Dell Latitude D430 Core 2 Duo Laptop with XP

We needed a computer at work to do nothing but handle files between our server to a 3TB external back-up drive. Bought this guy to do that function. A small burble was that it came in with Vista on it, and we need XP ... after a quick call, this was revised quickly, and we are up and running. Very nice customer service. Quick response. Good packaging. Very clean refurb laptop that works well. I recommend these guys to anyone.

Purchased this little laptop from Data Sales, because I wanted a smaller, lighter and more solid laptop than my Inspiron 1545. The latitudes are made of metal, like the terminator. You will read other reviews of this particular machine that say "it's slow, it gets hot, wah, wah, wah..." Yeah, it is a bit slow by today's standards, and yeah, it gets a little warm, but it's also 5-6 years old and it cost you $130.00! It's also light and solid and mine came with a docking station with a CD rw/DVD rom! (yours may not) The computer arrived super fast, well packaged and with the docking station that I wasn't expecting. Data Sales obviously practices the policy of under-promising and over-delivering as the condition was listed as "used-acceptable" and minus a couple of minor blemishes on the top of the case, the condition is excellent to like-new. Mine came with windows 7 pro (yours may not), I dual-booted it with crunchbang linux and it spins like a top. At some point I'll replace the HD with a SSD and I'm sure I'll get many years of web-surfing, pandora listening and e-mailing out of it. For $130.00 I couldn't be happier.

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Dell Inspiron 15.6-Inch Laptop - 3rd Gen Intel Core i5 i5-3210M 2.50 GHz - 4GB RAM Memory - 500GB H

I like the fact that it comes with Windows 8, so I didn't have to go through the painful upgrade process.

The laptop is quick to boot. I plan to add another 4GB memory at around $30 for added performance.

I short, great buy!

I bought this for my husband. He really like it. And it was easy and fast delieved. it is very very good

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I've had my laptop for about 6 months now and it's proven to be a very great investment. I purchased my product for under $500. I ended up with a great machine for my needs. I highly recommend!

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I hate windows 8 make me crazy it had his moment byt still some tome very slow i think i have to buy more ram

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thoroughly enjoying, just learning to use Window 8, great price and fast moving since I like to have several windows opened at once.

Save 36% Off

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Acer C710-2605 11.6-Inch Chromebook (Iron Gray)

Is this Amazon's hardware equivalent of VAPORWARE? I ordered this probably 6 weeks ago with expedited shipping. Nothing so far. The Square Trade policy arrived promptly and I'm now past the date it can be returned. I have a policy insuring something paid for that is for a product I have never received. I'm patiently waiting, but I wish Amazon wouldn't have represented they had something that they could not deliver! I hope this gets Amazon's attention. I love the Acer products -they are generally excellent values and I love the chromebook. The extra memory and storage drive on this unit are useful to me. What's happening here?

This is to answer the other reviewer who placed a review without owning the product because it hasn't even been released.

Trust me, some users would prefer a hard drive to the cloud, especially if I'm taking pictures out in the middle of nowhere with no internet and want to view my shots. The nature and wildlife shots on the hikes I take are generally without internet available.

The extra 2gb of memory certainly will help when reviewing my 20mb raw shots taken with my full frame Canon DSLR.

The 16gb drive the other reviewer bragged about is half the size of my 32gb flash card for my camera. If my flash card has more the 16gb of data on it, the Samsung 16gb won't even be able to read my card or show my images. If it can't read my flash card using my USB reader then it's usless to me.

Perhaps even a bigger reason for a hard drive is if I want to put Ubuntu on it. You need a hard drive to dual boot or wipe out ChromeOS and put Ubuntu on it.

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This $300 Chromebook is the same as the $280 Acer C710-2055, but with a 500 GB drive instead of 320 GB. Bear in mind that on a Chromebook, the internal storage is effectively your Downloads folder. I think 320 GB is already too much for a Chromebook, and wish there was an Acer C7 with a fast and silent 16GB SSD instead. If you really need storage get an external drive; it's $80 for a TB these days. That said, if you were going to get the $280 model and really wanted just 180 more GB, $20 is not bad.

But you should strongly consider the $200 version instead. Two-thirds the price, $100 in your pocket, at the cost of 2GB instead of 4GB memory, 320GB instead of 500GB internal storage, and a 4-hour rather than a 6-hour battery. Except for battery-centric users, most people are unlikely to notice the difference. Plus, if you do, you can always upgrade later! One of the best features of the Acer C7 is that memory, hard drive, and even battery are user-upgradeable. (At present, March 2013, Acer C7 users mostly seem to get an after-market longer-life battery from a third-party supplier named CDW.)

I'm a big fan of the $200 Acer C7; see my review here: New Acer C7 C710-2847 Chromebook 11.6" Intel Dual Core B847 1.1 GHz 2GB DDR3 320GB 5400RPM HDD Wifi HDMI USB3.0 VGA Card Reader. Now, at present (March 2013) you can't get it for $200 on Amazon; you can check Newegg instead.

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Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E430 3254 - 14" - Core i3

Bought this for my daughter. She's been really happy with it. Get's great battery life and does all the basics really well.

I just wanted to warn everyone from buying this or other products from ANTOnline (ANTOnline.com).

I bought this laptop from ANTONLINE and he sold the laptop as new but I later found out that it was already used. Several weeks ago it began to turn off for no reason so I contacted Lenovo Technical Support--since it still was supposed to have warranty (I bought it on November 22, 2012 and the PC stated it had 1 year of warranty) so Lenovo told me that the warranty had expired on May the 3rd 2013. They asked for the machine number and Serial and said it had been used on March 7th 2012. I have contacted the seller and I haven't received any reply leaving me with the only option to leave a negative feedback.

A WORD OF ADVISE:

>>CHECK the SERIAL and MACHINE number with Lenovo and see whether it has been used.

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Dell Inspiron i15RM-1765BK 15-Inch Laptop (Diamond Black)

I don't need much from a computer besides a word processor and the internet, so this computer is perfect for me. It came before it was estimated to be delivered. It was easy to start up and get running. At first, I noticed that it started up really slowly, but that has improved greatly in the last couple of weeks. It has a sleek design, and I love the fact that you can change the lids. The only thing that I have noticed that is strange about this computer is that sometimes when I am playing music, the sound will go up or down a bit randomly. I am not sure what this is about, but it's the only complaint that I have! All in all, I love my new computer!

I bought this laptop knowing it was cheap and expecting a minimal utilitarian experience. I also knew I needed the professional version of Windows to get the foreign language support I wanted. I did not expect that Dell would break the ability to do a simple on line upgrade or that Microsoft would take a full day on the phone to let me install the better version I paid for. The cost in my time would have made it worth it to buy an very high end machine instead. Alas, if I hadn't had my airbook with me I wouldn't have been able to get this machine fixed. I give it 2 stars not 1 because it did finally work. It baffles me that Dell and Microsoft can get away with selling intentionally flawed products. If they just sold one OS the problem would go away. This one didn't even boot the first time. I had to run a "recovery" just to turn it on.

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This Dell Laptop was a christmas gift for my grandson. He wanted a Blue laptop but the awesome price for the Dell i15RM in Diamond Black came with switch lid option. It came with the 10 key pad which is rare in most laptops. And i purchased the laptop, a wireless mouse the Blue switch lid and a carry case all under five hundred dollars. What a great deal!!! My grandson couldn't believe he got what he wanted and more!! I would highly recommend this laptop.

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everytime i get one i am never dissapointed!!! its easy to get and easy to sign up for, not that expensive and will recommend to everyone. BUY THIS DROPS and SPILLS WARRANTIES THEY WORK, THANKS SQUARETRADE NOW GO BUY YOU USUALLY GET THE CONTRACT EMAILED TO YOU WIHTIN AN HOUR

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This laptop works for a couple hours and then start giving blue screen, so i figure i would give it a couple of day but it keep doing the same thing so i returned it. I love this machine, everything else was great except for the blue screens. they return it without a problem thanks.

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Toshiba Satellite 15.6" Core i7 640GB HDD Notebook

Best you can get for the price. Great product regardless of the price. Bought it on a Saturday and receive it on a Tuesday. This was specially important since I bought it as a gift for Christmas. My only complain is that I bought it and the next day it was on sale for $50 cheaper!!! I'm still rating it with 5 stars. Recommend to anyone.

The computer is nice, but they temperature are high. Windows 8 is not very funny but visualy is nice too,.

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Lenovo Thinkpad SL 410 14-Inch Black Laptop - Up to 4.1 Hours of Battery Life (Windows XP Pro)

I purchased the Lenovo SL410 after my trusty, 5 year old Dell finally died and I must say, I am extremely impressed.

