HP Pavilion g7-2238nr 17.3-Inch Laptop

I usually prefer smaller laptops, but this was bought for my dad, and it's his first computer ever, so I thought the bigger screen would be appealing to him and to his poor eyesight.

I had to write a review after the only previous reviewer mentioned that the laptop was very slow that's not true at all. The laptop is more than fast enough to deal with regular apps/surfing/movie watching, which is what it will primarily be used for. If you're thinking about heavy gaming, you should be looking for a different kind of laptop. And hp has excellent laptop builds, the sound is very low and you barely hear the fan at all.

The biggest problem is Windows 8, it's not very intuitive, and it takes some time getting used to. IMO Windows 7 is a better design for people who are not tech savvy.

12/26/12 Edit:

My Dad LOVES this laptop. It was very difficult to teach him some of the computer concepts, but the laptop itself is phenomenal and runs beautifully. The main reason for the review edit is that you can have a start menu for Windows 8 it's called 'Classic Shell'. It is very easy to use and makes Windows 8 a lot better, just remember to uncheck the explorer and IE options in the installation process and just download the classic shell start menu. You get to enjoy the new upgrades from Windows 8 AND the previous benefits of Windows 7 all together. Windows 8 is the main reason I still have my review at 4 stars instead of 5, if it was just for the laptop itself I would grade it at 4.5-5 stars.

5/2/13 Edit:

I had to knock this down to 3 stars because of hardware troubles. Recently the fan malfunctioned and fortunately the computer was still under the original warranty (did not buy extended) so I was able to send it sent in to HP to get it fixed for free. I believe one of the things that contributed to the fan malfunction was how hard my father was running the laptop once he found out how to burn CDs (I know, old school!) Now that his laptop is back and functional, I purchased a quality notebook cooler to help keep his laptop in tiptop shape. A little disappointing that I encountered a computer issue this early, but I'm thankful it happened while still under warranty.

Another Black Friday buyer here, first let me say what a great job Amazon customer support was when I had a small issue with billing and this order, top notch as always.

Anyways...

So I've owned the laptop for about 2 weeks now, the latter of which I've spent a considerable amount of time tinkering with various everyday tasks.

Let me begin with the OS, Windows 8 and it's relationship to the computer...

While I won't go into a personal review of the new Windows experience, which for the record I do mostly approve of, I will say this laptop does NOT have a Touch Screen, so you will be navigating with your track pad(more to come on that) or your mouse. Anyone who has used Windows 8 understands most of the new fancy changes were created with the idea of tablets in mind. By that I mean to say that getting around would be considerably easier with touch controls. That's not to say it isn't completely and totally usable with your mouse, just that technically it would be easier with touch. Personally I understood this going in, and it was a conscience choice not to get a touch screen as I'm not too keen on finger print smudges on what is replacing my primary machine. As a suggestion for someone looking for touch screen laptops, I would really look into one of the new flip style notebooks/ultrabooks, such as the lenovo yoga 13, where the computer pretty much converts to a tablet. One last thing I'll mention about the OS is the boot time is super fast (it doesn't actually shut down, but go to a kind of hibernate) Unless I have to restart I can be up and running in about or less than 20 seconds. For a fuller look into the actual pro's and con's of Windows 8 vs Windows 7 I'd check out engadget or cnet for in depth opinions.

*edit I should mention there is a fair amount of bloatware (software pre installed by the manufacturer) which is completely unnecessary (norton who?) but it is easy enough to uninstall, though time consuming that it is.

Next, the physical design/features...

By far the best thing the g7 has going for it is the beautiful screen and resolution. A beefy 17.3" and 1600 x 900 are nothing to scoff at when most budget laptops in this price range stick to the safe 1366x768 and 15ish". Again I say, it's simply perfect to sit down and enjoy family pictures, HD movies/tv, video games(more later), the real estate available also makes multi tasking with multiple programs open in the same screen completely doable without making sacrifices to what you see.

To go along with the screen the speakers are quite good as well, not blow you out of the water great, but I've heard a number of notebook speakers and these are certainly above better than average. Admittedly I am no audiophile, but I clearly hear the boom of a bassy explosion or the high's through pandora radio. Even with the lid closed, I can fill the room with music playing for a gathering.

The outer and inner shell are a glossy reflective black, which to some may be an inconvenience which could be a smudgy nightmare, it doesn't irk me much however, after a week of heavy use I haven't been bothered in the slight by it.

The keyboard is spacious with firm keys, layed out in a familiar manner with some usefull hoteys built into the "f" keys such as brightness, volume, play/pause. As far as keyboards I enjoy using this one, the keys have just the right amount of push to them and they are well spaced out.

Connections wise there is something to be desired, no bluetooth (get a bluetooth dongle for cheap) is a bit of a hit, but once more for the price I think I'll live. HDMI is on the left side and easy to get to, perfect for plugging into your TV or A/V receiver. The power connection is on the right back, with the actual plug being a straight long type, so you will need at least a couple inches on your right side if your sitting this on a desk. The cable and power brick also are acceptable lengths with a velcro strap and small clip for cable management.

The touch pad. So far my only real gripe with this machine is the touchpad. I'm not sure if it's a matter of software(synaptics) or RAM or I just don't know yet, but this pad has some issues. It is multi touch capable but the multi part simply does not work 100% of the time. No issues with simple one finger point and click(or tap) but when using gestures such as two finger scroll, two fingers anywhere can scroll horizontal or vertical, it will lock up and not be responsive for up to 2-3 seconds sometimes. There is a pinch to zoom which I inadvertently activate once in a while as I'm doing the two finger scroll as well. Two finger tap acts as a right click, unfortunately this has the same frequency of fail rate with the two finger slide, slightly less maybe but noticeable still. Obviously there is a problem with accuracy with multi touch, and I'm looking for a solution but for now there you go. I know it can be done right, I've used more than one mac with the multi gesture track pads and those have all worked perfect for me so we'll see, hopefully you can get some better software to fix it. The physical buttons, left and right click, work well enough, just as you'd expect, and a firm press and click.

Games...

I'm somewhat of a gamer, so of course I was extremely curious to what I could throw at this machine. It does has a dedicated card, AMD Radeon HD 7520G, it won't win any prize fights, but certainly should pull in some good bouts.

I loaded Diablo 3 and surprisingly it ran fairly well, with settings like textures at the highest but a few reductions in physics and lighting the game runs in full screen 1600x900 at about 20 fps average, and looks quite good doing so. You can lower some settings to improve your frame rate, but it's more than playable.

Starcraft 2 wasn't as successful, I can run it at high settings(ultra being higher) at about 20 fps as well, but that game will slow down as more units appear onscreen and the game progresses, and there can be a fair amount of things happening later in games, so you will likely have to turn down your graphic fidelity to get it playable.

Portal 2 looks fantastic and runs at the highest settings with a fluid gameplay, sorry I didn't get the fps for this one but it's smooth and fast as far as I can tell.

Less graphically intensive games such as Torchlight 2, Super Meat Boy, The Walking Dead all look perfect and run great. I did try the X-Com Enemy Unknown demo, but it didn't run quite well enough to try and get it working better.

I'll likely update this at a future date when I've tried some other games and report how they ran.

*Conclusion*

I feel as if I've been rambling for a while now and I may have lost some of my original thoughts but I'll summarize here real quick.

Biggest PROS~

Screen size and resolution 17.3" and 1600x900 pixels are above and beyond the call of duty for this price (currently $500 on amazon) Even better when I payed $420 on black friday week. Looks beautiful and crisp

Keyboard is spacious and quite comfortable

Battery Life( I think I forgot to mention this above) Listed as 3 hours, easily that running HD video and multi tasking in the background, more than enough for my needs

Plays recent video games, such as diablo 3, great and more than capable of less graphically intensive games such as torchlight 2

Biggest CONS~

TouchPad multi-touch simply doesn't work 100% of time. Could be software, will hopefully find a solution

No bluetooth, I can live with this however remembering the price, and you can find a good cheap dongle you can plug into one of your 3 USB's

(Not a huge CON, but the hardrive could be bigger, 500GB can fill up quite quickly these days)

Bloatware, but this almost doesn't count since everything comes with bloatware now, just find and delete it if you know what your're doing.

In my opinion, worth the buy alone for the screen size and resolution.

Hope this helps someone.

Buy HP Pavilion g7-2238nr 17.3-Inch Laptop Now

If you have the expertise to reformat this laptop and set up Windows 7 properly with drivers, this is an excellent budget laptop. I've already linked the HP drivers you need in the Q&A sections.

Overall, a great value for the 17" screen and nice looking black metallic paint. Doesn't feel cheap at all. I've already upgraded the hard disk and RAM, and plan to trash the Atheros wi-fi adapter soon.

Wi-fi speeds are OK for Internet access but go way down over the LAN. See product images on how the Centrino N 1000 wifi card registers & works fine with this laptop.

