I pulled it out of the box and it would not power up. I called ASUS support who cordially walked me through a few tests and determined that there was a problem with the motherboard or the power circuit and the unit should be returned.
I'm hoping this is just a fluke. I opted for the exchange. Maybe I'll be able to give it a higher rating if I can get a working unit...
UPDATE:
The replacement unit is working like a champ. I had zero trouble exchanging it. In fact, they shipped the new unit before the old one was picked up from my house.
It's a bit bigger than I expected. It just barely fit into the backpack laptop case I had for my old machine. The touchpad click is annoyingly sensitive. I ended up disbaling that and just using the buttons for clicks.
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The screen is a little disappointing out of the box. Tweaking the saturation, tint, etc.... improves it, but it's still not a fantastic display unfortunately. Other than that, I have to say the fingerprint reading software is a bit glitchy -it sometimes gives an error and will not let the user to login with his/her fingerprint. That's a bummer. The hard drive is also a bit on the slow side in terms of actual performance.Why, then, would I give this a rating of good? Because this is in comparison to powerful desktops and significantly more expensive laptops. For the price, it's not bad.
Were I to buy this computer again, I'd probably pull the HDD and put in an SSD with a clean install of Windows 7 Ultimate. Then, I expect, this would be a truly fine machine.
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This is the first time I've ever written a review even though I shop on Amazon ALL the time. I am so disgusted that I had to write this review. This the most pathetic excuse for a computer I've ever owned. Here's the brief history:Purchased 12/22/11 from Amazon.
Loading software a week later (first use), CD drive broke CD (Office 2010) got stuck inside computer. Had to ship computer off to ASUS(I had to pay $41 in shipping to get it repaired) to retrieve CD and to unfreeze the system. Had the Office CD not been stuck inside, I would have demanded immediate refund from Amazon.
Got the computer back, and the repair sheet said optical drive had been replaced. Loaded software successfully. Next day when I tried to load a CD to reinstall my printer software, CD drive was broken. Computer wouldn't recognize drive at all. Sent it off again. Got it back around Jan. 27. Jan. 29, transferred data and started using computer.
Feb. 2, 10:30 a.m. (4th day of regular use), computer shut down out of the blue.
Since then, it has been shutting down and restarting out of the blue as well as after getting an error message saying "AMD driver stopped responding but has recovered." I have not called ASUS until today because I knew their response would be "send it in," and I don't have the time or patience to deal with that. But I did break down and call today. The ONLY solutions offered were (1) reinstall the operating system to see if the problem is a software problem. If that doesn't fix it, then go to option 2, send it to ASUS. I asked the tech support guy if reinstalling the operating system would mean that I would have to buy licenses for the software (such as Office 2010 and Word 2010), and he said yes. So, he wanted me to spend hundreds of dollars on new software just to see "if" the problem was a software problem. Of course I said no. I inquired about a refund, and he said I would have to request it through Amazon. Amazon's policy is 30 days for new computers. My mistake was that I didn't request a refund the first time the CD drive broke when I was installing software. I've learned my lesson.
Also, the customer service is pathetic. I was told today that they do not have the capability to remotely access a computer (like Dell and probably other companies do) to try to fix a problem. They also only have a "few" local contract tech people who can try to repair computers locally. I do not live in an area where there are any contracted tech people. So, my only option is to pack up and send off the computer to see "if" they can repair this piece of junk and hope they don't wipe the system clean.
I forgot to add the touch pad is the worst ever. If you just place your finger on the touchpad, the cursor jumps around as much as one inch. I have changed every setting I can find. Oh, and I forgot about the time the touchpad quit working all together. Luckily I had an old plug-in mouse, so I was able to use that to download a new touchpad driver.
I called my local computer guy, and he agreed about ASUS's customer service, and he said he unfortunately cannot recommend ASUS anymore solely becaue of the poor tech support.
So, this has been my personal experience as a first-time and last-time ASUS purchases. It has been nothing but one problem after another. I regret that I spent a good $1000 on this computer.
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