For the price ($625), I have yet to see any others come close. In fact, this definitily seems like a much more expensive machine than it is. The design, although boring and old looking at first, has really grown on me and I have come to appreciate the simple beauty of it. No fancy case or buttons, just simple and easy to use features that always work instantly one pressed or used.

The trackpad is great and it even has the scroll feature on the right side, which is extremely useful when browsing the web. The keyboard is also of great size and response and is even spill proof! Really, it has drains which will drain any spilled liquid on the keyboard. I love this feature, since I replaced the keyboard on my old Dell TWICE for this reason.

Windows 7 has been great. I never owned a Vista, but did work on a few and it was awful. The Windows 7 that is installed in the SL410 has been wonderful. It is basically Vista with all the bugs worked out!

The number 1 thing about this laptop is the SCREEN! Not sure if its standard, bu the one i have has the glossy HD screen and it is unreal. HD video on this is bar none! Similar to the the screens on a Mac. Great!

A close 2nd favorite thing on this is the build-in Wi-Fi. WOW! My signal strenth is always powerful no matter where in my house. My sister has a Dell Mini Netbook, which she paid $550 for less than a year ago, and she cant get any wifi from her room. With the Lenovo, I have full signal strenth from my room which is much furhter from the wifi point in our house! Unreal.

I purchased this as a work travel/home laptop so I didnt need all the fancy media packages that HP and those other brands offer, but this thing has rocked for media. I am an avid photographer and this thing has no problem working with my DSLR, Flip Videos and other gadgets i have. I also use with my iPhone and iPod and have yet to experience issues or delay.

I did my research before purchasing and nothing in this same price point can compare.

I strongly reccomend this to anyone looking for a fast, reliable and efficient machine for work or play.

My HP died, found out that the HP DV2000 which I had was defective, problems with the motherboard would show up after 2-3 years of use. HP was aware of the problem and would fix it for me for $400 + shipping (my warrenty was up). Decided it was better to get a new laptop. Never again an HP! The Geek at Best Buy told me this was the laptop he bought, made by IBM and very dependable. He did not steer me wrong as far as I could tell. It takes a little getting used to Windows 7, I had Vista previously and XP on a desktop. But everything with this machine was easy, set up to internet, program installation etc. And it is fast!! Yes it is slow to start but that is Windows 7, Vista was slow also. Have the same stuff on this computer as my old HP and I still have tons of space on the hard drive. So far I am very happy. The think pad tools icon also is a help. I trust computer geeks when it comes to this sort of thing, he did not try to get me to buy a $1200.00 machine, this was half the price and it feels great.

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I have only used the SL-410 for about two weeks, so my experience is, admittedly, limited with this product.

Overall I would rate this a 4-star laptop, excellent for moderate business productivity. The screen is sharp, glossy, but so much that it catches glare coming from florescent lights, or through office windows. The keyboard buttons are large and I find typing fairly simple and easy. The mouse interface has both the "nub" (my own word) which is a characteristic red finger sensor that used to be common on most of the major brands but only remains on Lenovo laptops, and the trackpad, which does hiccup sometimes, so your cursor can jump around unintentionally if you don't use small gestures. I have no problem with either of these really.

Initially, when you boot up the computer you will encounter the telltale bloatware present on every new PC these days. My first boot up took nearly twenty minutes (18m:45s) and until I disabled all of the completely unnecessary programs running the performance was quite pathetically slow for a Core 2 Duo processor. However, I used the MSCONFIG utility (type MSCONFIG in the search bar of the start menu) to disable all of the bloatware on startup and when I rebooted the computer was a far more reasonable 3 minutes.

It was when I went to backup the system disks on the Lenovo partition that I ran into my first problem. I ordered the Dual Layer DVD rom specifically for a project that requires a lot of data backup, so when the system hanged after I put in the DVD-DL, I was distressed to discover that my laptop was configured with the CD-RW combo drive, despite the invoice and order information containing the part # of a DL drive. Lenovo's post-sales number (1.866.428.4465) gave me someone with imperfect English who told me to call technical support. I called the number from the invoice--and to make a long story short, I have been bounced back to post-sales and I am waiting to find out if I need to ship the whole computer back or if they can just send my a new drive. Since I don't think that Lenovo's DVD drives are modular the way that Dell and HP drives are, I think I must ship it all back. As it turns out, this is a good thing, as I have since discovered that my RAM isn't the 1066mhz DDR2 that I ordered, but 800mhz DDR2, which isn't really that much of a performance decrease, but still, I should have received what I paid for.

Anyway, I reduced my rating by 2 stars to account for each of these misconfigured items, and if my Lenovo return process goes well I will post a comment amending my review rating.

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Pros:

Intel processor, screen size, Thinkpad line, okay cooling, adequate graphics

Cons: First of all, my unit came with Windows 7 X64 pro on it, not exactly the same as this one

-"Ctrl" key is NOT the left most one on the bottom row, for someone who uses keyboard shortcuts, it's a nightmare to always remind myself "it's the second to the last key".

-worst motherboard ever, as you will have issues installing another windows 7 version or upgrading later on, because the storage drivers are not compatible and leads to BSOD or failure during system install. At first I thought it was the CD/USB drive that I loaded Windows 7 x64 Ultimate onto, but installed Win 7 on two other PC's (laptop and desktop) without a hitch with the same disc/USB. In all fairness Microsoft also to blame partly for this problem. Common M$, keep the communications open with 3rd party distributors and ensure your valued customers does not have to spend days to figure out a simple 15 min system upgrade/install.

-Cheap feel, mind you this is not a business class laptop albeit the "Thinkpad" line name, it does not have a metal skeleton inside the case such as the high-end Thinkpads or Alienware; you get what you paid for in this case.

-Owned the unit ~1 year, used it infrequently since I have another HP from work, finally got Windows 7 installed by pulling out the hard drive and installed Win 7 onto it in my work laptop (yeah it installed fine), then placed the hard drive back into this unit. Junked it at a local PC shop for $250 in return. The unit runs Win 7 ok after all that nonsense, but still with errors.

Other thoughts:

Laptops are not like desktops, which you can easily swap out a motherboard if problems occur; such case is when my desktop's mobo died I just swapped out a new one with $50 and an hour of my time. For a laptop, you either spend $300+ for labor/parts or you spend a day trying to replace it. Hate to say it, since Lenovo took over the Thinkpad Line, those junky Asian parts just pollute this line of premium mobile computing. My suggestion for Lenovo is to change the name of these laptops to "Unthink Pads", it certainly stifles encouragement of any further dealings with Lenovo on my end. Changing to Toshiba Protege/Alienware.

Alpha

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I was big IBM laptops fan since X31. But SL410 is last drop. I can't stand it any more.

My sound card messed up in less than 6 moth. I had to restore whole laptop to its factory defaults twice in less than a year. To be exact 9 month.

Despite having good spec, performance is just more than disappointing.

Sorry my French, but I'll never buy Lenovo crap any more.

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HP g6-1d48dx 15.6" Pavilion Laptop - AMD Quad-Core A6-3420M - 4GB Memory - 500GB Hard Drive - Pewter

i took advantage of Best Buy special and bought it for 378.99 and it is the best laptop I have bought. I had dell 1545 but had problems with ac adapter. bought Genuine ones and my problems continued. It was also a great laptop but I had it with the adaper so I decided to change brands and HP was my best option. I would had paid more if I had to. But Im very happy with my purchase.

It has a great sound, great speed with youtube and amazon prime movies, great colors. The keypad is wonderful and I had no problem installing WIFI.Cd player is great as well. The only thing that I think they could have included is PowerPoint. With Microsoft Office Starter I get Word Perfect and Excell, but on the right adds some adds pop up. But at this time I can live with it. It comes with movie maker.

Battery life is about 6 hours. I bought it last night (April 3) and Im having fun with it. Hope it continues working as great as it is doing now.

what conviced me to purchase it was that it was WIFI ready, DVD and RW, 4gb 500gb, Microphone integrated and web cam.

Towch pad feels hard and it is different from Dell 1545 which were softer.

I think this laptop is about to become my best friend. Buy one. You will love it and for that price is a steal. I would had bought it for even 700.00

I bought this model of off craigslist and it did not disappoint. I had a sony vaio before and can tell you that it was built better than this one, but this one is not far off. If you decide to get this one, remember to get the AMD version. The AMD Radeon graphics chip blows away the Intel version. This thing hovers at 1.5ghz which is weak by my standards. But what sold me is that it jumps up to 2.9 ghz when i need it and when playing games. The screen viewing angle is OK, but best if you are in front of it. The LED screen is crisp and bright. Keyboard is OK but could have had a better feel. Battery life is standard. Too bad that it did not come with USB 3 ports. Overall, it is a solid buy.

