Cheap HP Compaq Business nc2400 Notebook

Customer Ratings:

I use these computers at work for temporary assignments (road trips) and they perform really great! I have had several different models (Dell D430 and this HP NC2400). I like the NC2400 a little better because it has a DVD installed. Not that I need a DVD all the time but it is nice to have when you need it and you do not have to carry an external one with you everywhere. I have loaded Linux and Windows 7 on these machines and they are really fast with Linux (Linux Mint) and fast with Windows 7 32 bit.

For what these machines are they do their job really well. They are not Game machines, nor are they video edit machines. They are Great for Web, Word processing (writing reports) putting up a power point, and fit in almost any small case as they are only 12" screen. This one I am writing this review on has an 80GB HDD, a dual layer DVD (I may change it to a Btu-ray) It has a dual core 1.2GB CPU and 2GB RAM. Just fine for road use. Lightweight, Small form factor, easy to use and Windows 7 works like a champ on it. What more could you ask for? I have another unit on the way I purchased on Amazon.. HP Compaq Business nc2400 Notebook

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got it refurbished, the seller had not been accurate in many issues with delayed responses. i got it as a second laptop. the screen resolution is poor, keyboard is ok, good sound. it came with windows xp, poor battery life.

the only issue is that it is cheap and has a nice size with cd.

Review of Hewlett Packard A6X08UARABA Hp Pavilion Dv7-6c27cl Intel Core

Customer Ratings:

I had the criteria of 17" screen, high speed, and graphics abilities to develop Windows 8 Phone Apps and Windows 8 Metro Apps. This computer had it all, including 8 GB RAM and more than adequate HD space at 673 GB. All my former Windows 7 applications now run on the Windows 8 upgrade that I installed two days after my purchase of this computer. More than satisfactory!

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Rec'd the laptop in excellent condition. the strange thing was the carton had the SKU blacked out, and there was a Sam's Club label visable. also visable was a Do Not Scan label, SKU intact. H/p verified that the computer had not been started before, and registered the warranty. I have used the laptop for less than five hours so far (01/03/2013) and all is good. I like the computers' features.

HP Folio 13-2000 13-Inch LED Ultrabook - Core i5 i5-2467M 4G RAM Reviews

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Once in a blue moon I come across a laptop that fascinates me. The HP Folio 13-2000 is surely one of the more impressive models available on the market. HP has packaged powerful components into a very elegant yet sophisticated system.

At the time of this writing, Intel had recently announced that they would be beginning their "Ultrabook" laptop initiative to place systems on the market that would compete with Apple's thinner Macbook Air series. As a disclaimer, my years of experience with computer systems have been spent in a Windows environment, so this review will focus strictly on the HP Folio rather act as a side-by-side comparison with Apple's Macbook Air products.

In the original box and packaging, the Folio is held in place by two pieces of foam on each side, with space between the Folio and the cardboard box, which I suppose is a good thing in the event it were to come into contact with some blunt force. Aside from the Folio itself, a power adapter and packet of papers are included in the box.

Upon physical inspection, the Folio is very solid to the touch. Unlike my previous Asus netbook, the laptop casing is not flimsy at all and very resistant to bending. As shown on the Specifications page for the Folio on HP's website, the Ultrabook measures 8.67 inches in width, 12.54 inches in length, and 0.7 inches in depth. Needless to say, the Folio is extremely thin. On top of that, its weight at 3.3 pounds is noteworthy. The left side has the RJ-45 (Ethernet), HDMI, USB 3.0, and SD memory card ports; while the right has a USB 2.0 port and headphone jack. Interestingly the Folio lacks a Kensington Security Slot; whatever the reason for its absence, I will assume that owners of this superb computer system will rarely leave it out of sight for any period from would-be thieves.

The top of the Folio has a very nice metallic silver finish with the HP logo embedded in the center, and the bottom contains the usual assortment of exhaust ports and stickers.

Starting up the Folio for the first time would be when things got very interesting. The startup process itself, from BIOS to the Windows loading screen, was very fast, which should not be too big of a surprise since HP as put a Samsung SSD inside. Even though I managed to finish the Windows setup without any issues, the HP registration program that followed was a complete disaster. As I tried to enter my information into the contact information fields in the registration program, the HP program suddenly froze, leaving me no choice but to abort it and register the traditional method (via HP website). Compared to my past experiences with HP computers, there is significantly less bloatware and other programs installed, but they still remain nonetheless. Certain things about HP's software was particularly annoying, notably HP including an entire program solely dedicated to opening PDF files (e.g. User manual) was totally unnecessary. For an Ultrabook that's supposedly designed for powering through the "workday," the extra software can really drag you down.

On another note, Windows 7 Professional is absolutely necessary for those needing to join Domains in business environments. With a 64-bit operating system installed, the Folio has 4GB of DDR3 SRAM; HP states on the website for the Folio that the RAM has been downgraded from 1600 MHz to 1333 MHz. The 13.3-inch LED display is marvelous to look at, without any significant strain on my eyes; changing the display settings will be necessary, as is necessary for any new computer out of its box. I was initially skeptical about purchasing this particular model due to its 128 GB SSD, but with all of the latest updates and drivers installed, there is still a significant amount of space remaining approximately 100 GB. Returning to my point about HP's disappointing software, the Folio is configured at factory automatically for a recovery partition that is used by HP Recovery Manager. I should also point out that Recovery Manager is essentially useless for most users who have at least some experience with both Windows 7 and setting up backups. For inexperienced users, I would recommend leaving Recovery Manager installed in the event that you might need to return the system to its original factory configuration. I personally recommend installing CCleaner by Piriform after the initial setup of the computer so unnecessary files are removed automatically.

Regarding performance of the Folio, I would not recommend purchasing this system if you plan on doing any serious gaming on it. Again, I want to emphasize that this is a more business-oriented computer system, rather than one that targets mainstream consumers. While this particular Ultrabook only uses the quad-core 2nd generation Intel Corei5 processor, there will be more than enough power to get through whatever you need to in a day at the office. Unless you are running the system with display brightness set to maximum and CPU usage at 100% across the board, the Folio will fetch you several hours on battery power alone. HP estimates approximately 9 hours, but I have yet to test this out.

I will designate this last segment to what I think is the most interesting piece of hardware HP included in this ultrabook. For those who are somewhat familiar with computer security, a TPM 1.2 security chip is pre-installed on the motherboard at the factory. To minimize technical jargon and complexity, the TPM chip essentially a security chip that prevents tampering with the computer system. Its true potential is unlocked when it is paired with Windows BitLocker (available only in Windows 7 Ultimate and Enterprise). With BitLocker enabled, the TPM chip ensures that no hardware settings were altered between the last shutdown and next powerup. Note that BitLocker supports full-disk encryption, for those who need it.

While this is undoubtedly a superb system, a four-star rating is warranted since the shoddy HP software simply will not warrant a five-star review. However, for would-be buyers, HP's failure in producing functional software should not overshadow the many other great features offered by this ultrabook.

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This is by far the best laptop that I have bought to-date. It is light, sleek, functional, super portable, and the battery last longer than any battery on any device I have ever had. It goes for at least 8 hours without needing to be plugged in. If you are looking for a ultrabook because of the poratablity but do not want to compromise on performance, style, or functionaly then look no further.

Best Deals for HP Folio 13-2000 13-Inch LED Ultrabook - Core i5 i5-2467M 4G RAM

HP Engineering provides a wonderful design with a nice layout, good screen resolution, excellent wireless and enough ports (USB2, USB3, HDMI, etc.,) to provide great flexibility to connect to almost any device.

The problem that we encountered was the additional HP installed software provided for customer support seems to have conflicts with the Windows 7 operating system. The result is a repeated blue screen and a system dump. The problem only worsened when we had to engage HP customer support (located in the Philippines). The agents were friendly but unlike Dell they did not really understand the configuration of the PC (e.g. Dell service tag) and as of this writing have not resolved the PC issues. After four sessions of trying to work with HP technical support and 12 hours of wasted time, I am beginning to lose interest in HP products. Their resolution finally was to send me a pre-paid box to return the PC to their repair service center with a promise that I would have it back in a week. Poor consolation for the amount of trouble that the HP product support has caused and a very weak comparison to the Dell support that we have received over the years.

Honest reviews on HP Folio 13-2000 13-Inch LED Ultrabook - Core i5 i5-2467M 4G RAM

This computer is exactly what I was looking for in a traveling computer. It's screen and keyboard are the right size and is pretty fast. I looked at other computers and at the Ipad, but this one fits my needs much better. Now when I travel, I leave my larger laptop at home and take this one instead. The battery life is also amazing, and this computer only weighs 3.3#! Hard drive is small so I bought a couple 32 GB SD cards to store files on.

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This is HP Folio 13 the best Ultrabook, compared to all other brands of Ultrabook. Why is this is so good and why it's getting so many glowing reviews, an average of 4.8 stars out of 5 stars? This is why:

1. Windows 7 Professional. It's not Windows 7 Home or Windows 8 (which is horrible to run software or do usual business tasks). I was actually thinking of getting a MacBook Air but need to install Windows 7 Pro and Parallels into a Macbook Air that would set me $360.00 back.

2. It is superfast, boots up and shuts down super quick just like your smart phone (iPhone, Andriod or Blackberry). I hate laptops that that forever to boot up or shut down. Finally an Ultrabook that boots up like a Smartphone or iPad.

3. It has SSD instead of HD. I hate hard drives because it is noisy and breaks down. SSD is the way to go. Macbook Airs are all SSD.