8GB RAM upgrade kit I installed:

Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory (CMSX8GX3M2A1600C9)

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I also purchased this laptop on Black Friday. I received the laptop yesterday and spent the afternoon setting it up. I did a lot of preference tweaking and burned a recovery disc; everything went well. However I could not locate the windows 8 key code to save for any possible future use and so I contacted and chatted with HP support. Support finally figured out that the key was stored in the BIOS and wouldn't normally be required to be re-entered in the future if I replace the hard drive or other components. This is new to me but since windows 8 had already set itself up earlier that day without me providing the key it did make sense. I like its look and as another poster stated the laptop is very quiet. I do wish it had bluetooth though. Another negative is no lighted indicator for the caps key and the numbers lock key. The keys are also very square which at first was odd to me but they feel fine to type on. As for speed it seems fine. Windows 8 is a bit odd but I 'm catching on. Although I've only had it for one day now, my first experience and impression are very good.

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I see a few people complaining that this computer is slow. My parents are not technologically inclined, so after learning it was running on Windows 8, which I had never used before, I knew I would have to learn it myself and then teach them how to use it.

Thankfully I found a program online called Win8 Start Button, so at the least I could make the computer skip the metro screen and go directly into desktop mode, along with the good ole start button! I played with the computer for several hours. Watched a Netflix movie, surfed the web as I normally would and had no issues with its performance.

If people were expecting a gaming pc, or a multitasking pc(for example: running Microsoft excel, Photoshop, surfing the web etc) concurrently, then I could see them having issues with the computer. You can upgrade the memory if you need some extra power, but the AMD processor is a budget, eco friendly cpu. Not an Intel ; powerhouse

.

But for a computer that is going to be used for skyping, web surfing and storing pictures, I and my parents found it to be perfect for them. Especially for only 379.99(Black Friday deal)

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Acer Aspire AS5750Z-4877 15.6" Notebook (2 GHz Intel Pentium B940 Processor, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB Hard

I bought this for my wife. She was shocked at first to the point of doubting the package. It was so well packaged that she had a hard time gettng the Acer out. It was exactly what she needed. We plan on getting an HDMI cord and use it to watch movies on the big screen. It's still new to her and she is adjusting to it. I don't have any negatives about this product.

i was very displease with this purchase , with in the first 4 months the computer crashed and the coputer did not came with a reboot disk. displeased with it very much.

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the computer is by far the best deal i have ever gotten from amazon n ive been with amazon for a few years now, i updated all outdated drivers, the sound is killer, the processing could handle everything i through at it, it crash once on initial setup but that was expected, i tamed my computer within half hour now shes locked up tight no breaks no code error and dont get me wrong im not a huge fan of win7 im an xp man but shes holding up nice, so if ur looking for a "notebook" at a great price look into it really, im a huge doubter but i was surprised being a bit of a nerd i can say this is worth all the time and money you the buyer put into it, just remember to update drivers right away or ull be looking at a so-so machin, just get a program called "Driver Identifier" itll take u where u need to be automaticlly, have fun:p

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Too many problems with LED displays. Had to change it twice. Bad screen angle you cannot use it from standard position like on your lap.

Loosing too much of its black when tilted even a bit from perpendicular

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They call this computer a notebook and it is bigger then my Dell Inspiron 1520 laptop????? which is what I will use

as a comparison.

The screen is wider by a couple of inches.

The keyboard has a number pad, so it takes a little getting used to (or back into) the right hand number pad and

having to set up a bit to the left.

It comes with windows 7 which I have never used before as I am a die hard XP user due to the various disasters Mr. Gates has produced since the XP days.

I was a bit surprised with 7, as it is very intuitive, and much like XP (it is probably built on XP software like everything else they produce which is built on DOS, but I regress). So the old codger got into 7 without any ranting and raving; that's a good thing.

As stated, the footprint is wider than the Dell so it takes up more desk space, but not so much that your elbow will slip off the end of the table.

The only bitch I have about the computer is the touch pad; it does not work as well as the Del, so I have ordered a cordless mouse so that I don't throw it against the wall.

The computer is much faster than the Del and 1/3 the price. It will mostly be used for music files and earphoned out to amplified speakers. Oh yea, the speakers are not as good as the Del, so if you want great sound, do as I do.

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Lenovo 2904-FZU ThinkPad T410s 14.1" Notebook (2.4 GHz Pentium Core i5 i5-520M Processor, 4 GB RAM,

I was attempting to go back to PCs from Mac life, having straddled the fence for some time. I bought one of these T410S's from Lenovo directly (so, this is nothing at all to say negative about this seller, only about Thinkpad T410S). I have the SSD which I must say is blazingly fast. I also got 8MB of ram. The machine is so fast. Really, did I mention it's fast?

The computer is also pretty light weight. It feels so much lighter than my 15inch MacBook.

The keyboard on these T410S's is marvelous, btw. This was always a strength for Thinkpads. This may be the best keyboard yet on a PC laptop(it is different than any others ones I've had on Thinkpads. Just overall better build quality and some nice, intelligent changes in a few keys and all. Track pad and pointing stick work great, too.).

But, the battery life has been just dismal. I have the main 6 cell battery (because of the configuration, you cannot put a larger main battery in these units). I also have the extra, ultra bay battery. I have been able to go about 2.5 hours doing regular work (some emails, word processing, spreadsheet stuff) and then it's out.

UPDATE: Turns out the main battery in the one that I had was defective. They sent me a new battery today and the machine is running with much less heat and battery life is at least twice what it was before. I would guess that with the two batteries that I might now get 4 hours or a bit more doing light work.

Screen. Not so hot. As some pro reviews on web note, not very good contrast. I am amazed that this screen is as poor quality as it is. It is, however, very bright. That's good. It's the brightest Thinkpad screen I've seen or had. But the screen is a weak spot in my view compared to something like what's on an Apple. It's also a little blotchy, so that there are some unevenly lighted sections along the bottom. I tried to get Lenovo to swap it out and they would not. I paid a great deal for this computer, and you'd think they might try to please a customer. They also made it very hard to return (I was going to just return the unit over the screen blotchiness but they were going to charge a few hundred in restocking fees.) Poor customer service experience. To buy what I think is their most expensive computer and not be happy, and not have them try very hard to make me happy about the screen problem is not impressive.

Heat. I had read a review online that suggested there was minimal heat on this unit. Not really true. It puts out quite a bit of heat when plugged in, from the fan/vent area. There is enough that if you are actually using this laptop on your lap (bizarre concept, I know), your left knee/thigh will get pretty toasty while the right is enduring nothing. This also I find annoying. How come Apple MacBooks can run with so much less heat with similar if not identical processors? PC maker just can't seem to get that down. Anyway, I find the heat not a deal breaker but it is quite annoying, none the less.

Overall. I give this model 3 stars. I'd give Lenovo and this model Thinkpad 4 stars if they would have replaced the screen for me.

I owned the model T410s with the 250gb harddrive last Feb. 2011. One of the reasons, I decided to get Lenovo because of their tough laptop body design,durability,reliability and after watching a youtube video that demonstrates how tough the T series are. But it was a total deception of product quality. After 2 months of use, the palm rest just suddenly crack. I called Lenovo and was told that it's not covered by a warranty because I didn't bought one. Probably my mistake, but, most computer manufacturers, cover at least 1 year basic warranty, just like my older HP laptop. After 6 months of use, the screen bezel followed, with crack at the top left of the screen(see photos). This laptop is a lemon. I don't carry the T410s anywhere, it always stays in my home office. Very unfortunate and lesson learned, will never buy a Lenovo product again. I'm very disappointed.

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Acer Aspire V5-171-9661 11.6-Inch Laptop (Silky Silver)

To start, I own a lot of Acer products. Every year or so, I tend to inch along in my needs and feelings for laptops. Prior to purchasing this, I had an 10" Acer Aspire One netbook which I was thrilled about and a 14" Acer Aspire Timeline. I was hoping that this machine would sort of be the bridge between the things that I really liked about a Netbook (light, good battery life, very portable, and low heat) and the performance of my more beefy laptop (higher resolution, better video performance, etc).

I have to say that in many ways this meets my needs and in some others it didn't quite live up to my expectations. To start with, though, I will first say that I am pleased with this notebook, overall. I am not going to blame the product for having Windows 8 which is at times obnoxious and counter-intuitive because the product description clearly says it comes with windows 8. Some people are not going to like it though. I'd suggest you try to navigate around Windows 8 sometime with a mouse in a store if you want a feel for the experience. Everyone's going to differ on whether they think this is one step forward and two back, or the other way around. What I will say is, for what Windows 8 is, this thing flies through it and it displays everything in a slick manner.

This has had no problems running Netflix, not that you would expect it to. It can do all your normal computing, and the easy app stuff they seem to be trying to turn windows into. On top of that, this isn't a great system to play games on, but it can run the games that I have played with respectable stability. I routinely play World of Tanks on mine with middle-of-the-road type graphics, and I'm very satisfied with the mid-20's to mid-30's frames per second. If you pump it as high as it goes (or as high as it lets you) you will see the frame rate drop though to a humanly noticeable level. The same can be said for Skyrim.

Some of the things that aren't measured in the specs that you might want to be aware of. This can get rather hot. If you are doing anything complicated, this could be come a 'not-on-my-lap laptop.' If you're just playing with the internet, it usually seems to be fine. If, like I mentioned above, you're playing a game, definitely set it down somewhere else. Also, this is the first Acer that I've purchased where the sound that comes with the computer is noticeably bad. The speakers that are in this sound tinny and hollow. If you are planning on playing music, this would probably force you to headphones or a separate speaker system. I carry around an 'X-Mini II Capsule Speaker,' which is quite nice for what it is, so I can plug that in if I need pretty or more noises for whatever reason.