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I've had this laptop for 1 year and 2 months. The battery started showing a decline in performance after 3 months of average use. Right at the year mark it became unusable. Cost of a new battery is more than a quarter of the price of the laptop and if you have to replace it every 6 months to a year....What a rip off! Total Trash! This is my 3rd and last HP laptop. They just don't last. I have had 3 different HP laptops and 2 printers and they do not seem to last very long. All three laptops had issues with the batteries not lasting more than a few months. The printers developed feeding problems. I have had other laptops from other companies like Lenovo with no issues. HP product quality is just not there. I have no issues with any of my other home office or electronic equipment of other brands lasting and performing to high standards.

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I bought this on sale at Bestbuy almost a year ago because it had the best features at that time for the price. Screen is bright, it's pretty fast and does all the things its supposed to do. Movies play well. Speakers pretty much blow, but most laptop speakers do. It's a little heavy but that's the price you pay for the battery and the on board DVD drive. If the touch-pad bothers you I highly recommend the Microsoft 4000 wireless optical mouse. For 15 bucks it works like magic. Overall a great product. I use mine every day, and no problems with it at all.

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This laptop is faceing most of my expectations for a gaming laptop, thow it does not have a very powerful procesor, still its surprisenly eficient with most of my faforit games, like skyrim, risen, nfs, and the ones that are a litle older just fly. Also I would like to add that still being an Hp with amd quad core procesor it does not heet up too much, in fact it does not get hot at all, and the qualiti of the disply, and I apsolutly have to add the bit about thr very accesible price in anyu case I love it...

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Toshiba Satellite C855D-S5230 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

I bought this laptop based on the previous reviewer's comments, thinking that I may have found a decently priced laptop great for my needs. I took advantage of buying the computer at a local Brandsmart at a cheaper price(hint hint) than Amazon prices. It's light weight, large screen, and the keyboard is very easy to handle.

My concerns after using my laptop for the past week:

1. The computer runs pretty slow for typical web browsing sites; I was very surprised by this because this is a brand new laptop and shouldn't have this issue as though it was infected with a virus that will slow down the processor.

2. There isn't a notification that warns of low battery life before shutting down in the middle of my work. I checked the settings and it is set to show a warning but for some reason doesn't show up at all.

3. The battery life isn't that impressive. I've had other laptops that I've used off and on, shutting it down when not in use, and this laptop doesn't seem to last more than a few hours of minimal use.

For the price, it's okay. But I am disappointed with the speed and battery life.

Purchased as a general purpose home computer for myself (53) and spouse. Never purchased computer online or through Amazon before this. Took the chance and am I glad I did. Very happy with this Toshiba. Built in wifi works better than expected. First couple of weeks I was using it kept waiting to find something on this Toshiba that I did not like. Nothing, no unexpected negative surprises or issues. Give both Toshiba and Amazon very High Scores. Thanks to both, just made my life better, faster, and happier.

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It is probably just my luck. Right out of the box, the box seal was broken( this maybe Amazon's fault) so it may have been returned previously. Then the user agreement has another seal, has a bunch of abusive terms, giving Toshiba access to your computer. It says that if you do not agree you shouldn't break the seal and should return the item. I wish they said that in item description. Being a Christmas present for my kid, this could have been a disaster. I agreed to the abuse. Then, I found I am the lucky owner of a free Windows 8 upgrade that I did not want( description says win 7).The reason I returned same day was the fact that the item was defectivetracking pad started freezing. Shipped right back( Amazon's returns are amazing, pick up scheduled at home). Thank you Toshiba for getting my kid a new Dell. He loves it!

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I can't believe no one has mentioned the awful speakers! Sounds come through like from a tin can. Trying to do make any music buys on Amazon or iTunes is impossible because of pounding headache caused by playing even a preview. Toshiba tech support tried to help but determined the speakers are just what was put on the computer. Older Toshiba Sat speakers were fine, these are crap.

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As a retired computer software engineer, I have purchased a Toshiba higher priced laptop. A few months after the one year warranty expired their own Toshiba brand hard drive failed. I had to replace that at my cost. Fortunately I maintain good backups. Toshiba will not support anything past 12 months.

Later I discovered that the Bluetooth function was non-existent although the invoice indicated it was to include LAN and Bluetooth. I conversed with Toshiba for about two weeks requesting that they credit me a small amount or provide me with a Bluetooth adapter which they manufacture (their cost about $12). They passed me back and forth between warranty service and their sales department never once offering any solution other than stating it wasn't their problem. Their powerless support people seem to all be in the Philippines but their dozens of case managers seem to do nothing but make recordings of their customers problems for their legal department. Their solution is to deny deny deny. Avoid Toshiba products.

You will not be dealing with Amazon once you own a Toshiba unit. Avoid Toshiba as you would a plague. They have a customer service department that operates like a brick wall. They stonewall everything. Avoid Toshiba. My advice. There are many other brands to purchase. I read the complaints on the so-called BBB site (kind of a scam I believe operated by businesses for their own benefit) and was amazed to see all the thousands of others having similar results dealing with useless Toshiba customer service.

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DELL Inspiron iM101z-3980BK Notebook Intel Core i3 330UM(1.20GHz) 11.6" 2GB Memory DDR3 1333 250GB

If you're looking for something to use while traveling or just need a secondary computing device for lounging on the couch or sitting on the deck outside, this unit will definitely satisfy your needs. On the other hand, if you're looking for a desktop replacement or primary computing device, thinking of gaming, or expect to type 10,000 word documents day in day out, then this unit probably wont meet your needs.

In my case, I just wanted something to use while I was in the middle of a move, whereby my primary equipment was being hauled away. Although I have a decent smartphone, nothing truly substitutes the full windows7 experience with a full keyboard. I can say that I'm quite pleased as all my expectations have been met I'm able to watch 1080p youtube streams, silverlight (netflix) streams, navigate web pages without any problems, and use IM easily.

With 2gb of memory, one should seriously consider adding another 2gb stick (2 slots, only 1 is occupied) which can be had for less than 20 buckaroos. That gives you 4gb which is sufficient for heavy web / streaming video tasks. There is a true 250gb harddrive which many are replacing with an SSD for faster access and longer battery life. I am thinking of upgrading to an SSD but really, since this is a secondary device I don't really see a pressing need at this point in time.

Note that this unit has a built-in wimax chip which means you can subscribe to wireless 4g plans with sprint or clear. The plans aren't really cheap (35 is the cheapest) but they also don't require any contract so this might be attractive to those who just need to buy a months worth of access while on a trip, for example. It's simply nice to have this option built in without the need for any additional hardware to buy or stick out from your machine.

Quality the finish is pretty good for a Dell and doesnt have any cheap feel to it. Screen is glossy, which I would have preferred a matte type but those are few and far between today. Keyboard fortunately is very tacticle feel to it, responsive, and rates 8/10 for me.

Overall, not much else to say. This is a true notebook with an i3 chip that smokes Atom or E450 AMD chips. In no way is this the fastest notebook out there but the pricetag also doesn't suggest that it should.

Edit: Been using this machine several months now and what do I think of it? LOVE IT! It's hands down the best portable computing device I've ever bought. I've taken this on trips, use it outdoors, and have it in my bedroom for web surfing just before going to bed. It's never failed me and I love the portable size yet its full feature windows in awesome because I never have to comprimise with an Android system that lacks so much. I have zero desire to get a tablet, that's how great this device is.

I've had my Dell 11.6" iM101z for over a year now and purchased it elsewhere, but wanted to share the excellent experience I have had with this notebook PC. First off, the size is perfect. It is small enough (and light enough) to easily travel with, or use in bed; at the same time, the full-size keyboard makes it easy to use. Anyone who calls this a netbook is entirely wrong -it is an ultraportable notebook. The difference between this and a netbook are many -the screen resolution is 1366x768 (720p HD), it has a powerful Intel Core i3 processor, and it can be upgraded to hold 8GB of RAM. Speaking of upgrades, I did add more RAM (maxed it out at 8GB) and I replaced the stock hard drive with a Crucial SSD. It was not slow before these upgrades, but afterwards it is downright fast. As I said, I've had this notebook for about 16 months and it has held up great. Everything still works great, but I did manage to get a scuff on the lid (my fault). Overall, for the price paid (including the upgrades) and the performance/size combination I am highly satisfied. If you're in the market for a small, light notebook, and want full-sized performance, get this!

