ASUS K52F-C1 15.6-Inch Versatile Entertainment Laptop (Dark Brown)

ASUS K52F-C1 15.6-Inch Versatile Entertainment LaptopJust got the K52F yesterday. I'm using it for school and some movie viewing. I mostly run Office apps, surf the web, and play with Linux. I don't game on my laptops at all so I can't say anything about that. The screen looks great, nice and bright. The touchpad seems to work flawlessly, I've had no problems. It comes with tons of bloatware, but don't they all anymore? None the less, it uninstalled easily enough. It also includes a driver CD, so you could wipe it and do a fresh install if you were so inclined. I just removed the bloat and did the anytime upgrade to Win 7 Ultimate.

My real complaint is the keyboard. It works fine and I have no problem typing on it. It is VERY flimsy though. I was really disappointed by this. I always heard ASUS made quality laptops but this keyboard is cheap. If you pressed anything in the top-right corner of the keyboard (the END key for instance), it would move a LOT and make a "clakky" sound. I popped the keyboard and noticed there were no supports under it at all. The clips hold it down but not all they way down, so it flexes a lot. I made some "supports" out of electrical tape (temporary until I find something more suitable), nothing more than small pads really. That made it more rigid and now I'm happy with it. I still have one area that moves a bit, but I'll fix that when I find something better to support it with.

If you're thinking about getting this laptop, that is probably be the only thing that will bother you. It does seem solidly built...other than the KB.

Toshiba Satellite C855-S5107 Notebok Laptop / Intel Pentium processor 2020M processor/ 15.6" LED HD

Toshiba Satellite C855-S5107 Notebok Laptop / Intel Pentium processor 2020M processor/ 15.6' LED HD Display / 4GB DDR3 / 500GB Hard Drive / Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive / Built-in HD webcam/ Windows -8 / Satin BlackThis computer really does it all. Great value for money and does everything you want from a laptop computer. From your every day word processing to graphic design, video editing, etc., it does it all. Anyone needing a laptop or a home computer for all needs without breaking the bank should look no further than this laptop computer.

The keys bounce very badly, I didn't have the experience to know that this was what was happening until I showed someone who did.

It will probably be the last electronic thing that I buy from the big "A" .

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The new Windows 8 took some time to get used to, but now I love it. Great laptop. Love Toshiba, still have laptop from 2001 that powers up and runs, just is not WiFi.

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Actually bought to reformat as Linux machine. Doesn't work for that until video drivers in Linux are matched to this machine

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Lenovo 15.6" Core i5 500GB HDD Notebook

Lenovo 15.6' Core i5 500GB HDD NotebookI have owned Thinkpad T410 before buying this laptop which is similar laptop, with a screen size of 14 inch. Firstly, I would like to mention the pros. Compared to the T410, T530 has a much better screen quality, which improves further if you opt for the Full HD screen. Like all Thinkpad T series laptop, this laptop is build to endure. The speakers are not completely useless with higher volumes.

The cons-

They screwed up the keyboard. Even though Lenovo has posted in many blogs about the intensive research they performed while coming up with this keyboard, it just isn't as good as the previous generations. I am continuously putting my left pinkie on the caps lock and this does not occur frequently with me. Anyways, I would not like to go into the details of the layout, which I think has also worsened from earlier. The graphic card is not that strong, but fine for CAD applications and some RTS games(for example, LOL). The optical drive does not fit as tightly as it should. Applying a bit of pressure on it makes it bend on one side too.

Overall, I am pleased with this laptop. I was aware of the Graphic card before hand so it was not a problem. Even though the keyboard is worse than before, it is much better than the competition with little flex, and I am sure any person who is not a thinkpad diehard will accustom to this keyboard quickly. If you are unsure, just buy this laptop, because its thinkpad.

I didn't buy my T530 on Amazon, nor did I get this exact model (there are tons) but this is a review of the laptop in general.

What I like: it's a Thinkpad! It's built like a tank, with some of the most burly hinges you'll see on a laptop, a magnesium-alloy structure, and an accelerometer that turns off the hard drive before the laptop hits anything if you drop it. This laptop replaced a T61 which had extremely quiet speakers; this T530 can get pretty loud! The display is bright and has excellent viewing angles (unlike the T61). I got the backlit keyboard which is a really nice option. My T61 had the audio ports in the front, which I always thought was a stupid place for them, so it's nice to see that this laptop has them on the side. I personally can't stand to use a touch pad, which is a big reason to get a Thinkpad since it has the wonderful Trackpoint stick. I'm paranoid about backups so I love that, like with my T61, I can put a second hard drive (in a caddy) in this machine for automatic backups. You can also put a second battery in there, I believe.

What I don't like: big surprise, the keyboard layout. I miss the Back and Forward buttons (for web browsing) next to the arrow keys that the keyboard on my T61 had. The layout of the Page Up and Page Down buttons and the Home, End, Insert, and Delete keys is pretty bad. Also, there is no gap between groups of function keys, so I have to look at them every time I want to hit the right one, since I can't find them by feel. The "chiclet/island-style" keys aren't as bad as I expected, actually, though I do prefer the old style. Another annoying thing is that the volume up/down buttons are nearly flat and it's hard to tell them apart without looking at them. A minor irritation is that the LED for the wireless doesn't blink with the data stream, it just stays on regardless of what is going on.

One really weird thing is the smell: the air being blown out by the fan smells like neoprene (think Band-Aids). I have a pretty lousy olfactory sense but I notice the smell quite readily. Someone who was in the room when I fired up the laptop for the first time commented on the smell, and she was many feet away. I personally don't mind it (I'm weird and like some chemical smells, like gasoline) but I could see it being a significant irritation if it doesn't go away. Maybe mine smells more strongly than others, I dunno, but I've had it for a week now of near-continuous operation and the smell is still there.

As far as performance, that's pretty relative so I can't comment on it without being inaccurate. This machine is faster than my old one of course, but that's to be expected. I'm about to upgrade it to 8 gigs of memory and I'm going to leave an 8 gig card in the SD reader to do the Readyboost thing, so that should help. It isn't slow but it doesn't just amaze me either. My approach to laptops is to buy really good ones (=Thinkpads) and then upgrade them over time. I'll eventually max out the memory and processor on this machine, which will give me quite a few years of service.

Something that a number of people don't seem to understand about Thinkpads, that's worth making explicit here: Thinkpads are designed for business use, not "consumer"-grade multimedia or gaming. You don't get fancy buttons all over the place for controlling the CD player and such, the case is a nice, boring, squared-off black, and the display won't just blow your rods and cones out of your head. What you do get is one of the most reliable, solidly-build laptops available that will never let you down. If you're a gamer, get a different laptop. If you're a business owner like me or just want something extremely dependable, get a Thinkpad. My T61 is about five years old and if it wasn't a Thinkpad it wouldn't have lived that long, especially considering how I haven't been really super gentle to it. Thinkpads are relatively ugly and boring but they do what they're designed to do better than almost anything else out there.

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Our 9 1/2 year old T60 had some problems after going on heavy wash board gravel roads. We have owned 8 IBM Think pads over the past 20 years. A ??, an A21m, T40, T40, T60, T61, Z60, and now a T530. Pros: speakers you can hear. Easy set up with window 7 Professional. All our previous programs except a 20 year old program, work fine. Big 1 terra byte harddrive. Fast boot time, fast hard drive considering its size, plenty of USB ports, SD card port, easy to set up and change display. We like the fast start time after opening the lid. Just a few seconds and the Thinkpad is up and running. We like the sturdiness of thinkpads. The slow flashing green "On" button is a nice feature, when in sleep mode. We bought a keyboard skin to protect thinkpad and put tape over the speakers. Our thinkpad is in a SUV in 25 to 115 degree heat. We and our customer depend heavily on our ThinkPad to always stay working. We bought the 4 year onsite warranty, plus breakage warranty. We doubt we will need warranty, since if Lenovo thinks they can warranty this laptop for 4 years with breakage it must be pretty tough. We like the speaker controls, too.

Cons: Keyboard delete key is hard to find, compared to all the other thinkpads we have owned. We realize it was easier to package a square keyboard platform, but the old jutted keyboard, where the delete, and escape keys are extended out from the function keys is a better design, as the T60. The T60 we like for business work, since most of our display work involve paper sized printed pages. The wide screen used for movies is of little use to us. But it seems that most manufactures think that we will watch movies on our laptops. We do use youtube for learning, but do not watch movies at all on these business machines.

All in all we love this new Lenovo T530 better than any of our previous thinkpads. A little wide, but all in all, we needed a new machine to

run all of our old software, which this Thinkpad does easily. Plus it runs new software on the 64 bit which is a lot faster.