4. Superlight. I hate heavy and bulky laptops.

5. Superlong lasting battery. The battery goes for 7++ hours!

6. Responsive mousepad and keypad. No need for external mouse. Some ultrabooks like Samsung and Acer has this problem.

7. Great Price. For $699.00 for a brand new Ultrabook, that is a $400.00 lower than a comparable MacBook Air 13 inch ($1,099.00).

8. This is an excellent Business Class laptop and even my old software such as Microsoft Office XP, works like a charm, no issues.

9. Wifi connection is easy and no problems. Some Samsung and Acer Ultrabooks has this problems.

10. Webcam works and sound is decent for a laptop this size.

11. Printing and scanning from this Ultrabook is easy.

12. Connecting to the network is a breeze.

13. Connecting to DVD drive/burner is is breeze, no issues.

14. It doesn't get hot or warm.

15. It is very thin and elegant, comparable to a 13 inch Macbook Air. Very stylish!

16. It has an internet Ethernet port (which the macbook air doesn't have). This is useful if you need to connect to the internet with a hardwire instead of wifi.

I have looked into HP Windows 8 Ultrabooks but HP Windows 8 Ultrabooks ones are crappy and I would have to downgrade from Windows 8 to 7 to meet my business benchmarks. That's too much trouble!

If you are looking for a Ultrabook that has SSD instead of a noisy harddrive, get this Ultrabook, there's no better one out there. HP is no longer making this Ultrabook, this is a pity. So get this before you can no longer buy this. I am thinking of getting an extra one as a backup.

Review of Acer Aspire V3-571G-9683 15.6-Inch Laptop (Midnight Black)

Customer Ratings:

This is the perfect laptop for anyone looking for a gaming laptop for under $1000. All the games I've tried on it have run perfectly, the most difficult probably being Skyrim, which ran perfectly on ultra settings. The laptop is very aesthetically appealing in my opinion (although some reviews for Acer Aspire V3 computer's said it was not attractive, I completely disagree). The main upside is gaming, but it also has a great keyboard which is very important to me as a college student, the screen is great, which is awesome for me because of netflix. The biggest issue I have with the design of the laptop is with the location of the track pad, and the buttons on the track pad. I was just playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 (which works perfectly), and my left hand would occasionally tap the track pad, causing my gun to fire at random. The buttons at the bottom of the track pad are frustratingly bad, but since I use a mouse that is not a big deal; the track pad is touch sensitive, and you can scroll up and down on the side of the track pad which is a nice feature.

Of course, the biggest issue most people have with newer Acers is with Windows 8; at first I found windows 8 incredibly frustrating, but within a couple days I got used to it. The only major difference is that instead of a start button where a sidebar pops up (like windows 7), you open up a start screen which has a tablet-esque feel to it. The start screen is slightly worse in my opinion, but not enough so that I feel the need to switch to windows 7. One thing that I don't care about, but others may love, is that there is a full numbers pad on the side of the keyboard, which would be great for programming or accounting or something like that. I have yet to use it, but others may love it.

The worst thing about this computer is its poor battery life, with full brightness you might get 2-3 hours, whereas my old hp pavillion dm4 got about double that. This doesn't bother me excessively because I almost always have a computer cord handy, but if you plan on taking this on the go don't count on a great battery. Of course an easy fix is to buy another battery (preferably with a lot more mAh) for about $50.

Pros: Great Graphics card, great processor, good GPU and enough GB hard drive make this a great gaming computer; screen resolution; nice keyboard; the ports (headphones, usb etc.) are tighter than usual which means your headphones won't fall out easily;

Average: speakers; screen size; Windows 8; start up time; internet connection;

Cons: Poor battery and heavier-than-average weight make this computer not particularly portable; Track pad location is bad (when you first get it the track pad will seem kind of sticky which will be annoying but this goes away quickly); comes with too much junk previously installed (for example who wants an ebay app installed on their computer?);

Note: Windows 8 will not let you do certain things because the original account you create will be called administrator but will not have full access to everything to prevent you from screwing things up. There is a simple fix to this, go to command prompt and type some stuff in you can find online and you will be able to log into the real administrator account.

Also, I definitely recommend a mouse (I think Logitech is the best) because the buttons on the track pad and the location of the track pad are abysmal.

Edit: Extremely fast start up speed, under 10 seconds.

Edit: As the comment below says, if you hit fn+f7 it will shut off the trackpad so you don't accidentally click it while playing a game.

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I've just recently bought this laptop and it exceeds expectations! I bought this computer for playing games and watching movies on netflix. This computer can not only play games on high/ultra graphics but also has a great display. Watching movies on it is great. The problem I have with this laptop is the short battery life. I get around 3 hours when gaming on high settings but I usually keep it plugged in so not a big problem. Another con with it is the placement of the track pad. I end up occasionally tapping the track pad when playing games causing something I don't want to happen. To fix this I bought a USB mouse. This laptop has been great for what I need it for and hopefully you'll love it two.

Best Deals for Acer Aspire V3-571G-9683 15.6-Inch Laptop (Midnight Black)

the laptop is good and all just that there are 2 different graphic cards in it, you can't really tell the diffrence between the HD 4001 and the 730M inside... but if you are playing a game that needs the card like some steam games [Merto 2033] the 730m will give you a better picture and smoother loadings per frame. The laptop gets hot after an hour of playing so not recommended over 2 hour 30 min of playing for regular use the laptop does not get to hot unless left on to long the bat life is about 3 hours on low settings in real world if just typing a paper or using the web. use if playing games on bat its about 1.5 hours if watching a videos on dvd it lasts about 2 hours.

overall its a good laptop and it looks like its priced correctly the heat would come from underneath and from where you rest your wrist its quiet and fast.

Reason for the 4 starts is cuz the screen resolution looks like its 720P instead of 1080. games run at 60 FPS most of the times the worst it got was 30 FPS. i did put all the setting maxed [Metro 2033] the game ran about 50 to 65 FPS some parts the game would drop to 35 FPS [This will be my bench marker for this PC]

Honest reviews on Acer Aspire V3-571G-9683 15.6-Inch Laptop (Midnight Black)

Save for the one or two special keys that were mixed up on the keyboard (easily overlooked as they are few and far between) and my unfortunate first time encounter with the confounded mass of unnecessary options that is Windows 8 (Remedy: Only use the desktop and you're golden), the laptop performs above my expectations and at a fair price. I could also nitpick at some discomforts like where volume control and brightness adjustment were placed, but its hardly an issue and more a personal preference. This product is powerful, thumbs up!

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Needed a new computer for my employees and this notebook was top notch helping very well with what we needed.

Buy ASUS Zenbook UX32A-DB31 13.3-Inch Ultrabook

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $749.99
Sale Price: $569.89
Today's Bonus: 24% Off

This laptop may only have an i3 but it still is really fast. Its super light and really well built. The screen looks great.

One important thing I did that made this laptop even more of a deal was to:

Format the SSD drive and install Windows on it. This allows the laptop to boot to Windows all on the SSD and really speeds everything up. It also clears up any asus bloatware and allows you to install only what you need. Also after installing Office and some other key programs to the SSD, and turning of the page file and hibernation I have 11gb free. Other than that I plan to install most programs on the traditional hdd.

The other thing I did was put a 8gb stick of ram in it ($44). This may or may not have been necessary but it can't hurt to have a total of 10gb of ram.

Overall this laptop is one of the best purchases I have made in a long time. Installing Windows on the SSD and still having the large traditional hdd really gives you the best of both worlds.

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I've had this for about a week now and unfortunately posted a glowing review before I had a good amount of time with this laptop. I suppose that is because it looks so fantastic that it really does give you a great first impression.

Here are some issues I have found:

1. FAN NOISE

Initially I said it was practically silent. The fan noise itself is not bad. However the fans on my laptop seem to turn on and off with too little time in-between cycles. It becomes quickly annoying to hear the fan power up, stay on for 10 (sometimes 5!) seconds and then power down for ten seconds then power up again etc. Having said that I am particularly sensitive to fan noise. Most other people would probably be happy with it just stay clear if you have sensitivity to fan noise like me.

2. SCREEN

There is a haze on the screen that is very irritating and hard on the eyes. It also distorts photos slightly in my opinion. I guess that is the price of a matt screen? In any case I hate it. The colors are also off out of the box. It was set far too blue and I ended up spending hours trying to tweak it just right. I've never had to do this before out of the box.

3. SD CARD

An inserted SD card sticks out more than 1/2 way!

4. HDD

THe HDD has only 200GB or so free out of the box so there is plenty of optimizing to do to make full use out of the 320gb space.

5. BLOATWARE

Lots of bloat from Asus

And here are the nice surprises:

1. BATTERY LIFE

I can get about 6 1/2-7 hours out of it just browsing the web (flash ads blocked).

2. BUILD and LOOKS

Fantastic piece of equipment and solidly built.

3. SSD

The SSD cache can be used like a regular drive as someone else mentioned. Installing windows onto this makes the system fly. Boot up time was faster than my wife's Toshiba Z835 for instance at around 20 seconds. You can have plenty of storage space on the HDD whilst having the benefits of a fast SSD. This also allows you to have two separate installations (perhaps windows 7 and windows 8!) and it is easy to switch drives to boot up by hitting the esc key when you first switch it on. Fantastic!

4. TOUCHPAD

Actually works very nicely once you tweak it how you want eg using firefox YetAnotherSMoothScrolling for firefox and also setting the mouse wheel turns to 4 helps internet explorer scrolling.

Overall the screen and the fan turning on and off in quick succession just kills this for me so I cannot recommend it.

