Showing posts with label acer notebook batteries. Show all posts
Showing posts with label acer notebook batteries. Show all posts

15.4" MacBook Pro Intel Core i7 2.66GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M, SuperDr

15.4' MacBook Pro Intel Core i7 2.66GHz, 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M, SuperDrive, Aluminum unibody, Hi-Res Antiglare Widescreen DisplayThis is an amazing computer. It's fast, powerful, and runs everything I can throw at it (granted, I upgraded to 8GB RAM). As a software engineer, I've used this computer pretty much every day since I bought it (2+ years ago). I run all kinds of tools and applications, and I rarely have issues with the machine or applications. Highly recommended.

HP dm4-3050us (14.0-Inch Screen) Laptop

HP dm4-3050us LaptopI purchased this laptop a week ago and when it arrived it was covered in some sort of grainy/chalky dust and the bottom port that houses the RAM, etc was somehow bent like it had been scewed on without being positioned correctly. I used Amazon's chat feature and the representative was very friendly and sent out a replacement laptop which arrived the very next day.

This one was a keeper. I had been looking for a long time for a laptop that was very portable and had plenty of power for school work and occassional entertainment, this one really fit the bill. Excellent laptop, especially for the $619.99 price tag.

The Intel i5 processor, 6GB of RAM, and the 750GB HDD can more than handle word processing, GIMP, iTunes, etc without any hiccups. I know you're not going to be able to play a lot of newer games on the Intel HD Graphics 3000, like Skyrim, Batman, etc, but you'd be surprised at what you could play. I downloaded League of Legends and was able to play it on its highest settings without a problem at all. Ran great.

The battery is rated for 7.5 hours, which I don't know of any battery that achieves what it's advertised to get, but just browsing the internet and typing I get a solid 5 hours out of this machine. That's pretty good.

One reason I chose this laptop was for the 14" screen. So far it's been great to carry around in my backpack. The actual screen itself is sharp with good brightness. My only complaint would be the colors. I think mine need adjusted, but not much of a big deal to me.

I haven't done much with the built-in HP TrueVision HD camera other than playing with it, but it's actually a really nice camera. Very clear. The low lighting feature is really nice. Doesn't look muddy and super dark like most other laptop webcams.

The Beats Audio is okay. I was listening to music off of YouTube and messed around with the settings on it. The speakers on this laptop are pretty good in my opinion. Like the camera, the quality is a lot better than what I'd found on other laptops.

I really like the finger reader on this laptop. Really easy to set up and makes it much easier to login without typing my password over and over.

For the most part this laptop is perfect for my needs. If I had to make one suggestion that really would have made this laptop even more amazing would be a backlit keyboard. Definitely not a deal breaker, but would of been something I'd personally like to have.

I got this laptop for about $620 and then it shot up in price. Hopefully it comes back down and more people are able to get their hands on it. Really great setup for the price.

I actually read the 1 star review on here before purchasing my HP DM43050us and it gave me pause.

I am glad I decided to follow my own instincts. This laptop is so awesome, I am headed back to school after 25 years, I have also been an eBay Power Seller for 10 years and use this in my vintage collectibles search and research.

If you pay attention to the HP recommendations you will be thrilled with the product. If you run it on battery without power saving options then I am sure it runs down faster, I get 6 to 7 hours out of my battery, but I am old school, when I first got it I let the battery charge all the way up and then ran it all the way down 3 times to make sure I get a good charge! I know they say the new batteries don't need that done but I figure it cannot hurt!

The keyboard is awesome, they call it island style I guess, it is the easiest laptop keyboard I have ever typed on. I have been and Administrative Assistant for the last 20+ years and I have done a LOT of typing. I am a soft touch no need to pound on it or the mouse, it is responsive and comfortable!

The mouse pad is a dream, not only can you turn it off if you are using an attached mouse so you don't end up some place your wrist accidentally sent you, but the scrolling and set-up options are really customizable and it took very few uses to get the hang of the pressure and movements to get the most out of it.

My above all favorite is the Simple Pass fingerprint program. I thought Firefox was going to be my password remembering demise... this lets me swipe a finger and open whatever I have it set to. Facebook, Gmail, eBay, Amazon and more 10 fingers 10 settings some swipes open multiple things at one time! The best part I swipe my finger and it opens my desktop and my stuff. My partner swipes her finger and she has her desktop and all of her stuff. We can both work on the same PC seamlessly and at the same time researching different things and checking eBay and all lightening fast.

Also love the cool sense system... my old laptop used to get so hot it made me nervous... this one is quiet, cool and light...

I am now ready for school to start! Bring it on!!

Hope this helps the folks that are reading the one bad review and assures you he is probably of the 1% that just cannot be pleased. I am a real person, real buyer, not a company employee! I am IT savvy and I am actually going back to school for a Computer Information Systems degree. I wrote this review because I am thrilled I followed my instinct and wanted to reassure anyone else that researched the laptop and worried about a bad review!

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March 07, 2012~

My girlfriend purchased this laptop but I had the 'pleasure' of removing all the bloatware and installing programs she actually needs for college/everyday use. I purchased a 16gb flash drive for the recovery and it apparently all fit as it completed the process (the reason I mention this is all the information I found said to get a 32 GB flash card or use DVD's) the recovery files require around 15 gigs in space (the 16gb flash card had 14.8 according to Windows); Although I have not tested the recovery yet and hope I never have to.

Be warned that it took over an hour to create the recovery 'disk' so plan on starting it and walking away for a while I was under the impression it would take around 30 minutes. I then used CCleaner and pcdecrapifier to remove the majority of the bloatware followed by ninite to one click install antivirus/photo editing/online storage etc.

We purchased this at a brick and mortar store locally for 649.99 with $150 in mail-in rebates for a final cost of 499.99 and for that price there wasn't anything that I saw that could compete.

While I will not be the primary user of this laptop I do get to tinker around with it for a few days before she steals it back, the only 'complaint' I have has already been mentioned in that the DVD drive door is slightly difficult to open. I have had several laptops in the past and most of them would accidentally open at the slightest touch. I'm not sure that making it harder to pop the bay is a bad thing; However, my concern is that with the force required to pop the tray out it may end up failing faster than normal.

Why did I rate it 4/5 and not 5/5? It's an HP, and as anyone who's ever owned an HP in the last 5 or so years can tell you they cram them full of software you don't necessarily need. I understand that companies pay HP to load that software and that's part of the reason I'm getting it at a low price. I'm a PC guy but another gripe I have in general is that PC's haven't integrated the magnetic charging (MagSafe) similar to what Mac's have been using since 2006.

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The summer before I began college, I sat down and compiled a list of items I needed to purchase before the first day of classes. On the top of my list was a laptop to carry to class and do my homework with. While researching, I discovered that not all laptops are created equal. When I went to purchase my laptop, I was looking for certain features, including a web cam, Microsoft Office 2010, a long battery life, and a light weight. In July, I purchased an HP Pavilion dm4 from Best Buy. After using my laptop for a semester, I have to say that I love all the features, and I would recommend it to any college student.

The best feature about this HP is the long battery life. If I am not running an abundant amount of programs at once, my battery can last for six or seven hours. This is very helpful when in class all day because I do not have to charge it between classes. Another one of my favorite features its weight. It weighs just over four pounds, so it does not weigh my backpack down and it is easy to carry around campus. My family owns another laptop, but it is too heavy to carry around all day. This laptop is also small enough to see over when using it in class, but still big enough to see the screen when typing or surfing the Internet.

