Toshiba Satellite L55-A5351 15.6-Inch Laptop Reviews

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $649.99
Sale Price: $628.99
Today's Bonus: 3% Off

I purchased this laptop on the 16th of October. Delivery was prompt. Purchase was fulfilled and shipped by Amazon, so that often helps. All necessary components were in the box, no missing pieces. Both the shipping box and laptop box were pristine so that encouraged me that the product wouldn't be damaged. Opened the box, removed packaging and plugged it in. Setup was really simple. Apps and updates took a half hour the first time turning it on, but since then no issues. Bought as replacement for my wife's older Toshiba Satellite. The lack of issues we had from that led me to purchase this one. Other than standard complaints surrounding Windows 8 usage, we've both been satisfied with the speed, weight and aesthetics of this unit. We'll likely be using this for household use mostly, streaming media and running a Etsy shop my wife started. I'm not sure I'd try to play high end games on it, and I may eventually replace the hard drive with a SSD, this is a great computer for recreational users. I would expect that more serious gamers and tech heavy professionals will need to spend a bit more money. I'll update this if I have any extraordinary issues.

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This I purchased as a "New' computor, imagine my surprise when I took it out of the box, plugged it in and it already had someone elses name and password in it. I had already been through one bad experience, so I'm giving this one more chance with a different computor. They are very good about returns, but I hate to have to return something agian, I want a computor that is what it says, and works out of the boc, we will see,,,,,

ASUS G75VX 17.3" Core i7 750GB HDD Laptop Reviews

Customer Ratings:

The laptop is a great laptop for whoever is looking for a freaking powerhouse of a computer. The way I have had to describe it to most of the people that have asked me about it: "A desktop in a laptops case".

Here are some specs of video games I play on high to ultra high graphics:

Far Cry 3: 45-60 FPS

Minecraft with 64x Textures: 120-150 FPS

Bioshock Infinite: 45-60 FPS

ArmA 3: 50-60 FPS

DayZ: 30-70 FPS (depending on server)

Crysis 2&3: 45-70 FPS

The problem most people have with the computer.. Is that it comes with windows 8. To be completely honest i didn't think i'd like change either BUT, It was actually a great change for me. It's not to different from 7 just a little more stylish and "custom" you can say.

The packaging it comes in its very nice and it explains the computer well.

Battery life with H-Performance and full brightness on everything About 3-5 hours

Battery life with Power Saving mode and half brightness with no backlight on the keyboard 4-7 hours

I think this is a great computer for the price you can get it on amazon. Other retail markets will sell this for 1800-2000. Amazon for 1300 is awesome!

I haven't gotten to try the Blu-Ray DVD player on it but i am sure it's pretty cool.

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Background: I've been in information tech for approaching 20 years

I recently need to get a laptop for the first time in 4-5 years. A desktop replacement was the way to go as my job is going to have me travelling. I wanted a unit to run SQL server and Visual Studio and this fit the bill to a T. I got the ASUS 3.0 docking station also and now I've replaced my desktop (now converted to a server).

For the price there's nothing even close to delivering that much performance!

Sidenote: Let's see the durability over time, on both chassis and internals.

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I am so, happy I bought this computer. It is like having both a laptop and and desktop. It is so, powerful. I would buy another Asus Gaming laptop for sure.

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I just got the computer. I have allways used mac and thisone is as fast and beter. The only problem is windows 8 but i guess ill get used to it with time.

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this is my first laptop (always had pc) and i had researched for 2 years before settleing on this one. it arrived on time and in perfect cond. it runs wonderfully and looks amazeing. the only issue i had is that after i would download a program (video game and antivirus of my choice) it shut down restarted and updated. i got an error saying something bout my driver proxy or something.... well after the second restart i updated my drivers and no problems since. the driver update really was the first thing i should of done i was just do excited to play wow on ultra that i got ahead of myself :) it stays cool and sounds/plays smooth and it comes with a 1 year warrenty it came down to this LT or one from alienware. and though the AW had more pretty thing and a slightly faster processor..it was 400 more dollars and this LT has more memory, more ram a blue ray player AND A WAY BETTER vid card for 400 less i am so glad i choose the asus. and when i had questions the person/company who had it for sell answered my questions promptly and completely-unlike AW who disconnected twice and the operator didnt seem to know much about the product they were trying to sell. i am over all very very very happy with my purchase

Discount Compaq CQ56-219WM Presario Laptop 15.6" LED display / 2.20GHz

Customer Ratings:

Compaq CQ56-219WM Presario Laptop 15.6" LED display / 2.20GHz Celeron Processor / 2GB DDR2 RAM / 250GB HDD / Lightscribe DVD±R/RW / 802.11 b/g/n Wifi / 6 Cell / Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) I was somewhat hesitant to purchase this laptop, but aside from the negative reviews here, other site's reviewers were much more postive so I took the plunge and have been quite pleased with its performance.

Pros: Very easy setup . . . especially if you go wireless. I disabled the built in mouse pad and went with a wireless mouse, and use a wireless internet connection. The computer automatically picks up the signals and you're ready to go. Took maybe 5 minutes altogether.

Some folks have complained about its speed, but I found that the Norton Anti-virus Program that comes with it was the problem. After completely removing it from the computer and installing Microsoft Security Essentials . . . it became lightning fast, especially on the internet.

Cons: Just one: I couldn't get my printer to work on it, but decided to go wireless with a printer and got a new one.

All in all, this laptop does all that my old XP desktop did, but much faster and without all the wires dangling and protruding from it. No need for a monitor screen with its wires; got the wireless mouse and wireless printer. The only wire that I have inserted is the AC cord to recharge the battery. It's lightweight, portable and fast.

Some people complain that it's no good for games and such because it's too slow. Maybe it is too slow for some games. I wouldn't know because I don't play them. I use it for emailing, surfing the web, writing and research. It doesn't come with a webcam or other bells and whistles. It's a basic laptop for basic computing needs. It comes with Microsoft Office Word and Excel, but not outlook express. You can upgrade to get the additional programs for a price.

I've used computers for years and this is my first laptop. If you're looking for a good, solid, basic, fast laptop without the frills and thrills, you can't go wrong with this one.

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Seems to be a great preformace laptop for simple use. That is what it was purchased for. The size and weight are the normal for most Windows 7 bring a lot of features that windows XP did not have.

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I bought this laptop when i was 12 and had it for about a year. It's a wonderful starter laptop. Might not be a good work computer but a good play computer especially if you download GameBooster. It lets me do all I need and more.

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I have used this laptop for 2 years now, and it has been a very slow 2 years indeed.

I can't tell you how slow this computer can be. It is definitely cheap, and has trouble running basic programs like word. It's a computer that freezes up frequently, and don't you dare think you can run three programs at once without having to wait a whole minute just to maximize one of them.

It is definitely not the greatest computer, but it works. As long as you have patience and aren't playing games or doing too much, it is great.

It is definitely great if you are like me and can't fork over $500 for a new laptop and just need something to do basic things on.

It might not be the greatest, but for the price it is worth it. It is a little bulky, and the keyboard is irritating (That PowerDVD button!!!) but you get used to it after a while.

All in all, it's what you pay for.

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Edit: My fan's already gone out at the 3.5 month mark. Bad soldering or circuit board leads.

Edit again: I've had it on a cooler ever since, and now at the 13 month mark the hard drive just crapped out. At least it didn't do that during my stats grad class, but I'm annoyed that it did this a day after I finally got Virtual DJ and the Emu 0204 running flawlessly by doing nothing more than creating a new user account (who knew cluttered/default Windows 7 profiles could so foul up ASIO?). I am hoping it's the motherboard, since the fan also had an issue as stated previously, but I'm not hopeful. Still, I purchased a 2.5" SATA to USB HD enclosure to test the internal hard drive with something else to be sure. If it checks out, I may buy another CQ56 and move it into that one. I'm not optimistic or even looking forward to buying another one of these if that is the case, but I don't want to go through the LONG process of installing all my stuff again. In retrospect, I was not being too hard on this computer.

Yet another edit: It was the HD. Darn. I hardly ever took this thing anywhere and it looks mint. Turns out the backup and clone features never exactly worked properly. Perhaps I should have cloned or copied the onboard HP backup partition? Windows 7 has a clone/ghost feature built in, yet even after creating a properly-sized Fat32 partition (required apparently in the wizard) on an external drive, that still never worked. I hoped it would run in the background after turning it on in Windows in control panel with my 3TB Seagate USB drive, but no. It looks like the CQ56 cannot either boot-from or clone-to an external USB drive, which is a problem considering it has only one HD slot internally.

Furthermore, the wifi adapter is not automatically recognized and plug-and-play upon a new Windows 7 installation. That means if you're on wifi, you won't be able to ever get on the net until you either go to another computer or connect to a hard line. HP really should have included a backup DVD.

Their forums are also full of people with dead fans and hard drives.

I'm changing it to 1-star and will never buy HP again.

