ASUS B43J-A1B 14-Inch Business Laptop - Black

This is a very well built laptop (edges are round, metal hinges). The keyboard is similar to the Lenovo keyboard and I really like it. I have used the Asus K series, UL series, EEE netbooks and this touchpad is by far the best one of all. This laptop comes with a smooth touchpad (not the dimpled ones) and it works like a charm. The scrolling is very smooth compared to the dimpled ones. Vertical 2 finger scroll allows you to scroll down/up the page and the 2 finger horizontal scroll allows you to scroll horizontally and useful for going through pictures on Flickr or facebook albums. The buttons on the touchpad are also very comfortable and pretty much silent. Compared with the Macbook pro touchpad, this one is not as good but pretty close. It's one of the best for a PC laptop that I've used.

I like how there's a shutter that allows you to cover the webcam for privac. The laptop is slightly thicker than the UL series but it is definitely more robust, especially the entire screen piece. It weighs about 2.5kg but doesn't feel too heavy or bulky to carry around on a daily basis.

The only one issue I ran into so far is the wireless internet connection would randomly disconnect and not be able to detect any networks. I tried a bunch of different things including disabling some of the power management features like some people had mentioned in other forums but it didn't do the trick. I ended up reinstalling the intel wireless driver for this laptop's wireless chip. I am really hoping this will solve the problem because it was driving me nuts. Other than this particular problem there aren't any major issues I've come across.

I added an extra 4GB stick of Kingston ram that was on sale for $35. For the price, you can't go wrong with this laptop. Business grade laptop with an i5 processor, discrete ATI graphics, and a 3 year warranty (including a 1 yr accidental damage, 2 way free shipping), 3 year battery warranty, 2 megapixel webcam.

Pros:

-Best Processor for Price range (i5 2.66 GHz)

-Pretty Good Graphics Card (isn't the best card out there, but plays everything on mid settings with highest resolution, so still looks pretty good)

-Comes with Windows 7 Professional

-Keyboard feels durable, no flex

-7200 RPM Hard drive (boots much faster than my family's desktop)

-not as much bloatware as you'll see from other brands

-hdmi, vga, display port, and eSata ports.

-Recovery discs were easy to burn, not near as difficult as some brands make it.

-Fingerprint reader

-Light and Portable

Cons:

-Only comes with 2 GB of RAM

-has a 3 cell battery (though even on the three cell battery you can still get a good 2-2.5 hours out of it if you aren't gaming)

-has no volume control on keyboard (not a big issue for me, but a bit annoying sometimes)

-the way the Hard Drive comes partitioned (it partitions 25% of the drive for OS and programs [C drive], and then 75% for data [D drive], so unless you want to put more than 75 GB worth of programs on, you'll have to run windows setup and departition the drive, which is not difficult, just do it right after you get it because it will mean a reinstall of windows and you'll lose anything you previously installed)

I ended up buying another 2 GB of RAM for $20, and a 6-cell battery for $75, bringing my total to about $645 for the whole thing. But for the specs that I got even for that price is still a heck of a deal and putting in the RAM was quick and easy and no big deal at all.

I got this Laptop for College and It has been excellent. I do some gaming and as I said, medium settings on high resolutions looks pretty good and is by far better than anything else you'll get in this price range.

Overall the few minor issues I had with it were easily fixed and it has exceeded my expectations in every other way. It is an excellent computer and I couldn't have asked for more for the price.

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I purchased this computer for my graduate school work ---mainly word processing, working with spreadsheets, and I had intended to watch some movies from time to time to relax. Within about a month, my DVD drive stopped reading DVDs. We re-installed drivers, looked through pages and pages of help information, and couldn't fix it. We are now going to PAY to replace the drive because the company said tough luck --you waited to long to return the computer.

In addition and definitely worse, the entire system restarts unexpectedly about once a week now. Also about once a week, the monitor simply stops working. The webcam only works sometimes, the wireless adapter continually needs to be disabled and re-enabled, the touch-pad often doesn't scroll up and down... this is a TERRIBLE COMPUTER AND I RECOMMEND THAT EVERYONE STAY AWAY. Especially if you are looking into purchasing this for use with any important documentation or for your use at an office, this is not a dependable machine.

This afternoon I am going to REPURCHASE Windows so that the large, numerous and useless applications that were pre-installed on my machine are gone, and in hopes that some of these problems will be resolved. Neither the seller nor ASUS will re-install Windows without all of these applications --I am expecting to pay an extra $200-$300 in total so that I can have a useable machine for the simple work I want to do.

Anyone would be better off with the cheapest Dell model out there.

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I like this computer. It is a rugged machine with a lot of nice features for a laptop. It has a core i5 processor. It comes with 2 gb of memory but will accept 8 gb and I took the suggestion of others and added the additional memory. It is very fast. It has an extended battery warrant. I am very impressed with most of the features. It only has a 14 inch monitor which is ok with me as I like to use my laptop with an external monitor anyway. However, the laptop sales information states that it comes with a docking station. I did not get a docking station and when I called to inquire about one it appears ASUS does not make one for this model anymore.

This leads me to the downside of this machine. I have had no luck with product support or service from ASUS. The software support appears to be sub-contracted to others who don't have the same pride in the product as I think a true manufacturer's rep would have. It was almost as if the person on the phone with me didn't care whether my problem was solved or not. Tech support is critical for the long-term viability of any manufacturer that intends to stay in business and my experience so far has been to wonder whether ASUS will be around for a long time or not. This to me is a sad commentary because in most respects I think they have a superior product but need to provide better customer service.

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I have had this computer for about 6 weeks. The first one I had, had start up problems so I returned it with zero problems and this one replaced it. (Same model) This one has done all I've wanted after the ram was upgraded to 8 gig. The partioning I didn't like, but reading the manual (downloaded on line) tells you how to reboot the system (before you put all of your junk on it) and you can make it into a single "C:" drive very easily. I just upgraded the hard drive to a 500 gig hybrid drive, cloned the old one, and boot time droped drastically. I bought this while COMP USA (Tiger Direct) had them on sale and it has been a great buy so far. Handles my work, movies, music etc all really well. This is my second ASUS and have been pleased with both.

PROS: Solid, fast, does my graphics work well and so far heating is at a minimum.

CONS: A little heavy and the fingerprint/security software is very user unfrienly.