I wanted my laptop to have a web cam so I could Skype with my friends who went away to college. This laptop's web cam is easy to use and has a very good picture when video chatting with others. I also needed Microsoft 2010 on my laptop for class. When I purchased my laptop from Best Buy, it came with a discount for the program. This was very useful because it saved me money and the programs are a college necessity.

The speed of this laptop is another very positive feature. I can run multiple web sites at the same time while listening to music. I have many albums in my iTunes library, and it does not slow down the speed of my laptop. However, running multiple web sites while listening to music does affect the battery life by an hour at the most. My laptop is actually faster than my family's desktop computer.

While there are many positive features, there is one feature that I do not like. When typing, it is easy to set the lock on the touchpad mouse. After setting the lock, it is very difficult to figure out how to unlock it, since the mouse doesn't work. I have purchased a wireless mouse for my laptop, which helps me when the mouse locks. That is the one feature I would change. Instead I would like a button next to the touchpad that locks the mouse, which is what my family's HP laptop has.

Based on my experience, I would recommend this laptop to every college student. It is very practical and functional for taking notes in class and completing homework assignments. The battery life is unbeatable. It is convenient to carry around camps, and the price is extremely reasonable. It is not the most "high tech" laptop on the market, but it has the important features needed to succeed and learn in college.

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i bought this laptop few days ago, and i have to say that i'm pleased.

This laptop have some nice specs for the price and have a good finish and the the black aluminum lid its a nice touch.

Keyboard: 7/10

The keypads feels great and respond very well.

Audio: 9/10

The software for the audio and the speakers do a very good job too, sharp sound plus build sound buffer, golden :)

Video & Display: 6/10

Internal video graphics (Intel HD Graphics 3000), not the best but does the job as usual. Sharp and color full screen.

Storage: 8.0/10

750GB, :) enough for movies HD, a lot of music, and stuff, the bad thing is the 5400rpm speed for the hard drive, but it not a big deal.

Ramm and System: 8.5/10

Smoot and Sweet perfomance, comes with W7 HP :(

Battery Life and Weigth. 8/10

HP said 7.5 hours nominally i mean surfing, music, office, etc; but the battery work for about 5 hours.

Just 4.33 lbs is great for 14.0-inch Display

Connectivity: 9/10

2 USB PORTS, 1 USB 3.0, Media reader

WLAN and Bluetooth

Widi is a plus too.

IN THE END THIS LAPTOP IT'S A NICE DEAL FOR STUDENTS, HOME USE AND OFFICE TOO.

Lenovo ThinkPad X230t 34352TU i7-3520M 2.9GHz 4GB 500GB 7200rpm Touch Tablet with Dock

Lenovo ThinkPad X230t 34352TU i7-3520M 2.9GHz 4GB 500GB 7200rpm Touch Tablet with DockI custom-ordered from the Lenovo/Thinkpad site. My configuration:

Thinkpad X230 Tablet

+ Core i7 2.90 GHz Ivy Bridge processor

+ 8 GM RAM

+ 128 GB Solid-State Drive

+ 1366x768 Matte Multi-Touch Screen with Active Stylus

+ 9-cell extended battery (sticks out the back and adds a bulge at the bottom; the 6-cell battery just sticks out the back)

+ Windows 7 Pro

+ Ultra-Base 3 with DVD/RW optical drive

No discrete graphics card option

I've been a long-time Thinkpad fan--including 600E (late 1990s), R40 (early 2000s), T42 (mid 2000s), T420 (late 2000s)--for the rock-solid dependability, non-nonsense styling, and in particular the king-of-them-all keyboard. I mistakely tried a Dell Latitude E6400 for a couple of years, and I truly hated it, despite its own pointer stick and solid construction. When I decided to get this X230 Tablet, the only thing I was worried about was how the new keyboard was going to feel. Well, have no fear. I am a big fan of the new keyboard. It's got deep travel, its motion is the perfect blend between smooth travel and pleasing resistance, and the contoured surface actually feels comforable. This new keyboard is a winner. Other than that, there really isn't anything that needs to be said about this machine that the prospective buyer wouldn't already know. I loaded it up to the gills with the fastest and best of everything, except a 3G cellular card--totalled over $3000 MSRP before a the Ultrabase 3 and extra power adapters. On paper, the only thing the X230T lacks is discrete graphics, but the Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics that comes with the Ivy Bridge chipset is good enough for my occasional Engineering analysis and 3D modeling work--just make sure to get a least 8 GB RAM to share with the inegrated graphics. Plus, the Ultrabase 3 is able to support dual monitors via its dual VGA+DisplayPort ports. Just one final tip--get the Multitouch keyboard; you'll be ready for Windows 8 Pro when it's released.

The Lenovo ThinkPad X230T is a great laptop and fits my needs perfectly. I spent a few weeks looking up options for a laptop/tablet to support my studies and landed quite definitively on this one. Now that I have it I can testify that it meets the quality and functionality standards I was hoping for and blows them out of the water. It doesn't have a smooth, flashy sparkle to it like the iPad, the Windows Surface or some of the other new stuff that's coming out but that's not what I'm interested in. I wanted highly functional touch screen computer with a lot more processing power and hard drive space than a tablet and that is exactly what I got.

The structural integrity is excellent and exhibits a very solid design in stark contrast to a HP Pavilion I had which was slightly flexible (you could bend it). That is definitely not happening with the X230. One concern I had while reviewing it was that the single, central hinge would be a point of weakness for the overall design. I've only had it for a week now but the hinge is showing no signs of wear and does not appear at all to be cheaply made. It provides a surprisingly greater resistance to motion and is quite a bit stronger than I was expecting. Another concern expressed by a review was that the edges of the keyboard frame rubbed against the lid at the hinge side when the laptop is closed producing a small white mark. This did occur on the lift side for me but I could care less because it's strictly a cosmetic issue and is easily fixed by placing a small piece of screen protector over the rubbing surfaces. This isn't a toy, it's a tool.

The keyboard is either the best or very close to the best keyboard I've ever used. I've been using shallow laptop keyboards for a while and this one puts them to shame. It has a deeper range of motion and a strong "springy" feel to it that makes it very comfortable to use. The concavity on the keys also sets it apart making it easier to feel and find the center of the keys to stay in position. The only change I would make would be to make the arrow keys slightly more concave/defined to make it easier to find when reaching outside the normal typing position. One thing to point out is that the function and control keys are switched the control is not on the outside. However, these key assignments can be easily swapped in the startup options. Jesse B. Andersen has a YouTube video on it (and a ton of other helpful videos).

The mouse pad is relatively small. Apparently that bothers some people. Even when using a larger mouse pad I don't use the whole space anyway. I normally rest the palm of my hand on the table and edge of the laptop and use my index finger so because my palm is stationary the range of motion is limited to the area within the range of the metacarpal-phalange joint which range fits the mouse pad almost perfectly. Besides that, the laptop also has the track-point input, any mouse you plug in, touch screen input and digitizer input so needless to say I hardly notice the smaller mouse pad size. The pro for a smaller touch-pad is you make less accidental clicks while typing if you leave it on.

