Lenovo Ideapad Z575 12992DU 15.6-Inch Laptop (Gun Metal Grey) Review

Customer Ratings:

The laptop came ready to go out of the box but not before I replaced the existing 4 GB ram with an 8 GB set. It comes loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and I was also delighted to find out that there wasn't much bloatware but definitely enough to warrant a clean wipe. I then installed a fresh copy of Windows 7 Pro 64 bit. It handles basics tasks without breaking a sweat and can even run many current games, like Diablo 3 and Star Wars: The Old Republic, at mid to high advanced settings with a maximum resolution of 1366x768.

Current Windows Experience Index:

Processor: 6.7

RAM: 7.3 (@ 8 GB)

Graphics: 5.9

Gaming Graphics: 6.5

Primary HD: 7.1

It's very lightweight for its size and seems sturdy enough, although I'd feel safer with it in a case even when at home. The attractive gun metal grey finish rounds out a great package. Definitely a great buy for a mid level entertainment laptop if you're looking for one at a sub-$500 price range.

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Bought this AMD-based Ideapad because it seemed that folks thought its Intel counterpart was problematic. I'm not the least bit disappointed. I needed a basic laptop with moderate horsepower. I replaced the OS with my copy of Windows 7 Pro and it's a fairly fast machine, I won't need more than its 4GB of RAM or an SSD drive. I use a fast 32GB SD card for Microsoft's ReadyBoost feature but I'm not sure this laptop even needs that. I use it mostly for web surfing and remote sessions to my more powerful computers downstairs, but like to watch videos every now and then too. As many have noted, the sound is adequate but could be improved, however I'm hard of hearing and usually use headphones anyway. The touchpad is textured but it's not distracting, and it's positive and accurate. I do miss a middle button -this rig has a single button bar below the touchpad that acts sort of like a rocker for right and left clicks. Seems strange but it works fine. Very minor complaints for an otherwise excellent computer, I certainly think my money was well-spent.

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High Performance and best value all in one on this Lenovo Z575 Laptop. MUST HAVE laptop for under $500 with great graphics HD card that handles most games new on the market! Does DVD Burning in minutes not hours!!! Great energy management system and boot optimization software!! Key board and lights are outstanding! So far this Lenovo Z575 exceeds all my expectations! You will be satisfied with the performance of this Lenovo laptop. Recommended!!

Honest reviews on Lenovo Ideapad Z575 12992DU 15.6-Inch Laptop (Gun Metal Grey)

This PC plays Max Payne 3 at 1336x768(high) with normal settings(such as texture quality) on, and Skyrim plays at high smoothly and ultra at a mostly playable framerate! Im amazed considering how cheap this laptop is! I played the games as vannila as the computer was out of the box, so no overclocking, modding, etc. The fans do a great job, keeping the computer at a just below warm temperature when gaming, and cool when browsing/ doing light loads on cpu. Don't let the 1.5 ghz scare ya, you can still overclock since the computer came unlocked. Laptop came 1 day early, Monday, when it was supposed to come Tuesday. Amazons shipping is great, fast, and efficient. I highly recommend it!

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Got this used for $300 on ebay about 6 months ago. Upgraded to 8 gig ram. Runs fine. Can play World of Tanks online. Has about 2 hours of battery life. Two minor problems. When I unplug the ac, the laptop many times freezes. Also many times the laptop does not turn off when I try to shut it down, and I have to be careful to not "hotbox" it. However, just holding down the on button will do a force shutdown.

HP Pavilion dm1-4010us (11.6-Inch Screen) Laptop- Gray Review

Customer Ratings:

I got this HP to replace my Toshiba 13.3" netbook that finally BSOD'd after 3 years. I was very happy with my Toshiba and honestly afraid I wouldn't like this HP, but it was time for an upgrade. My previous lappy before the Toshiba was an HP DV(don't remember what the numbers were!) and I have a HP desktop, so I'm familiar with the brand and durability.

A few things: I mainly use this computer for the internet. I almost always have 2 browsers open with 4-5 tabs open in each of them (I play a lot of those stupid flash games on facebook and may have 4 up at once without any issues) and have never had lagging, except when my comcast was wigging out. I watch a lot of youtube and have only once experienced a choppy video, after which my comcast promptly went down for 3 hours (pretty sure the computer didn't have anything to do with that!). I have installed Photoshop CS3 (I know, I'm outdated, but that program is freaking expensive!) and used it almost daily since getting my computer a couple weeks ago-no issues with that either.

So, the pros:

1. Quiet as can be. I haven't heard the fan or hard drive once.

2. Audio is incredible. Thank you Dr. Dre.

3. Super fast everything.

4. Full sized keyboard is comfortable and has a solid inlay so little nitty gritty things can't get down there easily. It took me literally 2 seconds to get the feel of the keyboard.

5. Screen is more than big enough (I thought it might seem too small-the 10" acer/asus ones are just teeeeny to me and I wondered if the extra inch would really make a difference-well it does.)

6. Very sturdy connection between screen and main unit

7. Very light/portable & amazing battery life. The estimate says 9.5I'm getting closer to 11 hours (I keep my brightness at the minimum).

8. Sturdy power cord connection.

the cons:

1. It is a finger-oil magnet. Not so much finger prints, but rather little finger pad shapes. I gave up trying to deal with that and now just ignore the back of my screen. I'm thinking of getting some vinyl design thing to put on the back of the computer to combat this issue.

2. "Gray" is a poor description (more the fault of Amazon than the computer, though)-on the Amazon page, in the HP description and on the HP site, it says "Finish: HP Imprint finish in charcoal" -I would say that's a lot closer to correct. It's not quite black, but nowhere near gray.

3. HP likes to give you a lot of extra crap software that you either don't need or don't want. I still haven't figured out how to turn some of it off, and I'm not sure I ever will. All I can suggest is closing everything out when you start the computer.

4. The webcam isn't fantastic. I don't know how it can be called "truevision HD" when the picture looks like my webcam from 2005.

If I could do a 4.5 review I would, but I've decided to round up.

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This is the second iteration of HP's dm1z 11" AMD powered netbook. The first one had great reviews, boasting excellent graphics for a netbook (even better than many low-cost laptops) and amazing battery life. The latest model, the dm1-4010us has a newer but similar processor and physical redesign.

While HP might not include a lot of 3rd party bloatware on their machines, they certainly have a lot of 1st party crap that the computer would run fine if not better without. As a computer science student, I have access to some free software from Microsoft. Luckily, that includes Windows 7 Home Premium. I tried to keep the computer stock, but the combination of excess software and four partitions (one recovery, one for HP's software, one for the operating system, one for the bootloader which is impossible to avoid) was too much to bear.

First, with stock software:

The computer was laggy at times. Boot time was slow and some programs took a long time to launch (also an affect of the 5400RPM hard drive). It comes with Norton Internet Security, which is totally useless since Microsoft has their Security Essentials software and is perfectly fine, and very quit. It just sits in the notification area and doesn't bother you unless something tries to get in, something has gotten in (i.e., YOU let something in), or it's doing a scheduled scan.

Beats Audio seemed cool at first, but it took me a few dozens times to adjust the sound to get it perfect. Beats Audio, to me, is essentially the "bass boost" button on old budget stereos.

HP bundles some software that's supposed to help with keeping the computer cool, connecting to networks, getting customer service, games, etc. I found all of that completely useless, since having the correct display driver will likely keep the fan going when it needs to, Windows has perfectly fine networking tools, customer service can be found by calling or emailing HP, or doing a simple web search.

You'll also need to upgrade the BIOS, and you'll need to do two in succession since it's had two updates since the product launched. The updates must be applied in order.

With a clean install of Windows 7:

It's important to download the WiFi driver and/or ethernet driver FIRST and store it on a USB flash drive before reformatting the hard drive and installing a retail copy of Windows 7. I didn't do that, so I had to install Ubuntu first (install, not use the live CD, because I had to install the WiFi driver there too, and it required a restart) and then save the driver to a USB flash drive.

Without any of HP's software, the computer was significantly smoother. Boot time was shortened, less memory was being used, and there's nothing like seeing a blank list under your "uninstall programs" control panel. Of course, it's necessary to download and install the display driver from HP, but that's where I would stop. Audio sounds perfectly fine (through headphones... more on that soon) without the Beats Audio software installed. Strangely, it seems to sound better without it installed at all over having it installed but not using it.

Hardware:

I love the sleek black look. The chiclet keyboard is great. But (here comes a shocker) the touchpad kind of sucks. Whether I use the Synaptics driver or the built-in Windows driver, it's not fun. Actually, I find it less frustrating when using the generic driver built in to Windows. The feel of the touchpad is weird, because it's textured. With the Synaptics driver installed, you can use two-finger scrolling or edge scrolling, pinch to zoom, rotate, and there's a little dimple on the top right of the touchpad that can be double tapped to disable the touchpad. Without the driver, it just works and tracks your finger movement; no scrolling, no disabling feature, no rotating.

The display is really nice. I actually really love the display. With the ATI driver installed, it will auto-adjust the brightness (sort of) based on colors on the screen. For instance, if you are viewing a black image, movie, web page, etc., and then switch to something white, the screen will dim a little bit. Colors look great, purples look purple (if you've ever seen a crappy display, purples look light blue and hurt the eyes) and blacks look black.