Buy DELL Inspiron iM101z-3980BK Notebook Intel Core i3 330UM(1.20GHz) 11.6" 2GB Memory DDR3 1333 250GB Now

I bought this computer to replace my old sony vaio laptop. It was smaller than I expected so i am getting use to typing but on everything else it is a winner. Its fast, super light and so far the battery is lasting around 4 hrs of continuous use.

Theres no cd drive but now a days there really isn't a need for one. Along with this computer I also purcahsed the Corsair XMS3 4 GB 1333MHz PC3-10666 240-pin DDR3 Memory Kit for Intel Core i3 i5 i7 and AMD CMX4GX3M1A1333C9. It was a breeze to install, just unscrew the bottom and snap it in. Now the computer runs super fast and it still cheaper than just about any other computer you will find out there. I was going to buy a new ultrabook but I decided that I could save myself $500 and get this computer instead.

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The Dell Inspiron 11Z may not be the best netbook/laptop computer in its class, but it comes close. It is a solidly constructed, well designed computer, whose performance compares favorably with other, more expensive, Dell computers I have used, such as several of the early Dell XPS models (M1210, M1330). It may be all a casual user needs in a compact netbook/laptop computer, especially with regards with internet surfing; however, users may want to upgrade the available RAM from 2 GB to 4 GB just for allowing it to have faster internet access, though I have found that when I have used the computer connected to the Internet from a high speed connection, I have had little or no problems with internet surfing. I am delighted that it is relatively light weight, and haven't hesitated carrying it with me, and using it to surf the internet at venues like an East Village (New York, NY) bar or the Metropolitan Museum of Art cafeteria. Aside from internet surfing, I have been able to use the limited versions of MS WORD and MS EXCEL that comprise the MS Office Starter software that was bundled with this computer. (For a substantially higher sum, users can acquire an activation key and have MS OFFICE 2010 working, since it comes installed though not working too.) I highly recommend this computer to anyone thinking of using it primarily as an internet access netbook, or as a backup to another, more feature-laded, laptop or desktop computer.

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It is very nice product with respect to its price but the battery part of device is thicker than other parts which makes it thicker and a little bit heavy than other models in this size. It is mainly because of old model of battery. But other things work well and I am satisfied in overall.

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Lenovo IdeaPad B570

How fast? VERY fast !

Why it is so fast.

Naturally, the CPU (processor) plays a big role. It's a downgraded version of Intel's latest iCore processors, carrying the graphics on the CPU chip, which makes for longer lasting machines (motherboard won't heat up as much and eventually die) and produces better graphics than the older generation systems that had imbedded graphics.

This machine can play "Need for Speed Shift" at low settings, whereas normal laptops with imbedded graphics, simply can't.

4 gigs of ram.

That's more than 99% of the general populus will ever use. Windows 7 can operate with 1 gig, works very well with 2 gigs and 3 or 4 gigs is more than one normally needs.

320 gig hard drive

is an average size these days but this one is unique in that it is much faster than the average 5400 rpm laptop hard drive. I can't say for sure if it is the actual model of hard drive that makes it faster, or if it is the quality of components on the motherboard, or maybe even some new technology.

One thing I do know for sure is that its benchmarks for sequential read and write speeds are in the upper 80's, which is close to the performance of most 7200 rpm drives.

Other.

The machine has 4 USB ports, one that doubles as an eSata port, has HDMI, and VGA out.

That's fairly standard these days but some lower priced laptops only have 3 USB ports.

It has a finger print reader which will be handy for some folks, has no bluetooth which could be handy but not a deal breaker for most and has a very good webcam for low lit conditions. It's not very high resolution and some folks might consider too low for them, but for me it's fine and the brightness is a huge plus.

In short, this is an average laptop with average build and average connections.

Where it excels is that it is VERY fast.

It's not that I need speed so much, it's that I can't stand slow machines that keep me waiting.

This machine does NOT keep me waiting and is quite astounding for its price range.

I'll keep it concise: Lenovo's B570 is an excellent mid-size budget laptop. i bought one last week and, it's quite a step up (processing-wise) from my old lenovo s10e netbook. 2ghz and 4gb of ram go a long way for me, personally. i run ableton live 8, and it runs super smooth, even with Max4Live. this laptop is well designed, with plenty of ports (3 usb, 1 usb/esata, hdmi, vga, ethernet, standard audio in/out, media card reader) and is sturdily constructed, despite being constructed entirely of plastic. a truly great keyboard, and a good, medium/large trackpad w/ multitouch. only things keeping it from 5 stars is lack of bluetooth, slow hard drive (5400rpm), and "meh" battery life (4hrs or so). highly recommended purchase if you're on a budget. good for general purpose/business computing, internet (i've never had netflix run so smooth), and from my experience, running digital audio workstations (FLStudios, Ableton, Cubase, Reason, etc. should run beautifully).

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Ive had this bad boy for about 2 months now. Ive recommended it to friends and they all love it as much as I do. I think the price should actually be way more. The fingerprint swipe is neat. I was told that I would need such a powerfull laptop to mix and master my bands music on...this one does the job just fine. Meanwhile, I am still able to web browse, run programs like soulseek, mame and vuze with no problems or slowdown at all. Fantastic little buddy.

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Ditto to Bryan's review. I bought this out the door tax and all from Best Buy for $405. I don't think there is a better deal out there for a budget laptop. The features it has trump any I've seen that are $300 to $450. I've had this a month or so now and it is supperb for everyday use. I took a star off for the 0.3 megapixal webcam. It couldn't be much to include one a little better than that.

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Acer Aspire 5552-3691 AthlonII 2.2GHz 4GB 250GB 15.6'' Win7

I got this laptop for a Christmas present 2 years ago, and it's still running fine. Only one problem I've had with it. It overheats very easily. I recommend downloading some software to keep up with the temp. Mine has got up to over 189 F before. So beware. I do use it all the time, but still.

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Dell Latitude D600 Pentium M 1.4GHz WIFI 256MB 40GB DVD 14.1-Inch XP Pro with Restore Cd, bonus 512

this purchasing process was excellent!the seller is prompt,courteous and customer service driven.the product was bought to replace my college students broken one.it was just what he needed,no frills,perfect working and practical condition. of course he would prefer something more hip with every bell and whistle conceivable, but then again,he'd rather drive a cadillac instead of the familys 8 year on minivan,too.

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Dell L701x XPS 17 Laptop NEWEST MODEL 17.3" HD+ Screen / 6GB RAM / BLU-RAY / Windows 7 / NVidia 435

I'm not a huge fan of Dell, but their new XPS line is really great. It's important to get one with a backlit keyboard like this one has they are not standard, and most of them that are sold do not have it. It is something that you don't really know you need until you've already bought the computer. The 435M is a top notch graphics card and the newest generation from NVidia, and the Blu-Ray drive makes it future-proof (at least for now!). What's the point of buying a laptop nowadays that can't play Blu-Rays?? The 6GB of RAM instead of 4GB is also a nice addition.

I bought a Dell XPS 17 directly from Dell. It came with a defective screen. So I called Dell. The screen replacement was on back order, but they said they could ship me a replacement computer with identical specs immediately. I received the replacement computer just two days later. Unfortunately the replacement computer had severely downgraded specifications. 900p screen instead of the 1080p screen, i7-2630 processor instead of i7-2720, gt550m graphics instead of gt555m.

In every way possible they replaced my computer with inferior components.

I immediately called Dell and proceeded to be put on hold and bounced around for over 6 hours trying to get the issue resolved.

As I write this I am on hold yet again with a Dell representative who is completely unable or unwilling to assist me.

I cannot speak to anyone in the United States for support without paying an additional $250 for some support package

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Sequence of events: After which you can decide if this item is for you:

Ordered new L701x laptop 12/06/2012. After 30 days, blue screen error appeared every 3 hours or so. Called help line: They sent tech out to my home 1 week later with new memory stick (only one). Did not help!! Tech said diagnosys was wrong. He returned 1 week later with hard drives and motherboard. Great works but now laptop over heats and cannot be used (fire hazzard). Called tech support. They wanted to send out another tech. I said.."no way"...I want a new laptop. Finally got new one approved (3 weeks later)..in the meantime..no laptop to use. New one arrived..and immediately..blue screen again. Called tech support..we will send out a tech...6 weeks into purchase and no help..asked for refund and was told NO..repair is the only option..they claim I am running bad software..that is odd..I have an old M1530 XPS running the same operating system and software.. no issues..