The digitizer/stylus is the red dot on the right side of the laptop in the pics. It clicks into its position with a spring loaded mechanism. The input on the touch screen is accurate once you've calibrated it well. If you don't calibrate it well it can be pretty sloppy but you can calibrate it (with some experience) to neigh perfect accuracy. It is worth it to spend some time in the calibration screen to experiment with the angle of inclination of the pen and whether you get the best results from touching the screen slightly below, above or to the side of the target. With some practice and experience you can make this work really well. I don't have to aim carefully anymore when trying to click on stuff now that I have a good calibration.

The 6 cell battery has been working fine. I don't get 9.9 hrs out of it, usually between 4 and 6, but I normally run the laptop on max settings. It defiantly doesn't have the problems that the Lenovo ThinkPad Twist is apparently having with battery life. I normally don't have to think about it and just charge it when it's convenient. I think it's important to point out that battery life and performance power are in a sense inversely proportional. So remember when looking at smaller computers, iPads or tablets that have a longer battery life that they sacrifice processing power and hard drive size. I think the X230T has an amazing score with regard to its display size, processing power and overall performance it can produce for the length of time it does.

The screen and audio quality are great. I wasn't originally looking for a dazzling graphics show in the first place. My primary use is for note taking and editing for biochemistry, physics, physiology, immunology and other science classes (which are slam-dunked by the stylus input and Microsoft OneNote). However, even though I don't particularly need the quality the display and audio are phenomenal.

For internals, I added a 16GB RAM upgrade which with the i7 Core and HD 4000 graphics has powered through anything and everything I've thrown at it like a boss. It is way faster than anything I've had previously and makes work/study/tasks incomparably faster and easier. With its speed, the touch screen, the pen input and it's ability to fold into a tablet the X230T is a very functional laptop and has met my requirements with flying colors.

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Love this product! There was very quick shipping and I love the way it turns into a tablet above all others out there. Installing Windows 8 on this worked great and the pen is very accurate and easy to write with!

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With Windows 7 it is not so great, but the programmes cannot be controlled with the finger anyway. The quality is excellent. As usual from, with Lenovo!

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HP ENVY DV6-7214NR i7-3630QM 2.4GHz 15.6" Gaming Laptop

HP ENVY DV6-7214NR i7-3630QM 2.4GHz 15.6' Gaming LaptopI have owned the 7214 for three weeks. It is quick and has top-of-the-line features. Including the latest Intel Ivy Bridge I7 3630QM chips. The biggest problem is using W8. A hybrid piece of software that ruins the computer desktop and is a half-ass tablet. However, leave it to American ingenuity to develop an add-on that transforms the W8 experience. Search for START 8, download for $5. It enables the 7214 to bypass W8 tile menu and brings up a Windows 7 desktop. Now W8 is workable. The official Start Menu/Tiles is worthless for the PC user since it does nothing of value. The apps have limited functionality, not even a navigation/tools menu at the top. Buy this powerful laptop, but also get Start 8.

I have owned this computer for over a month and i have had no problems running any programs. If you're looking to buy this computer for gaming it is a fairly good choice, the GT650M plays most games at high settings(Tested Far Cry 3 at high and got around 45-50fps). As for windows 8, it can be a little annoying until you learn the work arounds. two things i found that help are downloading START 8 and adding some hotkeys to quicken things up. I could not be happier with this computer in terms of looks, weight, and features. One thing that seems trivial, but is actually really nice for people like me who always lock their computer when they leave it. Is the fingerprint scanner, instead of typing in my usual 12-15 letter password i just slide my finger across the scanner and it reads it and lets me in.

What was my final reason for going with this computer over the others i was looking at was the screen. Damn am i glad i shelled out the extra $150 dollars for the 1080p screen, it looks absolutely amazing, no glare, and rich colors.

The only thing i was slightly disappointed with on this computer was the mouse pad, more specifically, it's button. The left click has no resistance in it and the right one does. it gets kind of annoying.

Overall i highly recommend this computer to anyone who wants a good looking, high-quality, and powerful computer that they can carry around with them.

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I received this laptop yesterday and am very happy with the performance. Everything meets or exceeds my expectations prior to getting it. The screen and keyboard meet my standards. Also, Windows 8 takes some getting used to, but after 15 minutes use, I like it better than Windows 7, although you still have the Windows 7 layout as an option. I would recommend this computer to any gamer, businessman, student, or just an everyday user. Overall, it's a great performing laptop.

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I purchased this for my girlfriend. She uses it mostly for surfing the web and light gaming but she occasionally plays starcraft 2 and the laptop runs it fine as long as its plugged in. For the price this thing is an absolute beast. Beautiful 1080p screen and blazing fast processor. The gt 650m is not going to play the newest high end games at maxed out settings but for the price you will get medium setting at 1080p resolution with smooth fps. The only cons are the heat where you lay your palm when typing get hot when gaming. Its noticible but not uncomfortable. Overall i highly recommend this for the price.

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I really love this laptop. It has great hardware, which is the reason I bought it. It has a powerful processor, great graphics card, blu ray player, and a full HD 1080p screen. I don't give it five stars because of the build quality. I have had to order three separate laptops from Amazon because of problems with the laptop.

First was the keyboard, which wasn't installed properly and was kind of popping out of the laptop. I tried popping it back in, but ended up just ordering a replacement from Amazon to be safe. Then with the other laptop there was some backlight bleeding on the screen. When watching a dark movie or when on a dark screen there was some light emitting from the bottom of the screen, bleeding through from the backlight. Maybe not that big of a deal for most people, but if I am paying $1000 for a laptop I want it to be pretty much perfect. It's not the seller's fault, since the laptops are sealed new and they are not able to check them before selling them.

So, now I'm on my third laptop. Hopefully I don't discover anymore problems with it. Like I said, I love the components in the laptop itself, but the people putting them together don't seem to try too hard to make it perfect.

You can now get this laptop a little cheaper on HP's website with coupons than you can on Amazon right now (7/1/13), due to the fact that 4th generation processors will be put in HP's laptops soon so they are trying to get rid of last years models.

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HP Pavilion 14-b031us Sleekbook 14.0in Laptop (Intel Pentium 1.50GHz CPU, 4GB DDR3 SDRAM, 320GB Har

HP Pavilion 14-b031us Sleekbook 14.0in Laptop - Model C6N76UAI purchased this hp pavillion sleekbook on black Friday at staples which costed me 299.99. Its not bad, very light and the windows 8 os is very responsive with the sleekbook touchpad. Note this computer does not come with a touch screen and no cd rom drive. It comes with bells and whistles like bluetooth hd webcam and 3 hour battery for internet use. Off internet the battery last for 4 hours. Last an hd screen display. This is a decent laptop if your looking to do productivit and lite media editing and nothing to heavy. I dong give 5 stars but I will only give it a 4 stars.

This is my second HP laptop and I am not at all disappointed. I Thought I saw the separate number pad but it is not in this laptop, which is ok, because this laptop is super! It is very light compared to my last one and very sleek look. The camera works well. The set up is easy. Still working on what the life of battery is [I am doing a personal study with multiple trials to do this, I will update later]. The sound is crisp and clear but still not loud [kinda a bummer]. The Bluetooth is great! I much more prefer the Bluetooth capabilities than a CD/DVD drive [which doe snot come with this model]. The description clearly states there is no CD/DVD so be advised. Plus the only negative review on this product is simply that of someones own mistake(s) when shopping. The Bluetooth is easy to set up and use. I enjoy sending pictures to the computer from my phone, using the computer as a speaker phone while I am doing my homework or taking quizzes. This allows me to just connect via cell phone and jam instead of taking extra effort to upload music or even popping in a CD [which cannot happen with this model :P ] It is just conveniently. Love this product.