Video plays nicely, that includes 1080p. No problems with that. I'm able to play Portal 2, which defaults at native resolution with the following settings:

-Anti-Aliasing: None

-Filtering Mode: Bilinear

-Wait for Vertical Sync: Enabled (Double Buffered)

-Multicore Rendering: Enabled

-Shader Detail: Very High

-Effect Detail: Medium

-Model/Texture Detail: High

-Page Pool Memory Available: High

The game played well and looked good, but the framerate seemed pretty low (you can just tell). I think lowering a few of the "high"'s to "medium" would help.

The webcam is your standard ho-hum webcam. It'll work, people will see you, but it won't blow anyone's mind.

Speakers kind of suck. They're fine for system sounds, but you'll need speakers or headphones for music and video... but it's a laptop. Not even $1500 Apple laptops have incredible speakers. There's a tradeoff that must be made in favor of compact size.

As for weight, I guess it's average. It's no Ultrabook or MacBook AIr, and it's a tad heavier than some other netbooks, but those other netbooks are kind of cheap and cruddy. The dm1z feels sturdy and well built.

You know how a lot of Windows laptops have bumpy bottoms? There are bulges all over for the battery, hard drive, and other components. This one is totally smooth except for the feet at each corner. Also, the entire bottom plate comes off for access to the computer's innards. That means easy, painless memory and storage upgrades and replacements. My only complaint with the case (the lid and the palm rest, keyboard too actually) is how it holds onto oils. We humans will probably never stop secreting oils from our pores, and, unfortunately, some manufacturers will always forget that.

Ports:

On the left, an HDMI port (I hook mine up to a 32" 1080p TV and all is well) adjacent to a USB port, with the power input near the lid. On the right, an ethernet port near the lid, a VGA port for older monitors, two USB ports, a microphone jack and a headphone jack (two separate, not a combo-jack) and next to that is an SD card slot.

Battery:

Sometimes Windows will show that I have 7 hours left, other times it has shown 7:40, most times it will show 3:40. As I write this sentence and unplugged the power cable with a 100% charge, I hovered over the battery icon and it's displaying 5:30. I have brightness slightly below 50%, Zune open and playing music, Chrome is open with one tab, Microsoft Seucurity Essentials is hanging out in the notification tray. That's no where near the 7 or 8 hour battery life advertised, and it's not as good as last year's dm1z. However, before I reinstalled Windows, the computer had a pre-configured HP power plan. I'm sure I could tweak Windows' balanced plan to match HP's power plan and increase the battery life.

Conclusion:

HP's latest upgrade to its dm1z line is a good one. I really like the simplified deisgn over the previous model's silver and black color and unneccesarily fancy lid design. It's also nice to have buttons under the touchpad this time around. I wish battery life was as advertised, and I wish computer manufacturers would ease up on the crapware. You can buy a computer from Microsoft's online store and get one with no bloatware at all... a pure Windows experience. Overall, I like the computer, but if I wasn't on a budget, I would have purchased an 11" MacBook Air and dual-booted it with Windows. But for under $500, there aren't many viable options, and I think the dm1z is one of the best options out there in the price range.

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I really like this netbook; it's light, fast, great screen. It gets 3 stars because of the INCREDIBLE amount of crapware it came loaded with. After I cleaned it all out (which took hours) I got 20 gigs of my hard drive back.

There is the option, in the setup function, when booting, to restore to a clean image with drivers & operating system only BUT it failed three times. What a surprise. What a waste of my time. On principle, I will not be buying ANYTHING that HP has preloaded.

If you can put up with that (I'd almost pay more not to have to deal with this almost) then go ahead & buy it if you are a savvy user that can clean it out. Otherwise, be prepared to put up with a lot of aggravation at first.

UPDATE

Well, A year of ownership has decided me against buying any more HP laptops. This was my second try (the first didn't work out well, either).My wife and a friend were also seduced by this same model, and none of them have been problem free.

My issue: The "delete," left and right arrows do not work. I called, and after the usual going over a checklist with three people, they sent out a box and I shipped it in for service. Back in ten days very nice. I was impressed with the turn-around time. Fixed? No. Same problem. If they can't fix a simple mechanical problem like that, why bother to try again?

I'll use this till it dies or I can't stand it any more. HP is permanently off my shopping list. Too bad.

Honest reviews on HP Pavilion dm1-4010us (11.6-Inch Screen) Laptop- Gray

I had an HP dm9500 for several years. 17" was way too large and heavy as I started to travel a lot more. I bought a netbook, but it was way underpowered. It was extremely frustrating, even with max (2GB) RAM.

I saw that AMD was releasing the Fusion APU, and was waiting when HP released the DM1z. I didn't go for the first iteration, I never do, but waited to see the individual reviews from users. I ordered it at Thanksgiving 2011. I've been using it for a couple of weeks now, and it is exactly what I wanted.

I upgraded to max RAM (8GB)and the graphics performance is extremely good. I use Chrome and have 10-20 tabs open all the time, along with Word, Excel,Powerpoint, and Photoshop. It hasn't choked once. Switching between windows is fast, with no screen lag. Video rendering in Sony Vegas is not that fast, but the CPU is the weakest component in the machine. (Windows Experience Index is 3.9 based on the CPU. Game graphics and disk data transfer are in the 5.9 range. )

I love the tool-less access panel the bottom of the computer slides off and everything is easily accessible. It took less than 2 minutes to install the additional RAM.

It's not as light as the netbook was, but it is extremely light anyway. I can run around campus with it all day with no problems. Battery life is running over 7 hours on the HP power saver plan. I imagine that I can easily get the advertised 9.5 hours if I drop the screen brightness.

It runs cool as advertised, and the Beats Audio is fabulous with my headphones. Speakers are good for a small laptop. The screen is bright and surprisingly large compared to a 10" netbook. That extra 1.6" is really worth it. Keyboard is good key spacing makes it easy to touchtype. Trackpad is OK,especially with the dedicated buttons, unlike the first version, and I like the doubletap to turn it off. Build quality feels good and solid.

It came with a lot of programs but many were ones I use regularly, so it was good for me Evernote, Skype, Cyberlink Webcam software and Norton. It took very little time to get it up and running and everything installed.

I'd have given it a 5, but it's got no USB3 port. VGA and HDMI ports are good, given that I teach and sometimes need VGA for a projector and sometimes HDMI, depending on what equipment is in the lecture room.

Basically, it's exactly what I wanted, for the price I could afford at the time. If I had $1000 to spend, I would probably have gone for a Macbook Air and loaded Windows 7, but for the price, this is perfect.

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Background:

I was looking for a netbook that was small and light enough to be extremely portable, but powerful enough to play 1080p MKV files without hiccups. Expecting to pay over $600, I found this machine for under $500. After reading mixed reviews regarding high definition video playback, I decided to give it a shot.

First Impressions:

The unit is very sleek. It's been compared to a sports car, since its about as thick as a USB port towards the front, but slopes up slightly to the rear. It even has "Hewlett Packard" printed on its "rear bumper", reminding me of my Mustang. The monitor folds all the way back to 180 degrees, allowing me to stand the system vertically, balancing the front lip on my stomach while laying down and still get a great angle of the screen..something all of my other laptops couldn't do. The sound is surprisingly good for the size. I wasn't expecting much but thanks to "Beats Audio", the speakers pack a punch and get much louder than I thought they would. The battery life is pretty good. Obviously run-time will vary depending on usage and power settings, but so far I've been very pleased running it on full brightness and the "high performance" power option.

Upon my first couple days of use, I was slightly disappointed in the performance. For simple tasks like web browsing and word processing, it performed very well, but HD youtube and .mkv videos were choppy and I was starting to wonder if I should have spent another $150-200 on an i3 machine. However, after uninstalling much of the HP "bloatware" and configuring Flash & VLC Media Player to utilize the gpu, it felt like a new machine. Now I can stream 1080p videos over my 802.11n network with no problems! There's an extra memory slot to add another 4GB of RAM, and at some point I'll probably replace the HDD with an SSD, so the performance is only going to get better, but even as it is now it's performing admirably for what it is.

I have yet to try gaming, but will update the review when I can speak to its performance. Also I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.

Overall, I am very satisfied with my purchase. Sure, it's not the fastest computer, but it gets the job done for what I need and at this price point it's a no-brainer!

Pros:

Great value

Extremely portable

Capable sound

Cons:

Lots of "bloatware" that I had to uninstall for best performance

Fingerprint magnet

Windows Experience Index Scores:

Processor 3.9

Memory 5.8

Graphics 4.6

Gaming 5.9

Hard Disk 5.9

Best HP 2000-2b30dx Laptop Computer / 15.6-inch Display Screen / AMD Deals

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $579.99
Sale Price: $349.09
Today's Bonus: 40% Off

I have been searching for a laptop for a while now. I finally decided to get this one. At first I was hesitant because of windows 8 but this is one Impressive computer for less then $400! If you are looking for a great computer at a great price then get this one! People were saying that games are slow. To be honest its not that bad! I hope this helps you decide to buy!

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I finally get to use my own computer now that my wife has one of her own. So I love it.

Best Deals for HP 2000-2b30dx Laptop Computer / 15.6-inch Display Screen / AMD

I have been needing a new laptop for a wwhile now and after reading the reviews on this one, it sounded perfect for me. I maade the right choice! It has all the features I was point for at a great pprice! Windows 8 takes some getting used to but overall I think it's worth the effort.