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Original review:

It's amazing how much you can get now for $300. I won't deny that, but this is, after all, a single core Celeron processor without even hyperthreading. Windows 64 also needs 3GB before it starts to have breathing room to do good, stable work. So I upgraded the ram to 4GB total and it helps, but the lack of at least one more core terribly limits multitasking ability. I feel you ought to spend at least $500 bucks for a laptop at the lowest acceptable "end" still. You get exponentially more computer. With only integrated graphics, one core, and slow hard drives, even with double the ram it's just not capable of what a modern machine should do at minimum. With 4GB it can handle single tasks well if you're patient. Don't expect a snappy, crisp interface, though. The screen is also lacking in contrast range substantially. Are you getting ripped off at this price? Nope. It's durable and, aside from the crummy stiff mouse buttons, does the basics. But jumping up in price gives you more than buying two of these would. I recommend the following minimum:

4GB RAM

Multicore CPU of some type (Intel seems the most compatible)

7200rpm hard drives

Dedicated graphics chip and VRAM; not just because of the horsepower needs, but some software literally malfunctions from integrated graphics

Firewire or Expresscard slot... not just USB connectors

HDMI port

Toshiba Satellite Laptop Computer - 15.6" LED Screen / Intel Core Reviews

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $824.99
Sale Price: $664.95
Today's Bonus: 19% Off

Nice general-purpose laptop. Great for using around the house, office, dorm, and the occasional road trip no bulky additional accessories needed.

The keyboard great feel, love it even fat fingers can't miss the mark. Keys are readable, even in low light. The keyboard is not backlit a fact, not a flaw. The primary purpose of the function keys (a space-hogging holdover from pre-Windows days) is as buttons for help, brightness, media controls, touchpad on/off, volume, wireless mode, and even switching between multiple monitors no SHIFT, CTRL, or ALT required. Now, if they would only do that with the number pad, we non-accountants would get some practical use out of another large chunk of the keyboard. There is a caps-on light on the caps lock key, which is blocked by your hand if you are typing, but was omitted entirely on some other models I looked at. (If you are reading this, Toshiba person, move the light to the left corner of the caps lock key so it can be seen when hands are on the keyboard.)

The sound loud enough for a hearing-challenged person (me) to easily hear a few feet away. The built-in mic is loud and clear for phone calls.

The speed fast! As another reviewer noticed, the computer is faster than the DSL speed, so I try to be patient and not blame the machine my IP is throttling and it is just easier to notice now. To get all the speed and memory, Windows 8 64-bit is installed, which is the future but not backward compatible with older software, so expect to spend some time visiting software and vendor sites for updates and replacements.

The touchpad basic but easy to use. The manual says the touchpad will scroll, but mine doesn't. (Yes, I checked for updated drivers!) The touchpad is placed left of center, below the standard keyboard, so it falls between your hands when typing. This placement eliminates accidentally brushing the touchpad with thumb or wrist when typing a problem of previous laptop generations with a center-placement touchpad.

The CD/DVD-RW drive I'm just not ready to give that up. The little bit of extra laptop weight is less than having to carry an external drive (and looking dorky in public). A built-in drive also doesn't take up extra desk space or use a scarce USB port.

Screen resolution low. In fact, it's the minimum screen resolution required for the current functions of Windows 8. Text and pictures are certainly readable/viewable, but can be grainy. The viewing angle with text is flexible enough so that people looking over your shoulder can easily view it, but for pictures and movies, the view needs to be straight ahead. (You can, however, attach an external monitor if you really want those people looking over your shoulder to clearly see your vacation pictures.) What you probably won't be doing with this screen resolution is serious gaming or graphic design. To be fair, when shopping, I found low screen resolution on laptops across all brands and models at this price point and above, so low screen resolution seems to be a favorite manufacturer's compromise for mid-price laptops. I would sacrifice some of the abundant built-in storage, which I will never use, for a higher screen resolution, and add a star to my rating.

The webcam ok for occasional use, but you may want something better if you do a lot of online face time.

Battery lightweight, but not user replaceable, so it will be expensive to have replaced when it no longer holds a charge. Personally, I like the resulting lighter weight and am gambling that the battery will last until I need a different configuration and then use this laptop with the power cord as a backup at home or office. Full battery charge is enough to watch a couple of full-length movies or half a season of your favorite TV series, but for continuous all day use, you will need the power cord for a recharge. It does recharge fast, though. You can extend the battery-only usage by putting the laptop in sleep mode when you are distracted or away the laptop pops immediately out of sleep at the touch of the power button (my favorite feature). I tried the `battery power-saving' feature to extend the battery charge, but it made the screen so drab and dreary that it wasn't worth the resulting mental depression to gain a few extra minutes between charges. When attaching some external peripherals, the laptop is under-powered on battery power alone, so you will need the laptop power cord and/or separate device power when attaching some devices, including speakers. A mouse or flash drive is no problem, though.

Port placement Two USB, the mic, and the headphone ports are located toward the front of the right side, so anything with a cord is in the way of using a mouse or reading/writing materials for right-handers. The exhaust fan vent is on the right, too, which keeps the bottom of the machine cooler for true lap use, but also keeps the right side a few degrees warmer than the rest of the workspace and the mouse hand toasty. I still have many corded USB devices and use a mouse for most work, so the port and vent locations make this laptop inconvenient to use as a full-time desktop replacement. Lefties will find the port placement good for them. As a righty, I find so many nice features on this laptop that I will suffer the occasional cord tangle when necessary and start seriously looking for wireless replacements.

The most incomprehensible design feature is that the port labels are tiny etchings on the bottom of the laptop, so you must turn the laptop over and use a flashlight and magnifier to see them. Although I have been able to visually match a round peg to a round hole from an early age, I cannot identify which identical round hole is for the mic, which for the audio. There are three identical lights on the front of the laptop, which probably convey important information, but without visible icons, are useful only to help find the laptop in the dark. It also took me a couple of turns around the perimeter to find the SD card slot, hidden under the front beveled edge next to the lights. The audio ports, card slot, and lights are all below the metal portion of the keyboard, so there is no excuse for not etching the icon labels for these ports on the top so they will be visible/usable without manhandling the laptop. Toshiba did find space for several stickers you don't care about, but if you want port labels, you will have to make your own stickers. Ok, this paragraph was a rant thanks for listening.

The User's Guide well done, easy to follow, and very helpful getting started. Do skip directly to Chapter 1 (Getting Started) to bypass 28 pages of warnings, cautions, and responsibilities (yours, not Toshiba's) it's way too late to tell me that stuff after I've already bought the machine. As of this writing, Toshiba does not provide the User's Guide online for this model, which is standard practice for other brands and appliances. I saved a copy of the User's Guide to external storage, but think that should be Toshiba's responsibility, not mine.

Free cloud storage. I got free storage for 2 years on Dropbox through registering with Toshiba plus more free storage on Skydrive courtesy of Microsoft Windows 8. Free is nice.

In summary:

You will no longer need external speakers, a headset (unless you want privacy), a USB laptop cooler pad, external storage for your zillions of pictures, a portable CD/DVD player/burner, or a rolling laptop case.

You will need to update or replace old 16-bit software, consider replacing corded with wireless external devices, and find something to do with all the time this speedy machine saves you.

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HP EliteBook 6930p Notebook Review

Customer Ratings:

The company from which I purchased is not currently listing/offering this laptop. My order did not include Vista Business, but came with Vista Home Premium. It also had a bad/incomplete Installation Partition. However, the O/S did install enough to allow me to get onto the Internet, and download all the necessary drivers from the HP web site.

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Where do I begin? The unit has a faulty light sensor which causes the screen to be too dark. The way to fix is to update every single aspect of the BIOS and then hit the light sensor with your finger over and over until the screen will stay bright (NICE!). The touchpad buttons wear out very fast and just leave a gooey covering. The left click button wears out very fast and requires too much force to get it to work. The touchpad activates while you are typing and causes a lot of general chaos. The latches holding the lid close wear out very quickly leaving the lid to flap open constantly in transit. The little "night light" at the top for lighting the keyboard in the dark is less than useless.

Shall I go on......I could but you get the point. Stay away from this complete Turkey!!!

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dont have a product key to use the microsoft office 2010 and need it for all my documents. But great laptop

Review of Toshiba Satellite C655D-S5087 15.6-Inch Laptop (Trax Texture in

Customer Ratings:

I must say that I have had this product for over a year!!! It works great! I am using it to type this.

I have had a few virus problems but that was MY FAULT for not having it properly secured.

The cord works great, and The battery life on this is pretty good too.

All the connections work and it is great for everyday usage.

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The connection on the side where you plug the AC charger is BAD!! Have to wiggle the plug to get it to charge and be careful that you don't bump it or you have to wiggle the cord again. This should not be happening, the laptop is only about 6 months old. This laptop comes with no web-cam. I would not reccomend this laptop to anyone.

