some low CPU intensive program with no sound you aren't going to get that kind of battery life stated on company websites. But nonetheless 5-6 hours is plenty for me.

Although I love the laptop and wouldn't trade it in for any other laptop, there are a few negatives I need to mention. The chrome trim around the base of the machine seems like more of an afterthought and doesn't really hold up very well. It's really just a plastic piece that is clipped in there. The panel surrounding the plugs on the left side is also a little flimsy, not that big of a deal but definitely not first class material. Also, as a computer guy I don't know why anyone would use the Dell Stage software. It really seems like a waste of RAM but that might be more of a taste thing, kind of like how I don't like anything on my desktop except for the My Computer and Trash icons.

All in all this laptop is great and I would give it a 4.5 stars if I could on here but since I can't I'm rounding up. If you can spend the extra hundred bucks I strongly recommend upgrading the screen and getting the full 1080p experience. That way when a mac fanboy tells you how much better his 15" laptop is just ask him what the resolution of his screen is :P, it definitely won't be 1080p. If you prefer Windows to Mac OS and want a slim line laptop get this, if you have the money and like Mac OS then go with the 15' Pro. Also, a 14" model of this is coming to market very soon! So if you wanted something even smaller wait for that, it will have all the same stuff except for the full 1080p screen.

Pros:

New Processor (2nd Gen Intel Core i processors).

Fast RAM, and plenty of it.

Beautiful resolution. (If you get the 1080p resolution, 720p is nice too)

Efficient graphics card with optimus technology that will get you better battery life.

Battery life is good.

Affordable for the high end specifications.

Multi Touch Trackpad (Works great for me)

Cons:

Build quality could be better. Chrome trimming is cheap.

No quad core processor option.

Not designed for hardcore gamers. (Regular XPS or Alienware line is for gamers)

Thank you for reading my review.

Cheers,

Hunter

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I have used many Dell products at both home and work and I have always liked them. Very reliable with good set of features.

I like this 15Z but I have been disapointed in the lighted keyboard for following reasons...

1) Very shiny surface on keys but are hard to see unless you have very good ambient light or the keyboard is lit.

2) The user has few options to change the way the keyboard lights work. The stock Windows 7 allows the user to program the lights to your liking but Dell has locked the user out of that capability. By default, the lights are "dim" (aka...unreadable) when you power it up. You can change that to be brighter but it defaults back to dim if you power your laptop off. Even if you adjust the brightness, the keyboard will go off after a minute or so of unuse. The lights will come back on when you start typing again. That might be a reasonable strategy when on battery but mine is typically not on battery. I would prefer to (a) change the default brightness to high and (b) increase the time before the lighted keys turn off. That user option is not available with the way Dell has locked out the user.

Otherwise, I think this is a great laptop. I wanted to give it a 5 but I knocked off a star due to the inability of a user to make adjustments to the lighted keyboard.

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Pros:

-Very well made.

-Great performance. I play BF3 on it on all high settings.

-Reminiscent of the Macbook pro design, right down to the backlit keyboard and mechanized DVD drive.

-Mini-displayport out. Works with iMac display port.

Cons:

-Network port will not sync @ gig speeds after standby. You need to pull the cable and reconnect. No big deal if you don't care about hardwire network.

-Screen is not 1080p only 1366x768.

Overall very pleased with purchase.

Honest reviews on Dell XPS 15Z X15z-5834ELS 15.6-Inch Laptop (Elemental Silver)

I got Dell XPS 15z for $800. The configuration is as follows:

Intel i5 processor

6 GB RAM

500 GB HDD @ 7500RPM

1GB GeForce graphics card.

I have used the laptop for almost a month now and the experience is excellent.

The design is very elegant and sleek. The display quality is very good. I have played a couple of high graphics games and they work without any problem.

The sound system, webcam, wireless, bluetooth etc work great. The battery life is about 2-3 hours with brightest display. Backlit keyboard is convenient for me to type and looks great.

I installed Linux (dual boot) on the machine and it was installed without slightest trouble. All the devices work equally well on Linux.

I use the laptop for programming, gaming and surfing. All of these work just fine.

On the downside, the laptop heats up very fast when playing high graphics games. It does not shut down or anything, but heat is too much to hold it on lap. Also, the scroll facility of touchpad does not work with the default windows7 installation which is annoying. Small size of the keyboard means you have to use 'Fn' key to do Home/End/Pg up/Pg down while typing.

Also, the price of the laptop shoots up higher than lennovo which has 8GB RAM and i7 processor.

Overall it is a great laptop, with great look and feel as well as performance. I am happy I got it.