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Okay, first a little about the laptop hardware itself. I got mine with the 2nd Generation 1.73 gigahertz Intel Core i7 Q 740, 6GB of RAM, 750GB hard drive, Blue Ray combo drive, NVIDIA GeForce GT 445M graphics, NVIDIA High Definition Audio (4x) and 9 cell battery. Windows 7 x64 was installed when purchased and didn't give me any significant issues for 2 years. Occasionally, I'd experience a slowdown here and there but eventually related that to pending Windows updates or updates being installed. No blue screens of death, no freezes, no incompatibility and no driver issues. I'm a PC technician and do a lot with my desktop, but needed something to bring to the job site that has performance comparable to a desktop.

I frequently do video rendering, Photoshop digital editing and video slide shows and find the performance of the XPS L701X is up to the task. I rarely hear the CPU fan pick up speed due to processor heat, usually only when I'm doing a heavy video or photo related task. The XPS is meant to be a gaming system, specification wise, but for me, it's more like a desktop stand-in and does everything I need a laptop or desktop to do.

Physically, I have a couple of complaints. First, The 17 inch size is a bit more than I anticipated. I use a couple of 24" monitors on my desktop and my rationale said I needed to go for the bigger laptop screen plus I liked the idea of having room for a number pad alongside of the standard qwerty keyboard. I've found that bigger isn't better in this case. It's hard to find laptop bags that are both compact and can fit a 17" laptop I actually modified my old one with a sharp razor blade to take out a couple of suspension pieces to allow it to fit. Another factor is the weight. It is quite heavy. My wife's Asus 17 is way lighter although it doesn't feel as solidly built. I realize one reason for the weight is that the 9 cell battery (6 is standard) is heavy all by itself. Necessary, if you care at all about using your laptop without a power cord. I wished I had gotten the backlit keyboard because it needs one, but I bought off the refurbished site at Dell and had to compromise to get all the other features I wanted. The power brick is also huge because of the 9 cell battery so that's another thing I have to deal with when I go remote. And, speaking of the power brick, the power plug is located on the back of the laptop and I find that I'm constantly hitting it against things to the point where the plug is now loose. I've remedied that by putting a piece of aluminum duct tape about 1/8th inch wide around the "prong" so it stays snug in the plug. My wife's power plug is on the side, a much better location based on my experience. Lastly, I like the aluminum top but have put a small ding in it and also found they must use a clear coat of some sort because I have what appears to be a small chip in a different spot as well. Overall though, the thing is built like a brick, nice and solid, and I have no other major complaints about the build of the laptop. It has even survived a couple short drops without damage (dog knocked it off the couch a couple of times). I plan on keeping this one until it dies or I get a windfall that allows me to upgrade to a touch screen model.

It comes with Windows 7, not a big fan. I've lived with it, learned it and support it, but I'm still not fond of it knowing that its' base platform is Microsoft Server 2000 and that it was a quick-fix to problematic Windows Vista. So, even though this laptop isn't sold as new anymore (there are newer XPS Dells out there), it's still a viable machine if you decide to get one used, or find a leftover new one. That said, I thought I'd add additional information for those who might consider this laptop plus an upgrade to Windows 8. Since I support PC's for a living, I had to get up to speed with it and decided to use my XPS laptop as my training tool, knowing I could go back to 7 easily enough if I had problems. So, Windows 8; Installed quickly, no functional driver issues and all my software works. I don't love it, but like it a lot. It's faster, runs smooth, doesn't bog down when there's an update and does everything I need, plus lots I don't need. The good news, I have no issues on Windows 8. The bad news, a few of the bells and whistles Dell puts on their laptops and uses their exclusive drivers for, don't work. This includes a couple of the shortcut keys above the keyboard. Dell won't bother providing updates for those to support Win 8 and I've not had enough time to try some of Dell's newer drivers from their recent XPS laptops that come with 8. No biggie since everything is accessible through Windows, but I don't like when things are there but don't function. This includes the hot-keys for turning off the touch pad, access to Dell support apps, the M-waves audio key and wireless on/off key. Minor issues aside, I've found that Windows 8 completes some of my CPU intensive tasks about 10% faster, boots faster, wakes from sleep faster and is overall just zippy. So in summary, if you wound up on Amazon looking at reviews for this XPS L701X laptop and wonder if it works with Windows 8, the answer is yes. I had no other driver issues. As for the reviewers giving 1 star for questionable reasons, I still rate this machine with 5 stars! Oh, and by the way, I have 4 Dells in my house and unless I build it myself, I will continue to buy Dells.

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Ok, so i bought this laptop directly from dell. i got it with the cheapest intel core i7 and 6 gb of ram. also upgraded the video card and got the back lit keys. i don't know much about computers, or what nots, but i do know that so far this computer hasn't shown any problems to me. when i first used it i notice that there were a few black dots on the screen (kinda looked like dead pixels) but they weren't they were too big to be that. it turned out to be trash inside the screen i guess because they eventually went away after a couple of months. it really didn't bother me much. If i can tell you one thing that i really like about this laptop though its that its loud! it really is loud, it can fill a room no problem and the sound is nice and crisp (whatever that means) but yes trust me on that one, the sound really does sound really really good. the only problem with this is that the keyboard is in a way placed that when you are typing, you are blocking the left speaker which is a bummer but just wear headphones or whatever and you are golden. Another negative is that where your left hand rest as you play a video game, not only does it block he speaker, but it also gets really hot! i was playing assassins creed and every other check point i had to lift my hand because it was really hot! not i am a guy and i know i have think skin around that area so i can deal with it, but for those who have sensitive hands, well good luck with that. i have heard some pretty bad reviews about this laptop out there, and well maybe they are true either ways my laptop is working fine to me. main reason why i got it with so many upgrades is because i found a 400 dollar coupon if i upgraded it to 17 inch so haha that's my story. it works for me (then again, my old desktop had less than 1/2 gb ram and 225 gb or memory with a really crappy video card so i might not know what i am saying) it works for me, but will it work for you?

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HP Pavilion dv5-1000us Entertainment Notebook PC

I was very eager to get my HP Pavilion only to find that they all have an overheating problem that leads to a shot motherboard. Unfortunately even if you replace the motherboard the heating issue will not be repaired so you can look forward to replacing another motherboard until you buy a Mac in frustration. HP will not admit this is a design flaw and they need to address this so until then Bye-bye PC, Hello Mac.

I bought this laptop just over 1.5 yrs ago, but finally decided it was time to write a review on this monstrosity.

I paid over one thousand dollars for this, and having had positive experiences with HP in the past I thought this would be the perfect laptop to lug around when starting University.

Okay, I will begin by saying that I hardly ever carry this laptop around, and usually keep it sat on my desk or use it while lying in bed. The few times I have traveled with it, it has been for short extents of time and I would carry it in a highly-padded computer bag. I am positive I took better care of my laptop than many people, however, I guess that doesn't change a thing if the laptop is already poorly made. I will now list the problems I have encountered in my DV5-1000us from the day I got it up until today (1.5 yrs later):

*The easy pad (touchpad) controls stopped working many times during my first few months of use, however, now work 99% of the time. One thing that has not changed, although I believe this is simply a design flaw is that you can't skip, pause, play, or stop songs on itunes unless you have the itunes window displaying immediately infront of you. Because of this, I deem these controls useless since it's just as easy to press any of these buttons simply from the itunes window. It is also very annoying when you want to control itunes, but can't simply use the touchpad.

*The sound card: This computer has an awful sound card simply because it continually turns on and off. I have a password-login which I must use to access my computer, but if the computer falls asleep, sometimes the sound card turns off which requires me to close and reopen my computer screen, relogin and then wait a minute for my computer to allow me to actually use it while it makes a loud engine sound. It's not that bad, but quite an annoying flaw.

*The keyboard:After a few weeks of using my laptop, the keyboard buttons would easily jam and sometimes the plastic holding them to the laptop would pop up and the keys would essentially "break." They all worked, however, many became loose or stiff after this.

---And today my keyboard simply stopped working, so I am now typing on a usb keyboard (which is actually much better than my laptop keyboard and it only cost $18!) I should mention that although this laptop cost over one thousand dollars, the keyboard is not water resistant and also easily attracts dirt under the keys. It cost nearly $400 to fix my laptop keyboard (and I live in the Silicon Valley right next to HP!), and simply put: This computer itself isn't even worth $300-$400!

*The "paint job" -when you open up this laptop you will see "small, smooth metal squares." These are painted on and can easily be chipped off -my laptop is a perfect example!

*The "mouse paint job" The mouse pad on this laptop is a great size and I love that it is centered, rather than placed to the side like in some other HP DV's and Toshiba Satellites, however one day I came home after class and while studying next to it, noticed that the mousepad was scorching hot. I figured, "Hey, it's an HP!" HOWEVER, just a few minutes later I go to browse the internet and notice the metal paint job on the left-hand cursor had BURNT OFF! This was only after around six months of use, and to this day nearly the entire left-hand cursor is burnt-black.