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Very cheap lost hard drive got a new one(hard drive) and it will not boot. stay far away from this one

Cheap Samsung Series 7 Gamer NP700G7C-S02US 17.3-Inch Laptop (Black)

Customer Ratings:

It is a great product and gives quality gaming experience. The GTX 675m isn't the best card around anymore but still it holds great power and it is powerful enough to run all games that were released during 2011 at their max settings, It does seem like the graphics card is starting to get left behind as games such as Far Cry 3, Crysis etc. keep pushing the limits of pc gaming, but I can say that this graphics card will also be able to give you a great experience through those graphically intense games.

But enough about graphics, a laptop offers more than just that and I can say that this laptop delivers. The Dolby Home Theater sound system is great and it gives clear quality sound, great for gaming if you do not like using headphones, the system itself is pretty fast thanks to Intel i7 and the keyboard is one of the most comfortable ones I've ever used.

The screen is excellent, it is large and gives great color and brightness, I can say that it is one of the best screens out there for laptops, it even could be the best, the 1080p display does not disappoint especially the 120Hz support gives us beautiful fluent visuals. 4 USB inputs and all sorts of other ones such as VGA, HDMI etc. give great support for multimedia needs. Like that was't enough it also comes with a Blueray disc reader. The laptop also presents us with different modes with different situations, library, reading, balanced and gaming. All modes have their own different settings and work great.

The only problem I had with this laptop was that it has windows 8. Now, I am aware of the hate against the OS but after you get used to it, it is obvious that under the hood it's very similar to the other windows OS's and it even provides us with more variety since it supports apps. I have a Kobo account for books and it's great that I can use it with my computer to read books along with other apps such as Comixology and Tunein Radio. It can be confusing at first sight but once you get used to it Windows 8 won't be causing you much trouble anymore and you may even start liking it. But there are still some glitches here and there which I'm sure will be taken care of in time. It is a fast OS and with patience to learn, it can be satisfying.

This laptop for it's price gives more to it's buyers than other laptops do. I was actually torn between this and the Alienware M17x and decided to go with this since it had more features for the price. But it is still a fact that the Alienware M17x presents a more capable graphics card, yet like I said, the GTX 675m is still pretty capable, combined with the 16 gigs of RAM and the Core i7 this laptop is ready for gaming. If you know how to Overclock and also use the Razer Game Booster application you'll get even greater results. At the moment I tried out a few games such as Saints Row The 3rd and Crysis 2 and I am pleased with the performance. Saints Row the 3rd can be played at max settings on 1080p like butter and Crysis 2 with Vsync turned off never dips under 40.

If you are looking for the absolute graphics beast laptop, than you should try out an Alienware which will probably breakdown fast on you and won't be presenting other features than just graphics. But if you are looking for a laptop that is strong on all the fields, speed, ram, graphics, sound, memory, picture etc. than I'd say give this one a chance because it deserves attention. Plus if you are not satisfied you can always do a return and than get yourself another laptop. I hope this review has been helpful.

Games I've tried so far:

Crysis 2: Can be played well on 1080p with all settings maxed, I advice keeping Vsync turned off.

Assassin's Creed 3: Can be played well on 1080p with all settings maxed, I advice Anti-Aliasing on normal.

Saints Row The 3rd: Can be played well on 1080p with all settings maxed.

Just Cause 2: Can be played well on 1080p with all settings maxed, I advice keeping Anti-Aliasing around Off to 4X.

Hitman Absolution: Can be played well on 1080p with all settings maxed, keep Anti-Aliasing and Vsync turned off.

Rage: Can be played well on 1080p with all settings maxed.

Call of Duty Black Ops 2: Can be played well on 1080p with all settings maxed.

Alan Wake: Can be played well on 1080p with all settings maxed, I advice keeping Anti-Aliasing off.

The Amazing Spider-man: Can be Played well on 1080p with all settings maxed, I advice keeping Vsync turned off and Anti-Aliasing on low.

Farcry 3: It is slow on 1080p with all settings maxed, I advice playing on High settings with Anti-Aliasing and Vsync turned off or playing using Dx9. Otherwise you can experiment with the settings to see wether you can get 30+ FPS by lowering specific settings.

Max Payne 3: Can be played well on 1080p with all settings maxed, keep MSAA turned off.

Serious Sam 3: Can be played well on 1080p with all settings maxed, I advice keeping Vsync turned off.

So far so good, no game gave me issues except for Farcry 3 and I believe that is mostly due to the games' bad optimization for mobile Gpu's. I advice keeping AA and Vsync off as much as you can on 1080p since AA does not make much difference on such resolution and if a game supports it play using 120Hz refresh rate because it's definitely much better than the average 60Hz refresh rate.

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UPDATE: after about three weeks of not too heavy use, the backspace key fell off. Samsung wanted me to mail it to a repair station in Texas. Still within the return period, so I'm sending it back to Amazon to get another one. Despite the problem, willing to try another one of these; otherwise, it's a great piece of kit. Worst part of it, honestly, are the HDDs, but they seem to be easily changeable.

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I've had this laptop for about a day, and so this is by necessity a first impression; I'll update it later once I've had it longer.

The build quality is superb. I'm not sure if there's any metal in this, but it's high-quality plastic with an attractive finish. The images don't really show that the visible surfaces when the lid is open are a shiny brushed gunmetal gray. It looks and feels good. The shiny closed lid is also good-looking, but picks up fingerprints like crazy. Not really a big deal for me.

The keyboard is perhaps the best laptop keyboard I've ever used. The keys are dished and fairly long-travel, and are probably as close to the feel of a separate, desktop keyboard as is possible to get on a laptop. The keyboard layout is reasonably full, though there doesn't appear to be any way to send a BREAK without remapping. This is only really a concern for software developers using the standard keybindings in debuggers.

The screen, as others have said, is beautiful. Samsung's a big maker of laptop displays as well as monitors and flat-screen TVs, and this laptop is a great advertisement for their quality. It's bright, desktop-like, with great color and clarity.

The graphics chipset is capable of running World of Warcraft on 'Ultra' graphics settings at 60fps+, even in 40-per-side battlegrounds and 25-man raids. That's about as demanding as I get with graphics, and it's wholly up to the task. There are more expensive laptops with the more powerful NVIDIA GeForce GFX 675MX or 680M chipsets out there, but none of them are this affordable, and most of them make worse compromises in terms of weight, size, heat and looks.

Don't mistake, this is a big laptop. However, its styling hides its bulk quite effectively, and the wedge shape means it's comfortable to type on. It's also substantially smaller and lighter than the Alienware 17" offerings, let alone the 18" behemoth.

I thought before getting it that the rotary mode switch on the side was a gimmick, but it's actually quite useful. The settings for each mode are very customizable, and the modes are well-chosen to match common laptop usages. Certainly a lot easier than digging in Control Panel to switch between power modes!

When not in Game mode, this laptop is also admirably subtle. It doesn't scream 'Gamer Laptop!' unless you want it to, unlike most alternatives. You could take this into a sober business meeting and not draw too much attention.

If I had to carry this around every day, it'd probably be too heavy, but my personal laptop usage is as a movable desktop replacement, and this fits the bill. It can be easily packed up and moved, but it needs a substantial backpack and you certainly feel the weight.

For my needs, this is the perfect machine. The only real criticism I could lay on it is that it would be majorly improved by having SSD options, but I suspect the next revision of the hardware will. It does have a small caching SSD onboard, however.

Strongly recommended for the demanding user seeking a desktop replacement with no compromises on computing power and wanting something a bit more subtle than an Alienware.

Best Deals for Samsung Series 7 Gamer NP700G7C-S02US 17.3-Inch Laptop (Black)

Just received my Samsung Series 7 Gamer today which arrived on time with satisfactory packaging. Laptop looks very nice from an aesthetic standpoint and boots/ runs faster than my desktop does. The dial feature on the side to change between modes feels a little unnecessary but fun so no point in taking off points for that. WASD keys lighting up red from the normal blue of the keys in gaming mode is a nice feature as I've sometimes had difficulty locating my home keys at night ! Also purchased a cooling pad for my laptop, running World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria and League of Legends on maximum settings without difficulty, staying cool easily. Whereas my desktop would get start skipping on max settings in WoW: MoP the Samsung Series 7 Gamer seems not to have any trouble, only minor skip when changing zones etc. where there is a mass overhaul of environment but lasts no longer than a moment. Top of case tends to attract fingerprints rather quickly, just pulling it out of the packaging I already had several fingerprints from where I gripped it ! But then again, fingerprints scuff everything so no complaints there. A nice price-tag but I wanted to treat myself to a nice laptop for gaming (which I spend a lot of time doing) and it does not disappoint! Also, I did a lot of research prior to my purchase and to get similar builds I could not find a lower price !

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It's about a year now since I've used this laptop and guess what. It's still amazing as ever.

I get to play all the awesome games like heart of the swarm, bioshock, call of duty, dead island riptide etc, and they all run smooth, and laptop is very silent and never gets hot.