Best Deals for ASUS Zenbook UX32A-DB31 13.3-Inch Ultrabook

The comparison chart for this laptop says it comes with a Core i3-3217U 1.4 GHz CPU, and the description says that it comes with a 3rd gen Intel® Core i3-2367 processor (repeatedly). Neither of these is true. The laptop comes with an i3-2367, but this is a 2nd generation processor, not a 3rd. This makes a big difference as the newer generation runs faster, cooler, and has better video capability (Intel HD 4000 as opposed to HD 3000). In addition, the listing says it comes with a 320 gig 7200 RPM hard drive, whereas the laptop has a 5400 RPM hybrid hard drive.

With a 3rd gen CPU and a fast hard drive, I believe this laptop would be worth the price. However, the listing is very misleading. Another reviewer has brought this up already and nothing was changed, and the question was brought up months ago by someone else in the questions section. I was hoping that they had refreshed the specs and bought it anyway, but it's still the same old chipset. Very misleading.

The product itself is performing as expected so far; it is exactly the form factor we wanted, and we will need to decide if sticking with old technology or returning for a refund based on an inaccurate listing would be better. I will say that the system needed to reboot about six times to install updates and until it finished, there were all kinds of errors during boot about drivers not installed, etc. Not a problem for us but could be for someone who is expecting it to just work.

Honest reviews on ASUS Zenbook UX32A-DB31 13.3-Inch Ultrabook

This is a wonderful Ultrabook. The machine feels sturdy and rigid with its great metal shell. There is *no* flex on the keyboard and the display glides easily. Asus payed attention to detail on this machine, from the well placed USB 3.0 ports to the nice rubber gasket around the screen (to seal the keyboard + screen when closed) This laptop has a great UEFI implementation without all the mess of the Windows 8 SecureBoot. (it ships with Windows 7)

The only cons I really have for this laptop are:

* Erratic Synaptics trackpad. The thing has the tendency to go crazy if you rest one two many fingers near it.

* Lots of software keys. You have to have Windows running + the proper drivers loaded or the screen brightness + keyboard brightness keys don't function.

* Linux support is hit-or-miss given how new the chipsets are.

* Lots of shovelware pre-installed. I recommend tossing the restore image and loading your own OS ASAP.

One selling point of this ultrabook for me was the ease of hardware upgrades. Asus did a wonderful job using a simple set of metal (plus metal threaded) torx screws to hold the thing together. 2GB RAM on board, one ram slot available (filled with a 2GB DDR3 stick of RAM). 10GB Maximum ram after upgrade :)

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This ultrabook is very sleek and lightweight. It is a quality product that looks as if a lot of thought was put into the design. Very light. I only have one issue. When booting up, (which is very quick), an error appears saying I have to install ATK0100 driver. It doesnt effect anything after you close the error windows, but is just a pain. So I went looking for this ATK0100 driver, and it seems like you need to purchase a program. These errors seem to be an ASUS thing. It would be great if I can just remove the program that is causing these error windows to pop up at start up. All in all this is a great little computer.

Update: The ATK0100 driver is actually on the laptop. Go to the start menu, programs, ASUS, edrivers and install the driver. This will stop the errors at boot up.

Gateway NV5929u, i5-430m, 4GB DDR3 memory, n-wifi, 6-cell battery Reviews

Customer Ratings:

I know my review is extremely long, but I've tried to provide as much information as I can. I will continue to update this review periodically and respond to comments, so if you have questions please feel free to ask.

A note on the error:

A lot of people picked up this laptop on sale at Best Buy for $500. It was an error on Gateway's part; they put in i5 chips instead of i3 chips, but the box was labeled as i3 and the laptop has the Intel i3 inside sticker on it. The system bios says it has an i5 and benchmark tests prove it does have an i5-430m. It will get up to 2.53 ghz when turboboost comes on. Stock speed is 2.26 ghz. Hyperthreading means it has 2 physical cores and 2 virtual cores. This laptop does have a $750 msrp value, but I wouldn't have paid $750 for it. Many people got them on sale because of a mistake. In any case, this is a solid laptop, although not at the retail price of $750. I think for $750 there are definitely a lot of good laptops out there, but you need to buy with your goals in mind. If you want a gaming laptop, look for a really good video card. What you need varies by what you want to do with the computer.

Pro:

The laptop feels sturdy, the screen has little play in it and stays firmly in place to wherever you open it. It looks sleek, is thin and pretty light at under 6 lbs. A 15.6 inch screen is a nice balance between size and portability, in my opinion. 17.3'' is great but they can weigh a pound or two more as the entire laptop is bigger as a result. 15.6 inches fits in my backback with no problem. Overall I really like the design and build quality of this laptop even if it is plastic. The only aluminum-cased laptops I've ever seen are the macbook pro ones from Apple, and those cost upwards of $1500. If you want a metal or carbon fiber one, get a macbook pro or some other high end model.

This thing is fast. The i5-430M is an excellent chip. You can google benchmarks on it. The i3 is 30-40% faster than a C2D, and the i5 is quite a bit faster than the i3 because of turbo boost technology. It also gives better battery life than the i3 because it has speed step and lower voltage. It's odd that the faster chip gives you better battery life, but that's just another perk.

4GB DDR3 1066mhz (3.68gb usable it says) is excellent. DDR3 is the newest type of RAM and it's still really expensive. The Gateway website says it recognizes 4gb RAM max but it actually will take 8gb. It only has 2 RAM slots so if you get 8gb it'll be maxed. However adding anything more than 4gb RAM would be pretty much useless for most people. I haven't been able to get this to use much more than 2gb, let alone 4. 4gb RAM is perfect for most people, get a solid state drive if you want a performance boost.

320gb 5400rpm hard drive is plenty of space. Whoever wrote the product description made a mistake because it is a 320gb hard drive. It's roughly 284 usable after having been formatted and with the Gateway Recovery Partition still in place. Many people don't understand that when you buy a 320gb hard drive, you do not get 320gb of space. No, you have not been lied to. Manufacturers use decimal notation (320gb = 3.2 billion)but computers read binary, so it's really about 298gb. You always get slightly less than what the manufacturer says, I believe it's 7% less than what is advertised, so this one holds about 298gb. The Recovery Partition takes up some space as well, so for usable space it's in the 280s unless you get rid of the partition. If you want a 500gb hard drive, they're easy enough to buy online and put in yourself. There are guides online for how to do this; it's very easy to do on this model. You remove a few screws from the bottom panel and you have access to the hard drive and the RAM. To remove the hard drive you take out 2 more screws and then pull the hard drive down to free it, and then you can remove it from the case. A solid state drive would make this ridiculously fast, but they're very expensive right now because they're bleeding edge technology. In a year or two they'll be way cheaper and absolutely worth the money for an upgrade.

The screen looks good. It's a glossy LED-backlit LCD screen. The resolution isn't super high, but this isn't a $2000 laptop. It's 1366 x 768. Most people will want to use the HDMI port to watch blu-ray on their LCD/plasma tv. With a 15.6 inch screen you can still enjoy blu-ray movies even if they aren't on a huge screen. I notice they have a lot of detail, but a small screen really doesn't do blu-ray justice. That's what HDTVs are for. This screen, like all budget laptop screens, suffers from poor viewing angles. I really don't mind this at all, but some people want an awesome screen. If this is a concern to you, be prepared to spend $1500+.

The optical drive will play blu-ray movies and you can use it to burn CDs and DVDs, but not blu-ray discs. No one can distinguish between 720p and 1080p on a screen this size, so it not having a 1080p resolution isn't a dealbreaker for me. While I've noticed that blu-ray movies are much crisper and have more detail than standard DVDs, the difference isn't as significant as viewing a dvd and then a blu-ray movie on my hdtv. This laptop will let you play 1080p on your hdtv via the HDMI port, but you can't actually get the full 1080p experience on the laptop itself because the screen's resolution is not 1920x1080. The 720p/1080p difference only matters on bigger screens and depends on how far away you're sitting from the screen. If you want a 1080p screen, you're going to pay the premium price for one. I think this resolution is fine for both blu-ray and normal tasks. As far as the optical drive goes, you can't burn blu-ray with it. If you are wanting to burn blu-ray movies, I imagine you're going to want to be able to do HD encoding, and for that you really want an i7 quad core desktop setup anyway.

There are tactile buttons up by the screen for mute, volume up, volume down, wireless on, etc. Very cool.

The laptop feels cool to the touch. I had it running for 5 hours and it wasn't even warm on my legs. Update 6-16-10: After using this for several months it still stays very cool. CPU temp usually stays in the mid to high 30s C, peaking around 43C when computer is under light use. This is very cool for a laptop. The hard drive also stays cool, in the low 30s C. I've been able to get the temp up to 83C using Handbrake to encode video to .mkv with h.264. That's the max temp I've achieved.

Windows 7 Home 64 bit is pre-loaded. It's better than Vista.

The computer will not continue to charge if you plug it in and it's already a really high charge, say 96-100%. This is a good thing. It means it won't charge the battery when it's not needed. So it will say "96% plugged in, not charging." What ruined my old laptop battery was overcharging and heat.

Cons:

The keyboard isn't the best ever, but I tend to have low expectations for laptop keyboards. I never buy $2000 laptops, so for the price you can't expect something incredible. I have no problem with this keyboard, though. It has the number pad on the right so you can work with numbers a lot easier. This doesn't have a standard 10-key layout, though. The period is above the number pad instead of between 0 and enter at the bottom. I find this to be annoying, but it's ok. Having a number pad at all is a great feature.

The touch pad is somewhat difficult to work with, but overall it's not that bad once you get used to it. I think all touch pads feel slightly different, so it's something that you have to grow accustomed to. I adjusted the settings to remove the two-finger gestures, tapping and what not, so it works much better than it did when I first turned the laptop on.