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using it right now. have had it for a week. has EVERYTHING i needed and works wonderfully

My computer arrived 2 days early ... it is in perfect condition , it is the perfect size,I could not be more satisfied and pleased .Thank you, thank you, thank you !!

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I had a windows XP and wanted to upgrade to a newer version. It is a lot different and will take a little more time to get use to the difference between the two computers.

Cheap Lenovo G570 4334EGU, 15.6" Intel Pentium Dual Core B950 2.1GHz (2MB

Customer Ratings:

What a bargain -almost impossible to believe. MSRP on Google sites showed costs anywhere from $379, all the way up to nearly $600. I paid $309, with free shipping and no tax (thank you, Amazon!!). I bought this laptop to replace my Toshiba, which was heading toward an imminent hard-drive crash. I have owned numerous laptops and PCs, but this is my first Lenovo. I knew it was essentially a new generation of IBM products, so I faith that I would like it. It arrived promptly to my P. O. Box here in Hawaii (the vendor, Lei Gu, was amazingly fast, and deserves a hearty recognition), and was easy to use, right out of the box. There are many things I love about this computer, but perhaps one of my favorites is the keyboard: the letters/numbers pads are slightly raised (far more than on most laptops I have used), and, since I have long fingers, this particular component makes it far easier for me to type, and to preclude hitting incorrect keys. At $309, it was simply a steal; in my opinion, probably worth nearly twice that cost. This is unquestionably the best laptop I have ever owned, and I am an instantaneous fan of Lenovo. Amazon rocks (as always).

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Lenovo G570 4334EGU, 15.6" Intel Pentium Dual Core B950 2.1GHz (2MB Cache), 4GB Memory, 320GB HDD DVD RW

EDIT on 2012-11-26 :

This vendor has increased the price to 382 bucks. It's still one of the best deals out there at this time.

I bought 2 of these for my twins. One works perfectly. The other has a bad wifi adapter. I know this because I was able to swap to the adapter from the other "known good" laptop. In trying to fix the 2nd laptop the hard drive failed, so I sent the laptop back to Amazon.

#### Note that AMAZON'S 30-DAY RETURNS DO NOT OFFER A REPLACEMENT UNIT.

I can't replace it at anywhere near its original cost.

Since this vendor has increased this laptop's price by 50 bucks in a single day, I bought a Lenovo B560 model (from another vendor) with a faster processor for the same higher cost, 380 bucks. It looks nearly identical since it's just a different model. The Lenovo 43302AU B560 has an Intel i3-380M processor instead of a B970 processor in this Lenovo G570 4334EGU. The Lenovo 43302AU B560 has flatter keys which I don't like quite as much, but its keyboard works fine.

Guess what ? THE Lenovo model B560 43302AU laptop ALSO HAS THE IDENTICAL BROKEN WIFI ADAPTER !

I contacted Lenovo directly and they will send me a free-shipping-back-to-Lenovo box to replace the wifi adapter. I refused to give them an 80 dollar loan just to be able to have them send me a new adapter so I wouldn't have to send the bad adapter back to them first. Remember that it's their problem to begin with, so I won't pay anything to get it fixed under warranty.

Note: I ordered an Intel WIFI adapter anyway (Intel 6200 IEEE 802.11n (draft) Wi-Fi Adapter Mini PCI Express 300Mbps) from 3Bay for a whole 13 bucks and it arrived 5 days later. I substituted it and this newer Lenovo B560 now has working WIFI. I did this because I've read several reviews very critical of Lenovo's Customer Support. It looks like they were right.

??? Just how long does it take Lenovo to ship to me an empty shipping box so I can send back the broken-from-the-factory WIFI adapter ??? Both "mini PCI-E" adapter cards are about 1 inch by 1.25 inches by 3/16 inches incredibly tiny !

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

Pros:

-) The incredibly low 335 buck cost [Edit: Not any more ! It's now 382 buck as of 2012-11-26 ]. The price keeps bouncing randomly anywhere between $350 and $380, most times at the higher end.

-) Only a few crapware programs for a low cost laptop : The "Lenovo" games written by some other company, the MS Office trial that you pay big bucks later on to keep using it and the ooVoo (?), a Skype look-alike, but you pay for it. And finally, the biggest piece-of-garbage antivirus: Norton. (Use Microsoft Security Essentials. It's free and is much better all around. Google it It's available directly from Microsoft. Did I mention Security Essentials is free ?)

-) Great looking screen, though it has a very glossy finish. The screen has a very narrow vertical viewing angle range, but it;s entirely acceptable.

-) A trackpad with no glitches and a keyboard that works well. I really like the raised keys.

-) Didn't have to pay extra $ for a larger hard drive whose extra storage will never be used.

-) 4 (four !) USB ports, one of which doubles as an eSATA port. The Lenovo B560 model has 4 USB ports, too. Must be a Lenovo thing because most other cheaper laptops have only 2 or 3, never 4.

-) Good overall stiffness of the case and solid hinges with just enough friction to keep it fixed at the same screen viewing angle when the laptop is moved around.

-) Two RAM slots, not just one. Only one was occupied by a 4GB DDR3-1333 SO-DIMM module rather than two slots with 2GB modules. System max RAM is 8GB. Another 4GB module costs only 18 bucks at NevvEgg.

Cons:

-) The One-Touch restore disc creation program has an annoying bug that requires you to repeatedly press the Start button 40 times to actually start burning the initial disc. No kidding ! This happened on both the 2 different Lenovo laptop models. They have the same faulty backup utility.

-) A replacement battery costs around 65 bucks, which seems to be twice the amount I expect for a typical 6-cell unit. Maybe the usual 3rd-party battery vendors haven't come online. But, maybe they never will.

Observations:

Even though the Intel B970 processor is supposed to have only about 80% of the processing power of the third generation Intel i3 2.1GHz processor, it actually seems faster than my Toshiba with the Intel i3. Maybe this B970 processor is better matched to the video graphics.

I think this wifi adapter problem has been a marketing disaster for the Lenovo 'G' and 'B' series of laptops, so they are being sold off cheaply. BE PREPARED TO REPLACE THE WIFI ADAPTER ON YOUR OWN (with a compatible Intel model). I bought a brand new Intel 6250 622ANXHMW adapter on e3ay. It's very easy to install this when you have a small Phillips screwdriver. This is far less hassle than returning the entire laptop, especially when Amazon won't replace it. Lenovo will replace it under warranty, but you'll probably end up with another bad wifi adapter and you'll be out of a laptop for 6 to 10 weeks.

This is a great laptop once the wifi adapter is working.

It seems ideal for the 95% of all the laptop users who do only email, web browsing, word processing and light gaming. The G570 4334EGU is definitely *not* a toy and runs Windows 7, not the new "eye candy" Windows 8 version designed for all the idiot kiddies.

NevvEgg is selling this model laptop for 100 bucks more than this vendor. Be careful comparing Lenovo models. There are multiple G570 models and B560 models which differ mostly by the processor which determines the overall speed.

Here's Lenovo's own "whitelist" of compatible wifi adapters: Intel 625DNX, Intel625DGx, Intel 515DAG-WX, Intel 6200N, Intel 1000N, Gtc BCM4313, Qualcomm AR9285 HB95 BGN, Liteon AR9285 HB95 BGN. Personally, I would only use an Intel adapter. The laptop came with the Qualcomm Wi-Fi adapter which I later found out is notorious for its incredibly high failure rate. What was Lenovo thinking ??? They are *supposed* to know better.

.

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I like te laptop, just thought it came with numbers key board but not!! but is an excellent computer!! great

Honest reviews on Lenovo G570 4334EGU, 15.6" Intel Pentium Dual Core B950 2.1GHz (2MB

For the money this is a basic budget laptop, but it does everything you'd need a basic laptop to do, It's quick and light. It also has a numbers pad, which is rare on a laptop but very very useful if you work with numbers a lot.

Time will tell how this holds up as it hasn't been in use for more than 2 months, but at this point very impressed with it.

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Stopped Charging After 1 week.

Called Lenovo Tech Support on a Saturday, Sorry our system is updating, we will call you back in 24-48 hours.

Not Confidence Inspiring.

Buy HP dv7-6c90us (17.3-Inch Screen) Laptop

Customer Ratings:

I bought this laptop to replace a five-year old Gateway. I was looking for a larger display and the blu-ray drive was appealing, as was the 8GB of RAM and I7 processor. However, this machine has a serious flaw that HP has been unable to correct. The cursor jumps around randomly when you are typing. For instance, it's happened two dozen times already as I type this review. It will jump several lines up or down or just go back several words. It will also just randomly highlight lines of text, which causes them to vanish as soon as you type another letter. Despite hours with HP tech support, they have been unable to correct the problem. An online search reveals that this is a problem endemic to HP laptops. The only way I can correct it is to disable the track pad and use a mouse. Yet I could never use a mouse when traveing, for instance, because this laptop takes up all the space on an airline tray table. There's no room to use a mouse. I'm returning this and getting a Mac Book. I'd give it zero stars, if I could (it took me five tries just to type this last sentence). One more thing, despite the advertised 10 1/2 hour battery life, the best I've gotten is five hours and that's just word processing (or trying to use Word, I should say). A major fail for HP.