But by the way, the reason why I'm updating this review is because mostly people talk about the specs, but I wanted to talk more about how comforting physically it is to use this laptop. The laptop has a keyboard that almost feels like typical desktop keyboard with an actual satisfying feeling of press and guys with big hands like me can use it. Most thin form factor laptops use pebble style like macbook. There's no problem using such keyboards, but this samsung gamer laptop has one super comfortable keyboard. Hours of usage and your wrists arent tired compared to flat style laptops. I just hope Samsung comes up with a new gaming laptop and I would definitely up for that one as well.

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

So I've used the laptop since last August, and here's my opinion so far.

1. Hardware

pros

-fantastic screen clarity and brightness, size

-keyboard not cut down to fit laptop, but feels just like typical desktop keyboards (very comfortable)

-Dual cooler. it sometimes got slightly warm, but you'd never feel hot. great cooling system. but it does get hot when you play in a warm, hot environment. just play far away from the heater (obviously).

-speaker is fairly great and decent with light bass. it's at a decent level that unless you got a nice subwoofer speaker from bose, laptop's own speaker would suffice your usage.

cons

-heavy. even though I knew it was going to be heavy and big, I thought I could carry it around for work to other states. turns out it's better not to attempt that. can be considered as thick and heavy. power bar is the size of a brick.

-there's lighted up turbo icon above the keyboard. it has no use but doesn't really look cool either. different design or something cooler on next version.

final thoughts on hardware

-very sturdy and greatly designed laptop that can be used for a long period of time without discomfort that only downside is its thickness and size, but pros cover cons.

2. Features

-they got those four modes using dials. you will never use it. at least I didn't. always put them on game mode because I play games, but didn't really feel much difference and feels fussy switching whenever you're word typing and then play crysis, etc etc.

3. Power

-After 6 months of heavy, very heavy usage, everything still boots up instant, and loading is fast. I can still easily run Farcry3 on high and that applies to basically any games. there are no limits to this machine in current era. whatever you want to play will be playable on midhigh to very high.

Conclusion

-After several months, the laptop still greatly satisfies me, and always feels very comfortable to use.

who is this for: heavy gamers, or IT employees requiring processing power. or if you want something really cool at a decent and cheaper price from Amazon

who should stay way: people who want to travel with it often.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Samsung Series 7 Gamer NP700G7C-S02US 17.3-Inch Laptop (Black)

I was kinda hesitant about buying a laptop to replace my 4 year old media/gaming pc. I wanted something that I could connect to my tv in the living room for my main source of entertainment since I play a reasonable amount of games and use Hulu for shows. Also I wanted something that I could take with me and have the same great experience on the road. As of right now I have my gaming mouse and keyboard connected to the device. When setting up Windows, the keyboard on the laptop felt really well positioned and very east to type on. The screen on this looks amazing and a lot of my friends that see it can vouch for that. Being that its a Samsung screen i'm not surprised on how great it looks. What I'm more shocked about is that Samsung makes a great laptop. Ive owned a few Samsung devices in the past such as tvs, phones, and tablets and loved them all. When it came to computing I always stayed with my "goto" brands HP or Asus. Its only been about a week of owning this and I've thrown Starcraft 2, Diablo 3, Guild Wars 2, Torchlight 2, and Deus Ex Human Revolution at it and it seems to run everything on high really well with a high frame rate. I was kind of amazed on how good Guild Wars 2 ran because for some reason that game benchmarks a bit low on other systems. I was getting a reasonable 50-60 fps in major hubs so no complaints there. All in all I know for $1500 I could have built a pretty monster PC but I wanted the mobility and I believe I made the right choice. If your looking for a great laptop this is hands down the best price I've seen and I'm glad that Samsung is stepping up to the plate in gaming mobility.

HP EliteBook Revolve D3K49UT 11.6" Tablet PC - Wi-Fi - EDGE, GPRS Reviews

Customer Ratings:

Was at first delighted. But even with security systems it developed within a few weeks something like a Trojan we could not delete that was eventually replaced by a "black screen of death."

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Best HP ENVY 17-2070NR Notebook Computer - Silver Deals

Customer Ratings:

Well, this is my first time doing a review on here, but becuase of how few reviews I have been able to find on this laptop, I figured I should share my thoughts on it.

First off, the packaging was amazing! You can tell they really took their time when designing the way this product would be shipped and opened for first use.

The look and feel of this laptop is also really good. It feels really strong and not made out of some cheap materials. I love how it comes with ZERO stickers on the laptop that display what is it in. The laptop is very sleek and clean looking. I also love the custom theme that it is for Windows 7. It is also very simple and clean. It is a LOT better than the default windows 7 theme. The keyboard is also very well made and I love the backlighting.

However, this amazing laptop also has some flaws that I wish I knew about BEFORE purchasing this item. I had no idea that the other Envy products (Envy 15 for example), suffer from black or blank screen problems! At random (normally when the computer is sitting without being used for a short time) the screen will just fade to black. If you look really hard from certain angles you can see the desktop, but its so dark you cannot shut down the computer. This also happens nearly 100% of the time when you close the screen and return to your computer after a short time. From what I have read online, the only "fix" for this is to close the screen again or hold the power button until it restarts. Also, HP does not seem to see this has a problem with the computer, however just google HP envy 17 Black Screen and you will see all the issues people are having with this. HP just seems to replace the computers. Hopefully a fix will come out soon, but nobody can seem to figure out what causes this issue.

Another problem I have been having is the random freezing. I will be doing nothing no downloads, no music playing, just simply sitting at the desktop and the computer will freeze. Again, the only fix for this is to hold down the power button until it turns off. Also, this issue is like the black screen problem. I have not found anybody that has been able to pinpoint the cause of this problem to get it fixed.

Finally, the last problem is the heat! Man does this thing produce heat. It could heat up a house in the winter! With only ONE vent in the side of the computer that is in a really poor location, this thing is hard to cool down. I had to purchase a massive cooling pad to help keep it cool. Also, the place that seems to heat up the worst is to the left of the mousepad (which sucks as well) which if you are a gamer, that is not a good location. You will be resting your palm here to use the WASD keys for many of the games and your hand will get extremely hot.

Overall, I really want to like this computer, but with the issue I am having, I don't know if I will be keeping it or returning it to Amazon. If I can figure out a fix for the random black screens or freezes, I will keep it since I can deal with the heat now that it has a pad. However, the random freezing and the black screens are a deal breaker for a laptop that costs SO much money. You would think that since the black screen problem was a major issue with the Envy 15 that they would have fixed it for the Envy 17, but like I said, HP does not seem to see this as a problem.

EDIT: Well I have been dealing with HP support through e-mail and they are being anything but helpful at this point. Sure they reply to e-mails EXTREMELY fast for such a major company, but you can tell all their answers are canned replies that have already been typed and they simply copy and paste. For example, in the last e-mail from them, they gave me the instructions to do something on my computer for Windows XP...did they even check to see what the heck the laptop was?!?! Does HP even have laptops that have XP on them anymore? So far, after three e-mail messages and tons of research online, none of the problems I mentioned in the first review have been fixed. Buy at your own risk, but HP doesn't seem to understand the problems people are having with this machine.

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Out of the box this machine is extraordinary, The packaging alone tells you, you just bought a different type of laptop(very high end) perfectly packed with a couple of very nice extras(nothing big but I won't spoil the surprise)if you like bells and whistles this laptop has them all, aluminum case and the look of the etching is incredible and feels really solid (which is very good, having seen broken or bent motherboards and screens due to flimsy cases) beautiful LED screen, chicklet type illuminated keys, slot load BD player, extra long lasting battery...the works. Ok performance. Turning it on I was amazed by how quick this machine is and I have been around PCs and laptops all teen-adult life so I can tell you, you won't be disappointed. specs are up on the product description, but they are MISSING the best parts. This is a new i7 2.0 GHz processor (CPU) and it is quad core (4 CPU in one) BUT! with "hyper-threading" so if you don't speak geek what it means is that you virtually have (and you will see in your task manager) 8 (eight) 2.0 GHz processors running simultaneously this is awesome. Now to me the most important missing spec is that this is a HM65 chipset, what this means is that it comes available with blazing fast SATA 3 hard drive interface..in all my latest laptops this has been the performance bottleneck even with an SSD hard drive (downside, the laptop comes with 2 500Gb SATA 2 Hard drives. upside they come in RAID 0(you will see just one big disk on your explorer), which is a lot faster than normal setups.)but if you want the extra performance of SATA 3 you will have to buy a new HD. Last thing it has great battery life due to the double video card, so, on power saver, low performance video card and dimmed screen, I can get up to 3 hrs with the 6 cell battery. OK for us geeks that can't leave well enough alone...the laptop comes with 4gb + 2Gb RAM very bad! so BUY 8Gb RAM package and a SSD HD that is SATA 3 compatible (and a SSUSB (or USB 3.0) external enclosure to put the extra HD once your done), you will have to do a new windows install so download your drivers from HP except the SSUSB this one download it from a HP probook which is the same driver but newer and better (don't know why), and an updated video driver...I can't start to tell you how fast this machine turns out! by now you can see that I like computers, this one blew mi mind and I haven't over clocked it yet...hope this helps...long winded and all.