Normally there are two buttons, one for left and one for right click. This has a plastic bar where you click on the left or right side. I don't really like it, but for me it's not a deal killer. It took a little getting used to. I think the advantage that it offers is that you won't accidentally right click as much. Otherwise it's an odd bit of engineering. This won't matter if you carry a mouse.

128mb of integrated video memory is good, but not enough to play most modern computer games that need 256, 512 or higher. If you're doing something that's GPU-intensive (photoshop CS4+, playing games like Crysis, etc) this will be something to consider. If you need more video graphics, look elsewhere. Make sure to update the graphics driver on the Intel website. Apparently I can't put a valid link in my review despite it being the correct link to the Intel website. You'll have to do a search for it yourself. On the Intel website under Support you can use their Intel graphics update utility or search for the correct update by selecting the operating system and clicking on drivers to find the new updates. As of 6-16-10 the current driver is 8.15.0010.2119

A 6 cell battery isn't the best. A 9 cell would have been amazing, and it's possible there are 9 cell batteries available for this, but 9 cell batteries are heavier than 6 cell ones, so it's a trade off. It gets a little over 4 hours on the lowest power setting. Make sure to go into advanced power plan options by clicking on the battery icon. You should change the "power saving" plan's advanced options. You'll want to set the CPU to use 0% max while unplugged. It's still enough cpu power to watch streamed video or play blu-ray movies and your battery will last a lot longer on a charge while unplugged if you do this. You can also set the cooling to passive so the fans won't come on; this will give you a little extra battery life as well. Getting over 4 hours on a single charge with a laptop that performs as well as this one is fantastic. It's not a netbook, so expecting 12 hours is unrealistic. This thing has a lot of power even in the power saving mode with the adjustments I suggested.

The webcam is only 0.3 megapixels, but this is fine for most people. I don't notice much difference between this one and my 1.3mp Hercules Deluxe Glass webcam. Amazon and other places sell nice Logitech 2.0 megapixel ones, so consider buying one of those if you need a really nice webcam. I imagine they're better than most (if not all) internal webcams and can be had for less than $70 on sale.

Overall:

This is a great laptop for the price. It will do anything a college student needs unless he or she does something graphics-intensive (playing games like Crysis). If you can get it for $500-$600 it's a fantastic price. At $750, I'd look elsewhere for one with more video memory and a better case/keyboard/track pad.

Other thoughts:

Gateway makes fine laptops, despite some people thinking the brand is bad. What most fail to realize is that Gateway, Dell, Acer, Apple, Asus or whatever other company don't make most of the parts that go into the laptop. On this one the processor is made by Intel. The hard drive is made by Seagate. The motherboard is made by another company (I believe this one is an Asus). The RAM for this is from Samsung. Most of the hardware is made by another company. The differences are really in the way the laptop looks: the exterior, the keyboard, the touch pad. These companies outsource and contract out pretty much all of the work. They don't really build anything anymore. It's all made in China. Yes, even the $2000 Macbook Pros are made in China. Brand does not matter as much as it used to.

I read a statistic from SquareTrade (they provide 3 year warranties) that 10% of laptop failures in the first 3 years of a laptop's life that were reported to them were from drops/spills/accidents. Don't eat/drink around your computer and try not to drop it!

In the end if you take care of your laptop, don't let it get dusty, don't drop it and don't spill anything on it, it should last three years, at which time you should think about upgrading again. A general rule for electronics is that if they work for the first month, they're going to keep working as long as you take care of them. Make sure to get a can of compressed air and remove dust at least once a year. Dust kills computers because fans and heat exhaust vents get clogged so the computer can't cool itself properly.

Download VLC or Media Player Classic Home Cinema and use that for watching movies rather than the PowerDVD8 software that comes on the laptop. You need PowerDVD for watching blu-ray, though, because you need a player that will decode the encoded blu-ray content. For anything not blu-ray, I use VLC (a free movie/music player that will play basically anything). Also consider downloading Avira (free, excellent anti-virus), Spybot S&D, Ad-aware, Malwarebytes, Ccleaner, and Defraggler (to periodically defragment your hard drive). Microsoft Security Essentials is also a pretty decent anti-virus, although I prefer Avira. I suggest using a free firewall program like Comodo Internet Security Premium. These are all very important applications to have. Stop using Internet Explorer and get Firefox. I suggest using the following add-ons: Noscript, Adblock Plus, Flashblock and Web of Trust. These will block scripts and flash (you can allow things you want to allow) and Web of Trust will help you not go to sites labeled as containing malware. If you're careful, you won't have to deal with getting a virus. Don't forget to update the video card driver from the Intel website. I hope this has been helpful.

6-16-10 Some more updates: Again, I've updated quite a few things throughout my review. I'm glad people have found it useful. I still really enjoy using this laptop. (The Intel driver update fixed the video problem I mentioned earlier, so I've removed that section from my review.)

There is a high pitched noise that comes from the left speaker and is also noticeable in your headphones when they are plugged into the headphone jack. It's not noticeable coming from the laptop speaker if there's any ambient noise, but you will hear it in your headphones. If you google the Mosquito ring tones, it sounds something like 17 or 18khz, but not exactly. It is certainly annoying if you're sitting in silence, which is the case with me because I live in a very quiet apartment. I haven't found the cause yet. It does not make this noise while in safe mode or at the BIOS screen, so I imagine it's a software-triggered issue rather than an inherent hardware problem. It seems to happen while the CPU is not under load. I imagine a BIOS update might fix this issue. It might be hardware-related, such as a fan that needs to be replaced. In any case, it's not enough of a problem to really bother me. I listen to music and then I can't hear the noise it makes. 6-16-10: I don't notice this sound anymore, so it must have become a lot fainter. I'm leaving this paragraph here because I think it's relevant information about the laptop. Overall I'm still very pleased with this laptop.

Update history:

Update 3-3-10: I'm updating several things throughout the review, most notably that there are only 2 RAM slots. I'm still very pleased with this laptop and think it's a great buy.

Update 4-2-10: Slight update for the optical drive section.

Update 6-16-10: I found some embarrassing errors in my review that were present because of the edits. I think I've caught them all. I edited a few things here and there, mostly minor details that weren't totally correct. I removed the thing I mentioned about jittery video because that hasn't happened at all since Intel released the updated drivers for the integrated graphics. I'm still pleased with this laptop. It performs well, has good battery life, and does what I need it to. I've watched blu-ray movies on my hdtv and they look fantastic. I'll continue to update this review as time goes on. I know it's incredibly long, but I hope all the information remains useful to people.

Update 7-12-12: It's an old laptop now at 2.5 years old but it still works great. It runs warmer than it used to. I use it as a home theater PC, which means I have it hooked up to my TV to watch streamed content online or movies on Blu-ray. It still runs and I haven't had any real issues with it, so it was a nice purchase. There are much better laptops out there right now. This one is entirely outdated and overpriced at $800. Hopefully no one buys such an old laptop when there are superior models out now for less.

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I was one of the lucky ones. I got the mislabeled one , but I my mom bought one two and hers also had the i5. I think it's a great computer for the price plus bluray , 4g ram. Hdmi output. This is the spec I've been waiting for. I would not have bought it at 749

Best Deals for Gateway NV5929u, i5-430m, 4GB DDR3 memory, n-wifi, 6-cell battery

This laptop is completely awesome. Basically, whoever assembled these at Gateway messed up and put a Core i5 430M in the machine instead of the Core i3 330M that it was supposed to have. This laptop is very fast and capable and it will be very hard to find a laptop with an i5 CPU and a Blu-Ray drive for this price. Windows 7 is such a great OS compared to Vista. It's hard for me to say this, but I actually switched from a Macbook to get this laptop. With this hardware and Windows 7 you'll be hard pressed to find a better laptop. Just about the only thing I've found that this machine can't do is play the most demanding games. The Intel HD GPU comes with only 128 MB of VRAM (I think it can share some of the system memory too). You can play some games with it, but just make you sure you read the system requirements before you buy. I have played Civilization IV so far without any problems. Basically, unless you're a hardcore gamer, I highly recommend this laptop for the price.

Honest reviews on Gateway NV5929u, i5-430m, 4GB DDR3 memory, n-wifi, 6-cell battery

I bought this Gateway laptop when a 3 year old Gateway 14.1" Vista's Hard Drive Failed. However I use this for business and pleasure. This is the 5th Gateway. This brand is under-rated. My business partner has her 3 year old laptop and uses it day and night, never breaking. Other brands such as Dell and Sony caused laptop hell.

Got this unit on sale in Bestbuy for $499.00 what a find, it had an I5 chip instead of the posted I3 chip. It is the fastest laptop I ever owned, even beating a new Dell Desktop in speed. Turns on and signs off really fast. The keyboard did not take me long to master, but because of the extremely bright LED screen this unit should have had a back-lit keyboard.

The screen does not appear to be as clear as my glossy 3 year old but this is 15.6". The bluray drive is fantastic, my Son is amazed at the clarity.

The battery is OK and lasts longer on an energy saver setting which also cuts down on the intense brightness of the screen, which can be a plus in may situations. However the battery recharges really fast.

This is a high quality machine, mated to Windows 7 it is the ultimate laptop.

I fixed my 3 year old Gateway, and it is also working fine, but no way can it compare to this new model. The wireless capability is miraculous. Buy it and it will make you happy. If you have to love something, this beauty is light and easy to carry over the threshold.

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I am still loading software. This computer is fast. It is a NV5927U with an i5 chip and Blu-ray player. The seller compares the computer to the NV5929U. But the specs don't quite match up. So, don't bother comparing the specs. This computer is an excellent deal. If the price holds up 30 days, it will be even a better deal. I only say that because every time I buy a computer, there is a better deal within a month of the purchase. Oh well, that's technology for you.