Status update:

After more time with HP Tech support, the problem has still not been resolved. We've removed and reinstalled the track pad drivers and reduced the sensitivity of the pointer and palm detector. However, as long as I make absolutely ZERO contact with the case, I can type successfully. If my palms rest anywhere within ten inches of the track pad, the pointer starts jumping around. I'll give HP tech support good marks, because they're always available and they've been trying their best to solve the problem. It's also nice to speak with someone who speaks English as a native language. The display is terrific and blu-rays look great, so in effect I've paid a thousand dollars for a blu-ray player. I'm adding a star because of the responsive tech support and all the other features that work well, everything but the hypersensitive track pad. I'm still leaning toward returning it for a refund but I'm going to give HP a bit longer to try to solve the problem. Stay tuned.

March 28 Update:

On the verge of returning this machine, I decided to give it one last lengthy test. I took it on a two-week road trip, which covered over 6000 miles,and included plane travel and two days on the Empire Builder from Chicago to Seattle. I truly wrung out this machine. I've pretty much solved the jumping cursor problem by never resting my hands on the case. It's tiresome and annoying, which is why the max I can rate this is four stars. Actually, I can rest my left palm on the computer with no problem. It's only the right side of the case that seems to cause the problem. I've tried netbooks and an IPad to get my work done when I travel. The keyboards on netbooks are just too small and the IPad . . . well, it's a fun gadget for some things and a great picture viewer, but for the heavy duty word processing, spread sheets, data bases, and the like that I need, it falls far short. And I like my Kindle far better for a book reader. But I digress. During my trip I was working on research projects, designs, contracts and proposals. I was also watching blu ray movies, editing photos and videos, and making data discs backups. This machine did everything with flying colors (mostly). I've managed to get the battery life up to eight and a half hours, which included watching two movies, and four hours of heavy duty power point work. I love the power of this processor and the ample RAM. Graphics are terrific. I'm carrying it around in a TSA-friendly (an oxymoron, if there ever was one) Mobile Edge 17.3 back pack. Yep, this laptop is big and heavy, but the Mobile Edge fits nicely on my roll-aboard,so that's pretty much a non-issue. It took me a long time to like this product but I'm satisfied now. The only thing that keeps me from giving it five stars is the wonky track pad. At least I've raised my rating from the original one-star I gave it.

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I have been a video production enthusiast for several years. I now work with my 3rd upgrade of Pinnacle Studio 14 HD editing software. I work with HUGE HD files, & have up until now only used beefed up desktops, & had to endure still, painfully slow processing & crashes. This new HP laptop is quite amazing stable, FAST, & a pleasure to work with. The only improvement to my particular needs would have been a Bluray burner, not just reader, but with the 2 USB 3.0 jacks, I'll probably just buy an external one. I also purchased a fan cooled platform to set this new laptop on, although in observing the processor meter, I have not seen it any higher than 80%, even when renduring a 20 minute AVCHD movie. I also have to praise HP for shipping out a laptop WITHOUT all the excess included software nearly everyone dumps. 'Love screen resolution & Beats sound system. Awesome machine.

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The computer would be pretty good if it worked. The fan stopped working on mine w/in the first 4 months no dust or abuse it just stopped. After 3 hours of running all of HP's diagnostics, I asked for in-home service per the in-home warranty for which I paid and additional $200. HP told me that the in-home service generally was given for screens and hard drives, not for fans. There was nothing verbally or in any of the written materials when I bought the warranty that says anything like that. The written materials promise in-home service for the laptop, excluding only batteries and software. HP told me that I would have to send in the laptop for service in 7-10 days. My experience w/ this laptop: poor workmanship and deceptive warranty.

Honest reviews on HP dv7-6c90us (17.3-Inch Screen) Laptop

I just got this laptop today. It was pretty amazing. I love it. I love the sound, the screen and everything. Perfect for me. I think HP Simple pass is really good. It work very well and very convenient. I think it a little bit warm even I put hp cool sense on but it not too bad. Touchpad is pretty good. Design is pretty nice.

Update: 05/05/2012

Since I got this laptop, I have no problem with this laptop at all. Everything work great! I would absolutely recommend this product and recommend HP brand for laptop because the price is reasonable. If anyone want to ask me a question about this product, you can comment in here and I will answer as soon as possible. I hope my review can help make your decision.

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Do yourself a favor and just google 'HP dv7 fan noise' before buying this laptop (if you can call it a laptop since it gets so hot you can't put it on your lap). I don't know what I was thinking when I bought it. I wanted a desktop replacement but I got an extremely loud, very hot, very obsolete, very heavy and very expensive piece of bla bla....

Oh... and if you need to return it to HP for a repair make sure you know how HP SimplePass works (this is the fingerprint authentication) because your passwords are stored in a clear text format and someone with admin rights can print them out !!! Unbelievable but true. Some tech guy in some repair shop can print your user name and password from your back accounts, trading accounts, etc, etc..... (an admin change or set your password and then it can login as you and print your passwords out). HP will also not allow you to remove the hard drive before you send it back for repairs so good luck cleaning up all the information you have on your laptop, if/when you need to send it back to HP.

As you can see, I have some strong feelings about this, after spending more than 1,000 on it less than a year ago... I bought it from HP directly.

Discount Acer Aspire S3-391-6899 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Champagne)

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $699.99
Sale Price: $499.99
Today's Bonus: 29% Off

I can't believe that there are no reviews for this item and I was a little hesitant to buy it since it did not have any reviews. I was also looking at the Zenbook but the reviews were mixed and the price was high, I decided I could wait a few more years for them to work out the glitches. I have tried all major brands out there and they were just ok to absolutely horrible, and I really can do without a disk drive as I never really used them in my other lap tops and why bother paying for something you won't use.

This is lightweight, the screen is great, the touch pad is large and all the connections are on the back which is a personal preference for myself. I bought this mainly to take with me on road trips and for dedicated use for personal stuff. My favorite feature is the bluetooth, I connected a stereo headset and found the sound quality to be crisp and clear, perfect for those times when I may want to listen to something without disturbing others.

I got an awesome deal with a amazon promotion so for the 550.00 I paid for this I found it to be an exceptional value given the size, weight and features!! A great item and price for students!!!

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I've had this ultrabook for about 2 months now, and it's performed quite decently so far. I'm not a very picky consumer, and I don't gripe about small inconveniences, especially when considering that the price for this ultrabook is rather reasonable when compared to others in the same tech/spec range.

Pros: it really is ultra-light, the sleek design is similar to the 13-inch version of the MacBook Air (though the material & build are likely not as sturdy or well put-together, hence the immense price difference), and it has a sleek outer shell that doesn't retain fingerprints or stains so easily (which is something that netbook/notebook users seem to care about). Most importantly, it is immensely portable. The i3 processor is quite capable when it comes to intensive web use (which is what I mainly do with it), and it does start up quickly from its "sleep" or "hibernation" modes. Some consumers have mentioned that the speed slows down considerably when having too many windows/programs open, but I can't verify if this is the case with my own machine since I'm not the kind of user who likes to have more than 8 Word documents open while using a tab-heavy Google Chrome open as well. If you expect to execute intensive business-related activities on your notebook, I definitely would recommend stepping up to an i5 or i7 processor; I own an Acer laptop with an i5 on it, and it's able to handle larger-order tasks like that. My advice: use an i3 ultrabook for basic to intensive web use (especially cloud use), and since this machine has a 500 GB harddrive, you'll be able to save quite a lot of material on it.

Cons: the 5.5 hour battery life is something of a fabrication. You get 2.5 to 3 hours MAX if you use it for that long without break, but if you intersperse your sessions with occasional use (closing and re-opening it from time to time) the battery will drag itself out through a good part of the day. I suppose this kind of intermittent use was what Acer meant by "5.5 hour battery life". One user has accurately recognized that the screen is liable to shake too often if the notebook is moving too much; so long as you have a sturdy table or desk that doesn't budge or shake, the screen won't shake at all, even if you're clacking away at the keys with any degree of intensity. I imagine that, in general, the keys might not be responsive...at first. In the case of this notebook, the key for letter "C" was not loose enough (as if it were semi-stuck into the groove of the body), but after 2 months that particular key became loosened and now is about as responsive as the others. I had (and continue to have) a similar problem with the larger i5 Acer notebook I own: the blue "Fn" key still does not work in conjunction with the Fn controls (such as turning the volume down or up, increasing or decreasing the brightness, etc.), but since that key and its related controls are not absolutely crucial to the basic performativity of the notebook, I don't give it much mind. I still get the performance that I need from the machine. In any case, I think that Acer machines generally seem to have a slight looseness or vulnerability to their build--which is why their prices are what they are. So I can't complain.

All in all, I'm satisfied with what the notebook gives me: portability, sleekness, lightness, connectivity. I've been a consistent Acer user for a few years now (I own 3 machines by them), and I can't say they've disappointed me thus far. Even though the Cons seem to outnumber the Pros in terms of quantity, they are actually quite minor quibbles in relation to the fantastic price the notebook's offered at, and quite minor too in relation to the overall quality the notebook gives you; which is to say, it functions just as it is marketed to you (except for that fib concerning the battery life). And it really does hold up in style when placed next to the implacable army of MacBooks that you inevitably meet each time you walk into a cafe or library to work on something.

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I bought this to use for my work, which did not involve heavy graphics or such things, but just a simple process of having multiple Microsoft Word windows open together with a couple of Internet tabs open in Google Chrome, one or two Excel files, and one or two more text programs (e.g. Evernote).