Best Deals for HP ENVY 17-2070NR Notebook Computer - Silver

I just got the HP 2070NR to use as a development work station. So far I've been extremely happy with the purchase.

I have my 2070 running XUbuntu 11.04 AMD64. There were a few quirks specific to this laptop (that will probably effect anyone using Linux on it regardless of distro), one of which is the "click-pad" and the other of which is the hybrid graphics card. I had to patch and build a new package to get the track pad working correctly, but it wasn't really a big deal so I'm not deducting a star for it. You can find that answer on bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/582809 (#144). The other thing is you don't want to use fglrx (proprietary drivers) on it, as fglrx does not work with vgaswitcheroo (the Linux kernel facility for switching graphics cards) yet... I'm sure AMD will come out with a fix for it eventually, but for the moment only the opensource radeon drivers work.

Other than fglrx not working and the touchpad behaving weird, everything on this laptop worked out of the box on Ubuntu (wireless, wired network card, sound, even the web cam).

One thing I wanted to note about the two hard drives is they come configured in a Raid0 configuration and the array controller only supports Raid0 (no raid1/mirrored). I had kind of been hoping to mirror my hard drives with a hardware controller... But that isn't really a big deal either because what other laptop comes with 2 hard drives and an array controller?

I'm really happy with this laptop so far. I've had it for 3 days now, and it's definitely a huge step up over my previous laptop. I can run Netbeans, Eclipse, Jboss, Banshee, and a VirtualBox without any problems... This laptop had everything I was looking for in a laptop specs wise, and then some.

As far as battery life:

If you use the 6-cell battery, and aren't doing anything too intense, it should get close to 2 hours.

If you use the 9-cell battery and aren't doing anything too computationally intense, it'll be closer to 3.5.a)

That isn't really amazing battery life for a laptop, but when you consider what a monster this thing is, 17 in display, 2x 7200 RPM drives, i7 quad, discreet graphics, it does a bit better than what I'd expect. I have to give them credit, they built a machine designed to behave much like a desktop, and it still has a usable battery.

As far as build quality goes:

I've always been an HP fan, but I've always hated the pavilion and other home computers. I've always bought the business laptops and workstations. I have to say, HP has addressed a lot of the problems I've had with the pavilions and some of their other home computers being crappy computers. This computer is built like one of their business models, and not only that it's really nice looking. It performs really well, has great hardware, and was at a much more desirable price point than some of their other offerings.

Honest reviews on HP ENVY 17-2070NR Notebook Computer - Silver

Very, very well packaged. The unit is very sleek and it runs very quietly. Backlit Keyboard was just what I wanted. Very good. The Display was great.

But upon first use, this unit would freeze up and not respond to any commands. I had to turn the power off using the Power Button. Then upon turning it on again it would run for a few hours (or sometimes a only few minutes) then freeze up again. I had to recycle the power button to get it back on.

HP Customer Service was very courteous (and they spoke English). I talked with them 4 or 5 times in the first fews days after receiving the PC, they seemed to know what they were doing and I got the same department each time I called. They even called ME back to see how I was doing. (The technicians I spoke with knew the other technicians I had spoken to, so I didn't have to keep explaining the problem over and over again)

But everything we tried failed to fix the problem. HP finally suggested returning the unit. Thinking the problem was hardware vs. software.

I did send the unit back to Amazon. Amazon offered me an exchange or my money back. Amazon has good customer service also.

So if you get a unit that freezes up at any time, make sure you call HP for help. They told me this was not an uncommon problem but new HP BIOS usually fixes the bug. (They also said my unit may have set on the shelf for a while, and that newer units come with the newer version BIOS)

HP Customer Service was the BEST customer support I have ever had to use.. too bad the unit wasn't as good..

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for HP ENVY 17-2070NR Notebook Computer - Silver

Hp Envy 17-2070nr. So far I believe its an amazing laptop. Havent had a single problem, its extremely fast and it came flawless. Hopefully I will not have any problems in the future but if I do I will update.

It did took me a few minutes to get used to the trackpad, but got used to it.

I was afraid of buying because I could not find any reviews but I am glad I took the risk.

edit:

I had some issues with it freezing, supposedly the culprit was the wireless card, but I simply did a clean install of Windows 7 from the partition recovery, and the problem seems to be fixed. i brought it down to four because i shouldn't have to be fixing a brand new computer specially a 1400 dollar computer, but i did because i really love the feel and performance of the computer.

Best Apple MacBook Air MD232LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop (OLD VERSION) Deals

Customer Ratings:

I purchased both the newly updated 13" MacBook Air and the updated 13" MacBook Pro the day they were announced at WWDC and released for sale in June 2012. After using the two machines side-by-side for a couple weeks now, I can say that the MacBook Air offers superior performance in virtually every respect to such a degree that I've pretty much stopped using my brand new MacBook Pro. Of course the Air (which I got factory upgraded to the 2.0 GHz i7 processor and 8GB of RAM) is lighter, slimmer, and sleeker than the Pro, and yes, it does have a much higher resolution display, but I was surprised just how much faster the MacBook Air is compared to the Pro is despite the Air's slower CPU clock speed. The SSD hard drive on the MacBook Air makes an enormous difference in everything from casual web browsing to video editing.

Speed and Performance: Advantage MacBook Air

Apart from the hard drives and port configurations, the technology inside the machines is virtually identical in both the newly refreshed MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. Both Pros and Airs come with either i5 or i7 Intel "Ivy Bridge" processors, Intel HD Graphics 4000, USB 3.0, and lightning-fast Thunderbolt ports. While the MacBook Air models are at a disadvantage to the MacBook Pro models in terms of CPU clock speeds, any performance disadvantage from the processor speed is more than made up for by the lightning fast performance of the Air's SSD hard drive, which Apple markets as "Flash" storage. In everyday tasks from gaming to web browsing to watching Flash movies and editing video, the MacBook Air is faster significantly faster in virtually every task. The Air boots up in less than 12 seconds while the Pro takes upwards of one minute.

Screen: Advantage MacBook Air

Once you get used to the super high resolution 1440 x 900 LED display on the MacBook Air, the 1280 x 800 back-lit LED display on the MacBook Pro looks downright grainy and primitive. Simply put, once you get used to a higher resolution display, the 1280 x 800 display on the 13" MacBook Pro just isn't acceptable. Even for simple tasks like email or word processing where you wouldn't think the resolution would matter, the graphics look grainy and pixelated, which just isn't acceptable for a pro-level laptop in 2012.

Upgradability: Advantage MacBook Pro

One major difference that's important to consider between the Air and the Pro is that the Pro is more flexible and adaptable in terms of upgradability. With only a screw driver and about 10 minutes of your time, you can add more memory to the Pro, replace the hard drive, and even add a second hard drive in place of the optical disc drive. The Air, on the other hand, is stuck in the configuration you purchase it in except that you can opt to replace the SSD "Flash" hard drive with a higher capacity drive. However, both the Air and Pro have USB 3.0 (which is five times faster than USB 2.0 and backward compatible) and Thunderbolt (which is ten times faster than USB 2.0), I see no reason to replace the Air's hard drive any time soon given how cheap external hard drives are and how fast the connection has become.

Design, Weight, Portability, Battery Life, and Form Factor: Advantage MacBook Air

The MacBook Air is the most beautiful computer ever produced by man. The aluminum case is impeccably designed, almost tailored to accommodate the necessary internal components, while maintaining practical ergonomics. It's an incredibly thin, svelte, sexy little notebook. The aluminum case seems sturdy and durable, and its mechanics are very similar to the time-test unibody construction of the MacBook Pro. The MacBook Pro, on the other hand, is a bit of a dinosaur in its bulky circa 2006 unibody. The Pro is heavier than a half gallon of milk at 4.5 lbs, while the MacBook Air weighs in at less than 2.9 lbs. Battery life is roughly even on both machines at anywhere from 4 to 7 hours depending on workload and settings.

Summary Judgement: Buy the MacBook Air

Simply put, the guts of the two machines are basically the same, but the Air's SSD hard drive gives it a tremendously significant boost in performance. Sadly, the MacBook Pro's 5400-rpm hard drive leaves the machine unable to capitalize on the newest, most expensive Intel "Ivy Bridge" i5 and i7 processors that you're paying a $300 premium for in the newly updated Pros. If you are going to buy a Pro, invest the extra money and get it upgraded with a SSD hard drive and get an extra external hard drive if you need additional cheap storage space for multimedia files. When you also consider the superior display, lighter weight, increased portability, and lower price of the MacBook Air, it's hard to find a reason to justify purchasing the current 13" MacBook Pro, which to me looks like a dinosaur rapidly headed for extinction.