I needed to replace my work notebook; I had previously purchased an Acer Timeline X series in the same 11.6" form factor and it has done fairly well throughout its two-year run with me around the world (literally) other than a few niggling problems.

I had a budget of about $1,500, so I was considering the Asus Zenbook Prime in the same form factor, but I couldn't find one with the 256GB SSD. Moreover, it didn't have a full-sized SD card slot and didn't come with the old-school VGA port (this was important because many of the customers I visit do not have projectors with HDMI inputs). I finally decided that for the price, I would buy the Acer V5 because it had the same processor (Ivy bridge Core i7) and double the RAM of the Asus (8GB vs. 4GB).

It seems that the minor problems with the last notebook have been addressed and it is exceedingly fast. The only complaint is that I'm still adapting to the touchpad with integrated buttons as my last one had dedicated buttons. However, with the money I saved, I decided to buy a 256GB SSD for the computer (be sure to get one that is 7mm high most of them are 9mm and will not fit inside the chassis) and used Acronis True Image to clone the drive...wow. Screaming fast performance that takes about 15 seconds to go from completely powered off to booted and about 4 seconds to go from sleep to booted. Apps open almost instantaneously...and I still have about $500 left in the budget to buy more stuff!

A quick word to those of you that put an SSD in the device using Acronis: I used a USB enclosure to turn the SSD drive into a flash drive in order to do the cloning. I spent a couple of hours trying to clone and the only way it worked for me was when I created a bootable flash drive with Acronis and then changed the BIOS's settings from UEFI to LegacyBoot (otherwise the BIOS won't let you boot to Acronis' Linux image). The cloning takes about an hour and then you can swap the HDD and SSD. Once you swap the drives, you need to change the BIOS back to UEFI or it won't boot Windows 8. Good luck!

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No question...great performance. The VGA and HDMI ports support two monitors very well on this and all the other notebooks. The NEW Acer site allows a very smooth compare of the complex mix of features. Fortunately Amazon has the right stock.

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Just got the machine on clearence. It seems like a nice machine. The mouse pad is a bit unresponsive. I had to turn the touch pad sensitivity up to full to get reasonable performance.

Windows 8: Wow, what an impressively hard to use operating system. I really hate Windows 8. As an engineer, I really did not think it would be that bad moving to Windows 8, that it would just take some getting used to. I am considering dropping back to W7 until the new W8 comes out that includes changes due to "user feedback". I hope they do that big time or its time to switch to MAC or Unix. It would be really nice if w8 came with a built in w7 fallback option.

I went to upgrade the hardrive and could not find how to get to the hard drive/memory. The bottom of the machine has a single, very large flat panel. All I had to do was to remove the one visiable screw near the front center and slide the panel off to the front. Very nice! Remove the battery before doing this just to be safe.

I found I could not upgrade the hard drive on this machine. A normal laptop drive is ~9.5mm thick. Some of the older drives are 12mm thick. I got a new 9.5mm 1TB drive (which is thin for a 1 TB drive) and found that it was too thick for the panel to fit properly back on the machine. It turns out that the WD 500 GB drive used in this machine (WD5000LPVX)is abnormally thin (6.5mm?), most likely specifically designed for thin ultrabook type laptops. Higher capacity drives just will not fit at this point in time. All I can say is that if you want to upgrade to an SSD, check the thickness first.

The battery uses an odd "slide lock" near the back. It was not clear to me that this was a slide and that it was for the battery.

Dan

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My V5-171-9661 would have been a great laptop, had it not suffered from the two following major issues:

1) It delivers only SATA2 (3Gb/s max) speed with Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD (~250MB/s reads). The laptop has the latest BIOS v2.15 in AHCI mode and the latest Intel Rapid Storage drivers. Both Intel RST tool and Samsung SSD Magician tool report SATA2, while the laptop's HM77 chipset is known to be SATA3-capable (6Gb/s). The same Samsung SSD used to deliver ~520MB/s with my old Lenovo SATA3-capable system. Now I'm not sure if it's only this specific machine, or the whole line of V5-171-9661 is affected. I'd appreciate if someone with the same model + SATA3 SSD could post his/her results.

2) The laptop came with Absolute Software Computrace/LoJack feature pre-activated. The BIOS doesn't have any settings to turn it off or even see check its status at all. It survives the hard drive swap, complete OS reinstall and keeps creating a set of executable files (rpcnet*.exe, rpcnet*.dll) in system folders. Basically, it is a kind of controversial BIOS rootkit, which seamlessly reports your laptop location (along with other demographics) to Absolute's servers. I have no plans to subscribe to Absolute's services and I don't want my laptop to call any 3rd party without my explicit consent. So far I've been unable to find a way to disable or kill Computrace. I contacted both Acer and Absolute and I am still waiting to hear from them. However, from what I googled on that matter, the chances to get rid of this "feature" appear to be less than zero. Again, my old Lenovo also had this feature in BIOS, but it arrived in inactive state, and I was able to disable it permanently in BIOS.

Two stars taken off.

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Lenovo IdeaPad U260 08763CU 12.5-Inch Ultraportable Laptop (Mocha Brown)

I have had the U260 for a few weeks now and have nothing but good things to say about it. The fit and finish is excellent. The keyboard is one of the best notebook keyboards I have ever typed on. I use this notebook for work often and a good keyboard is frankly hard to come by in the notebook world. Also, the low weight is a huge plus for dragging this machine to and from the office. The performance is great for my purposes. I don't game, but I do use Netflix streaming and occasionally run memory intensive programs for work purposes. The U260 handles these tasks with ease. The notebook runs much cooler than previous laptops I have owned with no noticeable fan noise. I had originally purchased an HP dm3 directly from HP. I returned the dm3 as it came brand new out of the box with a screen bezel that had separated from the screen back. Upon return, HP sent a new dm3. The right touch pad button of the replacement ceased to function after only 2 days of use. I ended up getting a refund and upon further searching found the U260. I can't begin to describe how much better the U260 is than the dm3.

Less than 5 months after receiving this computer I had issues with the lcd display. I sent the computer to Lenovo for repair. Everything was covered under the warranty and they guaranteed me a 6 day turn around time after they receved the machine. However, due to a parts shortage the wait was more like 8 weeks. Once it was sent backed to me I immediatly noticed severally flaws on the machine that were not there prior to sending it for repair. There were dead pixels throughout the display. The casing on the side of the screen was loose, and the computer would autimatically restart every time I booted it up. I called Lenovo, and as of now i am waiting for a call from their management for a full refund.

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This review is not so much for the consumer, as I doubt anyone is still looking to purchase this over-rated, over-priced item. I would just like the manufacturer to know how I feel about being stuck with their product and Lenovo's website doesn't offer a persistent review feature.

Yeah, the laptop looks good on the outside. Looks aside, I'm disappointed in it after having it for less than two years.

To beat a dead horse, the battery life is essentially non-existent... maybe enough for you to unplug the laptop and go to the library and locate an open socket.

Also, the keyboard trim--as also previously noted--has started to (and/or possibly has been) warp.

So, yeah, it's great getting compliments for a nice-looking laptop; but it doesn't function up to par and I fear it is starting to materially degrade. Maybe I'll leave it on my desk as an ornament as I complete my work with a more functional laptop.

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I first saw this laptop at Fry's and couldn't believe that something like this could be made by lenovo. It's kind of soft to the touch but at the same time surface doesn't get dirty. Exterior design of this thing is amazing, no apple or any other laptop I've seen are even close. I bought this for my wife and it's worked just fine for her for a year now. Battery life is too short for an ultra-portable, if you keep the screen at full brightness you will get around 2 hours of continuous use. It gets very hot at times which doesn't affect the performance much but can be uncomfortable. It looks like trim around the keyboard is starting to peel a little bit.

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Toshiba Satellite C655D-S5087 15.6-Inch Laptop (Trax Texture in Black)

I must say that I have had this product for over a year!!! It works great! I am using it to type this.

I have had a few virus problems but that was MY FAULT for not having it properly secured.

The cord works great, and The battery life on this is pretty good too.

All the connections work and it is great for everyday usage.

The connection on the side where you plug the AC charger is BAD!! Have to wiggle the plug to get it to charge and be careful that you don't bump it or you have to wiggle the cord again. This should not be happening, the laptop is only about 6 months old. This laptop comes with no web-cam. I would not reccomend this laptop to anyone.

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Very cheap lost hard drive got a new one(hard drive) and it will not boot. stay far away from this one

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Toshiba Satellite P205-S7476 17-inch Laptop (Intel Core 2 Duo Processor T5250, 2 GB RAM, 200 GB Har

Overall I'm very satisfied with this Toshiba laptop. Large 17 screen with two speakers and a subwoofer. Full size keyboard, fingerprint reader, camera, SD card slot, HD-DVD, Windows Vista Premium. Almost perfect for those who want a cheap and large laptop for their movie needs.

There are some disappointments though: keyboard felt somewhat cheap (typical plastic feels, a lot worse than the thinkpads'); integrated graphics card made playing games on this gorgeous 17'' screen impossible; sound sometimes have issues (noise); And of course the defeat of HD-DVD to Blueray didn't help much either...

Overall, this is a great lappy for just your DVD needs and a little bit of other type of work/entertainment. If you are looking for dedicated graphics card or a better keyboard, go look elsewhere.