We found the T40 did not last long, but was light weight. We did not like the electronic smell of the Z60 and sold it right away. We gave the T61 to our son-in-law, and we do not like the display.

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Lenovo Z570 10249QU 15.6-Inch Laptop (Gunmetal Grey)

Lenovo Z570 10249QU 15.6-Inch LaptopI have had mine for a little over a week now, and it all works as advertised. Not cheap, but you can't get this performance cheap. I need the 8 G of RAM for my computing. One quibble; the "Caps Lock" indicator is a tiny LED, with a hard-to-see dark icon near it. It could use a larger indicator, such as the one it does use for Audio Mute.

******

Still have had it for several months, with no problems.

******

Now had it 6 months, no problems. I think people re-review things several months after the purchase, to see if things go wrong.

I've just hours with this laptop, but I'm really pleasantly surprised. Easy to install, and it seems that his behavior was what I expected. Your keyboard seems small for my large hands, but I get used to and really feels great. Your processor meets as a whole-I5 2nd Generation Intel. Your comfort is right and is very sturdy. I've actually required at these times and everything is perfect. It is gratifying to say that I do not regret this purchase. I always think that at startup you know the car and myself think of computers. Easy to start. Easy to configure. It comes almost ready. Further details of communication ports, LED status indicators, the touchpad mouse are appropriate. Neither more nor less. I really think what I like is the feeling of reliability. Ahhhh! ... It is also absolutely silent. I can not talk about the battery yet, but if the price. I think it's a fair price. Do not remove a penny, and I think they give you anything either. But if you meet more than half of that expected in a LENOVO, I already won. I started LAPTOPS for all brands, from old IBM, GATEWAY, DELL, TOSHIBA, ACER and HP. And this I think it meets the good experiences in the simple and easy to start and conditioning for the average user.

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U P D A T E No 1

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4/26/2012: I've had this laptop for 6 months. I should add that the camera is the most poorly I've seen in a laptop of this level of technology and price. I had to buy a decent webcam with good resolution and capabilities, simply because the resolution of the webcam that comes with the laptop is 0.3 megapixels which is ridiculous, to say the least. I do not like now shift indicator lights, numlock, CapsLk, power, wireless, because they are very small and / or less obvious and not well located, but this is a very minor detail. And finally, the touchpad is not the best. The laptop itself works fine, but the support page online lenovo've had difficulty finding clear support, downloads available in an easy way.

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U P D A T E # 2 JUNE 4, 2012

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Lenovo keeps the Idepad Z570 series and seen on their official website and other Web sites, with different versions of the Z570 equipment. I do not know better than this model, but I do know is that its price is held feature LENOVO with slight differences depending on the vendor marketing ranging up to about $ 100US. Very normal in this type of product, BUT I still can not believe that this model: (Z570 10249QU) has appreciated?. It's the best news, which only indicates one thing: LENOVO products are rising curve. This certainly indicates that they are doing well and most importantly, customers are willing to pay for quality among other things. CONGRATULATIONS to the happy owners of a LENOVO. Now if a real UPDATE: a. I52430M second generation processor, it really is good, but it just does. I expected a better performance compared to AMD, I have two more Laptops: HP and Toshiba, AMD and a Dell Desktop, also with AMD. You see, I'm a fan of AMD and Intel I wanted to try a 2nd Generation, to compare and enjoy what they promise. Actually, normal performance, nothing that excites me, but nothing that disappointed me. In place. Some updates Drivers are not well digested by the stomach of my Lenovo Z570, and what bothers me is that your page has not been easy to find all the drivers I wanted, although there are necessary. Well, for that there are thousands of programs on the market that do this, but BEWARE! ... That's where you can lose your money and your LAPTOP.

b.-CONCLUSION: I still love. Not with the intense love of the first two months, but still in love. It is tough and portable, its look is good, and although I dislike Webcam has improved with new Drivers. The sound of your speakers is good in line average to good but not upset me. It is a mature love that understands what is and what you paid.

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I brought this computer a year ago and I am so happy with the performance. I have not had one issue with the product from the time I took it out of the box til now. You better get yours soon because the prices are going up. I wanted to get my husband one but they are now $100. more than when I purchased it last year. Although I know I need to, but I haven't even had a virus protection installed yet.

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Has HDMI port and ohh wow x4 USB ports!! This is my dream come true for a laptop. This is FAST speed never slow. Buy this, you'll be glad that you did!!!!

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Gigabyte E1425M-CF1 14.1-inch Essential Notebook (Black)

Gigabyte E1425M-CF1 14.1-inch Essential NotebookThank you for returning your brand new laptop because you could not get the wireless to work. If you look in the manual you will see Fn + F10 enables and disables wireless. I appreciate being able to buy this laptop for half price.

good size nice design and the same famous brands 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 .

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all i can say is that im so disappointed at the fact that this computer does not bring wifi. i mean come on man its a laptop. now i have to buy an extra part to use the laptop.

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Asus K55A-DH51 15.6-Inch Laptop

Asus K55A-DH51 15.6-Inch LaptopFinally, I returned it to J&R Music in NYC today. Thank God, J&R offered 30 days return policy.

J&R tested and found this product defective, so no restock fee charged. During the past 4 weeks, I have experienced the following :

Windows 8 refresh : 3 times

Windows 8 reset : 1 time

Keyboard & Touch pad issue

Frequent random shut-off : this bothered me a lot especially b/c it shuts off all of sudden with no warning.

Asus support wasn't that helpful. If they don't know what to do, it seems they suggest resetting Windows. Personally, I found Windows 8 is not for me. Not very user-friendly, IMO. Now, I will look for better laptop from Lenovo or Toshiba with Windows 7.

I just received this Asus laptop, literally within the past hour, so this review is not on how it works I will give that later. But for those who are in love with the mocha/brown laptops this laptop only appears brown if the sunlight hits it just so. I was torn between brown and a red Asus K55, and I absolutely LOVE my MOCHA Asus Slider Tablet so went with brown, against my daugther's wishes. (The laptop is for me, not her.)

I spent several days researching laptops on amazon and elsewhere, before deciding on this model, which I bought from J&R Cameras and Computers who provided great service and quick delivery. There was an $80 instant rebate at the time and I was able to purchase it for $519. I instantly bought another 4GB memory card as it was highly recommended I get nothing less than 6, with 8 being preferable. I am not a computer geek and rely on my friends who are, but I do use Adobe software products and such for photography and photo editing.

I have had very good experience with Asus customer service and decided to go with the Asus brand again after my HP Pavilion lasted less than 2 yrs before it started having issues with internet which appears to be a common problem from what my husband has learned in trying to resolve the HP issue.

Once I have time to explore this new laptop I will return with an update on satisfaction, other than color.

**********

UPDATE 5/2013 I cannot stand Windows 8. I need to find time to remove it and add on Windows 7. The computer is constantly jumping screens on me. From what I am hearing from others, it is not me, the user, as I figured, but a bug in Windows 8 as many have the same issue. I can't really give a laptop update as I continue to use my old one due to familiarity and ease of use.

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Above all sincerely,

I wonder if this computer comes with a hard drive 7200rpm or 5400rpm as in seen in many web pages that show this team with a 5400rpm disk.

Thanks,

regards

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Toshiba Satellite R845-S85 14.0-Inch LED Laptop - Graphite Blue Metallic with Line Pattern

Toshiba Satellite R845-S85 14.0-Inch LED Laptop - Graphite Blue Metallic with Line PatternI bought this Laptop when it was the Amazon Deal of the Day for $599. I couldn't be happier with this purchase, especially at that ridiculously low price point. Instead of going over all the specs, I'll highlight some pros and cons of this laptop for potential buyers.

Pros:

Construction/Look: The chassis and chiclet keyboard (spill-resistant) feel real sturdy and of high-quality. The construction of this laptop doesn't have a cheap "plastic" feeling like some laptops out on the market.

Battery Life: The battery life on this 6-cell battery is unbelievable, especially for a 14' laptop. For the first few charge cycles, I've been able to consistently get over 7 hours of battery life surfing the web and playing music with headphones. The ecoUtility app really helps with prolonging battery life.

Intel WiDi capable: I really wanted a laptop with this capability so that I can wirelessly stream to my TV while working on my laptop. Note that you need to buy a WiDi adapter to connect to your TV/display (~$100).

Performance: The i5 processor coupled with 6GB of memory gives this laptop plenty of juice for 99% of computing activities.

SIZE of hard drive: 640GB of space is more than you'll probably even use.

Weight: 4.2 pounds and just about 1 inch thick makes this laptop pretty portable.

Optical Drive: This may not factor much for some people, but as more and more companies opt to remove optical drives from their laptops, it was nice to see Toshiba put in a full DVD burner/drive on this machine.