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This is a great computer. It had worked flawlessly for me for about a year now. It shreds games and the screen is beautiful. Keyboard could be better.

Samsung Series 5 3G Chromebook (Titan Silver) Reviews

Customer Ratings:

I've been testing the prototype Cr-48 since February. I expected to just use the device for a few weeks and then go back to my desktop system. But instead I changed a few of my habits and stayed with it ever since. There is very little difference between the Cr-48 and the production Samsung. Size is about the same, keyboard almost identical. Cr-48 was coated with a rubbery material that you either like or hate. Samsung is more traditional glossy plastic.

Both machines have very bright and crisp displays in a wide format. The screen itself is of the traditional non-glare type. I can't imagine why anyone would want a screen with glare but I notice many new systems come that way. I guess if you work in a totally dark room the glossy screens are fine. The second version of the Chromebook from Acer is said to have a glossy screen for anyone that wants that.

I'll second what others said that this machine is not for everyone. If you a big user of Apple products and happy with their "roadmap" to the future, stay with them. If you need all the specialized software that only runs on Windows, then you'd better stay there too.

But... If you are tired of running virus scanners, clean-up utilities, disk defragmenters, firewalls, and tired of having to ask a relative or neighbor to get your machine working again (or worse having to pay someone to do it) then cloud-based computing may be for you.

Chrome OS is a slimmed down (very) version of Linux that boots in 8 seconds and awakes from sleep almost instantly. There is no desktop, so the graphical interface is the Chrome web browser which takes up the whole screen as soon as you log-on to the machine. There are some "hidden" aspects to this OS, but you can only get to them by flipping a special switch for those who like to experiment, and the machine keeps track of the fact that you have done this. Security experts know that no system is safe if you grant physical access to an attacker, but the Chrome notebook does everything it can to protect your locally stored information (even though there isn't much of that). Each user must log into the machine and that causes his and only his files to become unencrypted for use. Signing off causes those files to be encrypted again. But very little data is stored on the machine anyway and the entire solid state "disk" is only 16 gig, so pack-rats need not apply. The idea is that you store all your documents in the cloud (you are not limited to using Google products to do this of course). While you *can* download files, typically you do so simply to turn around and upload them somewhere else. You can display photos and play MP3 and MP4 files locally but that is about it (for now anyway). In addition to the SSD space you can store local files on a USB stick or memory card (as used in cameras). Theoretically files you store on the SSD drive will get erased automatically after a while (like a month, though I haven't seen this happen yet). So if you feel you just HAVE to have some files to carry around with you, a 16G USB stick is probably advisable.

If you want to let a friend use the machine, just sign off and they can use "Guest mode" and your stuff will be safe, no matter what they do. Also anything they do will get erased when they are done. If someone else will be using he machine regularly they can also sign in with a Google ID rather than using Guest mode and their files and yours will be kept isolated from one another.

I'm not sure what it is I like about this keyboard as it mostly resembles other "island keyboards" but I bang pretty hard on the keys and they usually register without too many mistakes. I don't feel that I am in danger of breaking the thing as is the case with many new notebooks or keyboards. The mousepad as others have mentioned is HUGE. I am not a big fan of mousepads so even with a notebooks I tend to carry a mouse with me. I recently went visiting needed to use the mousepad for a while though and found it acceptable. I'd say a cut below the Apple mouspads, but not by much. Remember that most of what you get from a mousepad is done in software, not hardware. When the Cr-48s came out there were lots of complaints about the mousepads being almost unusable, but with each new release of the OS things got better and I'm sure that will continue.

With Chrome OS being a young product so far there is still room for improvement, but the improvements are coming fairly regularly and they are totally non-disruptive, downloading in the background and automatically activating the next time you boot. Even that first boot after update doesn't seem to take longer as with some OSs.

There are three "Channels" for updates: Stable, Beta, and Dev(eloper) depending on how risk averse you are. There is also a USB stick based recovery procedure should your machine get "hosed" which can happen on the developer channel or when playing with the developer switch.

Why is there a developers switch? Well, security is a big goal of Chrome OS. There are no virus scanners needed, but the OS does do a self-check during those 8 seconds it is booting up, and when your files are decrypted they are check for tampering as well. The developers switch bypasses some of this paranoia, and also gives you access to additional parts of the file system that are normally off-limits. In addition you are given access to a more complete set of Linux/Unix commands some of which could get you into trouble. People have run other version of Linux, Windows and even the Apple OS on Chromebooks by flipping the developer switch, but then that is rather missing the point of a machine that is designed specifically for cloud-based computing. On the other hand, if you have been keeping your stuff in the cloud, and happen to trash your system while on the road, getting it going again doesn't take too long or involve too many steps (and I suspect might eventually only entail pressing a reset button or something).

