-Many people are turned away by the "mat" type screen, and lower resolution because of it's size. But honestly this makes for maxed out performance on today's games because of it's limited resolution. Even though it's 720 don't let it fool you, it makes consoles look very bad, still out does them by a long shot.
-Another corner that has been cut (for price) is there is no optical drive, so you'd better be a "digital" gamer, or purchase yourself an external burner (like I did), to load older game discs. There is actually plenty of room on the right side of the unit for one to fit, but then again there is a lot under this hood, so it may have been to crammed.
-This laptop only has the standard 5400rpm HDD that 90% of laptops today come with. The bigger models seems to all have the 7200rpm drive. You'd think we would have surpassed these speeds now, or just have all laptops come with a Solid State drive. Which some do have both. This cuts cost as well. It doesn't slow down gaming all, but you may find windows 8, and surfing the web to not be as quick, even with the 2.5 I5 3rd gen processor. Slightly sluggish, but not a deal breaker.
-Terrible terrible Intel Centrino Wireless, which has been the cheapest adapter on the market for years. Ahteros and Broadcom definitely being the best. Why they continue to use this even in some of the more expensive models is beyond me. I've worked on countless laptops with this adapter in it, and they all have VERY weak signals, or drop a lot. So i already had a netgear adapter for my gaming desktop. So i decided to use it, which works great. No fluctuating speeds now.
So that's mostly the cons, now onto the pros.
-Metallic brushed finish now replaces the one rubberized material on the hand rests. Which use to peal off in small chunks. Although the top is still made of this material it's a lot tougher than before.
-No flex to be found on the keyboard. Although having a 14 inch takes some getting use to, for typing. And the backlit keyboard with 3 different brightness options is great.
-All 3.0 UBS ports, though i would have preferred 4, since I now have the adapter plugged into it. And use a small gaming mouse on the other. No big deal. Good fast transferring of files.
-GTX 660m 2 GB DDR5 is actually overkill for this little beast. But thats a BIG plus, runs everything on high smooth as silk.
Checkout NOTEBOOK CHECK . COM for more specs on it. It also has the Intel HD 4000 GPU, and when you left click it gives you the option of which one to use on each game.
-Awesome speakers, just right for movies, music, and extremely good for games. Actually has an HD surround sound to it. Very good panning.
-The overall fell is very sturdy, no it's not an ultrabook, but it is small and "semi" light. Much better for totting around than the big 17 inch beasts. Great to take anywhere, and game.
-Battery life is great, and depending on your tasks anywhere from 5 to 8 hours. Even though i'm not thrilled about the battery being built it.
So that's about it, with a 750gb hdd, the card, speakers, 8 gigs of ram, and all the other bells and whistles, this is the best portable gaming laptop on the market. I think Alienware is pretty decent, but a big overpriced, and it seems everyone goes for those. And Dell makes them now, so i'll pass.
On one last note I had a few quirks or odd experiences. At one point after bringing this out of sleep mode, it automatically just shut off. But never did it again. No idea why. Also sometimes the Nvidia card will deactivate itself randomly, but never during a game. Could be a windows 8 or driver issue. Nothing major (yet). So while it has it's flaws, to me the good definitely outweighs the bad. And Asus rated number 2 this year right under Mac Book for reliability. So hopefully that holds true. Get one while you can for a good price. It's really worth it considering some of the "other junk" in this price range. Later.
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I purchased this product last year at best buy. The next week it wouldn't turn on. I returned it to best buy and they informed me that the entire product was I quote "fried". They then kindly provided me with another laptop. I took it to my home and decided I would test its gaming performance. This is not a product that was ever meant to be unplugged the atrocious fps that I received while running games low settings was shocking. I then proceeded to plug it in and watch my fps increase by at least 65. The computer broke again a month later I brought it into best buy where they informed me that my ac adapter was not properly functioning and they had none in stock. I then contacted Asus who had me send in my laptop for quite a large fee. I received a new ac adapter and my problem was solved or so I thought 2 weeks later and now my laptop wont turn on I have no conception of what the problem could be this time but let me tell you this. This is by far the most flawed product i have ever purchased Asus customer support is awful and I now have to purchase a new laptop. I lost more money on this product than it was worth. It may look impressive but don't let that fool you its a cheap flawed over priced piece of hardware I wish I had never encountered.
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