Connectivity: 1 USB 3.0 port AND capability for USB Sleep-and-Charge (charge stuff while laptop is off) AND an e-SATA/USB combo port AND an HDMI input is awesome!

Value: For the 600-800 price range for a 14 inch laptop, you'd struggle to find a laptop with this much under the hood.

Cons:

No Bluetooth: a tiny external USB dongle runs for about 10 bucks, but I wish Toshiba would have built-in a bluetooth receiver.

Screen: 1366 x 768 resolution (720p). Not bad by any means, but for a 14', It would have been nice to see a higher resolution offered.

Speakers: Sound can be a bit tinny at loud volumes. Noticably better than Portege R835 speakers though.

SPEED of hard drive: the 640GB hard drive only runs at 5400 rpm. I would have liked to see that be at 7200rpm or even a SSD drive, but all things considered, I can't complain much...just a nagging annoyance.

Bloatware/Volume of Apps: Toshiba seemed to have cut down on the total amount of bloatware they put on this machine but they have too many apps pre-installed on this machine for my liking so I ended up manually uninstalling some that I knew I would never use.

I would DEFINITELY recommend this laptop to anyone considering it at the $600-800 price point, as you'd be hard pressed to find significantly better deals. As another reviewer said, this is basically the 14 inch version of the Portege R835-P81 laptop (also sold on Amazon). That's just a smaller version (13.3' 3.2 lbs), but overall there are a LOT of similarities, even with the look. If you're in the market for a laptop with comparable specs but want something smaller, check that out. I hope this helps potential buyers out!

First let me tell you that this laptop not only looks good but it's also powerful, Thin and light weight.

I watched a bluray file and a 1080 mkv file at the same time with no stutter and with only 18% CPU load. My Quad core Desktop would start stuttering when I do this and cpu load goes to 100% (it's a Q6600 intel quad core cpu)

Had to instal java 64bit edition and directx runtime environment. Just make sure that whatever software you're instaling is 64bit compatible. had to increase color saturation to add more color but led display looks great. Tweaked touchpad settings a little bit to make it the way I like it. Theres an eco button that doubles your battery consumption to 10 hours with light use but dims the display brightness but you'll get used to it. Also it seems that pushing the eco button disables one core of the cpu. The computer wakes up instanly when you open the lid and resumes whatever it was doing. the wifi is very strong and picks up a lot of networks. Hard drive is easily accessible, only two screws. It runs very cool. I ran two 1080p bluray files at the same time through wifi N streaming from another computer with ease and no stutter. This laptop looks thiner in person and looks good. you can carry it with one hand from the corner and it doesn't bend like some do. you have esata, usb 3.0-2.0 combo. The speakers are loud, just make sure you enable loudness in audio properties and also select equalizer and increase the treble a little bit. No inputs in the back. when you rest your hands on the laptop wihile typing feels solid. Keyboard is very nice and I'm pretty picky when it comes to keyboards. After adjusting the color settings in the onboard video properties I watched the planet earth bluray streaming from my media server the display was crisp and clear with vivid colors like I was watching my 1080p led tv. Here's the color adjustments that I'm using, Saturation 10, contrast 1, brightness 0 and see the difference.

Update 6-5-12

if you do a lot of typing and word documents, I won't recommend this laptop because the cursor jumps all over the place while typing and you're constantly trying to get back to where you are to continue typing. It's not the way I type either because my fingers are away from the touch pad while typing. This is a major flaw with this laptop.

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Pros:

Fast i5 processor

6 gigs of RAM, a spacious HDD

Long battery life (at least 4.5 hours on full blast; up to 7.5 hours if not used aggressively)

USB 3.0 (w/ sleep and charge)

HDD protection gizmo allegedly protects the hard drive from minor accidents

Cons:

Squishy keyboard beware if you're a regular touch typist!

The wireless antenna works only on the 2.4 GHz band even my 3-year old HP Pavilion can connect to the 5 GHz band! However, this laptop has far better reception, so it's not such a big deal. Just a tad disappointing.

Everything seems cheap the hinges creak, the plastic looks cheesy. When I lug it around closed, I'm afraid it will crack open.

A really silly choice of dedicated shortcut buttons (there are only two; one is for turning on the Eco mode why would I need to do this in a hurry? why? the other one switches on the WiDi; IMHO a mute + wifi antenna buttons would have made much more sense)

Despite all the negative remarks, the laptop gets the job done without breaking a sweat, and if it weren't for the horrid keyboard I'd have given it 4 stars.

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I payed a little extra for this computer thinking faster speed etc. compared to my 2 year old 15.6 inch toshiba we bought on sale from Best buy for $350. I was wrong. So far, there is absolutely no advantage compared to the lesser version from two years ago. It's not just the Core i5 processor either, as I bought my brother-in-law the HP equivalent (same processor, memory, speed etc)and that computer performs much better than this one. Something is just off with the design or this specific model as previously I have been happy with Toshiba products (why I kept this one and gave the HP as a gift). Battery life promised 10 hrs but I get 8 hours at best (when relatively inactive and only on the Eco mode where it shuts down every 30 seconds and the screen is dimmed to point where you can barely read). I get 3 hours of battery at most when online.

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With an SSD Upgrade (I'd recommend Crucial 128 GB for around $160), this baby just flies.

Windows boot-up time is around 14 seconds, programs open almost instantly, and even programs that take up a few gigabytes install in seconds. By far the best laptop I've owned, comes to around $800 with the SSD upgrade. Besides you'll have a free 640 GB external slim hard drive for all your storage (movies, music, photos) purposes. (Don't forget to order an HDD enclosure for around $5-10)

The power usage while browsing with wireless on and brightness at half averages around 7 Watts, so I'd expect to get a good 8.5-9 hours of usage with the 66 Wh battery. (SSDs consume less power than HDDs)

Compared to various higher-end ultrabooks costing around $1200, the R845-S85 has a slightly better CPU, same Graphics (Intel HD 3000), better battery, and more ports (3xUSB, HDMI, VGA, ethernet). Besides the Crucial SSD also outperforms other brands in benchmark tests. OK, it's a pound heavier, quarter of an inch thicker, and doesn't have the "looks", but it's hundreds of dollars cheaper despite the higher performance&quality components and the build quality of Toshiba. (owned an Asus before buying this, which fell apart because of the cheap plastic case, poor DC Jack and bad build quality overall)

The only downside is that the GPU (Intel HD 3000), which won't allow new games with high settings. But then again, sub 14-inch notebooks almost never have dedicated graphics cards.

If you are looking for a portable and inexpensive powerhouse, this is the one to go with. Highly recommended.

Alienware M17x10 1453DSB 17‐Inch Gaming Laptop (Space Black)

Alienware M17x10 1453DSB 17‐Inch Gaming LaptopThe product itself came defective, BSOD'ing twice in the week that I had it. The computer was slow in alt-tabbing between programs that were in full-screen mode, and even worse was slow in loading games such as Battlefield Bad Company 2. I have an ASUS ROG laptop with worse specs than this computer, and it was able to outperform this computer hands down. The only reason I replaced it was because I screwed up the screen, and wanted an Alienware.

There are better for cheaper. Sadly, Alienware has gone downhill since being bought out by Dell. You're better off with a Hewlett-Packard or Toshiba, and I hate both companies with a passion.

By the way, this is nothing bad towards Amazon. They were incredibly helpful with the return information and what-not, and highly recommend Amazon for this type of stuff.

ASUS 1015E1015E-DS01-PK 10.1-Inch Laptop (Pink)

ASUS 1015E1015E-DS01-PK 10.1-Inch LaptopI hope this review helps anyone who is in the market for a netbook without the flaws of the earlier generation netbooks. Well I was on a quest for the perfect netbook and have used so many in the past. I think I've tried at least a dozen models only to find that there was some short comings with them. This netbook will be used mainly for traveling since it is a lot easier to carry and not as expensive as other ultrabooks or notebooks.

OK lets get to it. Here are the positives listed below.

Speedy for a netbook (2 to 3 times the speed of standard netbooks)

1366 x 768 resolution.

light weight

comfortable to type

hdmi, can output 1080P Blu Ray no problem

1 x USB 3.0

Was able to swap the HDD from a 320GB to a 1TB 9.5mm

OK now here are the negatives.

Memory not upgradable, onboard and not removable.

Pain in the A to access the hard drive.

No Bluetooth

Not a dual band internal wireless card

No gigabit lan : (

Did not boot from USB/used acronis 2013 to clone drive.