Finally, on communications, WiFi set-up is as easy or easier than Windows or Apple machines I've used. Previous connections are memorized by default. All the protocols up to and including "n" "just work". In a pinch you can tap into the 100M of free Verizon wireless 3G coverage. In a real pinch they have various for-pay coverage after that. I've tried it just long enough to know that it works. On a trip I can imagine tapping into the "unlimited" plan for a day at a time between WiFi enabled hotels.

Cons: (1) I wouldn't have minded a wired Internet option as well, but with notebooks getting thinner and thinner it would probably be hard to squeeze the connector in there. So far the "n" version of WiFi maxes out my router's speed anyway. (2) Only VGA connectivity to external monitors... else I might be tempted to use this as a desktop machine with a larger monitor. If there is indeed a Samsung "mini" desktop system waiting in the wings that will probably be a better way to go anyway (and might well be significantly cheaper than a laptop). (3) There is a way to go for "apps" for this ecosystem. there are advanced applications that demonstrate what *can* be done such as music composition, technical drawings, photo editing (and of course Google Docs which handles normal office needs) but almost everyone will run into situations that require a "legacy" system to handle. For example, you currently have to use a special set-up on a Windows or Apple machine to print, unless you have one of the very new "e-printers" that have an e-mail address associated with them and support their own network connection. If the Google "roadmap" holds steady I fully expect these issue to be addressed in the not too distant future.

In the mean time, I'm sitting comfortably here on my couch with my Chromebook, and not tempted to sit at the desk where I have a "more powerful" system. Come to think of it, I have more power in the cloud than I could ever afford at home. With proper interfaces, everything I could need.

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I am very happy with my Samsung Chromebook. I had been looking for a computer that was fast, easy to use and did not keep breaking down so when Google announced the Chromebook Pilot program I signed up and got the CR-48. I really liked my CR-48 and therefore bought the Samsung Chromebook with 3G at the Gilt flash sale. I've had it now for a few days and am very happy with it.

The Samsung Chromebook is very light weight and portable; and I like its clean looks and solid finish. The keyboard is amazing and the trackpad is HUGE. It also feels a lot faster than the CR-48. The software on the CR-48 kept improving and getting better in the 6 months I had it and it feels like its gotten even better on the Samsung Series 5. There's now a file manager and a media player and it is super easy to upload photos to Picasa. And ofcourse it has Chrome which is fast.

The setup was ridiculously simple. As soon as I logged in all my apps, bookmarks and settings came in and it felt like I was back on my old computer. In all I think I went from closed box to fully ready in a couple of minutes. This was truly amazing. All the other benefits of the CR-48: the fast boot, quick resume and built in 3G are all there in this Chromebook.

I would recommend a Chromebook to anyone; but when people ask me if this is right for them this is what I say: it's great if you primarily use a laptop/ notebook for your personal stuff which, at least for me, is almost all web-based gmail, facebook, amazon, youtube, google docs. For 'work' I use design software (Adobe CS5, Autocad, etc) that needs serious processing power and a large screen; and thus I use a high-end laptop, but that means it's heavy and cumbersome. The Chromebook is my personal computer and it works perfectly for that purpose we leave it lying around the house and pick it up whenever we need to do something that is not work related. It also helps that its battery life is phenomenal. When my parents (NOT tech-savvy) were over they also used the CR-48 a lot and it worked great for them. I plan to get a new Chromebook for them too. So if you want a notebook for personal use that works fast, is reliable and inexpensive, get this one.

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**UPDATE**

I've removed a star from the previous 5 stars because I had to recently send my Chromebook back to Samsung when the battery quit working. It absolutely refused to take a charge. I suspect the battery is not the problem, but either a software or hardware glitch is responsible, and the Chromebook forum's recommended action to remove the battery can't work as this battery is embedded in this model.

I hope this isn't symptomatic of a poor design standard from Samsung. I used to really like Samsung, but I've been having more and more problems with their products as of late. My father's three year old $3K+ 54-inch plasma screen went out and we ended up replacing it with a new Sharp LCD-which cost much less than fixing the Samsung. Let's hope Samsung gets their product quality back up to where it once was.

FWIW, I still very much enjoy using it and believe the concept to be excellent!