I need the number pad on the right like this computer offers. Great invention that was! I bought a brand new HP with this number pad. I type lightening fast and the problem I had with that HP was I kept hitting an up arrow throwing me into an upper paragraph someplace and what a mess up. Good thing for the undo button. The keyboard was off just enough to make fast typing not possible. I have the thing to my two finger typer husband and went to the store and `pretend typed' on every laptop there. This is the one that won. I can type like the wind and not hit other keys from a scrunched up keyboard. You couldn't really see the difference in looking it was that slight but man what a different it was! I still have my number pad and can type like crazy.

The sound..oh yeah, the sound!! I watch movies on here all the time and play music. Great sound!

It has 6 usb ports and of course head phone jacks etc. I use it a lot for skype talking with a headset.

I have worn out one keyboard, I mean letters worn down and faded off. I replaced the keyboard for the heck of it.

My only complaint is the volume button is a dial on the front and my belly keeps bumping it which will unmute the computer. I would prefer the volume be up by the monitor. But, that being my only complaint isn't bad!!

I am NOW a loyal Toshiba fan. I will go kicking and screaming into my next computer because I do not ever want to give this up. I will repair until it no longer makes sense to do so because this is my baby!

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For more than fifteen years I have bought laptops marks Toshiba, the same have been characterized by its robustness but beautiful design, trustworthiness in their operation, never has failed to me, and for being equipment of technological vanguard. I have replaced when them is motivated to changes in the operating systems and looking for greater capacity of storage and more and more fast processors, in addition I have sold laptop Toshiba that had to very good price of re sale. This is my second Toshiba Satellite P205-S7482, my experience has been so good with this equipment that I bought initially one for my work, being its so satisfactory performance that I bought another one for my home. In the future it would only buy Toshiba, I am a satisfied client.

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ASUS A53U-EH11 15.6-Inch Versatile Entertainment Laptop (Mocha)

I bought this laptop to replace my old Dell and I love it! It boots in around 20-30 seconds and is really fast in High Performance mode. It can even run Starcraft 2 with no problems. For the people that say it's slow, have you looked to see what mode it's in? It has 4 operating modes. High Performance, Entertainment, Quiet Office, and Battery Saver mode. It comes with Battery Saver mode on default so make sure to change it. If your looking for a really good laptop for a fair price then this is the one to get.

This review is not going to be extremely in-depth, because I bought this computer for my dad for Christmas and only used it for about 2 days to get everything set up on it. Side note: My personal computers are Macs, but I am not extremely biased on operating systems, and I think Windows did a good job with 7. That being said, here is my initial impression on the computer.

The shipment of the laptop was quick and free (thanks Amazon Prime)! Packaging was minimum, but definitely secured and padded the laptop, which is a bonus in my eyes.

Upon opening the packaging, the computer looked sleek. It seemed like it was made not as study as a MacBook Pro (my Mac side showing), but it also wasn't cheaply made. It's made with plastic, which allows for it to be lighter and hopefully more durable.

Windows 7 Home Premium came with it, which is a nice upgrade from the basic, but it came loaded with all the Asus add-ons and slowed down the performance greatly. On start-up, the computer was using about ~65-70% of the memory performance. There was A LOT of programs running that was bogging down the performance. The very first thing I did was install a fresh copy of Windows 7 Home Premium and wiped the hard drive of all the nasty programs. The Windows 7 disc didn't come with the computer, so it may help to have a friend that has a physical disc and you can just load your OEM Windows key that came with the computer (on the box).

Once a fresh Windows 7 was installed, the computer ran like a dream. It is mainly being used for web surfing and light office work. I haven't received a call with any problems with it, so it's holding up!

If you are looking for a high-performing laptop for gaming or other CPU-intensive tasks, this obviously isn't the best choice computer for you. But for daily web browsing, word processing and less demanding CPU/GPU tasks, I recommend this laptop!

I highly recommend installing a fresh Windows 7 as soon as you pull it out of the box, and of course use protection! Windows has free software that works great for personal computers. You can't go wrong.

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We purchased this to replace a Gateway laptop and I have to say so far this ASUS is an excellent little computer! Very easy to get this up and running and it loads pages quickly. The warranty that comes with the laptop is one of the best that I've seen. For the money you can't go wrong with this!

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I bought this (ASUS A53U-EH11) laptop from Amazon.com because I needed another laptop to carry with me when I went on a trip.

My other ASUS has been a very good product and is still in very good condition, but it has programs that I would not need on vacation, also it has plugins that makes it harded to make portable.

I am very satisfied with this product, and I got it at a very low price.

Thank you Amazon, Pops

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bought 2 of these last week. First thing i noticed when box was opened was the shiny mocha color which was very attractive. booted up and graphics was great. Performance after installing some programs was very fast. One problem was that the speakers were very soft for altec lansing. Tried everything to get them to boosts even went into the bios but it was locked on setting "4". So headphones or external speakers required for good listening. Pc is very good for the price and gonna purchase another one soon.

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Lenovo ThinkPad X201 3249EPU 12.1" Notebook Computer, Core i5 i5-560M 2.66GHz

THIS, is the computer equivalent of the child of the original Hummer and the Prius. Tough[ish], rough on the edges, powerful, but with the stamina of a horse. If this sounds like a commercial, that's because it practically is: I got this baby a few months ago and I STILL love it like it was my first day.

I ended up giving my model a few upgrades: a solid state drive and 8 gigs of ram. Lenovo also lets you add in extra features such as bluetooth, GPS and mobile broadband (essentially, a SIM card slot), and a smart card reader -so if you're looking to make the ultimate business machine -you've picked the right vendor.

With my current specs, I can easily run multiple virtual machines at the same time (and if you use VMWare Workstation 7, run 'em in a seamless Unity mode!) and not notice any performance degradation. Oh yeah, it's FAST too. Blazing fast.

Cold boots take seconds (I'd be betting somewhere in the 10 second range), and sleep/unsleep is pretty instantaneous. If you go for the 9-cell battery (which you should) -this thing can run on its own juice for HOURS. And by hours, I mean at full brightness, wifi, music, browsing, writing software, etc... for 4+ hours. Maybe longer -I never tried to run it all the way down.

The battery can hot-swap as long as you are plugged in (duh), and there are spill drains on the bottom of the keyboard for water, coffee, and beer. I don't personally recommend doing any of those three (or eating over it) -but apparently the engineers at Lenovo (and previously, IBM) thought about all these concerns and built it into their laptops. There are stories out there of a beer-soaked X201 being brought back to life, though I wouldn't dare try it myself.

As for the Lenovo/IBM brand, it has a reputation for a reason: reliability and longevity. When you make an investment like this, you don't want it to go down the drain in a couple years. My friend is still using a ThinkPad from 2005, and he still swears by it. While I'm not nearly as attached to my laptops, it's good to know that I can smash the keyboard of my X201 for many years to come without worrying about things breaking or parts coming loose.

The only, and absolutely only, complaints I have are that the 'joystick' or TrackPoint tends to get a little carried away sometimes and move the mouse on its own for a little bit after you use it for a while. Apparently this is common and doesn't get worse as the laptop ages. It's a pretty mild inconvenience that is easily overcome, but it's the only thing I can think of mentioning. That said, there are also some issues with the TrackPoint scroll mechanism and some applications (e.g., Office 2010, etc..) -these can be overcome fairly well by editing a few text files, though it's certainly a process that could be made more easy. Ultimately, if you're not too picky, you can always go over to the right hand side and drag the scroller or press the arrow keys -however the scroll mechanism for the TrackPoint does make the TrackPoint almost as efficient as using a mouse. I should also mention that cleaning the TrackPoint is easy and fast.

If you don't like the TrackPoint, they offer models with a touchpad as well, or a touchpad exclusively.

I'm not gonna be the best reviewer for this product since I don't have a bunch of crunched, digested numbers for you. But don't take my word for it -do some research, read some of the more involved reviews (I think there was a 5 8 page one somewhere that convinced me) -and read up on what others have to say about this particular model.

Bottom line: FAST, powerful, lightweight (even with a 9-cell, it's pretty light!), and reliable. Well worth the $$$.

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HP G60-635DX Notebook PC - 15.6" HD Display / Intel Pentium T4300 2.1GHz / 3GB DDR2 / 320GB HD / DV

This is an ok product for the price I paid (529.99 at Best Buy). The built in mic is barely heard, but I use my own so that's not a big deal with me. I've had it since early April 2010 and no major issues, but more like annoyances. When I burn cd's now for some reason it makes a loud noise and it seems as if the cd is spinning too fast. There also seems to be bugs in windows media, which may not have anything to do with the hp g60 itself. Battery life isn't that long(a little over 2 hours) but I keep it plugged in anyway unless I'm doing something really quick. If I just close the laptop without shutting it down and open it at my next location (within an hour) it gets VERY hot. soon as I plug it up, the fan begins to cool it more. The screen and webcame are great pluses. Windows 7 is great too, but I'm not too fond of IE, which is a whole different review lol.

I bought this HP laptop in July, so I've had it for 5 months, and I've got to say that I love it. For the people who seem to have issues with it... perhaps you mistreat it, because I've had absolutely no problems with it.

Pros:

-SPEED: Initially, I was very impressed by the speed of this laptop, and to this day it hasn't slowed a bit.