Before this model was released, I was so close to buy the Asus 1025CE model that featured bluetooth and removable ram. However I am glad I waited as the CPU speed and a nice 1366 screen resolution out weighs the other features of the 1025CE model. I am more than happy to sacrifice bluetooth and extra ram for a nicer screen and increase in cpu speed. For the money you cannot go wrong with this model. I would highly recommend this model or the next model 1015E-DS02 which will have 4GB of onboard ram.

Update 5/6/13

I have been using this netbook for a week and it works great. It has exceeded my expectations. At times however it can run a little warm and the battery life is not as advertised. On a full charge it will last me about 5-5:30 hours on the lowest dim screen. To me this is acceptable as many new ultrabooks do not even last that long. This will definitely hold me over for 2 movies during a plane ride.

I got this to replace my wife's Dell Mini 10 netbook. It just arrived today, so I haven't had much time to play around with it yet. Usually I don't buy Amazon products without reviews, but I took a gamble on this recently-released Asus laptop... and I'm glad I did.

The first thing I noticed was keyboard. It's definitely easier to type on compared to the Dell Mini 10. Having the separation between the keys helps a lot. The cursor keys are a little cramped, but what do you expect on such a small laptop.

The second thing I noticed is how much I dislike the touchpad. Seems to be par for the course on many netbooks. I frequently use the tap-to-click feature (quickly tapping to register a left-mouse click) on the touchpad instead of actually pressing down in the bottom-left corner. It would only register my taps about 80% of the time which was really annoying. I figured that this could be solved by trying different touchpad drivers. The laptop came preinstalled with the latest drivers from Asus' website. I tried the generic Synaptics drivers from their website. That helped with the tap-to-click, however, the pointer speed was way too slow, even when set to the highest speed. Also, I lost the Windows 8 gestures with the those Synaptics drivers. Next I tried the Elan drivers (did a Google search for 'elan touchpad driver windows 8', and it's the first link on asus.com). The Elan drivers did the trick. Everything works great... tap-to-click works 99% of the time, pointer speed is good at the default speed setting and the Windows 8 gestures work.

At first, when I read that this had a Celeron CPU, I was a bit wary. However, after using the Atom CPU-equpped Dell Mini 10, I have to say that this Asus is a bit faster even at a lower clock speed, but I'm sure the dual cores helps quite a bit. This machine also came with Windows 8 64-bit which I was surprised to see. I'm used to seeing 32-bit operating systems on netbooks. I'm sure that replacing the HDD with an SSD would make this a lot faster, so I might have to invest in that later.

The only thing I've really tested so far is streaming Youtube videos. This thing doesn't skip a beat, even with HD (all the way up to 1080p) videos running at full screen. The frame rate is smooth. I'm pretty impressed. Screen looks decent too. Speakers can get pretty loud without much distortion.

I'm happy with the build quality as well. There's a nice texture on the plastic surrounding the touchpad below the keyboard and on the bottom of the laptop. There's very little flex to the keyboard... it's pretty solid.

If you're looking for a 10" laptop for basic web browsing & productivity, definitely consider this one.

UPDATE 2013-04-30

After using this laptop for a few days, I'm still impressed. No new issues to report. Once my wife started using it, she would frequently trigger (by accident) the Windows 8 gestures on the touchpad. If you swipe in from the left, top or right sides, it triggers a gesture. I didn't see an easy way to disable these gestures. There are registry keys that you mess around with, but I found an alternative. There is another set of Elan touchpad drivers that work even better than the previous ones that I found. Just do a Google search for 'Elan touchpad drivers', and it's the link for station-drivers(dot)com. The driver version at the top of the list provides a bunch of configuration settings in the Mouse application for disabling gestures as well as many other touchpad settings.

I also read the other review about the difficulty in upgrading the RAM and swapping out for an SSD, which is unfortunate. However, the speed is decent enough as long as you have the proper expectations.

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How to make this notebook run smooth and real fast:

0.(Optional).Search on google for classic shell and install.It will make windows 8 with a classic interface.

1. Search on google for "asus elan drivers" find the site, choose windows 8 64 bit click the link below "touch pad" then download and install from the 2nd link called "global" REMEMBER USE 2 fingers to scroll up and down.

2. Go to control panel > Programs and features and uninstall every single thing from asus everything! Including that hybrid crap that makes the notebook run 20 degrees hotter , don't worry windows 8 and nvidia has everything that you're going to uninstall.You'll have to reboot several times.

3. Go to control panel > Power options it should be set on "Balanced" below there is a link "More options" click on it and choose "High Performance". Close window.

4. Go to control panel and open " Mouse" click on top on the panel "Choose pointer speed" and move the setting to a higher point.

5. You're done. Enjoy the fastest notebook available.

I was skeptical at first about this little thing but I am blown away. I own a few laptops including a last generation vaio. For what you pay here 250 bucks you get a really nice machine. I am running 3ds max with no issues in this thing.I saw some people writing in these reviews stuff like it can be better or whatever. its the perfect machine for this money. Its comparable to the ultrabook I have at speed and that's got a solid drive in it! I thought for sure I was going to replace the hard drive in this one with a solid but it is not necessary at all. Boot time is around 30 seconds . Windows 8 interface sucks but the os itself is way better than anything on the market extremely stable , I install classic shell and run it with a classic interface. As for the people who complain about this product spend a hundred more and get the 350 dollar ultrabook from asus for heaven's sake. the battery is as they say around 7 hours .Screen is excellent I seat outside on the patio and I can see it perfectly. the keyboard very responsive and adequate for your hands. The mouse pad is big enough and responds accordingly as in the instructions. the built is solid with a nice piano finish on top. It is not thick just perfect. The fan blows warm but if you know about computers celeron chips run a little hotter. but nothing weird. if you complain about that get yourself a laptop with an atom processor at less than half the speed. I bought a pink one for the wife today. Overall a fantastic product. Thumbs up to Asus

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You CANNOT add RAM or upgrade the Hard Drive to an SSD in this computer. Amazon description is misleading if you read the specs, it says SODIMM under memory type. But this computer contains no capacity for user upgrades. Even if it did have an SO-DIMM slot as Amazon mistakenly says in their specs, there is no access door on the back.

I purchased this Asus 1015E to replace my Acer A1410 which my wife decided she liked so much she took it away from me to use for herself! The A1410 used an older version of the Celeron chip (SU2300), similar to the one in this Asus.

This 64-bit chip allows you to do everything a more powerful processor can do, and even has the virtualization feature, unlike the Atom processors found in most netbooks this size. This puts this computer on a higher level than most of the other netbooks, with either Atom or AMD processors.

I really like the Asus, but I ended up returning it after I discovered that it cannot be upgraded. My A1410 had come with 2GB of RAM just like this Asus, but I upgraded it to 4GB and put in a faster hard drive.

The Amazon description said the Memory type in this Asus was SODIMM, so I assumed it could be upgraded also. After I received it, I discovered that this Asus did not even have an access door on the back to access the memory and hard drive. More research on the internet revealed that similar Asus models come with RAM soldered onto the motherboard and cannot be upgraded.

This does not make it a bad netbook. If I thought that 2GB of RAM and a slow 320GB hard drive were sufficient, I would have been very happy with this choice. But for me, I always like to have more than enough RAM, and 2GB is just barely adequate in my opinion for running Windows. I am a power user and the small size of this unit was the main attraction, but I was planning on having 4GB and an SSD.

I am still giving the 1015E three stars because it is a well designed unit that has a better processor in it than other netbooks comparable in size. If this is what you are looking for and are not doing things that require a lot of RAM, this unit has excellent battery life and instant-on features too.

Asus could be more clear in their literature and specs about upgradability, and of course Amazon could too. At least my review might prevent others from making the same mistake I did.

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Great little computer for on the go! Plenty powerful enough for web browsing and running apps such as Open Office, Adobe Reader, etc. Battery appears to last a minimum of 6 hours. Keyboard and touchpad a little funky, but easy enough to get accustomed to. Works great with Classic Shell. No touch screen but that's OK with me. It runs a little warm so we'll see how long it lasts. For $270, it's well worth the money. Oh, and unlike the tablet convertibles such as the new HP and the new Samsung, it's not top heavy meaning you can easily use it on your lap. Great little screen as well. I got this to replace an old Atom netbook that ran Windows 7. This little bugger blows the old Netbooks away. If you want something on the go, that has a keyboard, and can run full blown Windows programs, then it's a winner. Combine this with a home computer synched to cloud storage and you are good to go!

Dell Inspiron 15RM i15RM-7412DBK 15-Inch Laptop (Black)

Dell Inspiron 15RM i15RM-7412DBK 15-Inch LaptopI want to first say that I have only had this laptop for 2 days. However, in those 2 days this laptop has already surpassed anything my Toshiba or Lenovo have achieved in a much longer period of time.