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Recently, I purchased this Samsung Series 5 Arctic White 3G Model Chromebook. For those of you who don't know, Chromebook is a notebook computer which runs Google's Chrome OS and is for the most part just a Chrome browser in a notebook. I know, it sounds rather simple and not very exciting. But, knowing how much I depend on Google for business and after doing a bit of research, I became interested enough in it to purchase one and try it out. Here's what I now think of it after using it for three days.

Early impressions are extremely positive. It has many of the features I really like of the iPad while also retaining much of the functionality I like in netbooks. I should mention, I run a virtual company and we pretty much run on Google Apps, including accessing email in Gmail, creating and editing documentation in Google Docs, and with most spreadsheet work done using Google Spreadsheet. We aso like Google Presentations as a collaborative tool for creating slide presentations. We use many online tools, including Basecamp, Freshbooks, Quicken Online, Dropbox, FogBugz among others. So, it's fair to say, we do a whole lot of computing already 'in the cloud.'

The implementation of the Chrome browser is great. It looks and behaves exactly the same on Windows and MacOS, which was a bit of a surprise to me seeing how it's based on a Linux kernel. When I first logged in, the Chrome browser already had all my bookmarks and personal preferences setup as I had on my other Chrome installs (PC and Mac), which was a nice surprise. In fact, install should have been a snap, but a forced ChromeOS update hung a couple times, forcing me to hard restart, but it finally hooked up. I'm not sure, it may be an issue with my bandwidth, ISP, or even the Google Chrome update servers seeing I got mine as fast as possible, along with, I'm sure, MANY MANY others.

The Samsung Chromebook is a bit larger than netbook computers, but smaller than most notebooks. The keyboard is easy to use. It's fairly light for a notebook but still weighs twice the iPad2. The Chromebook display is much higher resolution at 1280 x 800 vs the iPad's 1024 x 768 and the Chromebook has a whopping 2GB of memory versus the iPad2's wimpy 512MB (iPad 1 is only 256MB). Both iPad and Chromebook use solid state drives, with the iPad having three configurations to choose from: 16GB, 32GB and 64GB. This Chromebook only has 16GB, but does have an SSD slot along with a couple of USB ports where you can add more memory. Because the Chromebook focusses on connecting to the Internet and storage in the cloud, I don't see lack of local storage as a significant detractor.

Chromebooks can be purchased from $349 to $499 (this one), the topend being a bit more expensive than one might expect. I think this price may come down as more of them are sold, still they are quite competitive when priced against current tablet models including iPad.

The Positives

Extremely long battery life. No kidding. Reportedly it can run continuously for 8 hours. I've not had to recharge any more than once per day-just like my cell phone and iPad. I also have Sony Vaio and MacBook Air laptops, and neither get even close to iPad or Chromebook in battery life.

Instant on. And instant connection to wireless. My Chromebook takes 8 seconds to boot-from a cold start. Closing the lid puts it to sleep and it resumes from sleep instantaneously, much like my AirBook. But unlike my AirBook and more like the iPad, the wireless connection seems to be instantly connected. I've set mine to force a password login from sleep mode, something I would encourage anyone to do who owns a Chromebook or iPad.

3G so I can connect anywhere. Combined with extreme battery life, this is one of the most valuable features of this particular model. Furthermore, Verizon gives away free 100MB of transfer per month for the first two years of ownership. I used to think having a wifi hotspot was just as good, and I do have one of those as well, but my good friend convinced me otherwise after seeing him pull out his 3G iPad, check his email and put it away in 30 seconds. The darn wifi hotspot takes over two minutes just to boot, not to mention having to connect it to a laptop, iPad or iPhone. As such, I'd never use it to quickly check an email or Google an address.

No auto-correction, it's replaced by good spellchecking. I find when I send emails on the iPad, I have to constantly check to see what iOS has automatically corrected and changed. I know I can turn it off, but sometimes it does come in handy, just not always. It's SO MUCH EASIER TO TYPE emails on a Chromebook than on an iPad-and this is one of the reasons folks like my business partner, an extreme typist, may prefer a Chromebook over iPad as an Everday Portable Computing Device (EPCD).

Large trackpad with MacOS type functionality. I do admit, I mostly prefer Apple's implementation of trackpads. Two-finger scrolling and a physical click directly on the trackpad help make it easy to use. Still, dragging and dropping is somewhat difficult, just like on my MacBook Air, which IMO is better done with two fingers on opposite hands. The feel of the trackpad is very smooth and works as well as on Mac devices.

Keyboard modifications make it actually easier to use. There's no caps lock key, which surprisingly to me, is not missed at all-in fact, it's better because I don't accidently hit it when typing. It is replaced by a search key which opens a new browser tab and highlights the URL field. If you really want CAPS LOCK back, you can choose to do so in Chromebook settings. Also, the mostly useless function keys on other keyboards are replaced by much more useful keys like: forward, backward, refresh, full screen, show next window, brightness and audio volume buttons. Much better.