*The graphics card: You wouldn't think it would be bad, and it's not that bad...BUT it is a very cheap, OLD graphics card and can cause computer games to skip around.

*The INTERNET: I have LOST COUNT of how many times the internet on this computer has suddenly stopped working. You will be browsing the internet and WHAM! You will close the lid to your computer and come back to it and WHAM! No matter how or when it happens, this laptop will find a way to disconnect to the internet (another reason I should mention that I simply keep it in my apartment room). It is NOT easy to reconnect the internet when this happens. Especially if you do not have access to the router, it is basically trial-and-error each time this happens -and it happens quite frequently and usually waste a few hours trying to fix it. For some reason there is no solution to this problem, because one method can fix the internet one time, and not work at all the next! ---The touchpad wifi control sometimes can mess up and stay on "disconnected/orange" even if you try and try and try to enable it and make it blue. This is NOT a portable laptop, because many times it doesn't even pick up wireless points many other laptops do!

*The safety-rubber attached to the laptop IS ATTACHED WITH FREAKING ELMER'S GLUE!!! Okay, so maybe it's not...however, a few of the pieces of rubber placed on the very bottom and screen fall off. They literally will just melt off...You will feel something sticky and realize the rubber is melting off.

*built-in microphone of poor quality. I didn't even REALIZE this laptop had a built in microphone like my mom's new mac, simply because...It doesn't pick up sound unless you have your mouth to the screen -and how many people do that?!

*CD-rom sometimes doesn't function -you will insert a CD or DVD and be all stoked to listen or watch it when nothing pops up. You go to my computer>CD/DVD-drive to notice it hasn't picked up the fact you just put a cd or dvd in. Sometimes it says, "NO DVD/CD INSERTED." and jot-fully pop out the CD/DVD door as if you really needed that lol So again, you should restart your computer...and get used to it if you buy this...

Okay, I know i doesn't sound like alot, but trust me...these cons really get to you after a while, and I haven't even mentioned (although I think this happens to most HP's), all the things which stop working and error messages which randomly pop up.

I know this is a very LONG review, but if it stops you from buying this laptop or at least lets you know what you are getting yourself into, then I'm happy.

I WANT to like this computer, and put aside all of these issues...but I just can't. If this were a $300-$400 computer (the cost to fix my keyboard haha), then I might shrug it off as annoying as it is...but what ever happened to getting what you paid for?

I do not recommend this laptop to anyone and the only reason this review is so long is because the problems-list associated with the laptop...goes on and on. :/

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I've had this lap top for over a year now and I am impressed to say the least. I use this machine every day for hours at a time for work, school and personal use and it still works as good as the day I bought it. I noticed a lot of people have had trouble but I assume they must of got a lemon. I def recommend this lap top. It has been great so far.

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I purchased this computer in July of 2009 and it has never failed from day one. I use it for work and home and for heavy graphic use, AutoDesk products including 3DS Max. I purchased another HP machine (Dv6) because I could not upgrade this one any further to work with the newest software I need. I would recommend the Dv5 any time and will continue to use mine as a back up till it dies. For me HP has made an excellent product.

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I purchased the Pavilion dv5-1000us to replace one that had the screen die. This is awesome and fulfilling every need and expectation.

Great price and great deal..

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ASUS Zenbook UX21E-DH71 11.6-Inch Thin and Light Ultrabook (Silver Aluminum)

This is a significant product, and a long-awaited one. Previously, if you wanted to have a notebook like MacBook Air, you'd be forced to switch to Mac regardless of how much of a Windows person you were. Nothing else on the Windows side was really even remotely comparable. Now, this is the first real alternative in the Windows camp.

Is it better than the MacBook Air? It depends. If you are a Windows person, it is. Previously, you had to be seriously biased to say any Windows-based laptop in the ultracompact category is better than the MacBook Air. Now, that can be an honest assertion. But if you are a Mac person, you might still say the MacBook air is better, which could be a debatable assertion, but a respectable one.

To me, ZenBook is better than the MacBook air, even if I objectively lay aside the operating system difference, because for my personal preferences I give a higher value to some of the strong points of Zenbook, especially its thermal performance. Your preference may be different.

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THUMBS UP FOR BOTH MACBOOK AIR AND ZENBOOK

(1) COMPUTING PERFORMANCE First of all, in terms of the primary computing performance, including the CPU and memory performance, they're very similar, and both are very good. Asus' own tests say that the Zenbook is faster, but I don't feel much of it. This is, however, mainly because both are so fast. Comparing the speed of the CPU and memory of these two computers really has very little practical meaning. Only labs would be interested in doing that. Who is going to choose a computer over another because one opens up Microsoft Word in 1.5 seconds versus the other's 1.7 seconds? You see what I mean.

ZenBook does have much faster data transfer through its USB 3 port. It is easily multiple times faster than MacBook air's USB 2. But unless you routinely transfer very large files, I'm not sure if this is so important. Also, MacBook Air has a thunderbolt port which I've not tested in comparison with the ZenBook.

ZenBook also uses a much faster SSD (nearly twice as fast as that of the MacBook Air), but for some reason, I did not notice a very big difference in actual performance. Again, it's probably because both are already superfast for daily tasks. Gamers may tell a different story, but why do you buy an ultracompact laptop like these if you are a gamer?

(2) DESIGN AND BUILD QUALITY Both computers are extremely well-designed and well built. To me, the ZenBook is almost a bit too pretty (a bit too showy and trendy to my taste). This is usually a problem I have with Mac products, but now, you've got a Windows product that beats that. I wish they would make a ZenBook in all black, and with a more plain business looking (but keep the feel of the high-quality and compactness). Had Lenovo made a similar machine maintaining the basic black square-edged ThinkPad style with the same compactness and thermal performance (see below), I would nearly certainly buy the ThinkPad instead. But there's nothing even in the radar screen on the ThinkPad side, so I caved in.

(3) BATTERY LIFE The smaller ZenBook (UX21) uses a 35W battery and has 5+ hrs of battery life, comparable to that of MacBook Air. I did not do a strict test. But both are very good. The key is that both laptops would run through a whole day, even a busy day. That's what matters. Once a laptop reaches an all-day battery life, further extension of the battery life really no longer matters that much, unless of course it then reaches much longer to become days or even a week. You will be doing an overnight charging anyway. It's the mid-day recharging that brings trouble.

You may ask, how can a five-hour battery support whole-day use? Well, this actually has something to do with the instant resume feature of these computers (see below), and you have to experience it in real life to fully appreciate its usefulness.

(4) TWO-SECOND INSTANT RESUME If you have got used to waiting for your Windows to boot up, you'd be pleasantly shocked by how ZenBook manages to always wake up in 2 seconds, unless you've done a cold shutdown.

Instant resume was a famous feature of MacBook Air, but now ZenBook completely matches (perhaps even surpasses) MacBook air on that. Asus designed a Super Hybrid Engine which enables the ZenBook to have a true 2-seocnd resume in the entire two weeks standby time. Asus claims it is better than MacBook Air because MacBook air's instant resume works only for a day of standby time, and after that would take 6 seconds to resume. I did not test that. But if you use your laptop on a daily basis, both these machines have reliable instant resume, and you will appreciate this feature in your daily use.

Instant resume is not just a cool feature. It is very practical and has a huge impact on user experience. For example, without such instant resume ability, a laptop would have to have a minimum of eight hours of battery life to reliably last through a whole day without causing headaches. With instant resume, a 5+ hour battery life will last a whole day for most people in most situations. You usually don't use the computer constantly every minute, and the reliable instant resume of these computers makes a seamless whole day long user experience with a single charge of a five hour battery. For example, while I'm traveling, I can set this laptop to go to sleep after every 5 min. of inactivity without feeling distracted. Only a laptop that has instant resume can work this way, or it will drive you crazy. In this situation, "instant" is the key word, and even a 5-second resume may feel bad by interrupting your natural workflow and you will most likely end up setting an auto-sleep longer than a minimum of 30 min. Instant resume is therefore a crucial factor in the matter of intelligent power management.

(5) REASONABLE PRICE for a similar configuration, the prices of ZenBook and MacBook Air are comparable. Many expected Asus to beat the Apple's price, but personally, I'm glad to see that they were even able to match it, particularly with a design that had very few compromises. One should note that a serious scaling factor is at play in the economics of making and selling these. Once occupied that enviable leveraging position facing suppliers and manufacturers on the bargaining table, Apple has an almost crushing advantage over others in the ability to make these new products requiring cutting-edge components at the lowest possible cost and sell them at a good margin. It will take time for commoditization to happen to let others to catch up. Before that, painful sacrifices (so painful that a company like HP has decided to quit) have to be made by the competitors in order to be competitive, even if assuming that they can come up with attractive competing designs at all in the first place. I just hope that ZenBook starts a momentum that leads to better and more affordable ultracompact laptops based on Windows.