Specs on the models compared:

13" MacBook Air (mid 2012) factory upgraded to the 2.0 GHz dual core i7 processor and factory upgraded to 8 GB RAM (1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM) with standard 256 GB SSD ("Flash") hard drive

13" MacBook Pro (mid 2012) with 2.9 GHz dual core i7 processor, 8 GB RAM (1600MHz DDR3L SDRAM), and 750GB Serial ATA Drive @ 5400 rpm

Both feature Intel HD 4000 Graphics, 3.0 USB, Thunderbolt, 802.11n, etc.

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I am a professional photographer, and recently purchased the Macbook Air 13" base model as an addition to my desktop workstation. It replaced a 2010 13" Macbook Pro as the machine I'll use when away from the office. After a few days of testing, here are my thoughts:

Processor: The one word response would be "sufficient." Overall, the beauty of this laptop is that it gets out to the way and simply lets you do what you need to do. The processor isn't the fastest on the market, but I have never been left waiting for any processing tasks to date. As an email access point, word processor, and internet browser there is more than enough processing power to have a boatload of applications and multiple tabs open without a stutter. Web pages scroll nicely, new programs open in a second or two and when it comes to productivity tasks this is night and day better than my iPad since I can actually use the keyboard, Microsoft Office etc. The processor doesn't need to be all that powerful in large part due to the flash memory storage, upgraded in this generation to the faster 6 Gb/s connection so that read/write processes don't drag the computer down at all. While I use my desktop for all of my heavy duty processing of images and HD video, I will occasionally need to process an image or two on the road. So far I have found that Photoshop CS5 runs very nicely on this model, with nearly instant effects utilizing simple layer/curves adjustments. Processor intensive tasks such a gaussian blur related filters have a slight lag, taking approximately 30% longer than they do on my i7 920 desktop processor that is a few years old. It all gets done though, is far faster than my previous laptop, and nothing I regularly do has taken more than 2-3 seconds of processing time for an image, totally acceptable. It's the 30-40 second drags from my prior laptop that made me ready to throw it out the window. However, the few seconds of slowing is enough that I wouldn't want to process thousands of photos on this laptop, but for the casual edit it is more than sufficient. Lightroom runs smoothly as well, in large part due to the cache being on SSD storage, so even my 5D MkIII raw files at 30MB each are rendered to a smaller jpeg preview that the lighter processor can handle and render quickly off the SSD. Imports/export rendering take longer on this machine to be sure, but by that time I'm off doing other errands so I don't mind this lag. Video editing is functional as well and would likely work for most casual users, but massive projects simply wouldn't be possible on this machine for a multitude of reasons ranging from storage space to video card, screen size, processor etc. Overall, it does handle all casual productivity tasks that I need faster than any laptop I've owned, and can handle more processor intensive image applications acceptably for a laptop, though not fast enough that I'd consider using this as a full time professional machine.

Screen: The 13 inch model seems to be the perfect blend of portability and functionality for me. This particular screen is vibrant, and has the capability to professionally render the images that I need with a few caveats. Firstly, the factory set color profile for the screen looked good enough for basic use, but to my sensitive eyes had a bluish hue to it. Apple laptops are notoriously inaccurate for color rendition (increased contrast, saturation in reds and blues) so I would highly recommend that users who do much imaging work create a custom color profile their monitor. Even casual users are likely to be disappointed when actually printing images that look great on this screen (i.e. pumped up colors and contrast with a flat and lifeless print in real life). Also, for all of us that send files over the internet to Facebook/email etc, I would think it would be nice to know what your photos would look like "on average" to most of the users out there without a similar Mac screen. The "profile" utility built into OS X is worthless, and I'd recommend a software solution such as ColorEyes Display Pro, combined with a sensor such as the Spyder 4. I wish I could have assessed the default profile to find out how much it was off at baseline, but my software can only analyze custom profiles that it creates. Needless to say, things look a lot different after the profiling, and at 75% brightness I was able to get the monitor down to an average dE of 0.51 with a max dE of 2.99 in the greys (less than 1 is great accuracy, less than 5 is sort of standard to start professional work for me). I also notice that the edges of the screen on all sides have a very slight dark tinge/wave that extends for about half an inch. It is only faintly noticeable, shows up most against white backgrounds, and decreases with increased screen brightness. This isn't a defect unique to my unit, as it seems to affect all of the models at the Apple store that I went to see, as well as a few friends with Airs from years past. It would be nice if this screen were perfect, but it works and the minor screen variation doesn't effect the center working space of the image...so I think of it sort of like a built in vignette. This is a well documented complaint you can find on many forums with a quick internet search. If it's persisted into the 3rd generation of modern Air I don't see it going away soon. The resolution is also acceptable and a noted improvement over the 13" standard Macbook pro. Not retina, but the graphics on this model couldn't handle that resolution anyways. Retina display on the Macbook air will be a welcome addition in the years to come when the technology to scale everything down at a reasonable cost becomes feasible. Till then, this does the trick.

Battery life: one of my most important considerations for a laptop. This computer consistently achieves 7hrs of battery life as advertised. Screen brightness can be set to a custom level for increased battery life but I have yet to beat 7.5hrs. Surprisingly, Wifi intensive tasks such as downloading large files seem to have the biggest impact on battery life. I'd love to have a 10hr laptop at some point, but this model can get me through a busy work day every time so long as I start with a fully charged battery before.

Value/Upgrades: I am happy with the 128GB base model with 4GB ram, and made that decision mainly based on the value offered by the Apple upgrades. First off, with the base processor, all of my tasks seem to fly along with the exception of major processing such as photo or video exporting after edits. The i7 2.0 GHz upgrade would only be of marginal help, with the advantage of the "turbo boost" performance at 3.2 GHz versus 2.8 or a 11-14% increase for $100 (but requiring the $300 memory upgrade as well). I seriously considered the 8GB of ram as well, as the $100 upgrade would help to future proof the computer's performance. The problem with this, or any other upgrade over the stock base model is that you need to purchase the custom Air models directly from Apple, without the Amazon discount, with the added sales tax and recycling fee. That's an additional $150 or so in immediate outlay for privilege of even beginning to customize the computer at an additional price (or about $250 extra for 8GB of ram rather than the initially apparent $100 which would have been worth it). I have found that most Mac laptops depreciate at about 10-15% per year from the base price (any additional cost to tax etc is thrown out immediately), so selling this computer in a year or two to stay current with technology is by far the better value for me.

Regarding space, I have all of my programs (Lightroom, Office, Photoshop and a few others) on the 128GB drive with 95GB to spare. That's a lot of extra space for working files so long as they aren't media based. For that, you would need an external drive either way, as a day of photography can produce 60-70GB, and video can get into the hundreds of GB quickly, nothing that the minor 128GB upgrade would cover. The USB3 connection and a 7200RPM external drive does a great job, and ensuring that Photoshop etc are using the onboard flash storage as a scratch disk makes for great performance without compromise. Also, for storage in a pinch, the SD card slot provides an opportunity for a cheap upgrade. A 64GB SD card just barely sticks out of the side and can be had for $50 or so, while a 128GB SD card costs ~$150 with prices dropping fast. These won't have anywhere near the same read write speeds as built in memory, but would be more than sufficient for music, document, image storage etc when needed.

Overall, I'm thrilled with this machine and would recommend it without hesitation. I thought briefly about the new Retina Macbook Pro, since I could find many uses for the extra resolution and processing power. However, I ultimately decided to use this machine for its exceptional value and extra portability. The rMBP is a beautiful machine, but even with its performance it isn't close to a modern desktop machine of similar pricing equipped an i7 3770 processor, SSD boot and scratch drive, GTX 670 or similar, 16GB ram and a nice 24" dual monitor setup all for the same 2k price tag. So I'll take this with me on the road or the coffee shop, and save the serious work for my desktop with multiple monitors etc. No computer can be everything for everybody, but this Air is surprisingly versatile and ranges between best in class and acceptable for everything I've thrown at it. I'm a big fan.

Best Deals for Apple MacBook Air MD232LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop (OLD VERSION)

UPDATES:

1/6/13 3 months in, and still going strong. Picked up Applecare about a month in (you can buy it at any point before the included warranty expires). Cost me ~$200 (you can use student discount at Apple stores) for 3 years of support. All the Mac people I know swear by Applecare, and it seems like a pretty good thing to have just in case. Battery life is still a solid 5-7hrs. if not more, depending on my usage. As expected, watching HD movies or playing games does kill the battery life. Bought this neoprene sleeve since it looked solid, was inexpensive, and had good reviews. Definitely recommend a case/sleeve of some kind to avoid scratching up the shell.

Preface: I own a computer I built myself and have been continuously tinkering with and upgrading since 2007. This is my "primary" computer, and I virtually never use my Macbook while at home as a result. Prior to this purchase, the only Apple product I've owned is an iPod Touch from 2010. This is the perspective of a long-time Windows user with access to a computer of considerable horsepower. If you want to hear from someone who spends >90% of their computer time on this Macbook, I'm not your guy. However, I can still talk about the properties that make it strong for my demands of a portable, secondary computer for use whenever I'm not at home. I'll be breaking this review down into the criteria I needed my next laptop to satisfy, and where the Macbook Air fell in relation to the competitors.