Printing is easy to setup and just works. I was able to easily setup my Epson wired and HP wireless printers to work with the wireless Google Cloud Printing. I was a bit concerned this would be an issue, but it turns out it just worked-not as seamlessly as Apple's AirPrint, but easy nonetheless.

Multi-user accounts make this a family computer. As I mentioned before, I'm all setup on Google Apps, and so is my wife and daughter. Because I don't need to worry about viruses on the Chromebook, or any files getting damaged or lost as they're stored in the cloud, I can easily lend my Chromebook to my wife and daughter for them to use. They each use their existing Gmail account sign on and then they're good to go. So, if my wife goes out of town, she can take the Chromebook with her to check emails, bank balances, etc. and it's more secure because of the 3G access (We all know those wireless access points are not always very trustworthy!).

Lost or damaged Chromebooks aren't as expensive as one might first imagine. The first thing I think about after spilling Red Bull on my notebook keyboard and watching the screen fritz is "what data have I lost?" -and this is the real expense of a lost, stolen or broken laptop. When all the data is stored in the cloud, that question pretty much goes away. Furthermore, the Chromebook is not as expensive as my MacBook Air or Vaio, so if something does happen to it, no data is lost and it's less expensive to replace with a new one which is up and running in no time at all. This is huge, and one reason I'd like to talk my Dad into using one, as sometimes he forgets which file he left on which computer or he downloads new Windows apps which 'promise' to speed up his computer, but instead install viruses, which I later have to remove.

Economic model is great for small businesses. You can 'rent' a Chromebook for between $20-30 per month for employees, and Google will take over all help desk responsibilities. This is huge, and IMO, a real gamechanger. The business administrators can configure all employees Chromebooks from one central interface. And, if your Chromebook breaks it is immediately replaced free of cost. This is huge for small businesses who can now spend less on IT and more on productivity-assuming you have no need for standard business apps like MS Office, which many, like us, have given up in favor of Google Apps. For those diehards who absolutely need to run MS Office, there are several HTML5 remote desktop computing solutions which allow Chromebooks to run remote virtual instances of Windows7 running Office and other Windows apps, but it seems counterproductive to the ease-of-use premise of Chromebook.

Chromebook runs Flash with no problems-along with several other web application frameworks. There are many web applications which try to replace desktop applications using Flash and Flex.For instance, Aviary.com has a bunch of really cool apps including their Phoenix image editor which mirrors much of what Photoshop can do-and they all run in a browser using Flash. I've had no problems using these products including HTML5 apps which allow me to FTP into WordPress sites, and even edit directly the php and CSS files directly. Certainly, there are many more on the way. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for either iPad or Android.

The Negatives

A few keyboard issues. There is no delete key. There is a backspace key. For Mac users, this is probably no big problem as the Mac doesn't have one either. But for many of us Windows users the delete key is critical to our workflow. Hope this is fixed in newer versions. But Mac users will be disappointed with the undo,cut, copy and paste keyboard shortcuts. There is no Apple command key so you have to use the CTRL key as a modifier, which is quite a finger stretch for those trained on the easy Command-Z,X,C and V workflow.

There is no Netflix. Yet. For those of you hooked on Netflix, it's rumored to be in the works, but currently there is no way to play Netflix. I suspect this is because the OS is based on Linux and for some reason, Netflix has some specific requirements which only run on MacOS and Windows and iOS.

There are many applications which have no online counterparts. No decent 3D apps are available as web apps. And of course neither support for the real Photoshop and MS Office or my favorite programming language, LiveCode. We all have our 'gotta have' applications, and many of mine are just not available.

No GoToMeeting or Skype. For me, these both are two of the biggest detractors right now for Chromebook. I depend on both these apps during the day, and both are supported on the iPad. Though, frankly, GTM on iPad is pretty bad-you can't initiate a meeting nor can you do any sort of screen sharing. Google Voice does work on the Chromebook. While there are plenty of rumors, there's no word yet on when or if there will be an HTML5 or Flash version of Skype. There are some pretty decent chat clients. One is

No Network, No work. This is a common complaint for most reviewers of Chromebook. But, for me, it's not such a big deal. I only want to use my Chromebook when I need web access, so I purchased it with 3G built in. So, unless I'm flying somewhere, or way out in the country, web access shouldn't be much a problem-and if I can't have Internet access, I doubt there's much I really want to do. Also, I don't think of my Chromebook as my only machine, only as possibly the one I may end up using the most.