And this computer is slow with that amount of load. It freezes more often than I would like -about three to four times DAILY -which is a wonder because it's not like I'm running heavy games on it. Is having about six to seven Word documents open together with two or three Internet tabs on Chrome too much for a new laptop to handle? I certainly did not think the i3 processor would be so slow as to be inadequate for my simple tasks.

UPDATE: Had this laptop for about four months now. Of the aforementioned problem, I contacted Acer service center and the man there told me to try reinstalling some drivers (he sent me links). He told me that if that didn't work, to try factory-resetting the laptop. Fortunately, reinstalling the drivers fixed the problem -for three months. After that, the same problem reoccurred -freezing, disability to click, etc., etc. I reinstalled those same drivers again, and the problem has been fixed. I suppose I'll keep doing this every time the problem reoccurs. Other than this, though, the laptop is usually moderately fast and functional.

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2 Months Update

So I have had the ultrabook for about two months now. For the most part it is still pretty good, but some issues have come up. Firstly, the screen does kinda shake a bit when you move it around and a little when you type. It actually shakes more than you would want a screen to shake. Secondly, my laptop has just started randomly turning off for some reason every few days. I know it is not a virus for sure, so I will look into that. Lastly, at times the fan can get annoyingly loud. Like a little too lound, and there is only one vent on the entire laptop. So that is why this goes from 5 stars to 3 stars.

Original Purchase Review

I had been shopping for an ultrabook for about 2 months for college. I had my eyes set on an acer S3 for a while, but this laptop on Amazon sealed the deal. I got it for 550 dollars at the time of my purchase (That Promo has now expired). But even at its current price. I would highly recommend the purchase. It is a very classy looking ultrabook. The new Champagne Color is really good to look at. I have gotten tons of compliments from friends and Family alike.

As for the performance aspects. The computer runs just as it should. It has instant boot up. Although I would venture to say that the Speed of the ultrabook is nothing to scream about. However, it does assure that I will never buy another computer that is not at least have a partial SSD. The Screen is decent. You get what you pay for, and then some.

If nothing else, the computer is worth buying for its aesthetics.

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First let me begin by saying that I am not a tech geek but rather a savy consumer. I researched many various styles of laptops and ultrabooks before purchasing this item. As you may know there are many options to match every demographic of consumer but as I navigated the many reviews and professional critiques I recognized that ACER was a reputable brand. I dug deeper (after owning a Dell, Samsung, HP and Toshiba)and this ultrabook compares with all of these top brand names.

I was in the market for a light weight, verstile, functional computer to be used primarily for school and business. In my research the ultrabook series appeared to be the way to go; this ACER Aspire S3 fulfilled my needs and desires. What I like and list as the positives: (1) stylish exterior design/good eye appeal, (2) keyboard layout is highly functional and comnfortable, (3) keys are soft to the touch and allows for quick typing with no sticking, (4) screen size is perfect for portability and for working with multiple MS Office documents, (5) ultrabook doesn't get hot when on my lap, (6) screen resolution is sharp and radiant, (7) start up speed is faster than my Samsung and HP laptops,(8) memory capacity is more than sufficient for maintaining school/business projects, and (9) Windows 7 software downloaded (not a fan of the new Windows 8).

I read the other reviews posted on this item and for me personally have not experienced any of the freezing syptoms, screen jumping and slow connectivity expressed by other consumers.

I would catergorize the following as the potential negatives (based upon my own experience): (1) WIFI strength sometimes weak and its not my router because I have seen the same with public connections; it appears to be unique to this unit, (2) mouse pad sounds hollow and unlike the key strokes it doesn't feel as comfortable to the touch but it works well, (3) speakers are not the greatest and if you want premium quality sound you would certainly need to add external speakers, (4) battery life is dependent on use, I have gotten between 3.5 to 4.5 hours without a charge -more windows open and multiple activities will drain battery quicker, (5) Note hybernation and sleep modes help with battery life and battery life on this ultrabook is superior to my Samsung, (6) placement of USB ports is unique and may not be comfortable to some users, for me it works, (7) power cord connector must be perfect fit worried I might break the pin, doesn't push in easily, and (8) ACER sent it with a lot of addons and extra programs not necessary which will require clean-up.

To this end, I really like this Ultrabook. It has excellent craftmanship and for my specific needs it was a smart purchase for the price. Despite some of the negatives listed I still rate this item 4 Stars and per my own experience and research suggest it to be a competitive alternative to the more expensive high-end ultrabooks or Mac Airbooks.

I hope this review offered pratical insight and was helpful to making a determination on whether to purchase or not.

Update:

I have now had this laptop for a few months and I love it. It is meeting all my needs very well. Some of the prior reviews and comments shared about potential problems I have not experienced. The light weight, versatility and performance are better than prior laptops -HP, Samsung and Dell. I use it for school and business and have no problems. Have received many compliments about its visual appeal. After a couple months of use the only draw back is the battery life -it does not live up to the manufacturer suggested battery life. Honestly, after about 1.5 hours of continuous use the battery will die. Best used on charger.

I would still recommend this laptop as an economical purchase; especially good for school or moderate use. Certainly just as with most laptops or PCs there are drawbacks depending on usage. Example, not a gamer laptop and sound is weak so may not be the best for watching movies or programs online. Had to purchase additional software and delete pre-loaded items that came with laptop since I didn't need them. Don't list this as a negative just noting for potential buyers.

To this end, if you are reading this review and considering this laptop for purchase I would recommend. Like you I went back and forth between different models before deciding upon this one and I don't regret my decision. Hope this review has helped....

Toshiba P745-S4102 - Laptop 14" Core i3 2350M Processor/ 6GB DDR3 Reviews

Customer Ratings:

Bought this 4 months ago and the hard drive just went. And I babied this thing. I was so careful. Sent it back on my dollar...they do not pay for shipping. They sent me a box with no instructions and very minimal packing. I couldnt believe they ship like this. But they tell you if you pack it yourself you are responsible for any damages that happen. Sent it back and now they are saying I owe them 280 bucks for a cracked screen but the hard drive is covered under the warranty. What?? Cracked screen??? Im can't even say how big of a mistake this has been purchasing this computer. Customer service is horrible. They just give you the run around and no one actually tells you what to do. I am so disappointed with the quality of computers. I feel like Ive been scammed. Zero stars if that was possible.

:(

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I could do any regular task(Microsoft word, PowerPoint, watch movies, videos,etc.) With ease. I could even play mmorpgs (2d and 3d with no high end graphics). Its perfect and light weight. Why not buy it?

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On performance, it does well for its price range. This is my first laptop and I have had it for over three months now. At first I was really bothered by poor battery life (under two hours) but once I turned down the brightness, a full charge lasts much longer. The speakers do well for its range. It does fine with fairly demanding graphics without excessive lag, but it is not a graphics-oriented machine. The webcam quality is grainy with low sensitivity, and the sound recording is of similar quality.

Overall, it does fine in a college setting and for typical personal use and the price is proportionate to performance. It is not absolutely perfect but very sufficient and manageable.

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I replaced my six year old desktop with this Toshiba.Working with pictures,I am completely satisfied with its performance.My wife's Toshiba has worked everyday for three years with no problems.

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It gives me everything that I want in a laptop. Love the sound out of the speakers. Also, I like how it doesn't get overheated like other laptops. I would recommend this laptop to anyone!

Best HP ENVY 17-1011NR 17.3-Inch Laptop Deals

Customer Ratings:

At the end of the day performance is the most important measure of success to me and this machine lives up to expectations here its definately snappy. In regards to games, I've installed Dragon Age, Borderlands, Crysis all run great at maximum settings. I'm confident this machine will handle my gaming needs for the next couple of years.

Nice fit and finish. Lots of metal bits and overall solid feel. Its not exactly light but for a 17" its respectable. It looks good enough to leave out when company is over. I had some concern buying site unseen because I know the previous envy models didn't quite deliver in this are but I think overall this version meets the bar. Its not a mac book but it gets pretty close.

Battery life has been good so far the extra 9 volt battery is an awesome bonus.

It does have a blu ray drive.

The screen is beautiful super clear, detailed and bright.

So in the two primary areas that drove me to purchase this vs. other 17" gaming machines performance and aesthetic this machine delivers.

I have a few usability complaints though..

The mouse pad. The problem here is that the click buttons are also part of the touch bad so when go to click on things your clicking finger will move the cursor. This happens often enough to be very frustrating.. maybe a patch will come out that will address. In the meantime I've been having to plug in an external mouse because I can't take it.

The PC does something strange when it sleeps when you open the lid it will resume but the screen doesn't come back so you have to open and close the lid once again and that will make the screen turn on. Not a big deal but a bug that bothers me. And the lid is a bit of pain to open no real place to get a good grip and its tight and heavy. Its more like prying it open rather than the nice smooth lid opening experience of the mac book.

Too much cluttering software pre installed and Windows disk not included making a clean install difficult.

The Beats audio is not that exciting but i didn't expect it to be. Sounds like a laptop to me at the end of the day.

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I'll be honest that a laptop from HP was far from my first choice. At the end of the day it was half the price of Apple and Alienware and way more stylish and feature packed than the Asus stealth fighter laptop. Every now and then I do want to transfer 10GB of movies and video's around so USB 3 and ESata ports in a desktop replacement laptop matter, something that Apple and Asus don't seem to care about. Heads up, this is a 17" but with 1920X1080 instead of 1920X1200 that you may have been used to before. This makes the laptop wider than my prior 17" Vaio I had owned... wide enough that it make the laptop feel massive. Enough so that I won't be carrying it around in a backpack anytime soon.