Positives:

1. Speed This laptop, with its AMD A-6 quad-core processor(with 4GM Ram), is lighting fast for what I use it for. I mainly do a lot of multi-tasking online. I will have more than 5 tabs open at once most of the time and this processor handles it with ease. Going from web page to web page is a breeze, even on sites that typically are slow in general!

I haven't tried playing games but from what I understand it deals with games/video rather well too. I'll give that a try later...

2. Graphics The HD graphics on this laptop are amazing. I would say they surpass those on my HD television rather easily. The colors are crisp and the detail is amazing.

3. Feel (keyboard, touchpad) I'm still in shock at how nice the touchpad is. It is so smooth and easy to use that it makes me a bit emotional! :). Keyboard is fantastic as well. Only minor issue is I accidently press the wrong key sometimes...keys could have been slightly bigger but not a big deal!

4. Look The laptop itself is very sleek. The lid is nice and can be replaced with other lids. The keyboard has a nice silver lining around it. It is not heavy either.

5. Software The Dell Stage software is one of my favorite things about this laptop. It really is this amazing one-stop place for you to handle your movies, pictures, music, social networks(Facebook), etc. Its very easy to use and pops up as soon as you log into your computer! The amazing HD graphics just make that whole experience even better!

It also comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, the 64-bit version, which is neat.

6. Battery The battery life seems to be decent. I believe I lasted a bit over 3 hours on the battery last night, and still was at 16% ! You can change the Power settings so that when you are on the battery, the laptop conserves power by for example conserving on the screen brightness.

Negatives:

1. Dell and AMD I don't believe this is a big negative but want to mention it. From speaking to Dell, they no longer have a relationship with AMD(in terms of using the AMD processors) so that is why this laptop is NOT on the Dell website. However, they told me there is nothing technically wrong with this laptop and the warranty on it will be honored same as with any other Dell laptop(you can also extend the warranty).

In fact, I believe this might be why it is lower in price than it should be. There is nothing about this laptop that makes me thing its a $500 laptop! It feels like a much more expensive laptop.

2. Using the battery When I set the power settings to conserve battery life, the laptop naturally did not function as quickly. However, the drop off in speed was not extreme...and of course you can change the settings to not conserve battery life.

Conclusion:

I obviously need to use this laptop for more than 2 days. However, in terms of what it is capable of doing, to me this laptop is not a $500 laptop(it was $500 when I bought it). It is very hard to find a laptop with a quad-core processor and 4GM RAM and 640GB Hardrive for this kind of price. I believe that even at $569.99 it is a good value...but maybe it will drop in price again.

Speed This laptop, with its AMD A-6 quad-core processor(with 4gb ram ) is ok for word excell PowerPoint etc. when it comes to using heavy duty software like photoshop, illustrator the computer keeps hanging. It needs a good processor.

Graphic card The HD graphic card on this laptop is average. Graphics run slow for the call of duty game!

Aesthetic I think the inspiron series laptop are one of the very few that look very nice.

The laptop is very elegant. The cover is sweet and can be replaced with other covers

Battery life is decent

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I know the review is kind of late, but i got this steal of a deal for $570 back in January. its lightning fast and you can play games on it. I am currently playing fifa13 on it which all the factory spec.

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I was convinced I should buy the "other" type of laptop but my daughter talked me out of it. I got this Dell for 1/2 the price I would have spent on the Apple. I just love it!

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This laptop was bought to meet a time-sensitive need in the workplace. Buying it through Amazon proved to give more computer for the money and much faster delivery than was available from other sources. It's not the most high-powered laptop, but for a basic machine, it was a very good value and arrived exactly as specified. Very pleased.

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 (129126U) 13.3" LED Notebook - Core i5 i5-2520M 2.50GHz - 4G DDR3 320G HDD (Wind

Lenovo ThinkPad X1 13.3' LED Notebook - Core i5 i5-2520M 2.50GHz - 4G DDR3 320G HDD - BlackI rarely ever write reviews but i needed to for this one. I bought this laptop directly from Lenovo and recieved it about 3 weeks ago. I am constantly traveling and was tired of lugging my 18.5" hp wherever I went. This laptop is very light. One of the best features in this laptop is its keyboard. The keyboard is the best that i have used to date, it has no flex when typing, the keys are backlit, and they have just the right amount of resistence when pressed (also the keyboard is spillproof). The ThinkVantage suite is very nice as well, usually i would not use any software that is preinstalled by the manufacturer but it is very intuitive. Also no bloatware so when you finish setting up your computer it is actually ready to go and you do not need to remove a lot of crap applications. This computer is very fast including great startup and sleep times as well. Some people may complain about the battery not being user replaceable but you really dont need it with the new technology they put into the laptop it usually lasts me 4 to 5 hours depending on what im doing and if i need to i can get the 80% charge in 30 minutes which actually rings true to the claims. The security of this computer is very good. The fingerprint scan works even when the computer is off, you just scan your finger and it will skip the log on screen. Another noteable security feature is the camera if it does not detect human presence for you set amount of time it will automaticly lock the computer. Also worth mentioning is the screen is very very bright and makes things alot easier to see.

My only complaint is that the ctrl and FN keys are in the opposite places that they usually are its not a big deal but you do have to get used to it if you use lots of shortcuts like myself.

The best part about this laptop by far is the support. I found 2 dead pixels near the edge of the screen so i called lenovo and within 3 button clicks i actually had a real person and there was no wait time at all.(thinkpads have seperate support from the other lines of laptops) The support is in atlanta so you can actually understand what they say and in less than 10 minutes everything was done. they are sending me a prepayed box and they also let me defer my shipment by 2 weeks because of work. This is the best support i have ever had from any company by far. Very kind and polite operators. lenovo ThinkPad will recieve all of my future laptop purchases (i am comparing the products and services to that of Dell, HP, and Sony with which i have expierience with).

I highly recommend this laptop. You won't be dissapointed with this or the ThinkPad support.

I ordered this laptop after I returned an S-Series Vaio that had a mechanical failure. The service Sony offered to repair and replace it was underwhelming, and the S-Series laptop had horrible speakers that were not powerful enough to allow one to clearly hear the audio for online videos.

I was looking for something for my work and home use light, portable, able to to take some abuse as it is carried back and forth. The X1 Think Pad is a great laptop super thin, great keyboard, tough body, and comes with Windows 7 without a lot of extra software installed.

My only criticisms of this laptop are -

1) speakers are loud enough, but not great audio quality they are close to the best you will find in laptop of this size, but that isn't saying much.

2) I use the microphone for dictation I've found some issues with voice clarity for my transcriptionists more than with other laptops I've used.

3) The mouse buttons are built into the cursor pad, and I wish they were separate for some reason this appears to be an issue when I wish to scroll down on a webpage it's more difficult to compress and hold the hidden mouse buttons than with most other laptops.

I like that this is a business laptop The S-Series Vaio looked like it was suited for a high school or college student, not a professional. The X1's Thinkpad logo w/ Red dot is a little uncool, but overall I like the feel of it. I anticipate that this machine will take what I throw at it. The quick charging battery is a great feature, as is the gorilla glass screen my toddler hasn't destroyed it yet, but certainly has tried.

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I just received my Lenovo ThinkPad X1 and I'm in absolute awe with this system. Its look & feel has been attracting comments from all that see me working with it. I'm amazed with the quality construction, the level of detail and the design. This is definetely the new look for the ThinkPad brand. I personally love the keyboard with its soft keys and the glass, with extended view and clear picture. Wow! I love this system.

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This notebook the quality is good, i like it very much. And Amazon express is very fast. I will buy again.

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My Son bought one, then my wife, and now me.

This is one of the most solid feeling machines I have felt in a long time. Much better build quality than just about any other laptop I've seen.

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Acer Aspire V5-571-6806 15.6" LAPTOP(Core i5-3317U,6GB RAM,750GB HDD, Windows 8, 802.11a/g/n,webcam

Acer Aspire V5-571-6806 15.6' LAPTOP(Core i5-3317U,6GB RAM,750GB HDD, Windows 8, 802.11a/g/n,webcam) SilverI have found this computer to be excellent. However, when I purchased it despite the horror stories about windows 8. The system is slow, cumbersome and skips from one window to the other. I have contacted Microsoft and Acer. Neither of them wants to help me go back to windows 7 which was an excellent operating system. The problem is that I am 74 and the $114 to purchase windows 7 is costly. My recommendation is to stat with Windows7.

keyboard is not responsive sometimes and its hard for me to teach my dad how to use a computer when the keys barely work

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We bought this for my son for college. He's been using it since and is excited to take it w/ him. Very prompt delivery.

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Haven't test it completely but so far, and for basic jobs..it's awesome!! Perfect if you don't have a high budget and you're a looking for a mid-basic laptop.