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THUMBS DOWN FOR BOTH MACBOOK AIR AND ZENBOOK

(1) Neither has built-in 3G/4G cellular communication capability to take a SIM card. I'm surprised that these newest laptops still don't have built-in 3G/4G cellular communication. This would be OK three maybe even two years ago. Not now. You need cellular communication for a device that can be called "mobile". I hope they will introduce this soon. Before that, to get cellular connection you will have to either use an external adapter or through your cell phone (either tethered or using a mini hotspot).

(2) Neither uses an IPS screen, and both are (unfortunately to me) glossy screens. An IPS screen would have superior sideview performance. New screen technologies competing with IPS are emerging, but not found on these, MacBook Air or ZenBook. But for daily use, both screens are very good, and probably a good point to bring down the price because an IPS screen would definitely have cost more.

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THUMBS UP FOR MACBOOK AIR ONLY

MacBook air beats Zenbook on these areas:

(1) It has a backlit keyboard.

(2) Many insist that MacBook Air has an unbeatable Multi-Touch trackpad. That could be very well true. But I'm not a very sophisticated user of Multi-Touch and can't reach a conclusion on this. Both felt pleasantly good and smooth to me. If it were up to me, I still prefer the ThinkPad's TrackPoint.

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THUMBS UP FOR ZENBOOK ONLY

ZenBook beats MacBook air on these areas:

(1) OUTSTANDING THERMAL PERFORMANCE Although MacBook air is already a quite cool laptop, ZenBook is much cooler still, quite noticeably. I am especially pleased by the thermal/cooling performance of the ZenBook. If there is one company that can do a thermal system design to beat Apple, it is Asus, and they seem to have done exactly that. They've been designing the world's best thermal and cooling solutions for computer motherboards from the start of the company, and no one else can claim better expertise than them on this.

To me, thermal performance is the number one critical element of a laptop performance. I'd rather have a cool and slower laptop, than a hot and fast one. Asus has made one that is cool and fast.

The thermal issue is not just a preference for comfortableness. It is a serious health concern. I believe the current designs of some laptops are outright crazy and reckless. The thermal radiation is likely to cause various skin diseases in less serious cases, and infertility or even cancer in worst cases. Sooner or later, this will become a focus of attention. The whole thing is currently masked by ignorance of mass consumer.

If you dispute with me, I have my slowly burnt fingers to show you.

(2) OUTSTANDING AUDIO You will have to listen to the sound of the ZenBook to believe it. I'm not aware of any other laptop that can match this kind of performance. Certainly not the MacBook air, which is pretty good in itself. It looks like there's something going on with Asus' audio group, which seems to be obsessed by the sound quality. When they first produced Xonar, a high-end internal sound card line, they didn't just match the then top consumer soundcard by Creative Labs, they smashed it. You may not be getting true high-end audiophile sound here on the ZenBook, but you seem to be getting at least some spillover of that audiophile obsession.

I have yet to test the sound input quality through a microphone. Personally, the microphone input quality is far more important than the playback quality because I use speech recognition for text input.

(3) OUTSTANDING OUTDOOR DISPLAY Both screens are very bright, but ZenBook is noticeably brighter under direct sunlight. My experience is that to be just barely usable under direct sunlight, the screen must have a minimum of 300 nits in brightness. Many laptops still have a brightness under 250 nits. ZenBook's screen is 450 nits. I cannot find the numerical specs for brightness of MacBook air, but it definitely feels dimmer under sunlight than ZenBook.

On the other hand, the MacBook air is whole lot better than many other laptops I've seen or used. Also, if you never use the laptop outdoors, this is not important. When used indoors, both screens would have to be set at much lower brightness than its maximum in order to be comfortably viewed.

(4) BETTER CONNECTIVITY ZenBook has a micro HDMI and a Mini VGA Port and MacBook air doesn't have any of these. HDMI would come handy if you connect the ZenBook to your TV, while the VGA port is important if you frequently connect your laptop to a larger external screen. I think MacBook air has its own way to make these connections to a Mac family product, but the difference is that with the standard HDMI and VGA ports, the connectivity is much more versatile in terms of compatibility.

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OVERALL,

Asus has really made an all-out effort in designing and making these laptops. They're gunning at Apple, quite obviously. I'm even afraid that Apple will go after ZenBook's design by alleging infringement (could Apple have patent the tapered appearance of a laptop?).

It gave me a good chuckle that Asus official website for Zenbooks refers to Apple by calling them "Fruit Brand".

By the way, I should note that if this were an Apple product, you would already be hearing about it in all major headlines as if this were bringing new hope to the world, and you would also be seeing Apple fans standing in long lines praying for a chance to get one of these.

---

Summary: The Zenbook is exactly what I had in mind when I needed a lightweight, low maintenance portable to carry on business trips with me. Tablets or netbooks were not an option because of their limited capabilities and inadequate performance.

The Zenbook is very pleasant to look at and different, but not difficult to usein fact, my experience has been enjoyable. I've not experienced any problems described by other reviewers. Perhaps Asus is listening and my machine is a reflection of that.

I was surprised at the negative comments on engineering design, choice of components, etc. The emphasis on the keyboard and touchpad are understandable in that they are different the manual explains how to use the keypad and what to expect. I've had electrical "pops" on many laptop chargers, and this one did so about 5% of the time. Asus provides a solid warranty on its laptops. And, I have dealt with their support organization before on warranty work and service calls, with positive results, except one, where it took time for them to find a replacement laptop the outcome was satisfactory.

Pros:

1. The Elan touchpad works very well and has a sensitivity region that shrinks in size when you are typing on the keyboard so that you don't accidentally activate the touchpad while typing.

2. While a source of complaints, the keyboard and keys definitely enhance the look. Keys provide positive feedback with a "tactile click" created by the key giving way when it is pressed down far enough. It's also reliable key presses that failed were not the computer's fault.

3. When done working, I just close the lid on the machine to suspend my work (it has "sleep" rather than "shutdown" as the default option to power off your computer).

4. To resume (hours or days later), I simply open the lid and login -much the same as any laptop only the response is much quicker about 2 seconds. My wireless reconnects fast enough that I can go directly to the Internet and start browsing, or refresh my Outlook to get the latest mail.

5. The extremely small footprint allows me to store the computer anywhere, even inside a leather notebook that normally holds a pad of paper.

6. Bluetooth 4.0 and USB 3.0 for greater speeds and new capabilities

7. Good speakers and audio

8. Tiny camera and good microphone. The mic even works with WSR.....not great

9. My old USB DVD/CD player works fine.

10. Crisp easy to read display

Cons:

1. The keyboard keys are the "chicklet" style found on other Asus, Apple, etc. computers and if you are not used to them they can be difficult to type on simply because they are flat across the top as opposed to the tapered keys found on many keyboards (e.g. ThinkPad) and are low-profile (i.e. short). Personally, all keyboards require some time to adapt to them.

2. I/O ports are limited but adequate.

3. Must carry the port adapters if you need Ethernet or VGA I personally don't need them.

4. 4 GB RAM limit, hopefully this will change with higher density chips. However, with the SSD being so fast, virtual memory use is not noticeable to me.

5. Wireless limited to 150 Mb/s fast enough for real-time data over wireless, but 300Mb/s would be desirable. Most routers still only support G (54 Mbps) in public places, hotels, etc. So I couldn't use it anyway.

In short, the Zenbook represents a significant step forward in mobile technology. I will benefit from Asus's innovatation and the reward/cost ratio is clearly on my side.

Update 12/18/2011:

I've used the computer daily for the last month traveling around the country without any issues. I carry it in my backback or luggage along with my Lenovo work computer. I'm actually starting to depend on the handy mouse pad gestures quite nice. The graphics chip can drive a full HD TV (1920 x 1080) and its own monitor concurrently e.g., watch/listen to amazon movies while I use run programs, handle email, and/or browse the internet on the lower resolution builtin display.

Very portable, convenient and reliable. Still very pleased with the purchase.

Update 2/10/2012:

Just had my first interaction with Asus support the laptop was accidentally damaged; I sent it in under the ADW warranty and it was back in my hands 2 days later Fixed! 1 day to transport in each direction and 1 day for the repairs. As expected, Asus covered the transportation in both directions.

