List Price: $499.00
Sale Price: $379.99
Today's Bonus: 24% Off
So my ASUS netbook which I absolutely loved and took everywhere with me died. The latest selection of netbooks didn't excite me so I decided to upgrade to this model. The price is what sold me initially; the touchscreen seemed like a silly thing that I wouldn't use much. But after a day of using this side by side with an older laptop I was restoring, I was convinced. I now find myself touching the screens of all my computers. It's definitely the only way to use Windows 8.
I use this for home finance, web surfing, some word processing and a little video, photo and sound editing. The keys are a little small and take some getting used to. I am a touch typist and find the small keys a little annoying. Also the case edges are sharp and since the base is a bit wider than my old netbook It slips around a bit more on my lap. And the built-in battery does concern me; I hope when the time comes that replacing it won't be difficult.
Sound is acceptable I watch Netflix while working in the kitchen and it's loud enough (much better than my netbook). The unit has 3 USB ports, SD slot and HDMI port. I have used this to stream videos to my projector and quality is excellent.
Battery life is long enough for my use; surfing and watching occasional video at home. It's made a couple of plane trips and I've managed enough battery to watch movies. It's so small and thin that I take it everywhere. And the AC adapter is not much larger than my phone charger very convenient.
If I were doing serious typing I might hook up an external keyboard but for what I do it's perfect. Also due to constant touching the screen shows smudges but that's not the fault of the design clean your hands or use a stylus if that bugs you!
The touchpad was very jumpy at first but a Windows update seems to have taken care of that.
I seem to be one of the few people who paid $499 for this at Best Buy (it's been $449 pretty much since Christmas). You won't find a touchscreen system that can come close for the price.
Click Here For Most Helpful Customer Reviews >>
Let me tell you about my Asus laptop / Amazon experience. I found this laptop at a great price on Amazon and decided to order it. It arrived quickly even using super-saver (free) shipping, however once I opened it I realized it had been damaged during shipping. I turned it on and it worked great, but the case was dented/damaged so I decided to send it back. I was already anticipating having to fight with Amazon when I contacted them using the chat feature and ‘spoke' with Richard to see what could be done.Amazon, listen up – Richard is the single most important reason I will be recommending Amazon to my friends and family.
Richard took the time to listen to my story and assisted me in exchanging my defective laptop and getting the replacement . . . actually, I had to return the defective one to get a refund then repurchase the replacement but to my pleasant surprise Richard made it just about painless. Richard sent me a link to print out the prepaid shipping label and expedited my order so I was only without my laptop for 1 day. It's service like this that keeps me coming back . . . I'll definitely recommend Amazon. It's this kind of action we need in the White House! ;-)
Anyway, about the laptop – you're probably not going to find a better deal on a Windows 8 laptop with a touch screen feature anywhere else (Best Buy sometimes has it on sale). The Q200E-BSI3T08 has a quick 1.8 GHz Intel Core i3-3217U processor (3rd generation), 4 GB of DDR3 memory, a 500 GB hard drive, a 1.0 MP webcam, a USB 3.0 port, wireless LAN (802.11n) and a built-in 10/100/1000 (Gigabit) network card. Please note – the screen is an 11.6" WXGA display and there is NO optical drive (no CD/DVD drive) so you'll need to use an external CD/DVD drive. Also, the 4 GB of ram is soldered in so you can't expand it and the battery is not removable (you'll have to take the laptop apart to change the battery).
First thing I did was to follow JDHodges.com Asus Q200E hard drive upgrade website (you can Google it) and replaced the 500 GB hard drive with a Samsung 840 Pro solid state drive (SSD). The SSD made a big difference in performance and battery consumption and my Asus now boots up and is ready to go in about 8 seconds. I didn't have a copy of Windows 8 for a clean install so I used the Samsung Data Migration software to bring everything over from the original hard drive. The Samsung Magician software also makes it easy to optimize/tune my new SSD and monitor drive health. Both software titles are included with the SSD or it can be downloaded from the Samsung website for free. FYI it will only work with Samsung SSD drives (it checks).
Next I swapped out the wireless card for the Intel Network 6235AN.HMWWB Centrino Wi-Fi card. This card is dual band (Advanced-N) and includes Bluetooth. It ran about $22 from Amazon with free shipping. You'll need another antenna for the dual band so I also ordered a pair of laptop wireless mini-PCI-E internal antennas (ASIN: B004ZHT2JE) from Amazon for about $10 including shipping.
Now I have a touch-screen Windows 8 laptop that rocks! It's super light (about 3 pounds), boots in less than 10 seconds, has a decent processor with a solid state hard drive (no worries about bumps) with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and is only 0.9" thin! Because of the new SSD hard drive efficiency – battery consumption has improved, but you'll probably get between 3.5 to 4 hours of use depending on your usage. I loaded Microsoft Office 2013 (Word, Excel, Access, Powerpoint, Outlook) and Visual Studio and they work great no issues so far.
I've only had this laptop for a about a month so I'll update my review in a few months if things change.
No comments:
Post a Comment