One-Sentence Review: The 2012 Macbook Air is not head-and-shoulders above the competition (it's not even the best in any one category) but it's so great at everything that it's hard to say no to.

1. Portability: Both the 11" and 13" model have set the standard for the portable "ultrabook", and competition from Asus, Samsung, Lenovo, Dell, HP, and anyone else has used these laptops' dimensions as the benchmark. This 13" model weighs in at a svelte 2.9lbs., but in 2012 that's not really saying much. Look up the ultrabook offerings from the above companies and you'll see they're all within +/-0.1lbs. It's no doubt a lightweight and portable design, but I can't hand this one to Apple given how close everyone else is.

Verdict: Draw for the Macbook, since everyone has the same dimensions and weight.

2. Design & Build Quality: This used to be Apple's home court. The unibody aluminum shell of the Macbook Air was a league apart from the plastics of certain competitors. However, Samsung's Series 9 and Asus' Zenbook Prime give the Macbook Air a serious run for its money. To its credit, Apple is one of the few manufacturers who grace their ultrabooks with a super-large trackpad (which is superior to any PC laptop trackpad I've ever used) and backlit keyboard. The frame is sturdy, the lid doesn't creak or sway, and there's very little flex in the body.

Verdict: Other guys look nice, but I have to give this to Apple on the back of the keyboard and oversized trackpad.

3. Battery Life: I have yet to run my Macbook from full to empty, but I have used it for long stretches and (assuming the battery meter is accurate) can make a reasonable assessment of battery life. While browsing the web, writing a Word document, and listening to music, with screen at half-brightness, I was going for about 3.5hrs when I hit the 50% mark. A reasonable estimate places total battery life at 6.5-7hrs., which is right in Apple's factory estimate of 7. I bet you could squeeze an easy 9hrs. out of this by turning Wi-Fi and Bluetooth off and dimming the screen some. Regardless, I'm usually not away from an outlet for more than a few hours anyway, so this is a nice cushion to have. Also worth noting that the Sleep function seems to be extremely battery-efficient. 24hrs. of sleep resulted in only a 1% loss of battery life, and the Macbook instantly took me to the login screen when I hit the spacebar.

Verdict: Extremely respectable battery life and fantastic sleep efficiency.

4. Screen Quality: This is in my opinion the laptop's weakest category. The Macbook Airs use TN panels, with resolutions of 1366x768 for the 11" and 1440x900 for the 13". For the unacquainted, TN panels are the bottom shelf of LCD panels in terms of color quality. The aforementioned Zenbook Prime absolutely kills the competition with a 1080p (1920x1080) IPS panel (IPS is the top-shelf panel), and even the Series 9 has a respectable 1600x900 PLS (mid-range panel) display. This fall Apple introduced a Retina 13" Macbook Pro with an insane 2560x1600 display, but did not similarly update the Macbook Air. It may happen next year, but for now you're stuck with a low-end display. This is not to say it is objectively bad (it's not), but the competition does leave this laptop feeling somewhat inadequate.

Verdict: The Macbook Air's TN panel just cannot compare to the IPS and PLS panels on other ultrabooks.

5. Software: I had a passing familiarity with Mac OS X, and thought it to be a generally snappy, good-looking, but not well-supported OS. That last point is mostly untrue, as I have virtually everything I use on my desktop (MS Office, Spotify, Chrome, VLC Player, Steam(!), Dropbox) running natively on OS X without any issues. There's a bit of a learning curve, but I found it a genuine joy to acquaint myself with Mountain Lion's "Mission Control" feature. This allows you to create multiple desktops with independent docks and applications, effectively allowing you to segregate your computer for work and play. Many of Mountain Lion's features, as well as Safari, are well-integrated with multi-touch gestures on the trackpad, so executing commands through the trackpad is wonderfully simple. I miss the comfort of Windows only slightly, to be honest.

Verdict: OS X is a very well-designed OS for anyone who isn't strictly tied to Windows.

6. Value: Value is awkward and highly subjective. You have to make your own goals before any purchase, and evaluate which alternative offers the best chance of fulfilling that goal. As a first-year medical student with a very competent primary computer, my goals were to have a reliable, portable, and decently powerful laptop for bringing around with me to class, the library, lab, and anywhere else that wasn't my apartment. Ideally this would be a 4-year computer, lasting me the entirety of medical school. $1100 is a lot of money to spend on a laptop, so I had to be sure of what I picked. In the end I went with this because of the literally dozens of classmates and friends who have had the same Macbook (Pro/Air/whatever) for years without a hiccup or slowdown. I feel this is due in part to Apple's willingness to make its OS as backwards-compatible as possible, which means you get a non-bloated OS that's designed to work as well on yesteryear's technology as tomorrow's.

Verdict: TBD

If you've made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read, and I hope you found this useful. I would add a final caveat about potential improvements to the 2013 Macbook Air, but honestly don't give it much thought. There's always one more thing coming around the corner, and if you need a laptop now just get this one. Like I said, it's not the best at anything (except the trackpad maybe) but it's great at everything and should last you for years.

Honest reviews on Apple MacBook Air MD232LL/A 13.3-Inch Laptop (OLD VERSION)

Going from a White Macbook circa 2008 to the 2012 Macbook Air is a massive leap forward in technology for me. The big question is deciding which one will be best for you: The 13" Macbook Pro or the 13" Macbook Air.

Things I like:

It's fast! I plan on using this when I travel for Office, Adobe Lightroom and other photography applications. I'm able to move quickly, even when shuffling around hundreds of photos in Lightroom. This is remarkably different from my old Macbook.

The SSD. Absolutely fast. Bootup/shutdown/restart times are in seconds. Yes, it's pricy, but I love it.

Solid build. It feels much like other Macbook Pros, despite the thinness. Yes, it feels like it'll be a magnet for scratches, so I'm off to find a case/skin.

Opposite side USB ports! The most annoying thing about my Macbook (old White, new MBP as my office computer) is that there's not enough spacing between the USB ports, so a chunkier flashdrive and another USB device won't fit. Now I don't feel like I have to choose what gets plugged in.

USB 3.0. I've got enough USB 3.0 flash drives and the speed increase will be noticeable. Thunderbolt technology is supposed to be a lot faster, but a lot more expensive and quite frankly, cost-prohibitive.

Weight: I've gotten used to heavier laptops so this feels downright thin. Thin enough that I don't notice it in my bag.

Screen resolution: 1440x900 gives me more real estate than the 1280x800 of the 13" Macbook Pro. The screen was bright and vivid.

---

Things I don't like:

Non-upgradeable: So much for adding more RAM down the road.

New Magsafe power connector: This might cause an issue with places that have older Macbooks as well and determining which is which. That's what labels are for.

Aluminum case: It's beautiful but I'm feeling worried that I'm going to scratch it.

Software update: 350MB worth of fixes out of the box. Ugh.

---

Sound. It's decent enough it seems like any other laptop's audio that I've ever used. If you're serious about audio, you'll have external speakers (or even pair it up with Airplay speakers.)

Battery: I got about 6 hours in a torture test of watching video while surfing the web on WiFi. It's pretty decent and within the 5-7 range that Apple stated.

DVD drive: I don't miss it. I thought I would, but I don't. It just adds weight and bulk to the computer.

The webcam is also a higher resolution 720p camera. It's quite nice, but now the downside is that during Facetime, my friends and family can see my ugly self more clearly. Also, early adopters won't have the computer come with the newest version of OS X Mountain Lion. That will come in mid/late July. It's nice that this will come gratis to those who bought early.

The big question is Macbook Air or Macbook Pro? It comes down town a number of issues. If this will be your primary computer, then Macbook Pro is the way to go. The MBP is a faster computer with more storage and an optical drive. If you plan on doing any high-end computing, you'll notice the difference. If this is going to be a secondary computer or if weight is the deciding factor, then the Macbook Air is for you. Either way, you can't go wrong.

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The first Apple product I owned was a 1st generation iPod Nano. From there I got an iPhone (1st Gen), iPad 1, and the 3rd generation iPad (most of these were gifts). I had good experiences with all of them and my MSI laptop was dying on me, so I decided to get my first Mac. I ordered an upgraded Air with 8GB or RAM from the Apple store. It arrived in eight days, and as always, it was beautifully packaged.

Here are some my observations after owning it for about a month:

The multitouch trackpad is one of my favorite features. It is intuitive and much better than a mouse/scrollwheel. Going back to a Windows computer actually felt a little weird because I didn't have the multitouch gesture controls (e.g. swiping to go back in the web browser or two finger zoom). The keyboard has a nice feel to it and is quite quiet.

The computer boots up in 10 15 seconds, which is around 3 to 4 times faster than my friend's 2009 MacBook Pro. And the Air usually shuts down in 3 seconds. Waking up from sleep is almost instantaneous. All of this is possible because the Air has a SSD whereas most laptops today have traditional hard drives.