-SIZE: It seems to be very good at 15.6" screen size, with no troubles about it being either too big or too small.

-SPEAKERS: The Altec-Lansing speakers it comes with are very functional, and were quite a bit louder than I was expecting. Now, are they anything compared to the 300-watt surround sound speaker system that I use for iTunes? No, but they are quite exceptional nonetheless

-CAMERA: Had no complaints from people on Skype about the camera or microphone... really, I don't know what these other people are saying.

Cons: (Though few, they should be addressed)

-BATTERY:... yeahh.. not so good, if I'm honest. However, I almost always have it plugged in, so it's really not a big deal, but off the charger and on power save mode you might get... 3 hours out of it? Then again, they do sell a bigger 12-cell battery (I believe) for it, so if battery's your thing, you could always purchase that.

-BLACK CASING: So, the black plastic finish is very attractive... for about 3 weeks. Finger prints are almost impossible to get off, but I've come to live with it being a little smudge and just moving on from aesthetic appeal.

-BACKLIT KEYBOARD: or rather, lack thereof. I wish the keys were backlit on this, but it's not too difficult overall to get a light somewhere lol.

OVERALL: Quite good. Would but it again if I had to.

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I bought this laptop in early 2010 and to be fair, it's still kind of okay, especially for less than $600. Also, it was the first new laptop I purchased in years so at the time, almost any upgrade seemed kind of awesome. Now, it's probably a 2.5 star machine. ...meh.

CONS after two years:

*I have replaced the battery once and it's due for a second replacement already. The first one crapped out within the original one-year manufacturer's warranty--within months, actually--so it didn't cost anything but it was a pain in the ass. The diagnostics were screwy, couldn't get anyone on the phone in the US. Was told by some people they wouldn't replace it but after sending some screenshots in to customer service a battery just showed up at my house. Not sure whatever happened with that ticket that must've had two different answers on it...?

*Originally, the battery holds about a 2.5 hour charge anyway.

*The AC adapter has needed replacing three times. None covered under warranty. I've used a cheap laptop cord replacement service from online for about $20 each but that means with shipping I've spent an additional $70 on AC adapters.

*Monitor broke last month BUT to be fair I did accidentally drop it on the corner from a couple inches off the ground. The screen didn't crack or anything but a wire was clearly loose. I was able to see the screen but it was green and magenta until I found the sweet spot where it would go back to normal. After some research online, I was able to buy a replacement LDVS cable and install it myself for about $30. The $30 covered the cord, a screwdriver set to open the laptop up, an anti-static wristband, and an extra set of laptop screws. Works like a charm now. Of course, after opening up the bad cable, it revealed at last three tiny wires totally severed. I suspect the constant opening/closing of the lid did the majority of the wear and my wrist slip just sealed the deal.

*I also took the opportunity to totally clean and dust the CPU fan when I had it opened up and that improved noise and performance quite a bit.

*Upgrades are limited: Comes standard with 3GB RAM but hardware only accommodates 4GB RAM and only if you are running a 64 bit operating system. On the other hand, it also comes standard with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OS.

*At almost 7lbs, it's pretty heavy to tote back and forth to school.

*Webcam software (YouCam) has to be uninstalled to use the webcam with Skype. The two programs are not compatible and once you uninstall YouCam I think you have to purchase separately. I ditched it in favor of Skyping since I don't upload videos of myself anywhere anyhow.

*Machine comes with a crap-ton of crappy programs installed that are all set to run on startup. Then again, what PC doesn't these days? I had to clean off all kinds of useless HP stuff and adverts and clear away the programs that run on startup. If you're not really savvy about getting rid of these dumb programs you'll be highly annoyed at these settings.

PROS after 2 years:

*I like Windows 7--fewer bugs than Vista and easier to use. Control panel is nice.

*Speed still good after 2 years. I run a bit of software on it--photoshop, dreamweaver, aptana, MS Office suite, gimp, corel, irfan, itunes, etc, etc. but I don't run movie or music editing software and I'm not a gamer. So, if you want to run a normal suite of productivity software, write papers, edit photos, and surf the web, this computer is adequate. I suspect if you're an online gamer or an editor this is a woefully inadequate setup.

*Decent value for a student. I bought this my second year of school and it'll take me to graduation this semester. However, I've had to put about $100 of maintenance into it between the cords and the screen issue. A RAM upgrade from 3GB to 4GB on Crucial will run you about $60 if you find you're ready for it. Plus another battery replacement (especially if you want a 6-9-12 cell (that will add a weird oversized bump to the battery compartment, btw) is going to be another $40 to $60. So, if you pay $550 for it originally, it will end up costing and additional $100/year or more for maintenance, etc, and end up costing you closer to $800.

*Easy to open and clean and fix. Lots of youtube videos on this and similar computer models if you're shy about fixing your own electronics.

*285GB usable hard drive isn't bad if you're the average user, again. For movies, etc, that would probably fill up pretty fast but for average sized photos (as in, not a prosumer or pro photo person, music, or movie person) it's okay.

*Streams video pretty good (depending, of course, on your internet connection) and can simultaneously run a good ten or more programs.

*Never had issues with mouse trackpad, wireless internet, hard drive or motherboard.

In general:

Student? Casual user? Looking for basic computer to surf the net, write a letter, and store some family photos? This laptop is fine. With proper maintenance it will probably last for 5 years or more. Expect to spend an additional $200-$300 in software and hardware upgrades over the life of the laptop; more if you plan on paying someone else to service and fix it for you.

Gamer, editor or photo pro? Invest in better hardware, RAM, graphics, storage, etc, and don't bother with this machine.

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I've had nothing but issues with this product. The DCD/CD drive won't read discs, the hard drive has crashed twice, and I wasn't able to install Microsoft office on it without taking it to a local shop. I use it for basic home business and finance work and am already looking to replace it.

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I've have this product for a little over 4 months. I got it June 4, 2010 and It's now October 11, 2010 so you can do the math. I got this laptop as a graduation present from my parents and it was thrilled. But I soon learned that the mic sucks. I managed to do a few things w/ it and its better now but still barely heard and occasionally flips out and kills the ears of who ever is talking with me on skype. Then in June the DVD player completely busted. The laser was shot and now I can no longer play DVDs or burn any CDs. Thinking perhaps it was just a dirty lens I tried to clean it but no luck it is actually busted. Then last month my internet explorer crashed and is unusable now ad I had to go download firefox. Now my charger has now begun to refuse to work and unless it's positioned just right then my laptop will not charge. I've talked to friends of mine who have had hp's have had the exact same problem. Go spend your money else where b/c you'll be wasting your money here.

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Alienware m15x-472CSB 15-Inch Gaming Laptop (Cosmic Black)

I placed the order for this computer Thursday night, and with one day shipping received it Saturday morning. Both Amazon and UPS have figured this logistics thing out.

Out of the box everything looks great. All of the specs lined up except one... it says it has an 8-cell battery; however, seeing that they don't make an 8 cell battery for this laptop, i have to think that maybe they meant to say a 9-cell battery? Well either way, that's not what this laptop hasit has a 6 cell battery. This gives you a lofty 1 hour of battery life just idling in windows. Now if you buy this kind of laptop, the chances of you just sitting in windows are fairly slim. The gaming battery life, I'm not sure, but I'm not holding my breath for more than 20 minutes.

That may not be much of a gripe, considering that this is more like a portable desktop, but it is irritating when you buy something that's misadvertised.

As for the performance, I was playing Battlefield Bad Company 2 last night and it looked stellar!

Bottom line, Dell quoted me a computer with the exact same specs, but they wanted $1900, so I see this as a bargain.

I bought this laptop with the intention of primarily playing Starcraft 2 on it and taking the strain off my old desktop. The features on this Alienware product are very intriguing, such as the facial recognition login. It is pretty unnecessary but a cool feature nonetheless. The lights on the entire computer can be changed to different colors which is pretty cool especially since the advertised red color is super bright on the eyes.

After about 5 days of using it very lightly, I did get a blue screen of death saying it had crashed, but it rebooted no problem so I am hoping that was just a one time deal as it did it while the Starcraft 2 program was open and that has happened to me on 2 other computers as well while running the game.

A few things that are inconvenient about the product is the fact that it only has 2 USB ports. I knew this before purchasing it, figuring I would just use the laptop keyboard for gaming, but it didn't feel comfortable, so I use my external keyboard, which uses the 2nd USB port leaving my headphone/microphone set unable to be used.

For what I am using it for, the computer is working great with only a few minor setbacks, but for the price, I am not complaining. On the actual Alienware site, the same system would run roughly 300-400 more so I strongly recommend ordering it on Amazon.

With minor problems and a good price, this computer will run your gaming relatively well for people on a moderate sized budget.

UPDATE: 4/18/2011

The computer is still going strong, I haven't gotten a blue screen of death besides that one time. It runs Starcraft 2 on the new Extreme settings perfectly.

The price of the product has gone up $400 on Amazon so I would not say it is as good of a deal, but so far this laptop has proven very useful.

