I bought this for Black Friday at Best Buy for $250, and it's the best $250 laptop I've ever seen. Build quality is very good. Yes, it's plastic, but it's solid, and not cheap feeling at all. The screen is decent, nothing special. The keyboard is almost as good as an Apple Macbook Pro. It has good response and good feedback. The trackpad is pretty good, and doesn't stray too much from what I expect.As for power, it's plenty good for almost everything you'll do. 4GB of RAM and a Pentium B980 (Sandy Bridge) at 2.4 GHz is good for almost anything except 3D gaming. Fruit Ninja and Cut the Rope work fine on this thing, as do all business apps. It comes with Windows 8, and can be upgraded to Pro for $60, but you only need to do that if you're joining a Domain at work.
The downside for this laptop, and the 1 star ding, is it's a PAIN to upgrade. You basically have to snap off the keyboard and trackpad to get to the hard drive, and you have to remove the logic board to change the RAM. I changed the hard drive out for a SSD and that's it. That made my fresh boot time just under 10 seconds, and now I have a computer that really screams.
Some tips I discovered as I experimented with OS Installs:
1. You don't need a product key for a fresh install of Windows 8 64-bit. Get a Windows 8 64-bit ISO (easily obtained) and just install it. If you use a USB drive for installation, make sure to format the USB drive in FAT32, not NTFS for UEFI compatibility. Or, use an external DVD drive. The product key is embedded in the UEFI firmware, and Windows 8 automatically detects it and activates without any user interaction.
2. If you want to Install Windows 7, you need to enable "CSM" in the UEFI BIOS screen. Press ESC before the Asus logo comes on when you power on, and go in to the setup. Then, under "Boot" enable "Launch CSM". This turns on BIOS compatibility for Windows 7 and Linux. After a reboot, press ESC again before the Asus logo and you can choose CD and USB boots without UEFI.
3. Drivers are available at support.asus.com for Win 7 (32 and 64) and Win 8 (64).
Good things about this system:
Good battery life
Quality screen
Light weight
Quality buiild
Can do a homegroup share with Win 7
Great for reading books (amazon app)
Netflix works quite nicely
Can remote to office location
Low price
The not so good things about this system;
No logical drive
No windows 8 proI purchased this laptop from BestBuy for 250$ on Black Friday. I did my research before i bought a new PC, I've upgraded 1 laptops and built 2 desktops. My old laptop is just outdated. Not saying i know everything about PC's but i know enough to get in trouble. This is a laptop people. One that is meant for web surfing and mobility. Its less then 400$ brand new and that's not even a bad price. Factory with 4G RAM and a 2.4GHz proc. not bad for a cheap laptop. You can upgrade your hard drive and memory. Newegg has sticks of RAM(4G) for under 20$ My battery is lasting about 4.5 hours. If you want a CD drive, buy an external. If you want a really nice slick feeling PC that doesn't feel cheap, don't buy a cheap laptop, spend 1000$ That being said you are getting a steal with this computer. It works fine as is, if you want to upgrade($50-$100) this PC would compare with a $800-$900 PC. I'm new to Win 8 but everything that has to do with the OS has nothing to do with the computer.
I use this laptop for web surfing while sitting around and the HDMI a lot to watch movies on my TV.
And the laptop doesn't feel that cheap.I got this from Amazon for $350 (didn't know about the Black Friday deal at Best Buy, darn!), and I'm giving it five stars because I didn't know that a $350 laptop would be so nice...If I'd known I could get so much for this price, I wouldn't have ever spent over $1000 for a laptop!
This laptop is as fast as you would expect, and I love the pink color. It's pretty lightweight and portable, but the keyboard feels REALLY nice. I had a nearly-new $800 Toshiba Portege before this until it met an untimely end at the hands of a cup of coffee, and I have to say I'm enjoying this Asus more, and not just because it's cotton candy-pink! The keyboard on my Toshiba felt so cramped: with this Asus, you're getting a reasonably thin and light computer that also provides a very nice typing experience. It doesn't feel cheap or plasticy to me, and even if it did the weight/comfort/price ratio is right on.
I originally gave this laptop five stars, but after using it for another week I knocked it down to four because of the touch pad, which isn't as responsive as I would like. It's not that bad, and I usually use a USB mouse anyway, but it is a bit annoying. Still, it's a small thing to complain about on an otherwise really cheap and nice laptop.I just purchased this laptop last week at Best Buy (for $199) and it's been perfect for my everyday computing. I bought it because I wanted a quality lightweight laptop for school. It has excellent battery life and starts up quickly. (Despite the picture, the matte lime green color is actually very nice.) Windows 8 is great and the apps are a lot of fun. I like how with Windows 8 my phone calender syncs to my laptop. Also, Netflix works perfectly and battery life lasts for hours while watching TV shows, and picture quality is great!
Additionally, the HDMI input is helpful if you want to hook up the laptop to the TV and stream Amazon instant movies and rentals to your larger television!
The only downside that I have found so far is that whenever my computer sleeps for a while or restarts, I keep having to troubleshoot the Wi-Fi adapter. It only takes a minute, but it's annoying. Otherwise, I would have given this laptop 5 stars! I am very happy with my purchase and would recommend this ASUS laptop to my friends and family for standard everyday computing and entertainment.
UPDATE--
After using this laptop for two weeks (college student), I've noticed 2 issues. The first one is that the computer is just very slow at saving and loading some programs, and sometimes online as well. The second issue is the most annoying the keypad is messed up. The space bar doesn't make spaces at least 1/3 of the time, and the keypad (or mouse pad) is jittery and constantly flashes the control options sidebar for Windows 8 even with slight movements on the keypad. It's really annoying. There is certainly a problem with the manufacturing of this computer. Especially the keypad. If I didn't pay only $199 for it at Best Buy, I would take it back for sure.
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