It has been a month now and I haven't found anything better yet. Just not much out there that I can use with the 64 Bit OS. But that will change. Blu-ray works well. All programs loaded and functional accept the Palm Sync for my Palm Z22. So, I'll have to find a substitute for that. I had to get a wireless mouse, since the touch pad is too sensitive. Also, the multi-touch takes getting used too. I have completely switched over to the new computer and so far it has been performing well.

Battery life is about 3 hours. Not bad for a 6 cell. If a 9 or 12 cell is available, I will get one and use the 6 cell as a back-up.

Discount Samsung ATIV Book 2 NP270E5E-K03US 15.6-Inch Laptop (Ash Black)

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $699.99
Sale Price: $629.99
Today's Bonus: 10% Off

Lightweight, nice keyboard and display is bright and readable. Samsung electronics seem to have good attention to detail and pretty much trouble free.

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Great price and great computer. Fast, neat. Very nice configuration. Nice RAM memory. Makes thing easier to do. Price was ok too.

Best Deals for Samsung ATIV Book 2 NP270E5E-K03US 15.6-Inch Laptop (Ash Black)

Samsung has long been a favorite of mine, along with Dell, but the ATIV Book 2 has put Samsung in the lead for good. It boots up in seconds and is ready to do a good days work or play. I did install word (work and my writing require it), but other than that I was working on it within 8 minutes. (I'm slow, LOL)

The screen is amazing and the picture quality is as well. This is one of the best laptops I have ever used and will buy another one when this one gets to old. This is ideal for the anyone who wants a light weight laptop to carry with them!!

Honest reviews on Samsung ATIV Book 2 NP270E5E-K03US 15.6-Inch Laptop (Ash Black)

I love this unit! I changed from a Dell which I am sick of! This is so much easier to use and Samsung has some of their own features that make it worth every penny. On the down side, it has a feature on the touch pad that you can change screens by sliding your finger from the outside edge. I find this to be a pain as another screen will pop up if I go to far over from the center of the touch pad. the only other thing I would have REALLY liked is a back lit keyboard! I can deal with the touch pad issue but the Non-Backlit keyboard is the only thing that kept me from giving this a 5 star rating.

I would still HIGHLY recommend this unit and the Samsung brand! Outstanding product and quality made! Really worth it!

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Very good considering specifications, the only problem is that this model doens't have USB 3.0 =/, however I recommend it.

Review of Sony VAIO SE1 Series VPCSE13FX/S 15.5-Inch Laptop (Platinum Silver)

Customer Ratings:

I've had this laptop for about a week now and I couldn't be happier with it.

Pros:

1. Gorgeous 15.5" LCD screen. It's got great resolution, brilliant colors, and it's very bright. The 15.5" screen may not be huge, but there is so much workspace because the resolution is so impressive. Great viewing angles as well.

2. Light but sturdy chasis. The chasis may be metal (which gives it a very modern look), but it's still so light you can pick up the laptop with one hand with relative ease.

3. Great battery life. As with most manufacturers Sony exaggerated a bit when they said you get 6 hrs on this machine, but it does come close. If you're on 50% screen brightness and you're only doing browsing the web you will get about 5 hours.

4. Great performance. The laptop comes with a 2nd generation i5 2.4GHz processor, which is significantly faster than the i3. Everything about the laptop is quick, including the boot-up, which takes well under a minute.

5. Doesn't pick up fingerprints. The finish on this laptop is matte, which means it resists fingerprints really well. The only truly glossy part of this laptop is the VAIO logo on the front.

6. Speed/stamina option. Sony includes a button that allows you to switch between using the Radeon graphics card (speed) and the less powerful, integrated Intel graphics (stamina). I thought this was pretty pointless at first but if you're not working with graphics intensive stuff and you're trying to conserve battery life, switching to the Intel graphics actually adds up to an 1 hour.

7. Relatively quiet. For people who are concerned about the fan noise, don't be. It's really not that noticeable, even when I'm gaming. Oddly enough, my roommate has the 13.3" version of this laptop and the fan on that is extremely loud at times.

Cons:

1. The touchpad takes a little time to get used to.

2. The speakers are pretty weak and barely have any bass.

3. The headphone jack is towards the back, which is annoying if your headphone cord isn't that long.

4. It's pretty easy for stuff like dust to get under the keys. Unfortunately it's a lot harder to clean...

Bottom line: The price might a setback but if you are looking for a laptop that balances performance, battery life, reliability, and aesthetics, this laptop is definitely worth it.

Keep in mind also, that at the time of me writing this, Amazon is offering a free $50 gift card and free sheet battery (which attaches to the bottom of the laptop, doubles the battery life, and retails for $130). $930 $50 $130 = $750.

For those of you who are searching for a new laptop and don't really know what you want yet: the other laptop I had considered was the Toshiba Portege. It's similar to this laptop in many ways but it is cheaper by $100 or so. There are a few minor drawbacks, like a weaker graphics card (Intel integrated graphics), no backlit keys, and a non-HD screen. Depending on what you want that may be a better option.

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The Sony Vaio VPCSE13FX is a decent laptop with a brilliant display and one really, really bad design defect. Let's just get that part out of the way.

See that shiny "VAIO" logo on the back of the display? Yeah, it's a plastic inlay. Why should you care? Because the aluminum around the back of the display is ABSURDLY thin and completely without structural support, meaning that nice little plastic Vaio logo presses into the LCD guts whenever your laptop experiences pressure of any kind (eg, in a backpack or messenger bag). I noticed pressure marks on the display outlining the exact shape of the plastic logo within a MONTH of purchasing this thing, and try as I might to mitigate the effect, it just kept getting worse. If you plan to use this laptop for travel, you need to be exceptionally careful. I worked in IT for years, so I know laptops can be fragile, but this is absurd. Sony should have just painted the Vaio logo on, because this is one of the worst design decisions on a laptop that I can think of. It's just flat-out moronic it's a laptop you basically can't travel with without ruining.

You'll hate it all that much more because the display is just so gorgeous. Really, the colors are vibrant, it gets nice and bright, and the 1080p resolution makes it ideal for photo editing, movie-watching, and multitasking. It really is awesome.

As far as build quality goes, I'm disappointed with the amount of flex in the chassis, but you have to realize you're getting a 15.5" laptop that is really, really light here without having to get some horrible ULV i3 processor. It's all aluminum, so it dissipates heat pretty well, too (much better than plastic-bodied laptops).

The keyboard is OK. I like the chiclet keys, but the action isn't quite as precise as what I was used to on a Macbook. The spacebar also creaks occasionally, so that's upsetting. Then again, I have used laptops with far worse keyboards than this, so I'd definitely say it's passable. Also, the backlit keys are awesome. For the nerds out there: the positioning of the CTRL key is not at all ideal, but I'm slowly getting used to it (it's tiny!).

The bloatware isn't too bad, but Sony doesn't provide you a restore CD should you decide to put on a fresh copy of Windows, so BYO media if you're planning on doing a clean OS install.

Battery life is... well, it's a Windows laptop that isn't an Ultrabook. In "Stamina" mode, it gets around 4-5 hours of continuous use. If you buy this guy in a retail store, you may be able to get a Sony extended sheet battery for free, and that'll get you to around 8-9 hours of total battery life. Definitely glad I got it, so maybe find this thing in a retail location and price match to Amazon or whoever's cheapest.

The speakers are terrible. Just really, really bad. The headphone jack also puts out really terrible sound but maybe the amp on mine is defective or something. This is not a device you'll want to use for sound editing, let's say that much.

The Wi-Fi is a pain sometimes, it uses an Intel chipset that is notoriously temperamental about which networks it will play nice with, but if you go tweaking around in the settings (especially changing it to a higher transmit power) you should be able to get it working on most setups. I've not found one that it simply doesn't work on.

USB 3.0 is a nice feature, not that I've ever used it. The SD card slot is great, as well reads quick and is placed in a good location.

The power adapter seems unlikely to break in the event you trip over the cord, because it sits in there pretty loosely, but I'm not about to test that theory.

Best Deals for Sony VAIO SE1 Series VPCSE13FX/S 15.5-Inch Laptop (Platinum Silver)

Very happy with this purchase. It's bigger than I originally wanted....was searching for 13.3 inch laptop. However, most 13.3 in screens I've seen in person have a VERY poor viewing angle....move the screen slightly up or down and the screen either fades or the color washes out. This may not bother some, but is very annoying to me when viewing photos or watching videos.

The screen on this model is much better than any laptop I viewed in the stores.

True 1080p. Brilliant colors and excellent viewing angles from either horizontal or vertical.

I like the keyboard layout. It feels more like a desktop keyboard with the dedicated number pad.

There have been many complaints about the loud fan when doing heavy graphics or gaming, but Sony just released a new BIOS that remedies this.

You can still hear the fan spin up, but not as loud as other laptops. Also, it is very thin, and there is not much room in the chassis...you WANT the fan to do its job to prevent overheating. If the sound of the fan is too distracting, you should opt for a larger laptop with a thicker case.

Overall I think it's in the top 5 in the price range.

Battery life could be better, but it is only a 4 cell. With the sheet battery I can get around 7-8 hours while surfing, email, etc with a brighter setting on the screen in Stamina mode.

Honest reviews on Sony VAIO SE1 Series VPCSE13FX/S 15.5-Inch Laptop (Platinum Silver)

I have had this for two weeks now and feel I finally have found a keeper. (I am picky with laptops -have bought and returned two other laptops this year before settling on this one as my fullsize option.)