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My last laptop was a 17" Sony and I wanted something a little bit smaller. My choices were between an ASUS Republic of Gamer laptop and the Alienware. I decided on the alienware due to the amount of troubling posts about hardware failure with ASUS products. The only real problem I saw with Alienware products were people complaing of cost. I do not know about you, but I was raised under the old saying that you get what you pay for. And I have been very pleased with my new Alienware laptop. I will let you know that you will need to contact Alienware to transfer your 1 year warranty from Amazon to yourself and if you so desire you can purchase longer coverage from Alienware as well. Now, I will also say that this laptop is a little heavy for a 15". A lot of people do not like the touchpad, I am indifferent about it considering I never use it anyway, I prefer wireless mice. Also your battery will geek out very fast unless you alter your power settings. Mine lasts about 2 hours, however I am normally wired in anyway so that really does not bother me. This laptop was purchased to go offshore with me and allow me to play games as well as be my main computer at home where it stays put. It has performed very well. All my games run at high to ultra settings without any issues at all. Heck even playing World of Warcraft, I can run into any high populated zones with all settings maxed out and still get 60 to 70fps. One last bit of information for you as well, this exact build on Alienwares website usually runs several hundred dollars more than on Amazons website. Also the M15X is very upgradable, so the choice is up to you.

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I admit that when I bought this laptop, I was expecting to be blown away. I expected the best machine out there. While I am impressed with the m15x's performance, it's got some issues. I purchased mine over a year ago from Dell's alienware site. I debated for a while before pulling the trigger. Let me go over my pros and cons after having it for a year:

Pros:

1. It's just plain cool. It's a great looking computer. The lights on the keyboard and everywhere else are just fun to play with.

2. It's very solid. Some might call this heavy, but I don't mind. It feels sturdy and that's what I wanted.

3. It runs well and does what I need it to do. I haven't had any problems running games and programs when I need to.

4. The keyboard is great. I really like the design of each key, which is awesome since I write a lot.

5. Good speakers. I've always liked the sound when watching a movie with my wife or kids.

Cons

1. My first complaint is the AC plug. After lots of use, it easily slips out of its jack from the computer with very little pressure. It can be very very annoying.

2. The touchpad is terrible. I considered sending it back b/c I hated the touchpad so much. The buttons are too hard to push and the pad itself is just meh. I do use a mouse a lot, so this isn't a huge issue.

3. Heat. This computer can generate a lot of heat, and I've been painfully burned a couple of times (not second or third degree mind you) but enough that I've remembered it. It can get pretty darn hot, and I think I'm running an i3 processor.

4. The wireless card isn't great. I don't seem to pick up signals as well as other people's laptops or even ipads. Very disappointing.

5. Home and delete keys are too close together, and I often hit them on accident. A little space would have been nice.

6. The rubber stoppers that protect the screen from completely closing down on the keyboard/base lasted about 1 or 2 months. Never found them.

Fortunately, I've never had to use costumer service. I've never had any major issues. So I'd really give it 3.5 stars if I could. But I can't justify the price again for something that's not absolutely mind blowing, like I expected this to be. It's been a fine machine but I would buy something different next time.

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First i got this laptop off alienware.com not on amazon because i like it custom build with my name on the back. the performance is super fast. but people say u can get the same spec or better spec for cheaper price on other brand. but i tell u dell didn't give this a high price just because they want it to. this laptop should be at this high price because the screen is a full glass screen and with 5.1 speaker which are super loud. There is no laptop in the world that can do the LED on the keyboard and front grill as the alienware can. u can change it to any color. i got this from dell because u can have a custom name plate on the back for free. which on amazon u just get a plate that say m15x. the keyboard feel very well. the body of this is like aluminum and the cooling fan cool this thing very well(never put this on ur lap, it will be hot). the weight of this thing is a problem. it add a lot of weight to my backpack for trips. its weight like 8-10 lb. the charger for this laptop is big also and it goes hot as well. the battery is kinda bad because at powersaver mode 100% charge with screen turn all the way low and no LED on. the battery last 1 hour and 10 min doing nothing. u can not play game on this laptop when in battery mode because when its in battery the performence will be cut in half and even if u do play game it will take ur battery down to 0% in 10-20min. but when its plug in this is the Beast it will kill ur game!!!. in my word this is better than a MAC PRO because the price on this is cheaper and more performance than the mac pro. And alot of people has mac pro but u dont see an alienware often. when i take my alienware to libary u see people with mac pro and u have a alienware it feel like u have a lamborghini in a bunch of Porsche. and this computer does look like lamborghini. if money is not a problem with u and weight is also not a problem then this is the one to go. if u are going to use this for school i dont think u should go for this because the battery life is just bad and the weight will kill u when u have alot of text book in ur bag.. over all a very very very nice laptop i love mine

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Sony VAIO VGN-FW490JEB 16.4" Notebook (2.53GHz Core 2 Duo P8700 4GB RAM 320GB HDD Blu-ray Read/Writ

At 6.5 pounds, the FW isn't the lightest laptop on the market, but it is probably the best value out there. Sony allows you to select a pre-built model or customize one yourself. My machine is customized:

1080p LCD Screen

ATI 4650 1gb Graphics Card

2.53ghz Intel Core 2 Duo (3mb L2 Cache)

4gb DDR2 @ 800mhz

320gb Hard drive @ 7200rpm

Blu Ray Player (Read only)

Windows 7 64bit (came with Vista 64, but I upgraded when 7 came to campus)

This machine is great for everything. Gaming, image editing, word processing, you name it, it can do it. It does get a bit hot, so lap use should be limited to the length of battery life which is roughly 2 to 2.5 hours. The keyboard is chiclet style and is unfortunately not back-lit. The speakers could be better, but I am usually wearing my MDR-500 Sony headphones (which I also recommend for people who like pop/rock music).

The only complaints I have are centered around weight and placement of ports. Like I said, it is fairly heavy. I have a messenger bag that I used my first semester this year at Indiana University, and it got extremely heavy when dragging it around campus. I am going to find a backpack so that it is not as much of an issue. It is also worth noting that its 16.4 inch screen makes this thing fairly large so it take up a lot of real estate on your desk. VGA, HDMI, Ethernet, Firewire and Express Card slot are on the left side, and the tray loading Blu Ray drive and three USB ports are on the right. I would prefer if the USB ports and Blu Ray drive switched positions (drive moves forward and USB ports move backward), however, they work where they are.

Build quality is pretty good. I always seem to compare any laptop against the unibody Macbook Pro, and the FW holds its own. Even though it is entirely made of plastic, it looks great and is of solid build quality.

I chose the FW because it was the best deal on the market. I looked at every major brand and I could not find a cheaper computer with the same specs. In fact the only one that came close was, I believe, a Dell XPS. It was almost $200 more! The FW is a mulitmedia/gaming machine. It will play Crysis at 720p medium settings at 40 fps. All other games are playable at 1080p and high settings. It can also do some pretty hard core image editing. This a great all around computer.

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Lenovo G570 43347RU 15.6" Notebook - Intel Pentium Dual Core B950 Process; 2GB Ram; 320GB HD; We

Lenovo Thinkpads have always had the best keyboard layout in my opinion. This economy priced model has everything my college student needed at a great price. Unlike the Compaq CQ's and the low end HP series, this unit has Intel processor not AMD. You can get it with an AMD but why really? For the price point of this unit it feels great, not cheap. I like it so much I am going to order another one for me since this one is for my daughter in college.

Shipping from this vendor was a little slower than others, but not unbearable. I guess Amazon's fast shipping has spoiled me.

If you need a great value in a laptop, you might really like this model.

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Acer V3-771G-9804;NX.M1WAA.002 17.3-Inch Laptop

My previous laptop died about a week ago. The new Acer V-3-771G-904 is spectacular! At first I had trouble adapting to the new OS, and to the new Office suite, but now, after only a few days, I have adjusted and consider the purchase well worth while. The "machine" boots in 10 seconds, or less (I turned off the password sign-in. The display is clear, sharp, with vivid and true colors. The included software, while sometimes beyond my needs, makes such chores as photograph entry and handling very easy. I did not need a lightweight laptop, because I seldom have to move it very far. I looked at Acer's smaller and lighter models, and decided against them.

Light weighted, fast, powerful laptop. After installation of the "Start" knob from third party software it fully met my expectations. I do not work in Metro environment. Screen resolution is not a full HD, but because of this all letters on the screen are bigger and easier to read.

Buy Acer V3-771G-9804;NX.M1WAA.002 17.3-Inch Laptop Now

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ASUS Zenbook UX32VD-DH71 1.90-3.00GHz i7-3517U 10GB 500GB 7200rpm 1GB NVIDIA Geforce GT 620M Full H

Works great.. Light & fast .. super portable.. screen is amazing..although touchpad is a bit sensitive at times .. would definitely recommend

This configuration must be the best at least within the Asus Zenbook seriesif all details are correct... does it really come with 500GB /7200 HDD with 24 GB SSD for instant start? Looking forward to check it myself, but will have to verify before ordering.

ASUS Zenbook UX32VD-DH71 1.90-3.00GHz i7-3517U 10GB 500GB 7200rpm 1GB NVIDIA Geforce GT 620M Full HD 1080P

Buy ASUS Zenbook UX32VD-DH71 1.90-3.00GHz i7-3517U 10GB 500GB 7200rpm 1GB NVIDIA Geforce GT 620M Full H Now

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Acer Aspire V5-571P-6642 15.6-Inch Touch Screen Laptop (Silky Silver)

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I've had mine for a few hours so these are just first impressions:

The build quality is very high this laptop feels solid despite being very light. The design is clean and simple, the screen is bright and the colors are vibrant. The sound is well above average for a laptop, but that's not saying too much.