Update 11/21/2012:

Just completed a 1 year anniversary with my Zenbook. I like it even more than before as ASUS continues to refine the drivers and I've found tidbits of info in the user comments here that are helpful like how to configure the touchpad. I plan to migrate to windows 8 the drivers are available, or, switch to one of the new touch enabled Zenbooks instead.

Buy ASUS Zenbook UX21E-DH71 11.6-Inch Thin and Light Ultrabook (Silver Aluminum) Now

I bought this beautiful ultrabook at Frys last week and kept it for 5 days. I actually bought it right off the back of the truck that had just arrived. I was truly excited to get this machine(BUT): The keyboard is truly bad. The trackpad started off bad until I realized I needed to run an update from Asus to get all the drivers updated. The trackpad improved greatly with the updated driver, yet is still FAR lacking compared to a MacBook trackpad I do not know why).

Back to the keyboard. No driver can fix this keyboard. The keys are flat on top. The keys sit very close to the surrounding material underneath. You can push a key at the corner and touch the underlying material and not register a key push. I cannot replicate this on any other keyboard I have in the house. This means you bottom out the key before it registers the key push. Bottom line: you miss every fifth letter unless you hit the key right in the middle. I like to keep my job and I need to spell correctly. Therefore:

I took this machine right on back to Frys. The machine is truly beautiful (prettier than the MacBook Air). The sound from the speakers is very nice and it is much quieter than the MacBook Air (which we also own) because the implementation of the internal fan is much better on this Asus machine. The screen is nice too.

The keyboard sucks though and the trackpad is merely passable. I hated to take it back, but how Asus turned this into the Anus with a keyboard that doesn't work is beyond me. What screwed up committee let this happen?

Read Best Reviews of ASUS Zenbook UX21E-DH71 11.6-Inch Thin and Light Ultrabook (Silver Aluminum) Here

I just received this laptop and absolutely LOVE all of the features and style. It performs excellently in all aspects EXCEPT for the keyboard. Just in writing this short review it has skipped 11 keys so far, mostly in the w,e,r,s,d,f region. It is so bad it renders the machine utterly useless for me and my typing style. However that being said it may work for anothers typing style. Luckily Amazon is taking it back and issuing a refund. Thanks Amazon.

Want ASUS Zenbook UX21E-DH71 11.6-Inch Thin and Light Ultrabook (Silver Aluminum) Discount?

I have been using the macbook air for the longest time but asus is my favorite brand after apple, when i saw this i couldn't believe the design and hardware thats included in such a small ultrabook, well after couple days of use i love it.

It is the fastest ultra book out there without a question and this comes from a guy thats a computer technician and has been using macs more than anything.

I have owned all types of pc's and laptops but for a ultrabook to be as fast as any device out there is a stunning job by asus to build such a beutfifull designed ultrabook and have all the best hardware inside.

This had a issue with the mouse and scrolling but guess what? Asus released a driver which already has fixed that issue.

Overall this is the best piece of product your money can buy. This machine is a beast.

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Dell Inspiron i14z-8001sLV 14-Inch Ultrabook (Silver)

Config I7 cpu, 8Gb Dram, 500Gb HD + 32Gb msata Cache (upgraded to 64Gb, see below), 1Gb graphics Card.

I bought the Inspiron 14z ultabook mainly for distance learning classes, so I could study on the train. It's blazing fast. Start up time is 37s from power on button to Firefox launch.

The dedicated video card makes a world of difference in smooth video playback. Web pages load almost instantaneously. This is crucial if you are doing research on the web. It turns a 1 hour task (of my acer netbook) into a 15 minute task.

The 14" screen is perfect IMO for travel. The keyboard is a little "bouncy" so if you prefer hard, stiff keys, you might find this annoying. It's not an ultrabook in weight (~4.1lbs), it's more like a lighter work laptop. It is actually perfect for my use in terms of size, and performance. Having a dvd drive is still useful on occasions.

I skype a lot with it and the camera and sound are great. Even when I have a small fan running in the background, the person on the other end can't hear it, but can hear me perfectly.

I can run firefox with a dozen tabs open, my PDF editor, video editor, without a hiccup.

Upgrading is a bit of a chore. I wanted to upgrade the mSATA cache, b/c even though 32Gb is good, it's not actually 32Gb, b/c ~18Gb is used for the cache control. Both Dell and Crucial said I couldn't upgrade. It didn't make sense, so I upgraded anyway. The max cache size is 64Gb and anything more can be used as another hard drive volume. I bought a 256Gb mSATA drive. So I have a 64Gb mSATA cache + 174Gb SSD drive along with the default 500Gb platter HD.

To upgrade, I had to remove in order 1). memory (b/c there's a screw underneath that disengages both the DVD player and the Keyboard. 2). the DVD player, 3). keyboard, 4). palm rest.

The good thing about this is that all these parts are completely replaceable. The battery can be replaced as well after all this; it's just a rectangular block.

I would give it 5stars if it were lighter (like 3lbs), had one more USB 3.0 port, and had longer battery time (~5.5hours IME). Overall, this is a great little lappy for the serious mobile worker. I'm very pleased with it.

Ive used this computer for about a week or two now and I really enjoy it. I got it with the trackpad broke :( but dell support sent a tech to fix that withing 3 days so no complaints there. I use the computer for surfing streaming editing video (the dedicated GPU is amazingly helpful for that) and light gaming (ie minecraft/tf2) There are actually 2 graphics cards in this, the regular Intel (R) Graphics and the more powerful AMD drive, and there is a application to let you set different applications to run either in power saving (probably the Intel or a decreased AMD state) or High performance. One thing to note, when running a graphics high program in high performance mode, the computer will get extremely hot. Not scarily so to the point of worry but comfortable if you have it on you lap. The one annoyance, the track-pad is awful it is jumpy buggy and VERY annoying at times. I don't know why everyone is complaining about the keyboard, I love it! It is quiet and not very wiggly at all.

Buy Dell Inspiron i14z-8001sLV 14-Inch Ultrabook (Silver) Now

Being used to using business-class notebook PCs, I did not expect much with this unit at first. It had a sticker that claims it to be an "Ultrabook", but to me it is not a real Ultrabook, not when compared to other (more expensive) Ultrabooks. I thought that it was just a marketing ploy. In fact, I experienced buyer's remorse by the time I started using it, due to its relatively flimsy construction (compared to the bsuiness notebook PCs) and consumer type chicklet keyboard. Being used to the Dell Latitude and Lenovo Thinkpad's very business-like sharp corners, I also felt that the rounded corners were too "consumer item" in design, but I reminded myself that this is not a business notebook.

However, after a few days of using the unit and carrying it around, I began to like it. As it turned out, the rounded corners made it easier to put it in and take it out of my backpack. It is not that flimsy, and the battery life is quite decent, giving me about 4-5 hours with its power-saving mode activated. The screen is sharp and clear and 14" is just about the right size (at 1366x768 pixels). Once I got used to the different feel of the chicklet keyboard, my typing is as just as fast as before. The more I look at the unit with its screen closed down, the more I think that it is quite a good-looking unit (I bought a gray/silver one). With its four-core i7 CPU and a decent graphics adapter, there were no performance issues for me, except for the occasional lag when too many tasks are being executed.

The only thing that I fret about this computer until today is that the "Home", "End", "Pg Up" and "Pg Dn" do not have their own dedicated keys like the Latitude and ThinkPad, but are combined with the four arrow cursor movement keys. One has to press the "Fn" key and then one of the cursor arrow keys. The other thing that I should mention is that this unit has only two USB ports. Otherwise, I think Dell did a very good job in designing this "Ultrabook" that combines good performance and low price. Well done.

Read Best Reviews of Dell Inspiron i14z-8001sLV 14-Inch Ultrabook (Silver) Here

I've been using this computer for a month and it fulfilled my expectations. It takes just 30 seconds to start, is fast and can handle all the stuff I do without getting slow (I am a programmer and I run pretty heavy processes on it). Its screen size is big enough to properly display most of the programs (web browsers, word, excel, programing IDEs, etc) and its graphics are good enough to handle average gaming requirements. It is also really light weight and slim. Battery life is about 5 hs (using no graphics but with wifi enabled).

It would be better if it included an extra USB port and maybe a 15-pin VGA port. It has an internal battery which I don't know if will be easy to replace if required, but until now i have no complains about that.

My configuration is an I7, 8 gb ram, 500gb hd + 32 gb sdd and including graphics card.

In summary I think it is an excellent computer at an extremely competitive price.

Want Dell Inspiron i14z-8001sLV 14-Inch Ultrabook (Silver) Discount?

First, it comes with Windows 7. I have it for about one week. Everything runs smoothly, and it is a great deal for around $750.

Save 20% Off

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