Wi-fi connects really fast. I can visit a website right after boot up/wakeup.

The Air is relatively quiet. The only time I usually hear the fan is after I have been streaming a video for a while. Even then, you don't hear the fan for long.

FaceTime looks much better with the 720p camera in the Air compared to the new iPad.

The speakers are solid. If I have computer playing music downstairs, I can still hear it upstairs. And turning up the volume doesn't distort the sound. Of course, the computer speakers pale in comparison to my Logitech Z-2300's.

GeekBench score of around 6150.

The appstore makes installing software much easier.

It's easy to plug in a monitor and use my computer with the lid closed (clamshell mode). You'll need to plug in a keyboard and mouse.

The Air is beautiful and light. It was almost too nice to use at first.

The battery charges pretty fast it's at 22% right now and OS X estimates that it'll take an hour and 16 minutes to charge the rest of the battery.

Some reviewers and users have complained about the MagSafe 2 power connector (they like the first one more). As a first time Mac owner who haven't experienced the MagSafe 1, all I can say is that it hasn't been a problem for me, though my Air pretty much stays on my desk all day long.

But it's not perfect:

I like my screen to be bright but based on my estimations, the battery won't last 7 hours if the screen is set to the brightest setting.

The bottom left corner of the trackpad is much lower than the other three corners of the trackpad. I don't think it'll be a big deal, but it'd be nice if it was perfectly aligned, especially considering how much Macs cost.

Two USB ports aren't enough, especially if you plan on using clamshell mode a lot. Since I don't have a USB hub, I have to exit clamshell mode whenever I wanted to plug in my external hard drive or print something.

Minecraft froze on me twice.

Not Apple's fault:

Chrome is my favorite browser but I can't use it right now because of some bug that causes Lion to freeze up when Chrome is used. (See update below.)

I'm still figuring out some things in Lion but overall, I'd give it 4 and a 1/2 stars! Recommended.

Update (7/4): I downloaded Chrome after Google came out with an update for it. I haven't had any issues so far.

Update (7/21): I've stuck with Safari because it feels snappier than Chrome.

Update (7/29): I downloaded and installed Mountain Lion. Dictation is my favorite new feature (Safari's unified URL/search bar is my second favorite). Even with speakers playing music less than a foot away from my Air, the mic picks up what I'm saying quite accurately. I'd give accuracy a B+/A-. See my example below. And I recently had issues with videos buffering really slowly, though I don't know if it's the modem/router's fault. The problem seems to be fixed after the Mountain Lion update.

Update (9/1): I have Avast Free Antivirus installed and it's been causing some issues. When I shut down the computer, it automatically restarts it and I get a report saying there was some sort of kernel panic. This usually happens once or twice a week. I don't think this is Apple's fault though. On another note: Using an external monitor along with your Air's monitor doesn't require you to have the power adapter plugged in but using the Air in clamshell mode does require the adapter to be plugged in. Kind of dumb if you think about it. You'd think that clamshell mode uses less power than supporting two monitors.

Update (9/12): I updated Avast and haven't had the restart issue since. it's also interesting to note that when I use FaceTime while blasting music from an external speaker ~2 feet away, the other person can't hear the music but can hear me.

Update (10/28): I had to bring my Air into the Apple store because of an issue with my screen if you looked at it from an angle, there was a white/bluish spot that wouldn't go away. Scheduling an appointment at the Genius Bar (my first ever) was easy and it started right on time, even at 6:30pm on a Friday evening. The Apple Genius took a quick look at it and determined it was an issue with the interior of the screen. And instead of fixing it, which they said would've taken at least 10 days, they replaced my machine with a top-of-the-line 13" Air with a 2.0 GHz processor and 512GB SSD (my old machine had a 1.8GHz processor and the standard 128GB SSD) at no charge. Since they gave me a brand new computer, I got a new MagSafe 2 charger too. The retail difference between the two machines is over $700. On top of that, they "refunded" my AppleCare and restarted it from the day I took it in. To say the least, I'm an extremely satisfied customer.

Update (11/17): My new MBA (see the update on 10/28) seems to be quieter than my original MBA. I don't hear the fan as often, even after streaming videos for a while.

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Dictation example [Nothing after the colon will be edited except for punctuation/capitalization. Things in brackets are not dictated]: This is an example of the dictation feature in Mountain Lion. I am speaking about one and a half feet away from the mike in a room that is relatively quiet. The only background noise is coming from a different room. I am talking relatively slowly right now so let's see how well the dictation feature works when I talk little faster and with the music in the background.

[Turned music on, speakers are about 2 1/2 to 3 feet away. The volume is set at 25% on the speakers and 50% in OS X]

Okay, no music playing in the background and I'm talking a little faster. I would say it is still pretty accurate. I think the dictation feature is pretty useful. However, I think it would be pretty awkward to use in public or at work. The best place to use it would still be at home in private. Next I'm going to read awesome tests on the right side column in a normal speaking rates with the music still playing in the background.

[Begin reading random text]

What makes a good review?

Be detailed and specific but when you wanted to know before you purchase the product? Not too short and not too long in for between 75 and 300 works

For video reviews

make it fun is that he can't informative and entertaining? How about a little action the next those cuts and product reviews as you describe your experience with it.

The FinePrint

awesome in the reviews are subject to the license terms set forth in our conditions of use. Your reviews will be posted within 48 hours.

[End of reading the random text]

Okay, that wasn't as great as I would have liked it but I still think it is a pretty accurate example of the dictation feature in Mountain Lion. I hope you found this helpful.

[End of dictation]

Buy HP 655 - 15.6" - E2-1800 - Windows 7 Professional

Customer Ratings:

Print too pale ----difficult for seniors to read

No instructions included for setup or use; no manual. Didn't like it.

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I have this laptop with Windows 8. Every 2 minutes it crashes and restarts. My daughter has a Lenovo with Windows 8 and it never crashes so I have to say the problem is with the laptop instead of the operating system. Just in case I am going to install Windows 7 to see if it gets any better.

Toshiba Satellite 17.3"LED Laptop /3rd Gen Intel i3-3120M /4GB DDR3 Review

Customer Ratings:

Great product works very well. I replaced my last computer which was an Hp dv7. No issues so far.Toshiba has great products.

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My Grandson was in need of a great computer to facilitate his schooling in film direction

He has been on top of his game with the lap Top

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I really love how big this screen is. I have run Windows 8 and Ubuntu on this computer and both worked really well. It burns dvds, cds, and has great speakers. The webcam is clear and fast. I have really enjoyed this computer!

Honest reviews on Toshiba Satellite 17.3"LED Laptop /3rd Gen Intel i3-3120M /4GB DDR3

This is the second Toshiba laptop I have owned & this one is more powerful than the first. Great price!

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defects in the screen, has lines in the middle of the screen. please help me to fix this problem because i dont know what to do.

Discount Acer All-in-One DQ.VFRAA.001;VZ2650G-UG645X 20-Inch Laptop

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $757.87
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Touchscreen is excellent with this computer. I've heard people complain about windows 8, but if you are used to a tablet its no problem. Screen resolution is excellent. I've watch movies or video in full HD through Netflix and Youtube and they look fantastic. I like that it has both HDMI in and an HDMI out. I have my PS3 hooked up to the HDMI in. There is a button on the side you can switch from PC to HDMI in. Using it for my PS3 it looks excellent. My main issues is that the sound from the speakers honestly sucks. But I had a set of Logitech speakers with a subwoofer so it wasn't an issue for me. If you are buying this computer you will want to add better speakers. The other issue is that 4gb of memory is not enough. I've already run into the issue of being told memory is low and I need to close a program. I plan to add another 4gb of memory.

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I ordered this on a Monday and got it on Wednesday before Thanksgiving. It was easy to set up and the graphics and screen quality are phenomenal. It is a great computer for a great price.

Best Deals for Acer All-in-One DQ.VFRAA.001;VZ2650G-UG645X 20-Inch Laptop

So I've owned this computer for about a week now and I ave a had a flawlessly smooth experience getting accustomed to windows 8 alond with the touchscreen capabilities. This machine is a powerhorse and seems very responsive. Ive noticed absolutely no lag. overall im happy with my purchase and definitely recommend to anyone willing to give windows 8 a try. you wont regret it :]

Honest reviews on Acer All-in-One DQ.VFRAA.001;VZ2650G-UG645X 20-Inch Laptop

Received my Acer desktop computer on time, very easy to setup, great HD, the touch screen is very nice, makes operating in Windows 8 a breeze. I also do online gaming, now problem great graphics, and sound. Well worth the money, also great support from Acer as well; if needed. I bet you asking yourself how does he know, is there something wrong with the PC? my answer to you is no, I just tried it out to see if the support was there and it is. If you are looking to buy a All in 1 desktop consider this one. Thanks

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I have had this unit for two months and it works great! One of the reasons I picked this unit was because it had an HDMI-out port to support a second monitor. So far, everything is working well with this computer.