Final thoughts

First of all, I hope others see the value in owning a Google Chromebook. Because as more users buy them, more companies will have to take note and begin support for them.

As products and operating systems become more and more complex, the simplicity of accessing and storing data on the cloud using only a browser is appealing to those who crave for a simpler and easier way to do things. This is an important step in lessening our collective dependency on older and more antiquated OS'es, which are providing less and less value to us as they become more and more complicated. Fact is, modern OS'es have been looking like the same animals, doing the same things, offering the same features. Apple's new OS named Lion now has many similar features as Windows 7, including the much needed ability to resize a window from any edge. But also, looking forward, Lion also adds some very interesting iOS features, such as implementation of fullscreen mode which does away with windows-and acts more like a fullscreen BROWSER-just like Chromebook already does! I expect if ChromeOS is successful, it will start to implement Android type features much like Lion has adopted iOS capabilities.

I personally think Chromebook is excellent family based computer as well as perfect for many small businesses. And for myself, someone who owns a desktop PC, Mac and Windows laptop, and iPad, the Chromebook will be an interesting fit. It will be telling to see how much time I spend using it-my guess is it will take over much of the space my iPad used to use. I enjoy the iPad because of it's instant on, super long battery life, and super fast and capable connectivity to the web-all things make it a superb Everday Portable Computing Device. The Samsung Chromebook has all of this PLUS I can now view Flash, type emails without looking at the keys (instead of hunt-and-peck on iPad), and have an overall better browsing experience. We'll see.

Honest reviews on Samsung Series 5 3G Chromebook (Titan Silver)

Pros:

Battery Lifethis outshines my Sony machine. With the sony I can last about 2.5-3 hours. on this machine I can get over eight hours, a huge plus!

Cloudit is very nice to have work synced up with my main Sony machine. This is of course if you are comfortable using Google's web applications. I would make sure not to utilize the cloud for any sensitive information.

Boot-Upalmost instantaneous! Definitely nice to not have to wait on a desktop to load up

Cons:

Keyboard layoutSome minor quips about button placement. The top row of function keys have been replaced with web-centric keys, I never use them! I having been using Alt + Arrow keys to navigate and Ctrl + R to reload on my Sony I still do this. There is no delete button, instead the power button takes up the position where the delete key resides on my Sony. I have to consciously adjust my typing since all i have to work with is a backspace button. The Caps Lock key has been replaced by a dedicated search key, I hardly used the Caps Lock key, so I have tendency to not use the search key as much as the designers had intended. Other notable missing keys that I had used often are: home, end, page up, and page down.

MousepadI have been using both a Sony Laptop and Macbook Pro, both with multi-touch functionality. It is disappointing to to not see similar execution built into the over-sized touch pad. Right clicking is a little awkward using two fingers to get the right click menu. However, Drag and Drop is made painful by placing one finger down and using the other to drag the item around the screen, while keeping the other one still in its place. Not very well executed, and can be uncomfortable.

Data100MB for one month! Ridiculous with the amount of content on a single page, I would be surprised if you didn't hit the ceiling by the end of one week let alone a couple days. I checked my facebook page, logged into gmail, and updated my tweetdeck app, in a matter of 15-20 minutes i had used up 12MB of the 100MB allowance. The pricing on the data options are very unreasonable. 5G of data for one month will set you back fifty dollars! Of course this is the same treatment that smartphone users have to endure, an unfortunate consequence of an oligopoly .

Google Music Betahaving been an early adopter of the chromebook, I would have thought that Google Music would be pre-installed or at least a definite invite.

Removable Media I tried plugging in my Western Digital 1 TB external to test out the file manager, that I had read about. After about 3 minutes of waiting, I gave up and unplugged the device. It was taking way to long to try to read the files.

Lack of AppsThe Chrome Market has many apps, but very few great apps, while this is most likely due to the infancy of this platform, I find the lack of options a little diappointing.