For clarification: This is my second HP in 5 years. This was not a product or brand problem, the brand has been wonderful to me so far! [the story:] My other one was plugged in at the kitchen table so I could work on a final paper and watch my kids paint and when I was getting them their drinks my oldest son tripped over the cord and I was unable to brace the fall and my previous laptop screen shattered beyond use. It was a suck fest. I have tried a few other brands only to be an angry/psycho scholar who had been screwed during finals/midterms [that happened 3 times]. SO I am biased towards HP now, simply because they have provided me with great products :)

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Not too impressed with Windows 8. I really miss the "start" button. However, that's a Microsoft issue, not HP. The integrated camera works well, no problems with any of the video features kids constantly watching Youtube. Extra USB slot is nice comes with 3. Miss a DVD drive for the kids, but most of the movies they watch today are digital downloads. I actually bought two of these one for each son. Very satisfied, the only reason I didn't give 5 stars is the missing DVD drive.

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This 14-b031 Sleekbook is light and nimble on its feet. After using it for a couple of months a more balanced review can be given. Facing the new learning curve of Windows 8 focused my attention on the operating system rather than the computer. Once Windows 8 had been learned the Sleekbook has some neat and nimble features. First the weight is much lighter than my former laptop. This makes it nice to travel with. Open the lid and it starts up very quickly. The smaller 14" screen has been no hindrance. The keyboard is nice too, it seems just right. It never seems to run hot in my lap with HP Coolsense. It is my hope that I never have to use the HP Protect Smart for dropping it. However, packing a laptop around increases the risk of being dropped. The general features of being light weight, price, and amble work capacity, makes it an all around machine that does all I need to do.

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My husband is that tech savvy so this was bought for him and I must say I love it. It is very sleek, light weight, great battery life. The camera for video chat is very clear. Quick start up, and I can have multiple windows open and still have the speed no slow down.

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Sony VAIO VPCS137GX/B 13.3" Silver Laptop

Sony VAIO VPCS137GX/B 13.3' Silver Laptopthis laptop is compact and pretty fast. A businessman look laptop. A must have laptop for the people who are not into gaming and want to use the laptop for its real use.

I got this laptop about a year ago and it's still going strong. Only way I could see myself upgrading is for a newer Vaio, Alienware, or a Mac at some point.

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Sleek and more than enough power for the normal Joe. This is a Grade A laptop. The keyboard is what got me. Love the quite key taps.

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I am a bit disappointed that the laptop is very slow and sluggish. I have owned a Vaio laptop before even though the RAM was only 2GB, and 6 years older its performance was a lot much better than this one. I am afraid to load new applications for fear that it might slow it down even more. It comes with a single drive unlike my older Vaio which had factory partitioned drives. The only positive on this laptop is the battery, a standard battery which can go up to 6 hours and a bit! And I love the silver colour it appears rich and expensive.

Sony VAIO VPCS137GX/B 13.3" Silver Laptop

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How could Sony come out with a serie of laptops that people are complaining about their low volume for years, and still not fix it. You have to raise all the dials to 100% in order to hardly hear it. You can use earphones but that is why they invented MP3 players for. If one had to attach external speakers to it, then what is the benefit of buying a small and light laptop.

Apple MacBook Core 2 Duo T5500 1.83GHz 512MB 60GB CDRW/DVD 13.3" AirPort OS X w/Webcam

Apple MacBook Core 2 Duo T5500 1.83GHz 512MB 60GB CDRW/DVD 13.3' AirPort OS X w/WebcamAwesome product!!! My daughter always wanted a Mac and the one we got was just perfect. It has all the functions she needed.

I really like this laptop it came eariler on time it did however have a few scratches on the top but its only really visble in the light.

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I was very skeptical about buying a mac on amazon. These things normally run for $1000+ and even the older ones are only like $200 cheaper. I saw nothing but good reviews from this user which is why I chose them. I was nervous all the way up to when it came. I took it out and it looked brand new. I couldn't believe it. I actually have a Mac now. I love it and glad I did it. So worth it.

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Overall good product, just gotta press hard on the track pad, which is not a big deal. Works real good though! pretty quick

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the person i bought this for absolutely loves it. they get a lot of use out of it and works very well.

Lenovo G550 15.6-Inch Black Laptop - Up to 3.8 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)

Lenovo G550 15.6-Inch Black Laptop - Up to 3.8 Hours of Battery LifeFirst of all, I am a Mac person. I don't know that much about PCs. The reason for buying this particular model was money. I would have had to pay $1700 for a comparable laptop from Apple. I could not see spending all that money for a computer that was to be mainly used for word processing and web browsing. While made of plastic, this laptop has a solid feel to it. When opened, it doesn't seem like it will split into two pieces or that the screen is flexing. The keyboard is not flimsy and it should be able to take a lot of use. (I've only had the computer for a couple of weeks.) This model comes with Windows 7 and so far I like it. Very easy to set up. Connecting to my network was a breeze. Installing a couple of programs was also easy. Updates are simple. I have had limited experience with Vista and did not care for it. Windows 7 is a much better, user friendly, operating system. As I said previously, I have had this laptop for a short period of time, but so far I have no complaints and no regrets. A lot of computer for a little bit of money.

The LED backlit display that I thought would produce better colors thinking that LED backlit was all the hype in LED LCD HDTVs like Samsung, Sony, etc. produces a slightly purplish color cast to the image. I thought getting the LED backlit display at such a low cost was a great deal, but I guess you really get what you pay for. In this price range, I'm almost thinking a traditional CCFL backlit LCD would have looked more accurate in terms of colors. If you're using this for photography, I would stay away. If you're using it for web surfing or word processing, it won't matter. For my desktop I have a color calibrating Samsung display, so right away I can notice the purplish color cast on the Lenovo. I did attempt to correct for the hue by running my color calibrator on it, which helped, but didn't completely fix it.

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Overall this is a good machine with some feature issues.

Long Battery life

It is fast

Display is great

very strudy for the daily life with kids around

Windows 7 runs great

Never had machine related issues

Battery never gets hot even after using for more than one hour like other laptops

But there is one annoying thing in this computer... Keyboard and Mouse pad.

Keyboard is very hard to type because I need to press exactly in the middle. If I press at corners, it does not register. and I make too many typing mistakes.

Mouse pad is not sensitive enough to make it a good experience. Most times, it does not register the tocch/drag.

But this machine is overall a good machine for the price I gave.

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I find it strange that a couple of people (maybe the same person) complain about service for this notebook. I called and had a response within 2 minutes. I had a minor issue regarding the features on the notebook and was assisted and off the phone in ten minutes.

Perhaps if something serious goes wrong you may find it annoying. For example, we have an HP notebook and it took 3 technicians and a supervisor and over 3 hours of our time to get them to ship us a replacement battery for a brand new computer.

The margins are very thin on these machines, so don't expect them to come to your door. If you buy a $400-$500 computer you cannot expect them to provide you $400 worth of support time if you are inept in computing and not hardware savvy.

This notebook is an absolute steal for the money and very well made. My only complaint and it appears in HP as well is the notebooks run a tad hot. I have not had any problems as a result, but it may be a good idea to get a cooling pad for while you use it at home. If you are a road warrier, traveling coolers are available as well.