This is my first exposure to Windows8 and from what I read in the press, I was expecting to hate it. On the contrary I think for home use it's going to work out perfectly. If you are comfortable with the iPhone style interface you'll have no problem with Windows8. During the initial setup boot it shows you the two main things you need to know in order to navigate. With that I was up and running. I wasn't too sure about the touch screen idea: love it for my phone, but how would the ergonomics feel with a laptop? Answer: awesome. With the Windows8 "tile" based interface, touch just works. I've barely used the touchpad since I got this thing. My other computers seem lame now. Again, this is based on a few hours of use, but the first impressions are very good. I think the Windows OS has made a big step forward out of the cluttered mess it was.

I work in the computing industry so I looked a little closer into some of the specs for those who like to know these things: the CPU, as noted is an Intel i5. That doesn't really tell you much, since that can refer to multiple generations of Intel chips. In this case it is the latest and greatest "IvyBridge" dual-core Intel CPU (22nm, Tri-gate transistors). This is a 17w(!) CPU. That is insanely low power for the performance you are getting. This CPU also includes some fairly robust integrated graphics on the die with 16 graphics execution units. This is 4 more than the previous high-end, and 10 more than the current "second tier". I've read up on the benchmarks and it out classes many discrete graphics solutions. This should actually enable you to do some fairly decent gaming on your laptop if you so choose. It will won't compete with a dedicated "gaming" laptop with high-end discrete graphics, but then again it won't cost you 2-3K. One thing to note is that the Intel graphics drivers generally fall short of AMD or Nvidia when it comes to some of the more high-end graphics settings. Most users don't even know how to get to those features, but if you are serious gamer this is something to consider. On the other hand when it comes to mainstream applications and video performance, Intel performs as well or better than the competition.

A few things to note: this laptop has a nice big 500GB hard drive, but it's a conventional drive and not a solid-state drive. All conventional drives are at risk of failure, and so you should pick up a cheap external back-up HDD just to be safe (or sign up for an online back-up service from somebody like Amazon). It's cheap insurance. Another thing worth mentioning is that while this is not an "Ultrabook" it's pretty close to being that thin. While cool looking, it does mean you have an adapter for network cables and VGA displays. Nobody should need a VGA display connector anymore (the laptop has a conventional HDMI port) but if you plan to plug into a network you have the adapter to think about. Fortunately the wireless on this laptop is first rate. I've got a pretty high-end business class HP laptop from work, and this Acer blows it away on connection speeds.

So my overall impression? This is a great laptop and based on what I've experienced I can comfortably recommend it to anyone. Any doubts I had about Windows8 have been erased. It's simple, intuitive and with a touch screen, computing is kind of fun again.

****

Just a note that after a week of using this laptop I still really like it. I'm finding Windows 8 is fairly intuitive to use and learn. That being said if you are really used to tweaking around in the old Windows there are some frustrating moments trying to figure it out in Windows 8. However overall they've made configuring things like privacy settings *much easier* so I think the average user will find themselves doing things in Windows 8 they would never do in Windows 7.

I still think that touch is why Windows 8 works and I'm not sure I could suggest buying a non-touch laptop with this OS. I've really gotten hooked on the "10 fingered" touch. It makes my "two fingered" touch on my phone seem antiquated. This makes me wish there were more convertible tablet/laptops out there. It seems like laptop makers are missing the market here.

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program Acer isn't an unfamiliar brand around our house. In fact, my husband's first personally owned computer was an Acer (486SX-25, cira 1993), as were the first and second computers we bought together. Over the years, Acer's quality has ranged from excellent for the money, to dismal at best. Especially after buying up Gateway, the Acer seemed to struggle with quality. In more recent history, they're back on the upswing, but still not wonderful. So, it was with some hesitation that we got the Aspire V5, not quite knowing what to expect.

After a few weeks, I can say that we're pleasantly surprised. The V5 is quite thin and light compared to the other laptops we have around the house (Lenovo G770, Lenovo ThinkPad T420s, Compaq CQ56, HP DV4, and HP DV9000). The backlit keyboard is quite nice, both in appearance and feel. Typing away feels good, with just the right amount of tactile resistance. Of the models we have, only the ThinkPad outclasses the V5 in this area. The inclusion of a numeric keypad was an added bonus, as only our 17" models have these. For me, the addition doesn't make the keyboard feel cramped, but, my hands are on the smaller side, so this could vary. The touchpad itself is very sensitive, with a surface that lets your fingers glide right across it easily. I'm not a touchpad person myself, but I did check out the extensive adjustments and gesture control options that are built in, just before turning them off. (Yes, I know, how antiquated of me.)

The battery life is very good, with ours lasting just under 6 hours while doing some light gaming the whole time. This bested the older models we have, but came in about the same as the pair of Lenovos. Speaking of gaming, the Intel graphics chip inside isn't a slouch, but, it's not going to come close to what can be had with a dedicated gaming laptop or other laptop with decent graphics chip from NVIDIA or AMD. The CPU is certainly powerful enough, especially when backed by Intel's Ivy Bridge chipset, but expect to be turning down the graphics options if you're into heavy gaming (first person shooters, RPGs, etc). For your typical tasks, like web surfing, emailing, document creation, watching videos, playing games on Facebook or Pogo, and the like, you'll be more than happy with the performance. In terms of overall performance, I feel the V5 held put itself ahead of the rest of our pack, with most everything seeming to run a bit quicker and more smoothly than on any of our others.

Yes, V5 comes with Windows 8, but, I'm not going to try and review that, as it's a whole beast in and of itself. I would like to note that the V5 does come with a fair amount of bloatware, those programs that no one really wants but the manufacturer stick in there as a "value add" item. The V5 wasn't nearly as bad as the HPs and Compaq, which are notorious for the amount of garbage they come with. Bummer there wasn't a full copy of Office Home and Student instead of the trial version, but I can't actually complain about that since I knew that what it came with in the first place. Lastly, and the only thing I will say about Win8 is that it runs very smoothly compared to some prior new major releases (*cough* Vista *cough* WinME *cough* Win95). Not a single hitch to be had during this whole time, and we've been putting the V5 through it's paces.

Lastly, just a few bits on the V5's other features. Touchscreen! Yes, it works very well, but you'll likely love it or hate it, depending on if you like reaching up to the screen a lot and if you don't mind cleaning the screen a lot more often than on a conventional laptop. The HDMI output has come in very handy for things like gaming, watching Netflix, and web surfing on an HDTV. Our son loves it for the gaming, so he and his friends can all watch the action without having to crowd around the person at the keyboard. Sound quality is decent enough, though you're not going to get quality enough to satisfy an audiophile. The webcam is...well..meh. It works well enough, to be sure, but don't expect crystal clear and grain free image quality. It's simply not that great, at 1.3MP.

Overall, I think the V5 is an excellent machine in terms of price, performance, and features. I'm almost tempted to trade my G770 for it but...I really like the bigger screen. Our son is loving it, and as previously stated, hasn't run into a single hitch yet. Only time will tell if the quality inside is up to snuff though.

Buy Acer Aspire V5-571P-6642 15.6-Inch Touch Screen Laptop (Silky Silver) Now

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program On paper, this laptop has a lot going for it a 3rd generation Ivy Bridge i5 dual core processor, 6 GB RAM, a 15.6" multi touch screen, a 5GHz wifi adapter (Atheros AR5BWB222), 3 USB ports (1 USB 3.0), 5 hour battery life (as per the product specs in reality this is about half that), and a modern design aesthetic.

Unfortunately, the more I used it, the more I ran into its limitations, and hence my 3 star (It's Okay) rating.

1. Performance.

Its Windows Experience Index numbers (on a scale of 1 to 9.9) are:

Processor (6.9), Memory (7.1), Graphics 4.5, Gaming (6.2), Hard disk (5.9)

The V5 is really hurt by its anemic Intel HD Graphics 4000 chip (only 128MB of dedicated video memory); as well as by its 5400 RPM hard drive.

2. Construction

This is a handsome laptop, but its cut corners soon become apparent with use it feels plastic-ky and less well finished than my other laptops.

3. Usability Touchpad

The touchpad is located too far to the left making left clicks a challenge, has a stiff click action, and tends to lose sensitivity when performing click-drag operations (when closing Modern/Metro apps, touch pad drags were often ignored.)

It supports Win8 actions such as invoking the Charm menu, but these were easy to trigger inadvertently yanking me out of my thoughts.

4. Usability Keyboard

The keyboard is firm, full sized, and backlit. However, some keys are simply too small, and the Caps/Num Lock keys provide no indication when active.

5. Usability Touch screen

The touch screen is the perfect complement to Windows 8's Modern/Metro interface, and is natural to use. However, right click and click drag actions were harder to pull off, and I kept resorting to the mouse.

Reaching across the keyboard can be an uncomfortable action depending on user position.

Touching the screen can also be sacrilegious for those sensitive to screen smudges :)

6. Screen

The display was sufficiently bright, with adequate color reproduction. Its 1366x768 resolution is measly for a 15.6" screen, but has the benefit of making text easier to read and icons easier to click since each pixel is larger.