Notes: The computer was designed with the sole purpose of consuming content on the Internet. It does not disappoint in this arena. However, I can not recommend the device as a laptop replacement, or content generator. It is very convenient for traveling, being light weight and able to connect to either 3G or nearby wireless networks with ease. I would say this would be a suitable substitute for smart phone web browsing allowing you to save battery life on your precious iOS or Android device. I am satisfied with my purchase, and believe it is a good first attempt.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Samsung Series 5 3G Chromebook (Titan Silver)

For people willing to evolve to cloud computing and with access to good WiFi or 3G most of the time, this is a great product. It is not going to totally replace a Windows or Mac computer for most people, but I find I can do 95% of my daily computing much faster and easier with my Chromebook. Before I bought it, I was ready to replace my 4-year old Windows laptop which is running like molasses now, and was not looking forward to spending days setting up a new Windows machine between migrating over all my files, uninstalling all the bloatware, setting up the antivirus and firewalls, installing all my programs, etc.. But now, with my Chromebook (which took less than 5 minutes to set up out of the box), I don't have to replace my old Windows laptop at all. I can just keep it in a drawer and pull it out for the two times a month I need to use it. If my Windows laptop ever totally dies I can replace it with a used or low-end cheap Windows laptop since my primary computer is now my Chromebook. This is saving me money and lots of time in the long run, and it's the reason why you would want a Chromebook and a Windows/Mac laptop at the same time.

Now onto a review of the Chromebook itself battery life is really 8 hours with normal use, as advertised, and it really does cold-boot in 8 seconds and resume from sleep in 1 second. Once you get used to this, everything else will seem like a throwback from the stone age. The screen is very bright and nice and the keyboard is a breeze to type on. Instead of the cryptic F1 through F12 buttons you'll see on top of a Windows laptop keyboard, you have browser navigation buttons like Back, Forward, Refresh, Full Screen, which is very convenient. The trackpad takes some getting used to because it has multi-touch features and has no buttons (you physically press on the keyboard with one finger until it clicks for left click, or with two fingers for right click), but after a few days, I was proficient with it. It works fine with a mouse too. It feels super light and thin to carry. Many of the software issues reported in earlier reviews have now been fixed by Chrome OS updates which comes out automatically every 6 weeks. I haven't experienced even a single crash of the browser in 2 weeks of daily use. The build quality is very good in my opinion. In terms of web page loading performance, it's pretty fast much faster than a comparably priced laptop. Hulu and other flash-based video is a bit jerky at 720, but if you turn it down to 480 it gets much better. Streaming video on Netflix works great, no jerkiness at all. Rhapsody/Napster and Amazon Cloud Player works great for listening to music, and of course, so does Google Music Beta.

All the reviews that say you should just get a Windows netbook for the same price and run Chrome browser on it instead to get the same experience just don't get the whole Chromebook concept. Not only will you not get instant-on and 8 hours battery life out of a Windows netbook, but you'll have to deal with all the required maintenance of Windows. You can get a new Ultrabook or Macbook Air now for 2-3 times the price of a Chromebook that gives you (almost) instant-on and 8 hours battery life, but it'll still be running Windows or Mac OS with its endless time consuming updates, the background churning of the anti-virus/malware protection software, the battle with the bloatware. Despite all this maintenance, your Windows machine will just get slower and slower as time goes on, and if you lose it or damage it, you're going to be back to square one setting up a new machine. On the other hand, a Chromebook requires zero maintenance, and over time it just gets faster and faster with OS updates that refresh the image. If you were to lose or accidentally destroy your Chromebook tomorrow, you can get a new one, turn it on, and literally be back exactly where you were in less than one minute. If you log onto a friend's Chromebook, it will be as if you're using your own since with your Google account login it will sync all your bookmarks, themes, and apps automatically no matter what machine you're using. This is revolutionary.

Now, since most criticisms about a Chromebook revolve around what people think it cannot do, let me debunk some myths:

Printing: Yes, it can print. Google has a service called Google Cloud Print that works with web connected printers sold by HP, Epson, and Kodak. Basically you send the document directly over the web to your printer. Getting one of these printers will allow you to print directly from the Chromebook or a smartphone or a tablet (Android or Apple iOS). If you don't have one of these printers, you can still print from your Chromebook by sending the print job to a Windows or Mac machine instead, which will print it to any printer it is connected to.

Microsoft Office documents: Yes, you can work with Microsoft Office documents. Google Docs, a fully functional web-based word processing/spreadsheet/presentation productivity suite, can open Microsoft Word and Excel documents by converting them into Google Docs format, and then can save them back in Word or Excel format after you are finished editing if you want to. Also, Microsoft offers a free version of Office Web Apps and a free 25 GB cloud storage Skydrive account, which allows you access to versions of Word, Excel, and Powerpoint through the web browser.

Local Files: Yes, you can download files from the web onto your Chromebook. It has 16 GB storage and also has an SD card reader. So for example you can pop your SD card out of your camera onto your Chromebook and look at the pictures or upload them to Picasa or whatever cloud storage you use. You can connect to USB thumb drives or USB hard drives and manage the files on those. You can download an MS Word document to your Chromebook and upload them to Google Docs or Microsoft Office Skydrive for editing and sharing. It's a little more cumbersome to work with local files than on Windows, but it does work.