This unit ships with dual 320GB hard drives. First thing I did was order a SSD to replace the boot drive, so my experience is based on that modification. I ended up doing a fresh windows install so I never worried about bloat ware. Fortunately the installation files for everything short of the O/S were in a nice setup folder on the c:\ drive I replaced, so I can always re-install anything I may decide I want later.

At the end of the day this laptop is FAST. The windows experience index for the machine after the SSD upgrade is 7.0 which is good thing. Supreme Commander 2, Assassins Creed 2 both run with full detail at 60fps. There have been reports of unbearably hot palm rests and sub par quality on the assemblies. I had none of those issues. I'm gaming and surfing on a plain table (no cooler) and heat has not been an issue. In a quiet room I can hear the fan but typing the keys on the keyboard is louder.

The extras I like include the backlit keyboard, the status led lights on the mute and wireless function buttons, the led that lights up the RJ45 network jack when plugged in, the tiny led lights in the front left for power and harddrive activity, only having to remove 2 screws to replace the primary harddrive.

The only criticism would have to be the track pad. I've used a macbook with bootcamp and the gestures made more sense. Since the left and right "buttons" are simulated, the act of holding a "mouse" button down and dragging the mouse (when selecting text for instance) makes the mouse move in fits and jerks. I don't know if driver updates can ever fix that, but allowing us to simulate those interactions with just gestures (no physical clicks) would.

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I've been using this notebook for a few weeks and I'm very pleased with it overall. The system feels powerful and responsive but that power comes at the expense of cooling. Under heavy load the right side becomes very hot. Too hot to touch in fact and you can even feel the heat through keys like caps lock, tab and the left shift and ctrl. That's one of the few caveats of this system. The others are the lack of a FireWire port for capturing digital video and the lack of RAID support. Although the system uses two speedy Hitachi HTS725032A9A364 hard disks there's no option in the BIOS to create a RAID 0 or 1 array with the disks. In my opinion HP missed an opportunity there to squeeze a few more drops of performance out of the system with RAID 0.

Many reviewers have complained about the clickpad being quirky and annoying. HP has released an updated driver that fixes the problem and it's available on their web site. Once you install the update and familiarize yourself with the multi-touch gestures you realize they're very cool and convenient.

Oddly, HP has chosen to make the secondary controls of the function keys active by default. Meaning that if you press the key shared by F7 and volume down, the volume down control will be triggered. You need to press the fn key (between the ctrl and windows log keys on the bottom row) to trigger F7. This is truly annoying at first but a quick trip to the BIOS lets you change it back to the way it should be so the function keys are triggered by default and the fn key is only needed for the secondary controls like volume, screen brightness, wireless toggle, etc.

On the software side, unlike what the PDF specsheet states, this system does NOT come with Office 2007 trial or any other office productivity software pre-installed. The Corel video and image editors are present and accounted for but you'll either need to buy Office right away or install the free OpenOffice suite like I did.

Gaming is a pleasure on this system as you would expect. So far I've played Batman Arkham Asylum on it at 1920x1080 resolution with the quality settings turned all the way up and the game is beautifully detailed and frame rate is completely fluid. Of course the system gets hot as hell during gameplay, but such is life, I guess.

All things considered, I highly recommend the ENVY 17-1011NR to anyone who wants a powerful notebook.

Honest reviews on HP ENVY 17-1011NR 17.3-Inch Laptop

I was quite surprised with the packaging this laptop came in. The box is matte black and sturdy--leaving you with the idea that some people at HP are trying to make a statement. If you are giving this as a gift, the recipient will be quite impressed.

First thing I did after the 15-minute setup experience was to create the 5 backup DVDs. This takes 2-3 hours to complete. During that time I did notice the left side of the keyboard was warming up. It was really noticeable left of the trackpad, where my wrist was resting. I can tell that over time this will become a major annoyance, especially if I am taxing the processor. So, I am buying a laptop cooler. I spent the afternoon on the patio with the laptop sitting on a metal table with a lattice design, allowing air to access the bottom of the machine. This kept the left side of the trackpad much cooler.

The things you'll find in the box are two batteries and the power supply (brick). There is also a 2GB SD card. Plug that in and you'll be prompted to install the HP user manuals. No other cables or installation CDs.

One major disappointment is the lack of a 1394 port, which I use for my video camera. The up/down arrows are half-size--an unusual design concept--but they actually work just fine. The full size keyboard is one of the best I have ever used on ANY PC! The F10 key enables/disables the wireless connection.

This machine looks impressive. The case is aluminum in a steel gray color and shows no fingerprints. It has 4 USB ports, along with the others advertised. No dead pixels on the magnificent screen. I like the slide-in DVD tray design--no more hunting for the eject button which is at the upper right of the keyboard.

The Envy is quiet unless you are pushing the processor, then the fans will speed up and the heat level increases. My previous HP laptop had a screen size of 1920 X 1200, while this one is 1920 X 1080. I miss the extra screen height, but all manufacturers are going to a 16 X 9 format.

The reasons for purchasing this laptop were the processor speed, Bluetooth, Gigabit LAN and the USB 3.0/ESATA connections. I wanted a laptop that could process large video files and make my own DVDs. I'm not a fan of Windows 7 Home Premium so I installed Windows 7 Ultimate instead. It appears that the driver files on the hard drive were created on August 2010, but these files have a date of Jan/Feb 2010. As of this date (Oct. 12, 2010) the HP website has newer drivers for almost everything on the Envy. Windows 7 performance scores are all 7.0 or higher, except for the hard drives at 5.9. Installing a solid state disk (SSD) will bring the hard drive rating to 7.9.

I like the backlit keyboard--makes for easy navigation in the dark. A function key toggles it on/off. Another function key toggles the screen brightness up or down. I also purchased some additional items with the Envy: Microsoft Bluetooth Notebook Mouse 5000 Mac/Windows, Zalman ZM-NC2000Black Notebook Cooler (Black) and the Targus Deluxe Top-Loading Leather Case Designed for 17 Inch Laptops TLE400 Black). The keypad is somewhat of a nuisance. The two keys at the bottom of it are actually part of the whole keypad surface. Finding the keys by moving your finger to the keys causes the mouse to move off the point on the screen that you wish to click on. No other laptop I've ever had has shown this quirk.

Bottom line: If it had a 1394 port and a cooler surface (hard to find with a fast processor), I'd rate it a 5. But a 4 is not bad in the ever-changing world of electronics. And the Amazon price is $300-400 less than HP's website.

UPDATE: 11/17/2010

The heat level on the left side was fixed by purchasing the Zalman cooler. The Targus case holds everything (barely), including the cooler. The Bluetooth mouse works well except when the wireless LAN is running at full speed. Then the mouse locks up until the WLAN frees up. Apparently there is a single-thread chip driving the two processes. The F10 key turns both the WLAN and Bluetooth devices on/off. Using a Bluetooth mouse requires you to separately enable it in this instance.

I watched a 42-minute video last night while running on the 6-cell battery. At the end, there was 45% battery life remaining. A two-hour movie uses most the life of the 9-cell battery.

Prices should come down on this box as there is a 3D version now available from HP. Unless you really need a fast laptop, you might want to consider some of the cheaper HP versions available.

UPDATE: 06/21/2011 I replaced the 320GB boot drive with a Crucial CTFDDAC128MAG-1G1 SSD. Here's how they compared using HD Tune Pro:

__________BEFORE________AFTER

Avg Seek__14.7 ms_______.231 ms

Reading____69.3 MB/sec___253.9 MB/sec

Writing_____not tested____138.4 MB/sec

The speeds are lower than advertised because the HP Envy has an SATA II controller. An SATA III version would be faster. My Windows Experience Index went from 5.9 to 7.7 for the primary hard drive.

Since my laptop came with two hard drives, I was fortunate to have the required mounting bracket.

I used Acronis Home 2010 to clone the drive.

Other Thoughts: My SSD came with firmware version 6. I read that others were having lockup/freeze problems so downloaded version 7 from the Crucial website. The download is in .ISO format so I used Nero to burn from the CD image. Since my HP cannot switch the SATA controller from ACHI to IDE mode (this is needed to install the firmware), I used an older laptop to perform the firmware update.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for HP ENVY 17-1011NR 17.3-Inch Laptop

Just the facts. or at least anecdotal opinions (from a non-gamer who uses this type of device as a portable development workhorse):

The good:

* Fast. I've seen some other i7 units and this definitely keeps pace if not surpasses them. The memory and drives are very fast (2 x 7,200 RPM makes for some nifty RAID 1). Note that the graphics chipset seems to be set at 500MHz, not 1GHz but it seems very snappy to me still.

* The display is great -crisp and clear.

* It's VERY quiet. Amazingly the quietest laptop I've even owned.

* Virtualization works very well on this machine.

* I'm looking forward to using a USB 3.0 drive on this someday.

* Value for the money seems reasonable to me.

The bad:

* You can't have 3+ displays without a display port device. I'm seeing some confusion over whether it has to be active or not, but right now I'm guessing it has to be an active adapter to VGA or a display port monitor. I can't test the third display yet since I don't have an adapter...