The notebook has excellent battery life, an astoundingly nice display and a well designed keyboard. All touchpad's stink, from the HP to Dell. So, get a notebook mouse.

Great notebook for the money!!

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I thinks its a good laptop to buy at affordable price. Till now i have not faced any problem.

Samsung NP300V5A-A06US 15.6-Inch Laptop

Samsung NP300V5A-A06US 15.6-Inch LaptopVery sturdy, and well build. I really fail to understand the poor reviews.

Pros:

The laptop is very sturdy. it is not going to fall apart or break easily. I think that I will be able to get many years out of it. I saw one complaint about the cooling system, which I strongly disagree with. I never have had any heat issues, and the computer is normally very cool to the touch, and you can very comfortably use it on your lap without having to worry about the heat, no kidding, this thing gets no hotter than a paperback book! The fan never comes on, and when it does, it is very quiet. When I am playing 3D games, which this computer can easily pull off, The fan gets a little bit louder, and you can feel some heat, but this is very normal. It is still completely usable, and doesn't get that hot. The performance is spectacular on this machine, Programs launch very quickly, and games run smoothly. The Pentium Dual Core B950 is essentially an i3, minus hyper-threading and processor virtuialization. What this means is that is is slightly, but not noticeably, slower than an i3, and you will not be able to run certain virtual machines on it. You could not make a hackintosh out of this. (run OSX on it)If you don't know what these terms mean, don't worry about it, you wont ever need it. 4 Gigabytes of ram makes it smooth and fluid. I recently got a message warning me that I had not rebooted it in over a month, and it would speed up if I did. After a month, I still have not noticed any performance issues. It has been either on or "sleeping" the whole month. If you are using it as a student, great! All the MS Office programs open in about one or two seconds, which is pretty good, comparatively speaking. Aero runs smoothly, and the transparency effects are great! The keyboard is wonderful, I really like the design, as it makes typing really easy. it is similar to a MacBook keyboard. The trackpad is also great, It is large and easy to use. It also ignores when your palm goes across it when typing, a great feature. Again, It is very Mac-Like. (Samsung is the maker of Mac Keyboards, Screens, and trackpads. this is no coincidence!) The built in webcam is great, it goes up to 1280x1024. This is spectacular! it is very sharp, and vivid. it works well in low light. It is HD, too! The screen is anti-glare, and very nice! I really like it! The ports are strategically placed, which is a great feature! Oh, and the battery really does last 7 hours when you are browsing the web on low power mode. about 5 hours on "Samsung Optimized," and 3 on High Performance, for games.

Cons:

There are no lights on the caps lock, number lock, and Scroll lock buttons, it pops up on the screen when they are on.

The caps lock is easy to hit accidentally.

The back lid scratches easily, keep it in a laptop bag!

It is what it says and what I expected to be. Beautiful, Light, Slim, Cam&Mic embeded, Bluetooth, Quick, etc. Great value for my money, endeed.

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I bought 2 of these and I was very impressed. They gave great performance and I loved their durable shell. Unfortunately the ac-in on both broke quickly. First the cords would just slip out easily. But finally one, and then a few months later the other, just stopped accepting a charge completely. Now I have 2 paperweights. Fortunately I only bought them about 8 months ago from Costco and I'm hoping that I can get them repaired or replaced.

Also, one of the charging cables failed after only about 5 months. I had to buy a replacement from Amazon for around $30.

I particularly was pleased that it wasn't over-bundled with a bunch of useless software. We mostly used it for Internet, DVD watching, connecting to TVs to watch movies. It was great for those tasks.

If it wasn't for the ac issue, I'd have given this product 4 or 5 stars because it was a great product for the price.

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Stay away from this unit and all Samsungs that have this same body style. The cooling system is awful, housing 100% very thin plastic,

Video and Cpu processors are combined on the Intel B950 and the cooling system can't keep up.

I have owned 2 of them both had same problem. Don't even think of playing any kind of 3D game useless you do I what I did and take the entire system motherboard out of case and put a 120mm FAN on top of the CPU heat sink and add Artic Sivler thermal paste.

If you do not know anything about computers stay away from this one.

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I normally like Samsung products and I assumed this would be another good one, but boy was I wrong! I haven't even had this thing a year and I hate it SO DAMN MUCH. Only reason I'm keeping it is because I'm too broke to get a new one.

For the first month or so, this thing ran great. After that, it started acting up. Keep in mind I don't do anything on this computer except surf the web and read, I don't play video games, load movies, or watch too many Youtube videos etc., even though it says this computer is great for ALL of these activities, I don't do them and I doubt this piece of crap could handle the load.

First thing is over heating. Now, I know laptop can get hot, especially if you use them for a while, but this laptop gets so hot sometimes I honestly fear it's going to explode.

Next, the screen cuts off or on at random times! The worst thing is when you close the lid. On my other laptops, when I open the laptop, the screen cuts on. Not this thing! Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Really depends on it's mood. When it doesn't turn on, hitting the escape key, touching the mouse pad, hitting ANY key doesn't make the screen cut back on. You have to close the lid, and open it, and keep doing this until it turns on. I average about 4 turns before it finally decides to come on. I have no idea what the problem is, tried googling it, didn't get any results.

Watching videos on this computer sucks. Although it claims to have a good video processor and graphics card, the videos look like crap and have the tendency to cut out or turn grey and pixelated in parts of the movie. I've updated my drivers and everything, still doesn't work right.

Finally, this thing is SLOW AS A SNAIL. I don't download much, and I always go through routine defragging and using CCleaner to keep things running. For my other laptops, this worked fine, not for this POS. I don't download much and when I do, it typically e-documents that don't take up any space. Hell, right now as I type this it says I'm only using 29% of the space available on my PC!

This thing sucks and I regret buying it. Worst laptop I have owned.

Compaq Presario Cq62-215dx Laptop Pc

Compaq Presario Cq62-215dx Laptop PcPicked it up yesterday. i wanted a clean Windows 7 install so i used the HP Recovery Manager. Then chose System Recovery. It rebooted and then gave me the option of a 'minimized image recovery'. This took about 35 minutes with numerous reboots.

Once done I had a nice, fresh OS install with just the necessary stuff (including HP Recovery Manager )

Oh yeah, had 46 updates to install but that's another story. I also updated the BIOS to the latest version. F15 A.

Kudos to HP/Compaq for giving us the option to setup our systems with no bloatware.

Good basic machine for the average user. NO HDMI, webcam, or memory card reader but a lot of folks do not need those frills.

I found this laptop at Bestbuy online Saturday for $299 and had to grab it. I checked every site and it was the best deal for the price. It is a great basic laptop and the AMD V Series I believe is a Sempron which was AMDs way to compete with Intel way back when processors were expensive. I always prefered AMD because they were cheaper and reliable. The Athlons were great, and much cheaper than the Intel Pentium so Intel came up with the Celeron to compete with the lower price Athlon. AMD fired back with the Sempron which was even cheaper yet, and a good over all processor. I kind of got away from the PC world after that so I am not sure how things are now. I think the Celerons never really hit it big, but I can say that my wife's Compaq with the Sempron lasted 5 years with not one issue. She used it daily for normal everyday computing and loved it. We just replaced it a month ago and gave it to our friend who feels it is as good as any newer laptop for surfing, using word and excel, and watching You-Tube. Her only complaint to us has been when she opens up dozens of windows by mistake (being new to the internet) she finds that the Sempron slows up a bit, but as she is learning to get rid of the pop up screens etc. she is not having any problems.