What I now can write as pros are:

Lightweight and thin

Awesome sound

Average webcam resolution....like 1.3 mpx if I'm not wrong but it works.

Soft keyboard

Turbo boost it's amazing! you'll have your laptop up in less than 4 secs. Even when having many apps open for more than a week and using it everyday.

Great processor so far. While having many normal apps working at the same time, the system haven't crashed.

Screen resolution amazing.

What's not so good by now:

No key Locks light, you have to depend on software warnings when caps are on/off. But this only affects when u're entering a password.

Mousepad. Even I think this is a common issue, it does get touched when you're writing and more if you're concentrated. But you can always deactivate it (fn+7).

All usb ports are on the left side. So, beware if you're planning to buy or if you have a short wired mouse. Everything goes to the left.

This is not a cons for me but if you do a lot of presentations using a projector by vga, be sure to take the adapter with you all the time (cable with vga and rj-45 ports is included).

Read on many reviews that this laptop has issues with it's wifi card, which I haven't had yet.

For the ones that are afraid or had trouble with windows 8.. easy, downgrade to windows 7 or use any linux distribution, so you won't get lost.

If you need more specs (not to many here), go to: http://us.acer.com/ac/en/US/content/model-datasheet/NX.M1JAA.011

Will update (hope I don't forget), when I test this laptop better.

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Great laptop at the price. User friendly, thin & light but capable. Zero issues so far. Still learning Windows 8 but desktop mode lets me use old methods in meantime.

X53U-XR2,BLACK,15.6 HD (1366 768),AMD E350,4G DDR3,HD 4250,320G 5400,SUPER Multi

X53U-XR2,BLACK,15.6 HD,AMD E350,4G DDR3,HD 4250,320G 5400,SUPER MultiBeing a current and very happy owner of an ASUS Netbook ASUS Eee PC 1001PXD-MU17-WT 10.1-Inch Netbook (White) I thought this would make a nice gift for my brother who just moved 300 miles from me so we could keep in touch by Skype. Before I let him have it, I spent a few days using it and getting it set up and making sure everything worked. I like this so much it's now on my wish list for ME.

My first dilemma is whether to call this a notebook or a netbook because of the processor being more similar to what is found in a netbook. It's like a netbook processor-wise, but larger like a notebook.

Build-quality seems to be very good to excellent my only complaint is the CD/DVD drawer seems flimsy when opening/closing, but I am very careful with it. Even while closed, this note/netbook looks good with the dark espresso brown exterior and a lot of it seems to be made of aluminum. It's lightweight (under 6 lbs. with the battery installed), and has a power-saving feature so the 6 cell battery gets pretty close to 5 hours of battery life like the specifications state. The touch-pad is very responsive, although I prefer using a mouse. There are 3 USB 2.0 ports.

Even though the 1.6 GHz speed is on the slow side (after all this is a fairly inexpensive PC) having 4 GB of RAM is more than enough for internet, Word and Excel functions, email, and it has better graphics than my smaller netbook has. In addition, this has an internal DVD drive, unlike my Asus Netbook. For just a little more money over what you'd spend on the 10" model, you get it all with this.

Asus puts a lot of bloatware on this, which is easily uninstalled. Set-up was very easy and this comes with Windows 7 Home Premium, in addition to Microsoft Word and Excel which are NOT trial versions they are full-featured but you do have to put up with some small ads to use Word and Excel. It also comes with 6 months of TrendMicro anti-virus, which I uninstalled and went with Avast Free instead.

Asus has included Altec Lansing stereo speakers but like all other notebook speakers, these are average and could use more power, but sound much better than my smaller netbook's speakers.

Comes with chiclet keyboard, wireless 802.11 b/g/n, 4-in-1 card reader, 3 USB ports, 1 VGA port, 1 DVI port, microphone jack, headphone jack, RJ45 LAN jack and even a HDMI port so this can be attached to your HDTV.

The keyboard also has the 10-key numeric keypad to the right, like full size keyboards have.

CON: My only complaint is the web cam, being 0.3 MP, it has bad video quality. It's good enough to see the person when you're Skypeing, but I sure wouldn't make a YouTube video using it. But since I/we were looking for a budget full-size computer and even though the 0.3 MP web cam doesn't quite cut it for me, it's good enough since I already know what my brother looks like. It is what it is, and if you're looking for a high def web cam, either don't choose this computer or add an external cam.

Worth more than it costs, faster than I expected, is very friendly and so the need is perfect! good cost product

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This unit was purchased as a gift and he loves it.Thinking about one for myself. Shipping did send the wrong color but offered a credit which was acceptable. Answered all emails even during the super Christmas rush season.

A very good computer for the price point.

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I hesitated buying this because I had a problem finding reviews. But I bought it any way because the price was good. I'm really glad I did. I use this as a 2nd computer for when I go to the lake on weekends so I only use it for word processing, photo editing, watch DVDs, etc. This notebook is perfect for my needs. Love the keyboard and the screen. Downloading movies is easy and look great. Very nice viewing area for a notebook. I will upgrade to 8 GB of memory for the photo editing, but other than that I love it. I do agree with the 1st review about the DVD drive. Touch pad is real sensitive buttons are a bit loud when clicked, but I prefer a mouse, so not an issue for me. It's really a beautiful notebook. Love the mocha color.

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It is so slow with so many problems. The screen is often becoming furry and stretched if I use it to do scanning. It takes about 10 times longer to boot up to compare with my old ones. I could not type to search after using it to shop online. The list can go on for more that I have wanted to drop on a hard floor to destroy it for so many times.

Dell Latitude D630 14.1-Inch Notebook PC - Silver

Dell Latitude D630 14.1-Inch Notebook PC - SilverI bought this laptop directly from dell Financial Services auction on ebay. I did not even know that they have it here on Amazon Marketplace too. Even though the description said manufacturer refurbished the laptop I received looked like new. It came with power adapter and a Dell Windows XP Reinstallation CD and built in Intel PROSet Wireless Card. Absolutely no bloatware is included.

Now this may not be a top of the line machine but it is pretty adequate for home and school or even Small Home Office use. The neat part is that once you boot up the machine for the first time it would automatically install Windows XP after going through some preliminary steps. It even gives you option to enter setup and configure things but you are better off leaving the machine alone to do its thing and install windows XP or whichever operating system it is bundled with unless you're techie. Once windows finishes installation you can pretty much install anything you want. I have so far installed Open Office, MS Office 2003, Firefox, Chrome, Avast Anti Virus, Trusteer Rapport security Software and many other productivity softwares and the machine boots up and runs smoothly.

It does not come with webcam so I installed Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 and Microsoft Lifecam Cinema and either camera runs smoothly even on HD modes. I use Lifecam Cinema more often because it's stand is perfect fit for D630 bezel as opposed to the Quickcam Pro 9000's stand which tend to wobble.

I will advise you buy this laptop directly from Dell either here on Amazon Marketplace or on ebay where it is listed under Dell_Financial_Services. You will likely receive a laptop that will be like new but more importantly you will get 30 days warranty.

This laptop is of right price, size and specs: 14" bright LCD, 2GB Ram, 80GB harddisk space and 2GHZ Intel Dual Core processor that is more than adequate for most home, school and or Small Home Office use. It is sturdy and sleek looking too.

There is one thing that Dell scrimped on here: the tiny single speaker that is barely audible! I use an external Frisby USB laptop Speakers. I also use headphone when I am on the road. It is worthy to note that this tiny speaker belies a powerful sound card that only becomes apparent when you put on a headphone.

NB: Don't forget to switch on the wireless radio or you will not be able to use the wifi connection. The switch is on same side and next to the headphone jack. It is switched off by default. Once you switch it on it will detect a bunch of wifi hot spots including yours, if any. Select your SSID from the displayed options and enter your router's WEP Key and you will be good to go. I have at&t 2WIRE Wireless Gateway and the WEP Key is the ten digit number directly below the serial number located on the side or bottom of the router depending on whether it is standing vertically or lying on it's side. The built in wireless card is powerful. I highly recommend this laptop to anyone who may be on budget but not willing to compromise on quality and performance.

I got this laptop in a timely manner and it appears to be in excellent shape. However, when I had problems and called Dell tech support, they told me that the laptop owner had not transferred the laptop to me. Thus, I am unable to get help! I have contacted the seller requesting assistance with this, but have not heard back. When buying a laptop, be sure you get the ownership transferred to you.

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I bought two of these. The first one was in excellent condition, really impressive for a "refurb". So when hubby murdered his laptop by spilling a drink into it, I thought this D630 would be the perfect replacement for him. When it arrived, we were both a bit disappointed. It functions correctly but has a loose lid/screen that can wobble and some sticking keys and generally looks quite used. He's satisfied enough to keep it, partly because he doesn't want to be without one for any length of time, and partly because we've had positive experiences with off-lease Dells in the past even if they have a wart or two.