* I don't like the mouse pad. The multi-touch function is a pain, especially since the mouse buttons are part of the pad. This makes resting your trigger thumb rather touchy. It'd be nice to be able to disable it entirely without having to screw with X11 but no Fn key seems to do that.

* The sound from the laptop speakers sucks. I'm a little biased on this since I'm going from the deep, epic sounds of the Harmon/Kardons of my Quasimodo to a set of speakers that have all the acoustic depth of a wet towel. When plugged into a more advanced system, they seem to work fine, but I don't really understand why I'm supposed to get all jazzed over this "beats audio" thing. The only thing it seems to beat is

* It runs VERY hot when first purchased.

The unavoidably H.P.:

* Upgrade the BIOS and all the drivers right away. Doing that alone decreased heat output greatly for me. (I haven't been to the hospital for palm burns since.)

* Battery life is not great, even with two batteries included. I'm estimating about 3-4 hours for BOTH TOGETHER. I capitalize not out of anger but to forewarn the wary shopper. This is a portable aircraft carrier, not a dingy. Higher heat levels = more power.

* Why oh why does Windows/HP feel the need to take all four primary partitions on their laptops. (Make your backup DVDs early. Especially if you're a Linux user and are planning to repartition but might want to make sure they're available for later. Just sayin'. You don't want to be one of _those_ guys that has to dig out the recovery NTFS out of the partition table by hand because you accidentally turned on the dynamic drive looking for a way to get an extended partition.)

* When initially started, before the BIOS upgrade, the fn keys would do BOTH the regular operation + the HP operation. Normally you would hold "fn" and then press F1 or what not, but the default state didn't seem to require the "fn" for whatever reason. The BIOS upgrade seems to have fixed that.

This would be 4.5 stars if possible since it fits my personal needs (if indeed I can get the third display), but since I can't I have to rate 4 since the machine isn't really perfect.

Reviews of ASUS G75VX-BHI7N11 i7-3630QM 3.4GHz GTX 670MX 8GB RAM 1TB HDD

Customer Ratings:

Its totally awesome. I purchased this for gaming after reviewing every other gaming laptops and got it a few days ago.

The best thing I noticed is that the Supreme Performance with Awesome Cooling System that keeps it super cool even after playing continuous hours of graphic intense games and thing is absolutely silent. I recommend this product for everyone who wants the best value for your money. This thing got a stunning solid design and build quality is excellent.

This is a newer model BHI7N11. Every thing worked fine for me. Perfect for Gaming. Came with Windows 8. I played Battlefield 3 with all setting tuned to ULTRA and works smoothly without even upgrading to latest graphic drivers. Latest Games can run on ULTRA settings without any heat or noise. Sound quality is awesome. Display has great viewing angles. It can even run games smoothly under battery. 1TB 5400RPM HDD is perfectly alright and is able to boot in to Windows 8 in 9 seconds. The GTX 670MX has the latest Kepler architecture that can perform well on the latest gaming titles.

ASUS is really the choice of champions.

PROS +

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+ Best Cooling System & Super Silent

+ Supreme Performance

+ Awesome HD Display with brilliant viewing angles

+ Great Sound Quality and Sub woofer

+ Large TouchPad and Smooth TouchPad Keys

+ Fast Boot in 9 seconds

+ Awesome full Size Keyboard

+ Great DVD drive & latest ports

CONS -Honestly Nothing

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Some users may feel its bit heavy. But its fine with me.

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wow what a great and powerful machine rarely runs over 100 degrees allday on my lap, a little heavy but the 17.3 screen is amazlng no more hp for me asus is well built and easily upgradeable. thanks asus

Discount Toshiba - Satellite C655-S5212 Laptop / Intel Core i3 Processor

Customer Ratings:

This is my first laptop, and I fell like I should have started with a worse computer.

I was drawn to the system from the cost perspective, and have found that the computer meets and exceeds my needs on many levels. Though I've had it only a few days, processing seems smooth, graphics are solid, overall function is great.

As of yet, there has been no power lag on any pages or programs.

I haven't tried out the DVD drive yet. I also haven't tried to run Netflix on the computer in an HD stream. Will update when those events happen.

So far, my only gripe is that 1) I managed to get a little coffee on it so far (still runs great though), and 2) sadly, this may become my main computer, as it seems to be better performing than my desktop at this stage.

I would recommend this product to anyone looking for a solid second computer for school, some business, or recreation. I'm sure there are better units out there, but for the money, this is an awesome investment.

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I purchased two Toshiba Satellites model C655 August 2011. I use one for school, they both have excellent speed and are comfortable to use. The only complaint I have with one is that the hinge on the right hand side binds, and has caused the body of the laptop to separate.

Best Deals for Toshiba - Satellite C655-S5212 Laptop / Intel Core i3 Processor

Had the computer about 1 month when the hard drive crashed. I only used the computer about 1/2 hour a day at most. Toshiba made it difficult and charges $25 to fix the problem, in addition to not having a computer for 2-3 weeks. I realize problems occur with computers, but I would appreaciate more flexibility with their customer service when a major internal issue occers within 1 month of owning the computer. Will not buy another Toshiba product.

Honest reviews on Toshiba - Satellite C655-S5212 Laptop / Intel Core i3 Processor

This is my 3rd Toshiba laptop, picked it up at Best Buy for $360.00. This laptop is plenty capable for what I and likely 95% of the population use computers for, day to day internet use, Itunes, Facebook, etc. The speakers are decent and the webcam is good for those that like to Skype. My three Toshiba laptops over the last 6 years were still cheaper than any Macbook Pro. You can't go wrong with this one!

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Toshiba - Satellite C655-S5212 Laptop / Intel Core i3 Processor

What I liked was no different than any other laptop would offer. I3 . windows 7, and it's plenty fast. That's where I stop though. First I noticed the new fancy futuristic hinge for the screen.As the lid opens, the hinge design wraps the bottom of the screen behind and under the laptop. Trying to be low profile and sleek they just wasted all the space of the back of the unit. Now you can't have any USB or anything plugging into the back. The power should have been there at the very least.But the power is next to the disc tray. So close it's less than 1/8" from the power plug. Super easy to snag the power cord as you close the disc tray. And now in 2012 / 2013 almost everything you add to your computer is through USB, this "thing" only has 2 USB ports, and there crammed on 1 side , the "wrong", left side along with the headphone jack the mic jack ,Ethernet jack and the external screen plug.All of that in about a 4 inch space. Most of those should be located at the rear of the unit. No usb jacks on the right where you might plug in a mouse? A backward layout design that you need a usb hub just to use a mouse and keyboard. while your phone is plugged in. After years of designing computers they choked bad with these beginner mistakes.

The worst problem is the screen. It has the worst viewing angle I have ever see. Sitting at my desk the you can choose from a bad angle where it's too closed and blackening` , or too open and blackening. The angle with the best picture reflects the office ceiling lights into a perfect glare. My tablet doesn't have that problem. Either did my computer before this one. These details (and others) make this computer something I don't want to use, but have to.

Cheap Acer Aspire V5-122P-0863 11.6-Inch Touchscreen Laptop (Chill Silver)

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $499.99
Sale Price: $449.99
Today's Bonus: 10% Off

I was looking for a lightweight (3 lb or less), touch screen, Windows 8, around the $400 mark laptop for my Mom who is a light PC user, definitely requiring user support often. After purchasing an Asus 10.1 notebook, after about 2 hours I was sure this was not the right notebook and I needed to find something better. The Asus had the Centrino processors which turns out run hot so the fan was loud and the laptop would be hot pretty much the whole time, and it only had a dual processor. Even after optimizing it and removing some power consuming apps, the poor laptop still seemed to struggle to run. Plus the screen was tiny, not a touch screen hence the $300 price tag. After some research attempting to remedy the Asus' shortcomings, I purchased the Acer Aspire v5 after going to Best Buy and actually handling the laptop. I was impressed at its weight, how slick and well designed it felt, and most importantly, it felt like a real laptop not a toy (like the Asus). What a great purchase! After spending 3-4 days configuring it and learning the new W8 OS and all these apps I've never handled, I am a Windows 8 convert and definitely considering buying an Acer Aspire for myself.

Pros

* Price What a great price for such a loaded laptop! Paid only a little over $400!

* Design Solid notebook, slick design with all necessary ports

* Weight Light weight, about 3 lb with the battery

* Touchpad is a dream. You have the mouse click options which are missing on some other notebooks. It is sensitive just enough, it is not in your way when you type, it doesn't jump around your apps when you touch it. Best of all, I did not have to load any additional drivers or updates for the touchpad.

* Touch screen although the resolution isn't super high on paper, what a great crystal screen! Love the colors, vibrant and clear from the box, didn't have to adjust anything. And the screen is so well designed for the touch, it is sensitive just enough to get you around without many errors.

* In the box laptop, power cable, basic manual for start up and warranty, dongle for VGA

* Fan super happy with the low quiet fan and cool laptop, all that with a quad processor laptop! Kudos!

* Sound speakers provide loud enough volume for my aging Mom with slight hearing issues. Good clear sound as well.

Unknowns

* Battery don't know, have not had the battery below 75% so I don't know how long it would take to drain it.

* Performance not sure if this isn't due to everything being new and having to load for the first time, but some apps and screens take 5 to 10 seconds to load. Hoping this would change once everything is configured and used at least once. It could also be due to our W8 inexperience, time will tell. The laptop does start fast from sleep mode, although when you open the top it doesn't start automatically, I have to press the power button for it to wake up. There is probably a setting somewhere about that, but that's not a big issue right now.