ZIP files: Yes, it opens Zip files with the latest version of the OS.

Working offline: Contrary to what is stated in many reviews, a Chromebook is not a brick when offline. You can read Gmail and compose new messages which sync when back online. You can view (but not edit) your Google Calendar and Google Docs documents, although Google is reportedly working on bringing offline editing back to Google Docs. In the meantime, there are free apps like Scratchpad which allow you to do light word processing offline and sync with Google Docs when back online. The media player can play MP3s and MP4 video files from local storage or an SD card. Lots of games work fine offline. You can read your Kindle books offline with the Kindle Cloud Reader. I'm sure there are many more apps on the Chrome Web Store that work offline I haven't discovered. In short, if you're on an airplane flight and there is no WiFi, your Chromebook can still keep you plenty occupied.

And here's what a Chromebook cannot (at least I haven't figured out a way) that will cause you to dig out a Windows or Mac computer:

Java/Silverlight: No, the Chromebook currently does not support websites that require Java or Silverlight. However, it does support Javascript, which is what you're more likely to run into on a daily basis. Most people will not miss lack of Java or Silverlight support.

CD/DVD drives: Chrome OS currently does not support external CD or DVD drives. But seriously, CDs and DVDs will be going the way of 8-track tapes and vinyl in a few years.

Scanner: Chrome OS does not support use of scanners yet.

Bluetooth I think the Samsung Series 5 and Acer AC700 actually have Bluetooth radios, but the Chrome OS doesn't support it yet. It's supposedly coming soon.

Desktop applications: You can't install programs on the Chromebook. The locked down operating system is one of the key benefits of the OS (it provides the security against malware and makes the OS simple and light), but also it's primary drawback. Since you can't install any programs on the Chromebook, desktop applications like Microsoft Office, Skype, or video editing tools will not work. There are existing web applications that can replace many of these things and many more are coming out every day, but if you find that you simply cannot live without desktop applications and must use them all the time, then a Chromebook is not for you.

Now, the question of a Chromebook vs. a tablet comes up in many reviews. I personally own a tablet (Asus Transformer) as well, that I'm very happy with, but I use it to consume media and do some light web surfing, or my kids use it to play games. When I want to be productive and create content, I use my Chromebook as it is much better for that. I even spent some time using my Asus Transformer with the snap-on keyboard dock, and trust me the Chromebook is much more functional for productivity. A tablet wants to be a tablet and not some kludgy tablet/netbook combo, since the main benefit of a tablet is its portability and form factor.

If you are thinking about buying a Chromebook, I recommend that you spend a couple of weeks seeing if you can do nearly everything you want on a Windows or Mac laptop using just the Chrome browser and no desktop applications. When you want to write documents or spreadsheets, use Google Docs, Microsoft Office Web Apps, Evernote Web, or equivalent. Use Gmail or other webmail program rather than Outlook. Use Picasa or Flickr or equivalent for your storing and editing images instead of keeping them on your hard drive. Stream music rather than playing MP3s from your hard drive. Use Google Talk instead of Skype. If you find yourself completely paranoid about where your data is being stored and whether or not you can get to it in case of calamity, then a Chromebook is not for you (conspiracy theorists are not the target market). If you find yourself constantly exiting the browser to open up a desktop application, then the Chromebook is not for you. But otherwise, I think you'll find that the world has evolved to a state where this is not only possible but easy and liberating to live on the web, and the Chromebook is a great vehicle for navigating this new world. Thin clients are the cutting edge of the future (maybe a bit too early for many people).

Final thoughts some things I hope Google/Samsung/Acer improve for future hardware / software releases:

Bluetooth support

Offline Google Docs editing right now Google Docs are available for viewing offline and there are workarounds for offline editing like Scratchpad, but full offline editing and sync capability with Google Docs would fix all these issues.

Just a little faster: The only noticeable performance issue is jerkiness when playing flash video at high bit rate. This should be fixed.

Price: I think the optimal price point is $50 less than current MSRP, making the Acer AC700 Wifi model $299, the Samsung Series 5 WiFi about $379, and the highest end model Samsung Series 5 with WiFi+3G about $450. Google and the OEMs should not try to cheapen it anymore than that, but rather they should play up the value for that price point. I bought my Samsung Series 5 Chromebook used on eBay for much less than MSRP, and I think I probably be less enthusiastic about it if I paid top dollar.

A Skype web app would be nice too since even though Google Talk/Hangouts is just as good, not as many people use those services, but since Skype is now in Microsoft's hands I am not holding my breath.