I purchased this CQ62 and when I took it out of the box I was impressed on how quick it was and for what we need it is perfect. As an entry level laptop I highly recommend it. I think I even got 5% cash back by using my Discover Card and a coupon which brought it down to $250 which made it even cheaper. Keep a look out its still on sale in the stores at $299 and backordered online. It is worth it in my opinion. This V series is for my father who does the basic surfing, watching vids, e-mailing etc. and he loves it.

Oh as for my wife, we replaced her Compaq Sempron with an HP G72-B66 because she liked the 17" screen and when I saw that on a promo sale at Staples in November for $475 with an Intel I3 360 processor, 500 GB HD, and 4 GB memory It seemed like a good deal so I grabbed it. She is happy with that also, but is having trouble getting used to the funky mouse pad on these HP G models. other than that it seems like a good laptop for the price. I have been watching these prices and they seem to hover around $550 so I guess we did get a good deal. I know nothing about I3 cores, yada yada compared to AMD Phenem's and they seem to be in the same price range so thats why I decided to try to give the Intel a try.

In conclusion, I think both of these laptops are great. The Compaq serves it needs for the low price, and the HP G72 has more bells and whistles but again it was $200 more but seems to be rated very well. Forgive my long review and my lack of the new technology. LOL, I actually work on the large Mainframe computers and all I knew about these Brands lately is that my Mainframe Changed from Digital to HP, then somhow HP and Compaq became an entity. Thats the extent of my computer exp. Correct me if I am way behind on things.

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Samsung Series 9 NP900X4D-A05US 15-Inch Premium Ultrabook (Silver)

Samsung Series 9 NP900X4D-A05US 15-Inch Premium UltrabookFor years I've been looking for a 15" PC laptop less than 1" thick, under 4 pounds, with an SD card reader, backlit keyboard, and matte metallic finish at a reasonable price. There have been several machines that came close the Vizio CT15 (no SD card reader or backlit keyboard), the Sony VAIO T Series (too heavy), the Dell Inspiron 15z (thick, heavy, plastic body), and of course previous iterations of the Samsung Series 9 (too expensive) but the NP900X4D-A05US is the only one I've found that met all my criteria. It was worth the wait.

External hardware: A+

This machine is beautiful. Any thinner and you'd be able to shave with it. The silver magnesium chassis is a major upgrade over the previous Ash Black versions since it doesn't show fingerprints or dust. Keyboard travel is surprisingly good, and not at all shallow as I had originally expected for being in such a thin frame. The keyboard backlight is subtle yet very effective and build quality is fantastic. I remember seeing a YouTube video of the NP900X3D not having the magnet that holds the lid closed, but that has been fixed in the NP900X4D. The Elan trackpad is smooth as butter with the newest driver installed...I've even read a few posts from people with the same trackpad on laptops from other manufacturers who install the Samsung drivers because they are so good. There are lots of gestures and settings that can be tweaked though, so if you're coming from a non-multitouch trackpad there may be a little learning curve.

Internal hardware: B+

For my needs (and the needs of most people not doing 3D rendering/MATLAB/etc.) the i5 Ivy Bridge processor/4GB RAM/128 GB SSD is way more than adequate...but there are several laptops on the market with those specs that are cheaper. In this case you're paying a premium for the design. Both the RAM and SSD are upgradeable though so once SSD prices come down, making upgrades should be fairly easy.

Software out of the box: D-

I won't go into this too much since I kept the factory state for about 5 minutes, but let's just say that you'll want to do a reformat and clean install of Windows 8 (see comments for how to do this.) The amount of bloatware is overwhelming, and out of the box you're only left with ~66GB of free space on a 128GB SSD. But I guess that's the case for just about every OEM Windows machine these days.

Software after reformat/clean install: A+

I remember when computers took almost two minutes to boot up. The NP900X4D does it in 4.08 seconds! By doing a clean install of Windows 8 and removing the recovery partitions, free space increases to ~100GB, and everything works much, much faster.

Bottom line: Internally, the NP900X4D-A05US is pretty average by current standards, but it is still blazing fast for everything but the most processor-intensive tasks. In terms of design, there is not a better looking machine on the market, period. The price seems to fluctuate frequently daily (I bought mine at $899.99) so if it's higher than that, I'd suggest keeping an eye on the page as it will probably come back down.

This is a great, sleek, lightweight, and powerful notebook.

Pros:

The matte screen helps reduce light reflections significantly.

The hard drive is ULTRA fast.

Boot time ranges between 10-15 Seconds.

Battery lasts, and lasts, and lasts, and lasts.....

The touchpad is very big.

The brightness is superb.

The keyboard is nicely spaced out.

Samsung includes some really useful "settings" software as one of the Function keys.

There are two USB 3.0 ports.

Did I mention how light it is? (I got so used to the weight of it, I almost dropped my friend's 13 inch MacBook Pro when I was handling it)

It is very quiet especially when the quiet option is checked off.

Cons:

There is A LOT of bloatware. (I suggest "refreshing" the Windows 8 and using the Samsung Software Update to ONLY install necessary DRIVERS and select software)

The hard drive of 128 GB comes with only ~95GB available. (They really tried to make this laptop dummy-proof and you can recover from practically any problem)

The seams of the two panels right below the screen are not flush and you can clearly see that they're not perfectly matched.

The laptop feels cheap (but then again, so light!) and easily breakable (I haven't tested that, nor do I plan on testing it; however, I can bend the keyboard portion a bit!).

The speakers-the two tiny speakers-are located on the bottom (if you hold it on your lap or on your bed, sound is muffled).

The camera just plain SUCKS.

OVERALL: I love this laptop! If you can get past the "plasticky" feel of it (and trust me, you will), and the horrible camera, everything else is fixable.

My advice: DO NOT INSTALL INTELLIMEMMORY!!!!!!!

This is a new piece of software that catches your programs and lets them roam around in the RAM. Even after force-closing all open programs, the computer was still using ~95% of the RAM and was INSANELY slow.

Would I buy it again? YES. Maybe in black this time, though.

Would I recommend it? YES.

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Design: Great design. It's eye catching, but if you're an avid iProduct hater, then you might resent it's uncanny resemblance to the Macbook line of products....no seriously. The fans being on the bottom is a HUGE take away (1 star). This automatically warrants the user needing a deskpad, laptop stand, or something to that effect when laying in bed.

Performance: OOB (out of box) performance and response is amazing. It's quick to turn on. Button clicks, program responses, they're all basically instantaneous.

Battery: Battery life is respectable. I've ran with this on max brightness and I got a solid 6 hours. Granted, running applications such as Adobe Photoshop or AutoCAD will change all that.

CONS!!!

This is OOB functionality, when connected to WiFi, the computer fails to load websites successfully on the first try sometimes. Day three, I would say it was doing it about 50% of the time. Lost another star there.

I'm returning the product because of the wifi issue.

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I purchased two Series 9 laptops. Could not get the first one to run, spent 8 hours working on it and finally gave up and sent it back. The 2nd one has wireless connection issues and after a week of torture trying to use it I am sending it back as well. It will work for about 10 or 15 minutes and then I get a message telling me that the wireless connection is gone. This happens at home and at my work location. I tried adjusting the power saving settings per suggestions on the Samsung website but still having problems. I will NEVER buy a Samsung notebook again, they should stick to TVs.