The overriding pro here is the incredible screen/display -a combination of the high resolution as well as the perfectly tuned contrast, make this supremely comfortable to stare at for hours. It's even qualitatively better than other high-end Sony Vaio laptops (at a BestBuy, I was originally impressed by the 16.4" high-end/high-resolution Vaio F, but later went to another local retailer and saw that this 15.5" blew that other Vaio away). On a scale of 1-10 I'd rate the average laptop screen as a 3 (you know, that "digital" glowing look, sometimes with the cross-lattices), some HP laptops as a 6 or 7, the Vaio F as a 7, most Samsung laptop screens as a 7-8, IPS screens (at least the ones I've seen) as an 8, and this Vaio S as a 10. My eyes hurt easily when doing work (no matter how much I fiddle with Cleartype, contrast and gamma settings), and this has been a revelation.

Other positives: an excellent backlit keyboard, good keys and trackpad; included Bluetooth; very light weight for a 15.5"; a clean, good-looking minimalist look (reminiscent of the black slab in 2001: A Space Odyssey); and acceptable battery life even with just the base battery. As a bonus, Amazon is also throwing in the sheet battery -which I think is a good idea (i.e., you choose the tradeoff between more battery life and more weight/thickness). The Speed/Stamina physical switch also turns out to be useful -much more convenient than fiddling with settings -and it really works, not just a gimmick. The i5 processor and discrete Radeon 6470M graphics work great. I'm not a "gamer" but tried a recent game (Skyrim) just for kicks and this handled the 1080p (highest resolution) setting with aplomb.

The rumored fan noise was also a concern of mine (I returned an MSI notebook this year mainly because of the excessively loud fan). I needn't have worried. The fan is always running (it is never 100% silent) but during everyday tasks, the fan is very quiet and not overbearing at all -you have to listen for it and it sounds like a smooth airstream (and NOT like a "wind tunnel" effect nor a pitchy whine, both of which I despise). When running demanding programs/processes,the fan will increase in intensity but again, I don't find it bothersome.

There are two negatives: one is the utterly middling sound/speaker quality. It gets the job done in a pinch, but most cell phone speakers sound better, to give you a basis of comparison. It is weak and there is no midrange, bass, or even high-end (I'm not sure what's left). I'm okay with this because these days, there are excellent ultra-tiny/portable speaker options (I use the Satechi IPOP which can be charged via USB) that punch way above their grade (not to mention the option of headphones). However, if one is categorically against having to bring an extra speaker along, then this will be a problem. Secondly, the hard drive is slow and especially can't compare to an SSD. That said, it's fine for what it is, it's quiet (no clicking noises!), and can be replaced with an SSD in the future if I ever wanted.

I don't dock off any stars (i.e. each star is "worth" 20% of the rating) for these two issues because 1) in the case of the hard drive, it can be upgraded to an SSD in the future if desired, and 2) they're not deal-breakers for me; the overall experience remains high. Hence 5 stars.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Sony VAIO SE1 Series VPCSE13FX/S 15.5-Inch Laptop (Platinum Silver)

****THE GOOD****

1) Sleek, stylish and very light. The internal batteries will last you 3+ hours with surfing/browsing and Word Processor. If you use the Sheet battery, you'll get maybe 7+ hours.

2) Not a lot of bloatware. I did a fresh install all the same.

****THE BAD****

Speakers are *very* poor quality. Sounds lack bass and any definition. You might as well listen to music via cups and strings. They are that bad.

Buy Dell Inspiron i17R-2617MRB 17.3-Inch Laptop (Mars Black)

Customer Ratings:

I just bought this laptop. Its simply amazing. lightning fast. very solid. super sexy. plays games. very very very pleased. wasnt exactly cheap but it most certainly well worth the money! BUY THIS LAPTOP NOW. Dell 17r intel i5 w/ 4g ddr3 and 1g ati gpu

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This is a great desktop replacement, has everything that I could need, and I ordered it from the Dell Outlet and saved another $300-$350

Best Deals for Dell Inspiron i17R-2617MRB 17.3-Inch Laptop (Mars Black)

They send me laptop other than I order. I want Mars Black but I have silver now. I got a different laptop than the pictures with a protruding battery, which is not wanted. t is annoying but I do not want to refer back and wait.

Acer Aspire V3-571G-6622 15.6-Inch Laptop (Midnight Black) Review

Customer Ratings:

I've had this computer for about 3 months and so far its been able to do everything I want it to. Runs my main game Aion between 30-40 fps on max settings (around 50-60ish on medium), has a decent battery life (4 hours) and isn't too expensive. I've also played GW2, Tera, CIV V & Anno 2070 without any problems. As the title says I have been looking for a computer for a year that is between $500-$600, has a dedicated gfx card and is 15'.

Windows gives it a base score of 4.6

Processor: 7.1

Ram: 5.9

Gfx: 4.6

Gaming gfx: 6.5

HD: 5.9

A few gripes:

1. Fingerprint magnet

2. I usually carry my laptop in the space that's between the top of the keyboard and the edge of the screen for stability, the power button is too close to the edge of the laptop and I've accidently turned it off a few times.

3. I appreciate the minimalist design, but there's nothing to indicate when caps lock/ num lock is on.

Overall, I would recommend this comp to anyone who doesn't want to break the bank while still getting decent performance.

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this computer arrived the 22nd of this month...took outta the box.......added another 4g of memory and this thing is fast. Have been a little worried as I know this version has not been out to long but i am completely satisfied. No problems once you figure windows 8 out. As a mid-range gamer I would have to give this 6 stars. At this time I have only played one game and that is WoW...runs anywhere from 60-100fps in starting zones. Have not tried dungeons or raiding with it at this time but will let you know. I run the autoselect for the video. It switches back and forth from the integrated graphics and the dedicated graphics when needed. For the price I will be buying another one in the near future. And I would also like to say Amazon customer service was excellent when I contacted them about the long wait to ship this computer. Talked with them Wednesday online and had the laptop here by 2 p.m. Friday. Thank you Randee!!!!

Best Deals for Acer Aspire V3-571G-6622 15.6-Inch Laptop (Midnight Black)

This laptop just blew me away. I love the sleek elegant look to it. It's not too heavy so I can take it with me on the go.

The downside is that it only comes with 4BG RAM and a 5200rpm hard drive. However with the 8GB RAM upgrade it is super snappy and fast, even with the 5200RPM hard drive. Also Windows 8 has fast boot times, even with this slow hard drive.

Windows 8 is really not bad at all once you "de-suck it" with one of the various programs available that let you bring back and customize the start menu and also lets you boot up to the desktop. I personally went with "startisback". It cost 3 bucks and gives you 2 licenses to use on 2 PCs.

Graphically this laptop is awesome! I can run Resident Evil 6 at max settings at 60fps as well as Deus Ex human revolution on high at 60fps. For the price you pay, it's a steal!

The battery life is decent when you set it to power saver, about 3 hours, when you're using wifi, longer without it. But if you want longer battery life get a 12-cell battery. But for me it's not an issue since I'm usually connected to the wall.

All in all, if you're looking for power, performance and decent gaming at a cheap price. This is it! you can't go wrong at this price. :)

Honest reviews on Acer Aspire V3-571G-6622 15.6-Inch Laptop (Midnight Black)

This is by far the best laptop for the dollar that I could find. Very sleek looking machine. It is also very thin. Not Ultrabook thin but thin for a laptop with an I5 and a dedicated GPU. The Laptop seems to be well built, pretty sturdy. No Flex. I also added another 4 gigs of memory to the Laptop. Overall the machine is pretty fast. I was surprised how well it ran Sim City and Mass Effect 3. The only thing that I don't really care for is the track pad. It works but it seems a little sensitive to clicks. I also don't like the fact that its not in the center. But that's just me. Highly recommend this machine to anyone looking for something with a little kick but dont want to spend an arm and a leg on a good performing machine.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Acer Aspire V3-571G-6622 15.6-Inch Laptop (Midnight Black)

To get the maximum out of this laptop you will need some expertise. Apart from a slow disk, this is a two-GPU machine which uses NVIDIA Optimus technology to switch between uses. You have relatively low control over what get used where, and often things cause errors. Updating drivers can also be painful. If you'd like to go with it anyway, here are some things to note:

1. Do not set Chrome to use NVIDIA GPU but use chrome:flags to enable using the GPU. Otherwise it will either be too slow or work with errors.

2. The disk is slow; consider upgrading to SSD.

3. The screen resolution is low and you will notice that. I don't care much for it, but I know many people who do.

4. Battery life is good / satisfactory.

This is my main computer and I will be happy to answer any specific questions on this thread.

Review of ASUS S56CA-WH31 15.6-Inch Ultrabook

Customer Ratings:
List Price: $699.99
Sale Price: $429.49
Today's Bonus: 39% Off

I purchased this computer (S56CA-WH31) for my son to use at college, and have been configuring it for him for the past couple of days. Here are a few of my impressions so far:

The overall construction is very good except for one issue the DVD tray extends out from the side of the laptop by about 1 mm. One on-line reviewer noticed that the fit of the DVD tray was off in his review model also, but I am surprised that this got through into the production models. It is not a big issue, but it definitely detracts from the look of the aluminum body.

The screen is bright and clear and has good viewing angles. The keyboard is nice and big and works well with my hunt and peck. The large scroll pad is nice, and I am liking the imbedded buttons more than I thought I would.

The operating system is Windows 8 core (not pro). There is an ASUS-branded software DVD player, so I didn't have to upgrade to pro to get the windows media pack for DVD play as I feared I might have to. There is no utility to create recovery DVD's even though the paper manual refers to one called AI recovery. There is a Bluetooth module, so the "reviewer" who says that there isn't one is wrong.

The 500 GB hard drive is partitioned into a number of system and recovery partitions and a C: system partition of about 186 GB along with a D: data "drive" of about 258 GB. I used the Windows 8 disk manager to first remove the D: partition, expand the system "drive" to around 400 GB, and then used the rest of the space for a 39 GB D: drive just in case the recovery software expects to find the D: drive there.