My personal disappointment was that after receiving the first one, I expected the same level of quality from the second one because at that time, it was sold by Amazon -not a marketplace refurb seller where you can never be sure of what you'll get until you open the box.

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If you buy one of these refurbished computers be sure to buy the warranty. The one I purchased only lasted 46 days which is 16 days past the 30 day return period. It quit working and it needs new screen ($600.00) and new battery. I didn't notice that you could buy a warranty when I bought it so I just wasted $300.00. Be sure you buy the warranty!

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I,ve been a pc tech for 20 years and my dell d630 is awsome the keyboard is a little worn but got one off of amazon for 18 dollars also i added 4gb of ram. Had to get a new harddrive i had the warranty but the sent me a new one quicly with no fuse or trouble my only regret is paying double from tigerdirect instead of buying from amazon i know next time.

Acer 15.6" Intel i3-370M 2.40 GHz 500GB Notebook | AS5733-6607

Acer 15.6' Intel i3-370M 2.40 GHz 500GB Notebook | AS5733-6607Purchased this PC on closeout at Walmart for $270.00. It has handled everything I have thrown at it well so far. Those things include video format conversion, some gaming (The Sims, and some other first person shooter games), and lots of high profile video playback.

I have not noticed any issues with overheating as I did with my previous laptop made by HP. The screen is very bright and sharp. Battery life is good. Just a good all around computer, and incredible for the price. It feels really sturdy, and I like that it is not a huge finger print magnet like pcs covered in glossy finsihes. I really love that it has all Intel products inside. I am not a fan of AMD, NVidia, etc since they have given trouble on almost ever PC I have owned.

Less than stellar bits include speakers that are decent, but not super rich sounding like some higher end models. They keyboard has a nice layout, and good key travel. It also looks cool. It is a raised "floating" chiklet style. I only mention this as a possible downer because you will want to be mindful not to leave the keyboard exposed for long periods of time in a dirty environment. Because the keys are raised it is easier for junk to get under the keys. It is easy to clean it out with some canned air, or just by blowing on it! But still something to be mindful of. Lastly, the mouse is multitouch, which is nice especially as more and more software is optimized for such devices. But it takes getting used to, and I recommend that you go through the pointing device settings to adjust the sensitivity to your liking.

bought this about 8 months ago from walmart the 1st 3 weeks the computer ran fine and i had no issues other than i noticed it got hot fairly easily(standard acer issue) and the keyboard was stiff here and there. within the next month i decided to play some games...., when i mean games i mean skyrim and halflife2 not chess. anyway it played them fine but 1hour in to either game and the system went black from overheating, i figured it was because of using it on my lap(still dont get how youre not supposed to use a laptop on your lap)tried it on a desk and it still overheated. i decided to use a cooling mat but to no avail it was too weak and i said to hell with if i pulled an old wind dance window fan and put it under it, luckly it works...kinda the things a bit ugly lol. anyway after i "fixed" that issue i noticed that a few keys were jamming constantly, this is an engineering flaw produced by a moron, this keyboard is one of the worst ive seen, it is a raised system on standard a standard styled plastic spring with no dust guard and plenty of space for hair wires/cables/crumbs and whatever to fall into it, only way to clean it without removing the keys would be alot of canned air, when looking closer at the springs they may look standard but they are much cheaper and very fragile, they also come apart easily causing jammed keys, which if forced will break and bend the springs.... obviously not good and rather frustrating. the next issue that i still have is ive filled the hd about 180gb so far and its started to lagg horribly during load up, ive even uninstalled and prevented unnecessary programs from running on startup but its not working, im asuming the hd is going bad i have yet to finish my first year so atm im waiting for it to finally die and if it doesnt then im going to tear it apart and build a liquid cooling system for it along with get it a much more reliable hd hopefully built better than the current anyway thats my 2 cents if you still wanna buy it i dont suggest any decent quality games on it. also on another note buy a pc from someone that alows a 90day return policy not walmart....

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Dell Inspiron 17R N7110 17.3" Laptop (Intel Core i7-2630QM Quad-Core Processor, 8 GB RAM, Windows 7

Dell Inspiron 17R N7110 17.3' LaptopI have owned this computer for about 2 1/2 years maybe even 3 and have never had one problem with it. It is fast and reliable. Screen is beautiful. I love mine. It is definitely way sturdier than other lap tops I have owned, I don't feel like I am going to snap the screen off when opening it like my last lap top, nothing bad to say... if your looking for an awesome lap top here you go

I bought it one year back and during the warranty period I replaced hard disk, DVD drive, touchpad, keyboard and mother board 3 times. My warranty ended on 15th may and just before that I got issue in web camera. It is still in Dell depo. Dell support is denying support now. It was biggest mistake I purchased this laptop.

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I bought the Dell Inspiron to replace an older desktop model. The file transfer utilities for Windows did a pretty good job of handling most of the program transfers although some of the applications had to be reinstalled. Not bad all things considered. What few gripes i had were centered around Windows, not the Dell. The screen is sharp; start-up time is pretty fast; the key board feels good; and disk access is quick. All-in-all, this is a great little computer.

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I don't believe American Royalty Sales Amazon Marketplace

ever owned this product (Dell Inspiron 17R) to begin with! Anyways, after a couple of lame excuses I find out he/she hasn't shipped it, so I cancel to no avail, I've been billed the $610 through Amazon, and there seems to be no way of recuperating this charge!

LLewellyn W. Hughes III

LWBillHughes@sbcglobal.net

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OK with everything BUT: This is supposed to be a Dell top of the

line product. The touch pad is hard to press and has a "tinny"

sound. The key board is of cheap materials. This is not a Mercedes.

It is a Datsun! Will return.

HP G71-340US 17.3-Inch Black/Silver Laptop - Up to 4 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)

HP G71-340US 17.3-Inch Black/Silver Laptop - Up to 4 Hours of Battery LifeThis is a great laptop for the money and I would buy it again.

Pro's:

Light compared to some other laptops (LED vs. LCD screens usually)

Screen is very bright and easy to read

HDMI allows output to HDTV (also for using Media Center on the HDTV)

4GB RAM

Good battery life (it was running for 3.5+ hours the other day)

10-Key number pad

5-1 card reader (for plopping in an SD card from a digital camera/camcorder)

Con's:

Fingerprints are highly visible on laptop cover -glossy black

Keyboard layout is cramped with certain keys (arrow keys, delete key)

Speakers do not sound as good as my 3 year old Toshiba laptop

No physical button for volume control -it's software controlled via keyboard/Windows.

Addt'l comments:

I also have a Lenovo T61p and the HP is lighter, has better battery life, and a softer keyboard (which I prefer-the Lenovo/Thinkpad line is too stiff for me). The Lenovo performs slightly better in every day tasks (faster hard drive & cpu) and a fair bit faster in graphics intensive applications (e.g. games).

I bought this to replace an older 15.6 inch laptop to be my main home computer. I just could not see investing half or more of the cost of this in a netbook. Boy am I glad I did. The 17.3 inch screen is simply incredible.

These are the ways the 17.3 inch screen helps. First the screen itself is really nice. My photos look fantastic and DVDs look superb. Netflix streaming and Hulu are so-so but that is more the limitations of software than of the screen itself. Many websites take advantage of the larger screen as well and it just feels right. It feels like my work desktop screen. Second and possibly of more value is the keyboard. BY FAR the best laptop keyboard I have ever used. It is even better than my stand alone keyboard at work. Finally a true full size, large key, awesome to type with laptop keyboard. And what I thought was a bad design aesthetically, the large blank space beneath the keyboard with just the mouse controls. Guess what? It is perfect for laying your hands down as you type. I know keyboard is not the first thing that comes to mind when buying a computer and it probably shouldn't be the first thing. BUT it should not be under-rated either.

As for the computer itself. I am really digging Windows 7. I bought this on Black Friday and so far no problems whatsoever. 4 GB is nice. The 6600 processors are nice solid performers. There are better in laptops but for me doing multimedia activities and home office activities this computer more than meets my needs. Everything worked great right out of the box. Webcam works great and not too much installed software. The student and home Office trial means if you end up buying it (Amazon usually has the best price around) it is already installed you just need the key. That was kind of nice. The 60 days of Norton gives you some time to try it, be protected, and make a decision on the security software you like so that is also helpful.

But ultimately what should make you choose this over the numerous other configurations HP offers is the screen size. Any slight added bulkiness and weight (around 6.5 odd pounds) is more than made up for me with how much fun it is to have a large laptop screen and a real full-sized comfortable, fantastic keyboard. Let others have their 10 inch products...17.3 for me from now on.