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With a couple upgrades, this ultrabook becomes an incredible machine. It is easy to make the upgrades yourself. I did it with very little technical knowledge.

RAM Upgrade to 16 GB (I recommend Crucial model CT2KIT102464BF160B)

SSD Upgrade to 256 GB (I recommend Crucial model CT256M4SSD3)

I make those recommendations because the RAM I mentioned has been tested with this model and found to be very stable, and the SSD I mentioned is double the capacity and MUCH faster than the default SSD that Samsung puts in there (look at the specs and reviews).

With those upgrades, you have great performance on the thinnest and lightest 15" laptop available.

As others have mentioned, the vertical viewing angle of this laptop's screen is not very wide, but the horizontal viewing angle is very wide. Take this into consideration if you need to have someone standing up see the screen at the same time as you're sitting down looking at it.

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Dell Vostro V3500 15.6" Notebook, Intel Core i3-350M (2.26GHz), 2GB DDR3 Memory, 250GB HDD, DVD Sup

Dell Vostro V3500 15.6' Notebook, Intel Core i3-350M, 2GB DDR3 Memory, 250GB HDD, DVD Super Multi-Drive, Intel GMA HD, Windows 7 Home PremiumWe have had our Dell Vostro laptop for a little over a year now and have been happy! Awesome machine! My only complaint is the space bar on the keyboard. You have to strike it close to the middle or else it may not respond. The keyboard does seem a tad chintzy. Other than that, I am glad we have made this purchase!

Toshiba Satellite L505D-GS6000 Laptop - AMD Turion II dual-core M500 / 16.0" HD LCD / 4GB DDR2 / 32

Toshiba Satellite L505D-GS6000 Laptop - AMD Turion II dual-core M500 / 16.0' HD LCD / 4GB DDR2 / 320GB HD / DVD SuperMulti Drive / Built-in webcam / Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bitI purchased this laptop recently for school purposes. So far it's running beautifully, and I haven't had any problems with it. Windows 7 is good, much better than Vista at launch. The only big issue I have with it is the sound: it's not that good, but I've heard that other L505 laptops have the same issue, and the problem is usually fixed with drivers. The problem here is that I think BestBuy started selling this piece early, so it's not supported yet on Toshiba's website.

I found it at BestBuy for $550 before tax, which is considerably lower than other places. Try to find it for that price if you can. If you cannot, then wait until it's supported on the Toshiba website.

I helped in buying this laptop for my mother as a replacement for an old 2001 computer she was struggling with.

After setting it up for her I spent a day experimenting. Here is my assessment of the Satellite L505D-GS6000:

Pros:

it runs smoothly on Win-7 with a minimum of the balky behavior experienced with XP

video and video card are excellent

the webcam is much better than expected

battery life is well-inline with specs

comes with Microsoft works, which is perfect for those not wishing to spend a lot of money

on software they won't use, such as the Office Suite

Cons:

speaker, though turned up to maximum did not allow hearing of media player

64-bit software limitations are still severely limiting

cooler will be needed, unless you like replacing the hard drive every 12-24 months

The sound quality can easily be improved with cheap speakers provided by Microsoft and Logitech, two reliable providers. The cost would be in the $30-40 range.

When I used Vista 64-bit in July 2009, I found it impossible to find replacements for expensive upgrades provided by Norton (antivirus), Webroot (Spysweeper) and others. Many technical software providers, such as AutoDesk require complete upgrades such as over $800 for AutoCAD Lt 2010. To my surprise, Win-7, which was a vast improvement over clunky Vista, would not allow me to run AutoCAD Lt 2007. I purchased AutoCAD Lt 2007 for about $1000.

Here's how I met the challenge. First, I went back to Win-7 32-bit, although this will cost me RAM; you need 4G minimum for Win-7 anyway (not 2G they said in 2006 this happened before with MS XP!). I run a gamer machine with 8G, so I can tolerate using it all to run 32-bit Win-7.

With 64-bit Win-7, it's different. You will find that the new and improved Internet Explorer has a pretty good firewall according to PC magazine. However, I recommend using the Norton Internet Security package that comes with the Toshiba L505D-GS6000. It runs much smoother than the original Norton software of 2009. Next, you should add CCleaner, which is an excellent tool for removing cookies and such for free; go to CNET or another reliable free software site with less chance of picking up spyware.

Unfortunately, you will find than many 32-bit softwares won't run such as Avast! Free Antivirus. You will get warning that the software did not load or than no warning at all. Look for the software on your computer faceplate. If it isn't there, it probably didn't load. You can check using Control Panel too.

I'm advising everyone owning a laptop to buy a cooler. I've owned laptops for years and the new duo-cores run very hot; hot enough to eventually destroy the hard drive, CD player and even the CPU. You will want a fan-driven cooler because the so-called passive coolers don't do the job. I've tried both and you can expect to see a 20 F improvement with a fan unit compared to half of that with a passive unit. Believe me, it's cheap insurance. A cooler will cost about $30-50 and a new hard drive will cost about $200, so you do the math. I prefer a Targus twin-fan unit.

My only complaint is that the laptop makers haven't caught up. The fan for most laptops draw air in the bottom through a tiny 1-2 inch grated spot in the lower upper left corner of the laptop and expell at the side. Wouldn't it be nice if the cooler fan were located near the inlet? A push-pull system would improve cooling. When it gets really hot, i.e., in the 90's, I use a wash cloth and ice pack to cool my computer for web-brousing. The wash cloth goes under the ice pack to catch humidity collecting on the ice pack. This works well.

If this review was helpful, please add your vote.

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I purchased the gs6000 last weekend. The salesperson recommended the Toshiba gs6000 with the AMD processor over the computer I was going to purchase with the Intel processor. That left me confused since I had not heard of the AMD processor. I went home and did some research on AMD processors. The AMD won hands down in almost all reviews I read, excelling in graphics. So far, I love the Toshiba. It's very quiet. The touch pad was scrolling at times, which I thought was not working correctly until my step daughter got on it and informed me the right side of the touch pad was made to scroll! I have always owned a Dell. One thing I really like about the Toshiba is that the fan vent is on the side, keeping the bottom much cooler than my old Dell where the fan was on the bottom. The only complaint I would have is the keys are not concave, which I am used to. Just a preference. I mainly use it for photography. So far, it's great!

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I bought this at bestbuy and it was a great price..you have 14 days to try a laptop there and I tried couple of dells then for the first time said heck with it and went with toshiba with amd..I have always had Pentium..but, I have this amd one and its great..the speakers arent bad in this at all..matter of fact its louder than some and even louder than the asus brand i tried. I even had to turn it down! go figure..this machine is awesome..and the design is sexy! the key board is great and I even like the numbers on the right side..I never had a laptop with that on the side..I actually use it more than I thought..I am happy with my final choice..I think that toshiba has won me over for a couple of years..anyway..I will more than likely got another one from toshiba..!!

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This laptop works like a dream! This is my 2nd Toshiba laptop and though I had my heart set on a Satellite Pro (just because, LOL), this, to me, was a much better value for money ($530.00 before tax, from BestBuy). It has worked beautifully from day one and has never given me cause for regret.