I installed Start8 from Stardock to get a start menu back on the desktop, and have ordered a 4GB SODIMM to expand the memory up to 8 GB ($25) I figured more memory would be useful especially with the imbedded HD-4000 graphics.

I don't know what the reviewer who was complaining that this was a "slow" computer was talking about. It has a windows experience score of 4.8, which is not bad for an I-3 without turbo-boost and with imbedded graphics. It won't play highly graphics intensive games, but that's not what I bought it for, not should you expect it from the online specs.

Hope this is good enough for an initial review.

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Overall, this is a decent to good Ultrabook, providing fantastic value at the price point the i3 version is being offered for ($500 at time of purchase). I'd rate it at 3.5 stars. It's a handsome looking notebook and I bought this to replace a tiny netbook my wife had been using; the price of this Ultrabook is only a couple hundred more than a difficult to use small, brand new netbook, while having good functionality (good luck typing on a fancy, more expensive tablet, or sub 11" notebook), more processing grunt than tablets and most netbooks, all within a slim, relatively lightweight profile that is suitable for travel.

There are a lot of pros and cons to this ultrabook, but some of are non issues to casual users, while others make this ultrabook better suited to advanced users (or advanced users who set it up for a casual user).

OUT OF THE BOX:

The quality and appearance is great. The aluminum body and top lid are very sleek looking. The darker brushed aluminum on the top does tend to discolor and pick up fingerprints with ease. It's not terribly heavy and while the base is very sturdily built, the screen lid feels a bit flimsy. The top lid appears to be a combination of flimsier plastic, with a very thin brushed aluminum overlay. Lightly pressing on parts of the lid causes the LCD screen to have fluctuations. Despite the notebook being light, you'll want to resist picking up the notebook by the lid/screen, as it may risk damaging the LCD.

LCD QUALITY:

The glossy screen is clear, but has very poor viewing angles. 1366 x 768 resolution is merely adequate. Minor backlight bleeding on right and left edges. Colors are bright, vibrant, with a lot of contrast, but actual gamut (range of natural colors it can reproduce) is only average. This isn't a graphics workstation replacement nor intended for photographers/graphic artists who will be using this notebook for producing color perfect prints, so it's mostly a non issue.

TOUCHPAD:

The large touchpad seems to have fairly high dpi sensitivity, which is a very good thing. Swiping and navigating with the touchpad is fairly smooth, although I did experience an occasional stutters. Two and Three finger multitouch work as advertised. There is an easy to understand short manual showing users how to take advantage of the touchpad features. One of the nicer ones is to swipe in from the right edge to bring up the Windows 8 "Charms" bar.

KEYBOARD:

I'm a big fan of island style keyboards and having a full numpad. Keyboard feels very good to use and will have no problems for users who need to do a lot of typing and numerical input with it.

SPEAKERS:

The speakers are pretty unique and are actually integrated into the laptop's battery and produce a fantastic range of sound for a laptop. Among the best I've heard. UPDATE: Apparently, they're in the laptop. The battery has a faux speaker cover looking applique.

CPU+GRAPHICS:

The i3 provides a nice balance between power consumption and speed. The i3 is not slow by any means and the Intel integrated graphics aren't either. While you won't be able to play the newest games on high settings on this, many games are completely playable at low-mid settings. 1080p videos play flawlessly (when output to a higher resolution screen). The Intel integrated graphics share graphics memory with the computer-if you add another 4GB of RAM (~$25), you can, through the BIOS settings, increase total graphics memory allocation to 512MB. I was able to play Shogun 2: Total War on decent quality settings after a small memory upgrade. The graphics power is around that of the Nvidia GT 610M or GT 630M (with max 512mb memory allocation).

HARD DRIVE:

This ultrabook has an integrated 24GB mSATA SSD (short type) on the motherboard and a 500GB 5400 rpm secondary hard drive, where both operate in tandem as a hybrid HDD (via Intel IRST). This provides relatively quick boot up and loading of most programs, but the 5400rpm hard drive a big crutch and despite any marketing, these 5400rpm drives are always a crutch and I've had a bit of slowdown on this notebook solely due to the 5400rpm drive. I swapped it out for an SSD, but it was a lot of work, which I'll get into later. This Ultrabook operates much faster and more reliably with an SSD in place of the 5400rpm mechanical drive.

INTEGRATED PERIPHERALS:

A nice amount of ports, USB 2.0 and 3.0 work at advertised speeds, HDMI and VGA out is nice, although I do wish it had an eSATA port. The camera is not very good and produced a very grainy picture. It's a typical low end webcam. Bluetooth, which was included in my model, has adequate range. I am surprised that a DVD drive can fit in this form factor, squeezing one in might have resulted in some QC issues with mine-the eject DVD button works strangely, requiring a abnormally hard button press to get the DVD tray to eject. The DVD drive motor is also incredibly loud. DC Power jack seems pretty reinforced and feels like it won't be the first thing to go, as opposed to some of the other laptops I've owned.

BATTERY:

I get close to 5 hours with regular use which is more than adequate, considering how slim the battery is. Not as high as other ultrabooks, but this ultrabook is also less expensive.

BLOATWARE:

Not too heavy on bloatware, as compared with other manufacturers. Only had about 6 unnecessary programs to remove, albeit some of the Asus apps may be useful for the casual user (as they can provide easy file swapping options for connecting smartphones, working with the webcam, and setting up power options).

ADVANCED USERS/UPGRADES:

RAM is pretty easy to add another 4 GB. I also do like that it is just one single panel to remove (2 screws) to access both the HDD and the extra RAM slot. If you want to remove both sticks, you will need to remove the entire bottom cover/enclosure (about 16 screws). The BIOS is very lacking in options, which is unusual for Asus. There are no options to remove the Asus boot logo, nor are there options to select which boot device to use. It doesn't appear that this ultrabook allows booting from a USB thumbdrive, as I tried several bootable thumbdrives when I was trying a clean install, each time met with failure. It does allow booting from DVD, but I would feel better knowing I could boot from USB in case of DVD drive failure. Additionally, regarding the BIOS, this uses Secure Boot and an SLIC BIOS, which for the layman, automatically loads licensing data and prevents "unsigned" bootable DVDs and thumbdrives from loading/booting. This is why the laptop has no Windows License sticker. This was a big issue for me as I tried doing a clean install of Windows 8 Pro, but the SLIC BIOS automatically kept loading up the manufacturer keys for Win 8 Standard OEM during install, preventing me from using my own Windows 8 license. I was ultimately able to do a clean install Win 8 Pro, but it required some very hacky methods and backwards logic that I'll detail in the comments.

Replacing the slow 500GB HDD with an SSD and installing an OS on it is a little tricky due to the integrated onboard mSATA SSD. If you're doing a clean install you'll have to reinitialize the mSATA SSD to restore the Intel IRST functions (Fast Boot, Fast Resume, Instant On, etc). You can also liberate and get full use of the onboard 24GB mSATA SSD as a conventional drive, alongside your own drive by deleting the GPT partitions and creating new volumes...but I recommend making a backup of all factory partitions+data from the 24GB mSATA SSD so you can return the laptop to factory settings, if necessary. The 24GB mSATA SSD is removeable, but it uses a short card; the longer, larger capacity standard size mSATA SSD cards, while they will fit, have no screw standoff to secure it. I'll be adding a laptop screw standoff so I can swap the 24GB integrated mSATA SSD with a 128GB mSATA SSD. Or you can completely remove the mSATA SSD and just have a single drive notebook. The wireless network card can be removed, but there may be a hardware lock that prevents other wireless network cards from working on the motherboard. For now, I'm happy with the Atheros card that's in there, as it's compatible with some penetration testing software I have. There's a limited amount of tinkering that can be done on this Ultrabook, and I do feel some is necessary to get the most out of this notebook (replace HDD with SSD).

Despite some of its flaws, the underlying common denominator that makes this worthy of a purchase is it's price. You get a lot of Ultrabook for not too much money. With some tweaks, such as replacing the HDD, and maybe reintigrating the Start button via the $4.99 Stardock Start 8 program, it can be a great Ultrabook for casual and advanced users alike.

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*UPDATE AFTER SSD PURCHASE*

Upgrading the internal HDD to a 240GB SSD has fixed all of the problems I mentioned in my previous update. The computer now runs incredibly fast.

I will add, however, that trying to reinstall Windows 8 with the same product key was impossible except by using an unmodified x64 iso of Windows 8. For some reason, I could not download the iso from Microsoft and had to find it elsewhere. After finally getting the proper iso, the reinstall was a breeze, and the OEM product key was entered in automatically (make sure you have secure boot enabled). I also formatted the internal 24GB SSD and now use it to store my internet browser's cache to extend the life of my 2.5" SSD. Not having the Intel Rapid Start or Asus Instant On features has not created any noticeable affect on performance or resume speeds.

*UPDATE AFTER 2 WEEKS OF USE*

Do NOT buy this laptop if you don't intend to upgrade the internal Hard Drive to an SSD. The performance of the internal HDD bottlenecks the entire computer. I cannot listen to a 320kbps mp3 while browsing the internet without it skipping/stuttering, and I cannot listen to a FLAC file doing nothing else without it skipping. I also cannot watch an SD .avi file without it skipping/stuttering at least 10 times during a 40 minute TV show, and I cannot play Worms: Reloaded (a very simple game that this computer should be able to handle) without it locking up for a second or two EVERY 3 SECONDS. Either the internal HDD is EXTREMELY slow (my guess because my RAM and CPU usage are always well below 100%, and it's not just video but also audio that skips) or my unit is defective in some other way. The HDD indicator light is pretty much constantly on when I try to do any of the previously mentioned tasks as well. I will be ordering a 240GB SSD within the next month to see if that fixes the problem. Otherwise I will be sending the unit in to Asus. If you need a working laptop for under $500, don't get this. I'm going to be spending at least $200 on this laptop within the next few months (SSD and 8GB more RAM).