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UPDATE as of 7/4/2010 I have just recently switched over to Mac so anything PC is truly inferior in so many ways. But as Windows laptop, this is a darn good machine for the money.

How can I express how incredible this machine is? Well let me try. Two weeks earlier I bought the Vista cousin of this machine that had a Pentium and only 1400/900 display (blech!) and it was a bit sluggish. After I saw an Office Depot flyer advertising this beauty for with rebate, I returned the Pentium to Best Buy, who didn't have this machine. This machine is a tremendous value. Huge hard drive, 4 gigs of ram, WONDERFUL keyboard (all the HPs have the best-engineered keyboards I have seen on any laptops, large and small). And 1600x900 instead of 1400x900 like some of the other models. I agree that the power cable should be on the left side, in fact on the one I returned it was. And yes, the speakers are underwhelming. But this is no "gaming rig", this is a business desktop replacement, period. Battery life? It says up to 4 hours by I get between 2.5 and 3 hours, and with the powersave mode, just a bit over 3 hours. The lesser cousin didn't even get 1.5 hours.

Do not pass go, do not collect (although you will collect in rebates), just buy this machine!

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I'm a Mac guy normally, but my mother is PC all the way. I got this computer for her as a gift, and spent a few hours setting it up for her. Paid $650 for this before tax at Sam's Club. It's worth it. You get what you pay for. Windows 7 is impressive. I suppose W7 is Microsoft's answer to Mac OSX. They have done a great job at making all of Windows more aesthetically pleasing. It is simple and functional, and seems to run smoothly. Of course, my experience with Windows is that you can't really judge how quick it is for at least 6 months, so who knows. The processor and memory on this computer are a great value for what you pay... kudos on that.

My problem with this computer, first of all, is that it doesn't have built-in Bluetooth... I guess I was thinking that BT was sort-of standard already on notebook computers nowadays. Makes it a little inconvenient for someone like me that prefers to do everything wirelessly. Another issue I have with this notebook is that it is VERY bulky and VERY heavy. I appreciate the large widescreen, and the full numeric keypad, but the moment I opened the box I was deflated by the sheer size of this monstrosity. It is not something that a normal-sized person can comfortably fit on their lap (OMG I could not imagine trying to use this thing on an airplane). It is so large that the first two notebook bags I bought my mother would not accommodate it. The placement of buttons and control keys on the unit itself, for some reason, also seems a little confusing to me... lacking intuitiveness... but that may just be me.

This computer, despite its problems, did impress me overall. It's a cut above the expectations I had for a $650 PC laptop. I am looking to purchase an actual Windows PC to use in addition to my two Macs... I would consider HP based on my experience with this notebook, but I would not consider THIS MODEL. I travel several months out of the year... and honestly this thing is just too bulky and heavy to comfortably carry through airports. I would suggest to seriously consider the size and weight of this computer before purchasing it, and weigh the cons of those things against your intentions for this computer... if you travel a lot with your notebook, I doubt this model will make you happy camper. But if you want a portable home computer, or something to keep in your dorm... something that won't be moving around a lot... this might be a good option.

Impressive, very impressive... but not enough to turn this old Mac guru into a PC-All-The-Way guy. :)

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It's better than my G70 but not by much. The 16:9 screen is much shorter than the G70 widescreen,making it harder to read pages online-lots of scrolling. My biggest complaint is the volume. I went into every possible menu to max the vol and nothing helped. The G70 blasts it out of the water on sound. The DVD tray is very flimsy, it wouldn't burn a DVD-I tried several brands and types. It tried-burned maybe half a disc and wasted 10 discs. I was trying to burn their recommended recovery disc set off this notebook. I gave up and paid the $14 for the DVDs. The tray is moulded close to the bottom and hangs if you don't keep it near the edge of your desk or raised on that end. The power adpt cord sticks straight out the rear side and would be easy to mangle if you're not careful moving it. I'm returning it because Win7 won't work with any of my HP printers and scanners and they state on their website that they aren't going to write new drivers. These notebooks are identical in quality and appearance. The G71 is ,1 Ghz faster and 1 GB more memory plus .3 larger screen. Not a huge difference by any means. I did exhaust tech support on the hardware issue and he recommended I buy new printers and scanners. NOT I'll stick with Vista untill they write more drivers, maybe they'll have one of mine in a few ..... For the money it's a good machine but you better have Win7 approved hardware. Most of the drivers out now for Win7 are stripped of their features and use only basic functions. I wouldn't abandon Vista just yet.

ASUS P43E-XH51 (14.1-Inch Screen) Laptop

ASUS P43E-XH51 LaptopI am enjoying my first month with the Asus laptop. My previous laptop was an HP Pavilion 15.5 inch glossy screen. I really like the matte screen of the Asus. As far as screen size, I debated going with the Asus 15.6 vs the 14.1 and decided the 14.1 would be better, given the lower screen resolution. I am totally fine with this decision. I am also very happy with the lightweight laptop and battery life with the standard 6 cell battery. No doubt helped by the smaller screen real estate, I am getting a legitimate 5 hours of use. This is compared to my old HP with a 12 cell battery (heavy) and getting only 2.5 hours.

Also, the wifi is excellent as far as speed maintained and range. I can easily get 25 feet away from my modem, through several walls and still get 80% of the highest speed that I would get standing next to my modem.

Another plus is this laptop runs cool to the touch. No more singed thighs. And the "ice cool" technology also keeps the palm rest comfortable.

My only two concerns with the Asus are keyboard related. The keys are less contoured than I would like, so it is slightly easier to mistype. Having a little more space between them would be helpful. Also, the Caps Lock key (as well as the other keys) lacks an LED indicator. This could have been done and I would gladly have paid more for it. These are minor complaints and would not keep me from recommending this unit. Now, as to longevity...we shall see.

5/4/12 update: I need to downgrade from 4 stars to 2 stars. ASUS product support is virtually non-existent. Sent an email in to product support and it took six days to get a reply. Website is in English, somewhat. Went on to live chat today for support. Nobody came online for almost thirty minutes. Then a message appeared which said "engineers are busy, click here for support site". So I clicked there and another message came up: "Bad request". So, I next called someone who tried to help but suggested I call back the next day to get an RMA. I asked for my case number and he said he can't give me one as they were having problems with their software!

I still like the laptop, but with non-support like this, I will not buy another product from ASUS.

5/10/12 update 2: Actually contacted by ASUS rep after seeing this post. I like that they are willing to make improvements. People just want to know that the company they buy a product from will actually care enough to support that product and improve satisfaction. Upgraded from two stars to three stars. I still like the laptop and am liking ASUS more, thanks to Tien.

Writing this review on this laptop right now:

After some basic research on RAM, processors, etc., I decided to take a risk on this one (at the time of purchase, this had 2 stars). It had all the specs I was looking for (examples include: 2+ ghz, i5 core, reputable brand, upgradable ram, decent graphics card, icecool tech) for a very low price.

Contrary to a previous reviewer, it worked right out of the box for me.

It only took me an hour to see how much superior it was to my old laptop (an HP Pavilion dv4-1465dx). It's lighter/more comfortable, faster, has better graphics/sound, and doesn't try to burn me. Then again, the HP is at least 2-3 years old, versus ~3 months.

I agree with a previous review on the annoying lack of LED indicator, but for the price, I'm willing to live without it. Although setting up the laptop with the Number Lock on was definitely something I'd rather not repeat.

Now bear in mind, I've had this laptop for a VERY short amount of time, so I can't say much for durability other than it feels sturdy. If I run into any issues, I'll try to remember to update this review. I'll also try to update in a few months to update how well it takes my abuse as a college student.

Feel free to ask me any questions about the laptop! I'm not the most knowledgeable about computers, but I'll try to be as helpful as I can.

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Actually.. The computer was a dud! But the company was great to deal with. They shipped same day and sent the package overnight because I was leaving the country and needed it with me. That was amazing! Then, it wasn't their fault that the computer was having problems and would reboot constantly and display windows error messages and try to reboot in safe mode and I hardly had any software on it at all. I had my IT department walk through technical issues with ASUS and when the problems could not be resolved, Adorama sent me the UPS labels and issued a full credit to my card! Computer = bad.. Adorama = GREAT!

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As designed for professional use this laptop works very well,it feels very solid and high quality. I am very happy with it and I can recommend it to anyone.

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Just got the Computer today to use for business and the screen won't turn on. Tried the Fn keys to see if the display was turned off. Hooked an external monitor to it and it worked fine. Tried different settings with the external monitor plugged in but the computer would not recognize its own display. Hopefully I can get a new one fast.