Asus® U56E-RBL5 Laptop Computer with 15.6" LED-Backlit Screen, 2nd Gen Intel® CoreTM i3-2310M Pro

Simply put, this laptop has the most robust build quality I've ever seen from a consumer model at this price point (roughly $500 at stores). The aluminum lid and chassis coupled with the rubberized palmrest has a very Mac-like feel. I'm no Mac fan overall, but I have admired their physical hardware if nothing else. This laptop oozes quality and has no flexing, creaking, or other common maladies of the budget category.

6GB of RAM is actually overkill for regular folks shopping in this range. The 640GB drive is enough even for a lossless music junkie and movie nerd like me. The only 'complaint' would be integrated graphics, but hardcore gamers typically know their specs and aren't looking at this rig in the first place. Speaking of graphics, the Sandy Bridge chip offers a substantial graphics push over the initial i-series processors. Put simply, you WoW and other mainstream gamers won't notice the lack of discreet graphics.

Finally, the thing that prompted me to write this review at 5am is that I have been working on the laptop since 10pm...and still have an estimated hour of battery left. This is with wifi on, screen at about 30%, listening to music and, most impressively, downloading a 23GB backup file from a cloud service (lots of hard drive writing = battery drain). And I'm not even on the "battery save" mode, though there is a dedicated button to toggle between power modes should you want to eek every last drop. This long life does come at the expense of having a small hump from the battery bay, so the laptop isn't uniformly thin. No biggie...the battery also doubles as a 'lift' to angle it and help keep air circulating beneath it.

Speaking if which, it never gets hot, no matter what I'm doing. And it's dead silent.

One final note is the keyboard. Unlike most laptops, this chiclet-style unit has NO flex. It's a very solid, confident typing experience I haven't felt since using the legendary ThinkPad keys. That's just one more reason this laptop just feels very professional.

Oh, and if you see this or the other U56E models listed as "lake blue" in color, it really isn't. It's more of a gunmetal grey that has a blueish tint when light hits it a certain way.

This was not the computer I ordered in the first place. There was a mix up in the listing ad I looked at the 15.6 screen and decided I wanted the 14 that's what I have been using for a number of years now

. Also I didn't like the number keys to the right of the keyboard. because Most every time I would go to hit the right or left keys at the bottom of the touch screen mouse pad I would hit the right instead of the left and have to back up and correct what task that key did.

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