Cons:

* Probably the only tech spec that is below the rest of the components on this machine is the camera. Grainy images and video. Oh well, all the rest is great so hard to complain given the price.

* Had to install 30+ app updates which took several hours. The notebook was loaded in Nov 2012 so by July, all loaded apps had new versions pretty much. This is not an Acer or laptop issue though, can't hold it against them since this is something we have to do regardless of what brand and laptop we purchase.

* AcerCloud is a good idea but boy, there was NO information about what and how to use it, and after loading a bunch of its related apps to the laptop and the mobile devices, I had no idea how to move files/photos from the mobile devices to the laptop, just no way to do that based on the few menus in the apps. It was super frustrating, and even research online on the acer forums was useless. After wasting about 2 hours, I moved onto SkyDrive. After 30 min and some research, it still didn't seem intuitive enough so I did some more experimenting and settled on DropBox. What a relief, the app came with a short and sweet guide, telling me exactly how to load my files from one device to the other and the app itself was pretty intuitive as well and didn't require 4 different apps (like the AcerCloud), just one! Plus it kept giving me more and more free space the more I used it and the more devices I added. Hope this solves my file sharing needs long term!

* Would be great if the touch screen laptops came with a Touch Pen also, makes it so much nicer to browse the screen. I used one that came with another purchase I made on Amazon. Again, not really an Acer issue, just a nice to have suggestion.

Other

* Windows 8 bit of a steep learning curve and there were no tutorials or instructions on the laptop or at least not that I easily spotted. There is definite initial frustration with the OS, lasted about 3 days. But after installing Windows 8.1 preview version (which brings back the Start button of sorts), after finally finding the Control Panel (it was frustrating hunting for it or accidentally stumbling on it but not knowing how to knowingly get to it), I was more and more comfortable with the OS and seeing its advantages.

After moderately learning how to get around myself, I setup up the Start screen and apps for my Mom. I then braced myself and showed my Mom how to use her new laptop, expecting a long drawn session. It was quite a surprise to see how well she took to using the touch screen and figured out how to get around! She has always had trouble with the mouse pads and even more with the touch pads, it was a relief to see that she easily handled the gestures on the screen and learned how to get around surprisingly faster than I expected. She loved the screen clarity and the vibrant colors. After that, I knew I had the right laptop!

In conclusion, I am very impressed with this quiet, lightweight, hard working, crystal clear machine! After a bit more tweaking and learning more about the OS and the apps, I am sure it will be even better! Will try to provide an update after some longer term use but for now, we are definitely in the honeymoon phase!

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I got this Acer touch screen computer about two weeks ago and have been really really happy with it. It's extremely portable -so small and light it fits in every bag I have. And the touch screen is cool even if I don't use it much (I typically dock into a monitor and keyboard so don't really need touch). And I am using it as my primary work computer so it's on ALL day with lots of open programs, which the processor is handling no problem. I think the only drawback is getting used to Windows 8. Because I use the computer for work I am in Microsoft Office programs all day and those work in "classic" mode so the switching between tiles and classic is a little annoying. But even with that I'd totally recommend it to others. Am even considering buying another one for my daughter as her first computer!

Best Deals for Acer Aspire V5-122P-0863 11.6-Inch Touchscreen Laptop (Chill Silver)

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program When looking at sub $500 laptops, it really is hard to find something that will be everything to everyone. If you get a feature here, you lose one there. I went into the Aspire V5-122P thinking I would see this but I had to admit, I am rather impressed.

First up, I downloaded all of the Windows Updates and removed most of the bloatware that is loaded on the machine. I also let Microsoft's Windows Defender take over as my anti-virus and spyware protection. There were well over 60 updates and due to the slower nature of the hard drive, it took a good while for me to get in "working" order to my tastes.

Next up, was to set up an account for my 5 year old daughter with Family Safety, which I highly recommend to anyone with kids.

After I got it where I want, it was time to put this thing to the test. The first thing I did was load steam and downloaded 2 of my favorite games: Portal and Portal 2. I knew Portal would run fine but I was rather surprised that Portal 2 ran with near the highest settings with hardly a stutter. The graphics card handled the game quite well.

Next up, I connected my Bluetooth mouse for gaming. Strangely, the Bluetooth device was disabled in the device manager so I had to enable it. Once enabled, I selected the Bluetooth icon in the system try and it opened up the "Modern" Bluetooth manager. I powered on the mouse and I was in business. Worked like a charm. (using the Microsoft Sculpt mouse.)

Microsoft Office ran well and the "modern", Windows 8 apps opened with decent speeds.

The screen is nice but when compared to say, the Microsoft Surface, it isn't the greatest. The colors were better than expected and the touchscreen was very responsive. I found myself using the touch screen much more than the track pad. Don't expect to use this outside much as it isn't terribly bright and it has a lot of glare.

Audio was OK and even at 100%, it could have been a little better.

The processor is only a 1GHz dual core AMD. I've always been an Intel guy, so this is my first AMD. It scores a 2.9 experience rating and I did see some issues with video playback on Facebook as it was choppy. It is 64 bit and allows access to all 6GB of memory, so for general use, this lap does fit the bill.

About the only gripe is the hard drive speed. It does seem to take a good while for some applications to open. It is 5400 and in tandem with a slower processor, it will make for a slightly sluggish experience.

Bottom line, I can recommend this laptop. Compared to an ASUS in the same price range, it beats it hand down as far as having brighter colors and having a better GPU. Windows 8 honestly should only be experienced with a touchscreen and you will get that and more with this ASPIRE V5-122P.

Honest reviews on Acer Aspire V5-122P-0863 11.6-Inch Touchscreen Laptop (Chill Silver)

UPDATE (15 July):

Amazon did a price drop about 3 weeks after I bought this, and when I tried to get a price match, I was told they only do price matches up to 7 days after the ship date. To me that's just poor, poor customer service!!!

______________________________________________________________________________________

UPDATE (1 JULY):

Just installed an SSD Kingston Digital 240GB SSDNow V300 SATA 3 2.5 (7mm height) with Adapter Solid State Drive SV300S37A/240G to help improve system performance and what a difference! Webpages load faster, downloads are quicker, copying to or uploading from a flash drive the speed in which these things are done have all dramatically increased!!!

Best browser to use with this laptop? Firefox & Chrome. IE is slower for some reason; the webpages load slower and IE locks up a lot. If I don't close the tabs in IE, then I get the "not responding error." With Firefox, I can just minimize the browser and not have to close all the tabs out!

I suppose I could have tried to buy a $800 laptop that had an SSD or an i5 or i7 processor, but it's hard to find one that comes with both. You usually have to choose and pay more. Also, this subcompact laptop comes with a touchscreen & a backlit keyboard! Not to mention that it's a joy to type on the keyboard and the portable size is what I was looking for.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

INITIAL REVIEW (27 JUNE):

PROS:

lightweight

6GB SDRAM

backlit keyboard

touchscreen

very quiet (no loud fan noise)

processor works quite well for light gaming, web surfing, Facebook/Twitter; MS Office tasks

option for a 2nd battery (not yet available, though...)

includes adapter (ACER Converter Cable) for VGA connection

CONS:

processor can't handle heavy programs: AutoCAD, etc.

downloads take longer than usual, especially if you're trying to download a large file... or if you are trying to download multiple files at the same time.

can't have many tabs open in IE10

only one (1) USB 3.0 port

no HDMI/Ethernet port; need adapter (ACER Converter Cable sold separately)

This works for me because I don't 'do' gaming; I only use this laptop for a little bit of this and that: school work and web surfing. Battery life is about 5 hrs on the Power Saver setting. The 11.6" screen doesn't bother me. Also, I am a proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 (16GB, White) which I probably use more than this laptop! So between this laptop or my Samsung tablet, I have plenty of "processor power."

For those looking for a cheap, portable laptop to do general everyday tasks, then this subcompact laptop is a good choice it's really great for those who have a desktop or larger laptop and just need something more portable for around the house or for a trip to the coffeehouse.

For those who need more horsepower, an Ethernet connection and a bigger screen, should look elsewhere for their computing needs.

Hope this review helps, folks! ;-)

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Acer Aspire V5-122P-0863 11.6-Inch Touchscreen Laptop (Chill Silver)

I purchased this Acer Aspire about a week ago, and am definitely impressed with what this device brings to the market. It was very hard to find a super affordable, Quad-Core, Touch-Screen, Windows 8 Laptop/Ultrabook that I was comfortable with buying. I am a software developer, so I have to have Visual Studio and SSMS SQL Server installed on all my machines to be able to work on projects and what not. I was worried Visual Studio would take forever and not perform on this device, but I was wrong. So far this device has been able to easily and efficiently handle all the tasks I have thrown at it. Now don't get me wrong, it's not a super blazing fast machine, but it is by no means slow. I would call it efficient. And you can't beat the fact that you have a touch screen Win8 laptop for under $400 now. I totally recommend this device for all uses, other than a gaming laptop and video editing.

There are two semi-minor cons with this device, one is the touchpad (not a fan, it's just a bit awkward to use), and the screen resolution makes icons and Windows (Browsers, etc) too large for the screen. Other than those two gripes no worries, I just attach a wireless mouse, full keyboard, and second monitor to it and my two minor gripes are gone!