If the SSD upgrade fixes the problems, I would rate this at 4 stars again, but these issues bring it down to 2 for now.

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

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

This is a review for the Core i3 with 4GB of RAM.

PROS:

-Great keyboard w/ numpad, touchpad, and overall build quality with ample ports.

-Large, glossy screen and great audio quality on built in speakers.

-Snappy performance with Windows 8 on the internal SSD

-Laptop stays cool under load.

-Instant On resumes the OS very quickly.

-Latest 22nm version of the Intel CPU/GPU chipset (a lot of Ultrabooks in this price range are using the older 32nm architecture)

-ASUS Gesture makes Windows 8 a breeze on a non-touchscreen device.

CONS:

-Battery life is a bit lacking with the 4-cell battery (around 5 hours) BUT it also charges insanely fast (faster than my cell phone)

-LCD quality could be better; although it is perfectly adequate for a student or casual user. The viewing angles are limited and the color range is not the greatest. Tweaking the graphics settings helps quite a bit, but if the screen quality is the most important thing in a laptop to you, you probably won't be happy.

-The back is a fingerprint magnet, but that's nothing a little Windex can't help.

-DVD drive sticks out a NEGLIGENT amount on the backside. It's less than 1mm for me, and the front is flush. I've seen people complaining about it, but don't see it as being a huge deal.

-The speakers are on the bottom, so when the laptop is sitting on a bed, sound is a bit muffled but still loud enough.

-Grainy webcam

As a student, this laptop suits me very well. It's got enough battery life to make it through a day of classes without charging, and it's extremely light due to the stylish and thin aluminum design. Sound quality is great, and the display is adequate for mobile use (I'll do my Photoshopping at home on my desktop though). The processor is very fast as well. I've always been an AMD user except for an eeePC that had an Intel Atom. I'm very happy with the speeds of the i3; in comparison to my desktop's Phenom II X3 2.8Ghz the i3 transcoded an album from FLAC to V0 in 160% of the time it took the Phenom. Not bad at all. I've yet to do any gaming yet on this laptop, but I have a feeling with a total 6-8GB of RAM the Ultrabook would have no problem playing many recent games on low-medium settings. As far as video, the HD 4000 graphics provide a perfect HD media streaming experience. The webcam, however, is mediocre at best with a grainy, but decently high resolution image.

As far as future modifications, I intend to purchase a 128GB SSD to replace the internal HDD as well as pick up another 4GB of RAM. A freshly booted system configured to my liking (Rocketdock & Rainmeter) uses 66% of the internal 4GB due to the onboard GPU. I also would consider buying a larger battery if offered and if it's the same dimensions as the stock one. These are all things that are unnecessary due to the incredible price of this Ultrabook ($439.99 after rebate for me), but they will unlock this device's full potential.

In the end, I am very happy with my purchase; although I could have gotten a more expensive Ultrabook with more power, this packs a great punch for the price. It will be more than adequate for my internet browsing, mobile music production, word processing, media streaming, and casual gaming. Plus it makes a great fashion statement because it looks even sexier than a Mac ;)

Honest reviews on ASUS S56CA-WH31 15.6-Inch Ultrabook

I'd like to start out by saying that the majority of the grievances spelled out by other individuals typically revolve around the software. That is, Windows 8 and the suite of Asus prepacked crap.

And they're not wrong. It truly is horrendous. Windows 8 was a massive misstep by Microsoft and Asus' bundleware doesn't exactly enhance the experience.

SCREW WINDOWS 8:

Fortunately this was destined to be a Linux laptop, specifically Fedora 19 (https://fedoraproject.org/). I'll be using it as a software engineering student starting in the fall and this is looking to shape up to be a wonderful Linux laptop. It is fairly standard hardware and appears to be well supported (ethernet, WLAN, bluetooth, power management, webcam, etc.). I have also heard reports that it works well with the Debian based distros as well as the more "server-esque" distros such as CentOS and Arch Linux. The diagnostics done on this laptop were through Hiren's Boot CD which recognized all of the hardware just fine.

BIOS CONFIGURATION:

The first thing done was to update the laptop's BIOS to the latest version (208 as of writing this. Was 206). This, and morbid curiosity, was the only reason I booted into Windows 8 in the first place as using Asus' Windows based flash utility is the easiest way to get this done. Doing this did flip SecureBoot to enabled (it was actually disabled by default in 206). Just go back into the BIOS and disable it again. If you can't boot from CD be sure that "Launch CSM" is enabled under boot options in the BIOS and that the DVD drive is set to have boot priority over the Windows boot loader. If you intend to do a PXE installation you can enable that as well. Otherwise you can ignore it.

HARD DRIVES:

Both the 500GB hard drive and the 24GB SSD survived an extended test in GSmartControl with zero errors. The SSD benchmarked a read/write of 4.2GB/s and 344MB/s, very respectable.

The drives were immediately zeroed and given the following partitioning scheme:

/dev/sda1 swap (encrypt) 4GB

/dev/sda2 /boot ext4 500MB

/dev/sda3 / ext4 (encrypt) 19.5GB

/dev/sdb1 /home ext4 (encrypt) 500GB

This gives the OS, swap and applications the entire SSD and reserves the slow hard drive for data (office and Eclipse workspaces, mostly). Disk encryption works fine and as expected. Boot and application load times are snappy and responsive.

RAM:

I purchased an extra 4GB of RAM to go with this unit (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006EWUP4Y/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ) which was an easy install. Simply take out two screws, slide off a back panel and snap the module in. Numerous YouTube videos can be found demonstrating this. Both the laptop memory and the purchased memory survived six runs (10+ hours) of Memtest86 without issue (http://www.memtest86.com/). I only

GRAPHICS:

The Intel HD4000 graphics is more than enough for HD video and some basic gaming (hey, Steam is on Linux these days!). If you install more RAM into the laptop you can feel free to up the available memory for the graphics to 512MB via the BIOS (the default is a miserly 64MB so you may want to up it regardless). Games such as Portal and Bastion boot up and play fine. In fact, they load surprisingly fast considering that I have my Steam games installed to the HDD.

TEMPERATURES:

~41C-45C while idle or internet browsing. Prime95 brought the temps up to approx. 61C. Not too bad.

MISC:

Yes, the webcam is as grainy as others have reported. If this is an issue for you, avoid this unit. If not, then...feh? The ethernet, wireless and bluetooth work at the advertised speeds. The inclusion of a DVD drive is nice for those of us who cannot let go. The screen is large and bright.

The summary is the hardware will do its job quite well. The issue is with Windows 8 and Asus' bundleware. If you can I would suggest downgrading to Windows 7 or dropping an alternative OS under the hood. With the right configuration this is an absolutely wonderful piece of hardware at an unbelievable price.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for ASUS S56CA-WH31 15.6-Inch Ultrabook

I wanted a laptop that's attractive, reliable, at least i3 processor and under $500. Amazon had a gold box deal on the Dell 15N and, while it met my minimum qualifications, it was somewhat of a dud. The thick plastic body and the cheap feel of the keyboard was disappointing but I would have kept it for just over $300 I paid if it weren't for the wi-fi connection issues. I returned to Amazon and was credited fully right away. Personally I feel that there's no better retailer than Amazon right now.

As soon as I got my credit for the Dell return, this laptop goes on gold box deal. Talk about good fortune. This laptop that qualifies as an ultrabook (barely) is easily 5 stars for the price I paid. Not many people can say that they paid just over $400 for an ultrabook.

Performance is commendable. Even though I'm a casual user and don't do much that is graphics or processor intensive, I have yet to see any slowness of my applications and, with the hybrid HD setup, is the fastest booting computer I ever owned.

Reliability is top notch. Not a single hiccup detected at nearly a month's use. You also get the Asus warranty including accidental drop/spill damage protection.

Full of features including Bluetooth, HDMI out, USB 3.0 and an optical drive that not all ultrabooks have. Drive tray does stick out by a sliver when closed and isn't completely flush as some other reviewers noted but I wouldn't even have noticed if I hadn't read that on others' posts.

Sounds great. Best sounding laptop I ever owned. The speakers are down firing so having this on a flat surface is best for listening.

Excellent design. At .83" and 4.6 lbs, it is thin and light and I am a big fan of the brushed metal look of the aluminum body. Yes, it does leave finger prints but what laptop doesn't?

Decent battery life. Was able to squeeze 5hrs. Not the best but good for having 4 cell battery.

The keyboard, while not backlit, is nice and feels well built. Touchpad is responsive but is big, bigger than other laptops I owned so it took a little getting use to.

The screen is average. Like most mid level laptop screens it has good color and contrast with a little backlight bleed at the corners and short viewing angles. It definitely is not an Apple Retina Display.

Win8. Some hate, some like and some get use to. I got use to it. Works fine for my needs. Just glad that it came with minimal bloatware.

The 500gb HDD is 5400 rpm not 7200 as stated in some places but it fits my needs. Swapping it out for a SSD would improve performance no doubt but I really don't have the need to invest in that. I did put a $25 4gb RAM in the open slot and that will be the extent of my hardware upgrades.

Some states that the cooling fan is very loud. I have yet to notice after 3+ weeks of use and is quiet as a whisper. Will update post if it starts doing so.

This computer looks, feels and sounds great. While not the ultra of the ultrabooks, its performance is excellent for a casual user.