ASUS A55A-EB71 15.6-Inch LED Laptop (Mocha)

When I ordered this I was skeptical that it would come and be everything that I expected because of its reasonable price. It met or beat my expectations in every regard:

-The i7-3610QM processor, which according the is the 15th fastest processor on the market (unheard of speed for this price)

-Beautiful 15.6" screen

-Super-multi DVD burner

-Standard 500GB 5400 RPM hard-drive

-Mostly aluminum case with a really nice durable finish

-Sturdy hinge construction

-Face recognition login

The only things I wasn't thrilled about were a few pieces of bloatware that come in ASUS' core load and the trackpad, both of which after a few quick setting modifications are just fine.

I highly recommend it and still can't believe I was able to get such a powerful laptop for under $700.

Great Laptop, love the Asus quality.I am a consultant mostly working from home and use this laptop exclusively for all my work.

I don't watch movies or play games so don't care much for the resolution or graphic capabilities

Pros

-Very fast

-Windows 7

-Love the separate numeric key pad

-Ran for a whole day and the laptop is cool to touch

-Boot up to the password prompt in 20 secs

-Full boot up to windows less than 50 secs

Love the resume in seconds...

-Very light

-Ideal size and weight for travel

4+ hours of battery life

Best price for a core i-7 laptop (605$) with no shipping and tax in NJ.

Cons

--Not liking the Asus touchpad

--Asus bloatware

--Careful when uninstalling the asus bloatware. Read online forums to get a list and proceed with caution

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I got this laptop as a lightning deal from Amazon, and I couldn't be happier at this price. The construction is surprisingly solid, it's too quiet to be heard in most environments, it's cooled well, and the Core i7-3610QM (3rd-generation Core i7 Ivy Bridge) CPU is an unbelievably capable processor for a mobile application. That said, the 5400 RPM hard disk that comes with this unit is a bit on the useless side it's all it should be for a 5400 RPM disk, but that's not much.

Upgrading:

A day or two after receiving the laptop I went for a 240 GB Kingston HyperX SSD, as windows startup and application loading was sluggish on the stock hard disk. The other areas where ASUS skimped on this laptop are the memory, wireless card, and display. I just installed a 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR3-1600 (Low Voltage) kit from Crucial, which will be plenty for anything I'll ever need to do with this laptop, as well as an Intel combo WiFi/Bluetooth adapter to provide internal bluetooth functionality (simple swap, no other modification necessary to add bluetooth). With that, I've now addressed all the weak points of the A55A-EB71 except for the display, for about $250 after the initial cost, which is less than what you'd spend for the ASUS A55A-AB71 (the step up), but I have a laptop that's more than a match for machines costing well over a thousand dollars.

A Harder Problem to Solve:

The display: it sucks. Now, this certainly isn't unheard of for laptops, and this screen will suffice for those who haven't grown too attached to nice IPS displays like you'll find on MacBooks, iPads, and ASUS's Zenbook line, which are all worlds more expensive than this unit. Unfortunately, I have become somewhat accustomed to being able to actually see my screen (I use an ASUS PA24Q on my desktop), so I'm pretty disappointed with the screen I'm looking at right now (writing this from the laptop itself). The resolution of the screen is certainly adequate at 1366x768 (more than enough for 720p HD video), and it's quite sharp and clear, however the viewing angle is on the borderline of what I'd call seriously awful. Now, ASUS will be offering a Zenbook in a 15.6" format, so I'm waiting for that to come out to see if I can retrofit this laptop with the display out of one of those (should only cost $100-$120 for the new display hopefully). Should that turn out to be possible, this may turn out to be the deal of the millennium, whereas I'm already considering it the deal of the century.

Sorry for the long-windedness of all that, but I just had to share how overly pleased I am with this laptop after upgrading it. It should be noted that, as a software developer, I'm not concerned about anything going wrong with this laptop and, should problems arise, I'll likely fix them myself, so I didn't even bother considering that the modifications I've made to the machine have probably voided my warranty. For the typical user, this is probably not the case, but for those that can't help but tinker with their PC and upgrade this and that, this is an absolutely perfect platform. Without upgrades, this is still an excellent machine, but it is the sheer joy of having a blazing-fast laptop with 16 GB of RAM, built-in bluetooth, and an insanely-fast 240 GB SSD for around $800 that compels me to love it so.

Modifications:

Kingston HyperX 3K 240 GB SATA III 2.5-Inch 6.0 Gb/s Solid State Drive SH103S3/240G

Crucial 16 GB kit (8 GB x 2) DDR3 1600 MT/s (PC3-12800) CL11 SODIMM 204-Pin 1.35V/1.5V for Mac (CT2C8G3S160BM )

6230 IEEE 802.11n (draft) Bluetooth 3.0 Wi-Fi/Bluetooth Combo Adapter (Bulk)

Windows 8 Pro ($15 upgrade when you buy a Windows 7 PC during the transition, must be bought through Microsoft)

Total Cost (with lightning deals): ~$850

After upgrades:

Battery life: I haven't been able to get it die yet (seriously), but it appears to be about 6-7 hours.

Windows 8 startup to login screen: ~8-10 seconds

Windows 8 startup to desktop: ~12 seconds

Windows Experience Index:

Processor: 7.8

Memory: 7.8 (6.1 before upgrade)

Graphics: 4.8 (such is life on integrated graphics)

Gaming Graphics: 6.3 (excellent for integrated graphics)

Primary Hard Drive: 8.1 (~5.0 before upgrade)

Bottom Line:

This is a respectable laptop, which I would recommend, in its offered configuration, and, with a few upgrades, it can easily be turned into an incredible productivity powerhouse, though its lack of discrete graphics will hold serious gamers back.

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I've received the laptop today and it's pretty fast. A lot of reviews on here highlight the main features regarding design and mobility such as the USB 3.0 or the SD card slot. This is a very powerful laptop for the price and the next best improvement could be a dedicated GPU. For anyone that is considering this laptop in hopes to run modern games such as Call of Duty, it is definitely possible, resort to the end for tips.

Asus has conveniently provided us with 1 stick of 4GB RAM so you may easily upgrade the laptop to 8GB RAM using the extra slot. This laptop has a solid architecture when it comes to cooling and the laptop not only stays cool to the touch (Cool Palm technology) but it routes air in a logical manner. This is because the intake uses crossover technology and the CPU is positioned downward with it's own vent instead of trapping heat inside the case.

One of the best features about this laptop is it's unlocked BIOS which allows you to overclock your GPU if you really need to (voids warranty); that's to make up for the lack of dedicated video card. While the laptop does come pre-installed with bloatware, any factory reset will remove it. It's becoming very difficult to find Windows 7 machines and if you're looking to buy this one don't hesitate.

Gaming Tip:

Whenever you boot the computer hold the delete key, this will send you to your ASUS BIOS. In here you will want to navigate to graphic configuration and increase your on demand dedicated video ram to +512mb; this will ensure that your Intel HD 4000 will achieve smoother frame rate and FPS when playing graphic intensive games, it saves your Intel i7 from shifting into Turbo Boost everytime you walk into a scenic environment (Skyrim).

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Pros:

Great power with i7 processor

Snappy

CD Burner is strong

Quite

Does more then I could ask for.

Asus treats they're customers very well (also own a Nexus 7)

great sound

Cooled very well

Cons:

No Bluetooth.