7. No built-in Ethernet/VGA ports

In a tragic design decision, these ports are only available using a separate adapter cable. That means I not only have to pack this itty bitty connector each time, but I also have to worry that I will misplace it :(

8. Battery life even with light use, the battery ran down in 3 hours. This is too short for mobile use.

9. Integrated Optical Drive a nice touch, but as expected at this price point, Bluray is not supported.

10. Software

This unit was surprisingly clear of bloatware (except for NTI Media Maker). Even the trial Windows Office 2010 is a download link. Unfortunately, Acer was just as sparing with useful software.

Who is this for?

###########

This laptop seems to be aimed at users with light to moderate usage needs it should be adequate for Internet browsing/streaming, general home use, and for school homework. The larger pixels at this resolution and screen size should also be easier on older eyes.

However, gamers, road warriors, developers, and other power users will likely be better served elsewhere.

Conclusion

#######

While this may seem to be a lot of laptop for the money, I found that there were some material compromises.

How satisfied you will be with this laptop will depend on which of these compromises matter to you.

Happy Computing!

~Damodar

Read Best Reviews of Acer Aspire V5-571P-6642 15.6-Inch Touch Screen Laptop (Silky Silver) Here

I have only been on this laptop for a few hours, but I wanted to share how great my experience has been! Yes, it's a new OS so it takes a little getting used to, but the touchscreen and the keyboard can be interchanged flawlessly and if you are familiar with previous windows versions you can get yourself going with a little brain power. Anyway, this review is for the laptop. All specs are accurate. This laptop is so thin for it's size! It is heavier than I wanted, but still light for it's dimensions. The screen is beautiful and very responsive to touch. I love the keyboard as well back lit, but only when being used. The track pad does NOT have buttons on it, instead you need to double tap the trackpad if you don't want to use the touch screen. A little different than what I am used to but I think I can get used to it. Love all the USB ports, including one that is 3.0, and the hdmi port. Another big thing for me, an SD slot. For photo editing, this is really helpful.

Amazon's price was the same as trusted tech sites, so I went with them since I am a prime member.

Overall, I realize it's still early, but I am very impressed with my initial impressions. For the technical specs you are really getting a good deal. Acer's reputation is really not as high as it should be they make great products.

Want Acer Aspire V5-571P-6642 15.6-Inch Touch Screen Laptop (Silky Silver) Discount?

This is my first review ever on a product, so excuse me if it's a tad jumbled or jumps from subject to subject. I guess I should also mention that this is for the 6648 model that is Best Buy exclusive ($519, but i3 processor)

I received this laptop as a gift after I sold my gaming desktop computer. I am about to start graduate school, so I was in the market for a nice, efficient laptop for school work. I fully intended on buying a Surface tablet, but after extensive review and playing with this in-store for a few minutes, I decided this would do much better for my needs.

So there I was in Best Buy, wondering why this was so cheap. From first looks of this device on the exterior, I was drawn towards it. The shell has a nice smooth, silvery exterior, but is actually plastic. Oh well, it looks great. The backlit keyboard is just an awesome bonus, as NO OTHER keyboard in this price range has this feature. Seriously, I HATE having a bunch of light on, and I cannot function without a backlit keyboard. The track pad is nice and large, but guess what? I hardly use it due to the AWESOME touch screen feature.

The touchscreen itself is insanely accurate, even down to the small menu boxes! It's so great to use, that I find myself neglecting the large trackpad below the keyboard. One really negative aspect of the touchscreen is that since it's so great to use, you WILL notice horrible smudges. I happened to have a slight cold when I got this last night, so just remember to keep your hands clean before groping the screen with your dirty hands.....just saying.

I'd consider myself pretty high-tech, and just recently, I laughed at someone for getting a windows 8 laptop and crying about it not being touchscreen. Man, I need to go apologize to them. I think I'd cry to if this didn't have it! Windows 8 is......unique. I've tried the windows 8 phone platform and did not like it one bit. Windows 8 on a touchscreen-enabled laptop is pretty slick. If you don't like the tiles you can always switch back to a classic desktop for a minute for more familiar navigation. It does take some getting used too.

I don't really have TOO much experience with laptop keyboards, but this one seems to do just fine for me. It's a good mixture of softness and firm "clickiness" to let you know you've hit the key successfully. I don't feel as if I've had to compensate for anything while typing, which is good because I type close to 100 wpm. I imagine I'd be pretty upset if I had to slow down my typing deliberately to make up for a keyboards faults. Like I've said before, I just could NOT live without a backlit keyboard. It helps tremendously, even during the day. At night, it's a blessing. Keyboard keys are nice and bright, and are illuminated by a nice, bright, white LED lighting. (I could be biased somewhat as well, because white those bright, white, almost light blue LED lights are my favorite at Christmas!) Just as a bonus, there are a full set of numbered keys to the right of the main keyboard. The keys also have a nice matte finish to them. It's really nice to type on I've found.

For all of the aesthetics so far, the screen is really nothing special to look at. I mean, hey, it's not bad, it's just not GREAT. Like I said, I'm a techie, but I can live with the screen. The native IE browser appears washed out while typing this. Colors just don't "pop" out. It's definitely not an iPad Retina display (Before you cry bias, I've used Android products primarily over the past few years. I can just recognize when certain brands have better qualities, and Apple makes ridiculously awesome screens. Truth.)I watched a few YouTube videos and an episode of Battlestar Galactica and Family Guy on Netflix, and was neither amazed or disgusting. It's just.......a screen. For $519.00, an awesome backlit LED keyboard and touchscreen, I'll manage!

The audio is actually pretty decent for a laptop. It touts a Dolby Advanced Audio Virtual Surround Sound capability. I mean, I dunno, I'm no Audiophile, but judging purely in comparison from the laptops I've owned before, this laptop seems to project sound a little better. No bass to speak of (obviously), but pretty decent. No distortion on 100% volume. I find the best to be around 50% volume. I can definitely hear it from across my bedroom at 50% with ease. No complaints whatsoever about the sound on this laptop.

All of the reviews I have read on this battery describe it as terrible. I agree. It drains really, really fast. I have no benchmarks or tests to prove it from, but I can attest to the reviews. It is just. plain. horrible. Whatever, I don't plan to take this camping, or skydiving, or watch DVDs for hours on a car trip with it. It's a core i3 laptop, I just plan to do work with it for a graduate program, so I plan to be in civilization and near electrical outlets like 95% of normal Americans. This is fine with me. All hail the electrical outlets.

What else to say? I have really, really enjoyed using this laptop so far the past day! I am still figuring out various aspects of windows 8. Some are annoying, some are cool. As a previous power PC user, it is slightly aggravating that I can't just jump in and go, but the new part of me is enjoying something fresh and fun. The fact that I have an Xbox 360 is even sweeter, as this integrates awesomely with my Xbox! Game requests and messages from my friends all are shown on the tile screen to let me know. It's really cool. I love how in windows 8 you can split screen with applications! This is where touchscreen really, really shines. I couldn't imagine doing some of these functions without it.

Like I said, this is the Best Buy exclusive variant, which is $519.00, but replaces the i5 with the i3. I couldn't imagine performance being any different with the i5, maybe slightly faster if anything. It comes with 4GB, which is been sufficient for me. Power users might want to consider an 8GB upgrade. Startup time for the laptop seems to be lengthy, but I've been spoiled by an SSD. I will be looking to upgrade to an SSD if possible. I can't think of any other upgrades I think would be necessary.

Overall rating (purely subjective, and no scale or previous experience for judgment):

Windows 8: 4/5 This is due to some annoying aspects of Windows 8.

Display: 3.5/5 I feel this is an average screen, nothing horrible, nothing fantastic.

Touch screen: 5/5 This touchscreen is AWESOME, and INCREDIBLY accurate. After using it, I would NOT recommend getting Windows 8 without a touchscreen capable device. You are missing out on so much!

Keyboard: 5/5 I am a power type, and do not have to compensate for anything while typing. Keys are slightly small, but so are my hands. Backlit keyboard is just incredible, as I found no other laptop in my price range that offered this option.

Sound: 4/5 Horrible low end (It's a laptop, duh). Good representation of mid/high ends with music. 50% volume is the sweet spot for me, and music sounds good, clear across my bedroom from previous laptops I've owned. I'm no expert, but it sounds good enough for me.

Hardware: 4/5 Nice options for a budget laptop. 4GB DDR3. 500GB HD. Second Generation Core i3, which is quick enough for all the applications I use here. Intel HD3000 graphics, which is good enough for HD videos and all the apps. Comes with Bluetooth, Wireless, and all the necessities. Having an SSD drive, 8GB, and possibly Intel HD4000 GPU would have been nicer, but saving ~$200 bucks is definitely worth the downgrade for what I use this laptop for.

Battery life: 2/5 My non scientific testing of just running it slightly to see the drain seems to match up with more through reviews and bench testing. It drains really, really fast. But like most technologically savvy Americans, I am near electrical outlets. It's acceptable if you don't use it on commutes or long trips. Who uses a laptop in a car anymore anyway?

Overall, I give this laptop a 4.5/5. I really am not including the battery life, as this would drag the rating down. Its quick, THIN, and meets my needs perfectly so far. If you get this, you won't be disappointed. And if you can find one for $519.00 at Best Buy, I would HIGHLY recommend you snag it while you can! I would be hard pressed to believe you'd find any significant performance differences between the i3 and the i5 for what you would use this laptop for. I hope this review has helped!

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