My first laptop (Toshiba Satellite also) came with Vista and gave me no end of headaches, to the point where I had to change to WinXP and upgrade the memory. (After this, it worked great.) Because of this, I was a little wary of Win7 but I shouldn't have been no problems there at all. It recognizes everything I stick in it (except for my HP printer, but it was easy to get the drivers online) and I've had no thought of upgrading the memory it came with, something I've had to do with every other computer I've owned.

I must also mention how much I like the keyboard beautiful, wide keys and a number keypad (!!!), which my previous laptop did not have and which was a constant source of grumbling to me.

My one and only complaint about this product would be the speakers quite frankly, they're terrible! But no biggie for me, I simply use external speakers.

Overall, great product at a great price!

HP 15.6" G56-129WM Laptop PC with Intel Celeron 900 Processor & Windows 7 Home Premium

HP 15.6' G56-129WM Laptop PC with Intel Celeron 900 Processor & Windows 7 Home PremiumRecently bought an HP 15.6" G56-129WM Laptop PC with Intel Celeron 900 Processor & Windows 7 Home Premium. Had some issues that were effectively addressed by the seller. Got great timely post purchase support.

HEWLETT HP 2140 Mini-Note - Atom N270 / 1.6 GHz - RAM 2 GB - HDD 160 GB - GMA 950 - Gigabit Etherne

HEWLETT HP 2140 Mini-Note - Atom N270 / 1.6 GHz - RAM 2 GB - HDD 160 GB - GMA 950 - Gigabit Ethernet - WLAN : Bluetooth 2.0 EDR, 802.11 a/b/g/n - Loaded with Microsoft XP ProShort answer: Great little computer

Granted, given the size, a NetBook isn't for everyone. But this computer gave me everything I had in my $1,000 laptop, in a MUCH smaller, cheaper package.

Keyboard size is excellent, speed is fantastic for word processing, emails, spreadsheets, etc. I got the upgraded screen w/higher resolution and the 6 cell battery since I travel and present a lot. Love the PCI slot and VGA port a must for business use.

Pros: small, compact, cheap, fast

Cons: trackpad is small (would rather have had an eraser style mouse)

I am going to state that this is no replacement for a desktop or laptop.

How ever it is a great supplementary item that is very portable and lightweight.It is a great tool for taking notes in class, which is what I use it for, and for surfing the net. Comparing this to other notebooks the keyboard is better than many others I have seen, but it is still not completely full sized, that and the fact that the touch pad is not very large is why I gave this four stars. This machine is not as powerful as a laptop and does not have the best graphics card to conserve power so the battery realistically lasts 3 to four hours depending on the power settings. It is a fun machine to surf the net with and can do many basic functions, the built in web cam is cool for skype as well. The machine itself feels solid, unlike a cheaply made notebook that would crack easily. The case feels like metal but for all I know it could be a fake metal made of plastic, either way it is solid and looks cool.

Hope this review helps and good luck deciding on what to get.

Buy HEWLETT HP 2140 Mini-Note - Atom N270 / 1.6 GHz - RAM 2 GB - HDD 160 GB - GMA 950 - Gigabit Etherne Now

After install Vista business with the DVD shipped together, there are no default drivers to connect to the network and to display in the claimed resolution. Took me one day to get it work by downloading the drivers from the web, and upgrade the OS to the latest patches.

1024x576 resolution is also a problem for some software --It is not with enough width. When installing or running some software, the 'OK' and 'Cancel' buttons are 'below' the viewable screen. you just have to use the tab key and guess when you may hit 'OK' to continue. And some software (e.g. VPN) just refuse to be installed to this PCs with this kind of resolution.

Also, is $500+ price too high now?

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This is a feature rich netbook that comes in an extremely mobile and easy to carry form factor. The keyboard is not cramped feeling, I love the WiFi N and especially love the ExpressCard slot. I've already used my Verizon KPC-680 ExpressCard for easy access on the road. The netbook is a little pricey compared to other netbooks, but, the features are there to validate the expense. For power users, this is the one to buy.

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I loved the concept of a netbook because I'm a writer who just needs basic word-processing, web and portability. Oh, and affordability -I don't like paying $1900 for a tiny version of a Sony vaio.

I first tried buying a 9" Asus, which was astonishingly portable -but it was way too small to be practical, so I gave it to my 7 year old niece. I then got an Acer Aspire One that had a better keyboard but which still was slightly too small. The niece will get this one too.

The HP 1000 series struck me as having the perfect keyboard, and I decided to get the 2140 because it has a classy aluminum case and some ruggedness.

It's taken me a while to get used to the smaller screen. But I've finally started using it and adjusting to it. And it's giving me all the basic functionality I need, with great portability and the kind of aesthetics that make you proud to own it.

Toshiba Satellite S855-S5254 15.6-Inch Laptop (Ice Blue)

Toshiba Satellite S855-S5254 15.6-Inch LaptopAt the time I bought this laptop I didn't know much about computers.

I wanted one I could run any program with or game, I got this model because the processor is really fast and the hard drive is big.

The price is really good for these high numbers, when I brought it home I loaded all my programs on it (word, excel) and games.

The newest ones I loaded are Diablo 3 and Strcraft 2.

The install time was much faster then my older computer the turbo boost really helped.

The only downer is the graphics card, I have to run these two games on low graphics otherwise it is way to choppy. I found out because the graphics card is integrated, I didn't know what that was tell after I purchased the laptop.

So if you are a person that uses a laptop like 60% work, 40% movies and music and 10% games this laptop is for you.

I bought this computer from Office Deopt at the beginning of August when they had an instant rebate on it for $699. The first one I got home with had numerous pixels stuck white, so I exchanged it for another. The second also had a single stuck pixel, so I made another trip to the store. This time I tried the 3rd. one out at the store before I left, and the screen was great.

I'm very pleased with this system. The i7 processor is very fast, and the system is pretty responsive, except for the slow HD (only 5400rpm). The graphics are the HD4000 version of the Intell intergrated graphic chipset (part of the Ivory Gate 3rd. Generation chipset) are now DirectX 11 compliant, and works quite well. You won't be playing games at high detail levels, but it works with a lot of them very well at reduced settings. I have been using it with Adobe Creative Suite CS 5.5, and it performs quite well.

I've only had it for a few weeks, so I hope it holds up well over time (it's the first Toshiba I've owned). There is a lot of bloatware that can be uninstalled which seem to speed up point.

My wife bought the i5 version of this laptop and it was perfect out of the box.

The only reason I gave it 4 and not 5 stars is due to having 2 factory sealed units with bad screens in a row. It made me question their quality control.

UPDATE 1/16/13: It's been 5 months now, and I'm still very happy with this laptop. I upgraded to Adobe CS6 Suite and it runs great. Even added a Wacom Bamboo Tablet. Was planing on upgrading the memory to 16 Gb but it uses 2 4 Gb sticks instead of one 8, and I would have to replace all the memory, so I figure I'll wait until I need the RAM an upgrade then. Also after seeing Windows 8, I'm glad to have bought this when Windows 7 was still shipping. If I wanted a Surface Tablet, I would have got one over a laptop.

Thaddeus Cultt

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This is an extremely good computer for the price. I have recommended this computer to all my friends that are looking for computers. The Intel HD 4000 is Intel's best iGPU and can even run games like Skyrim. The 3rd Gen Processor is wicked fast too. If you are looking for a gaming laptop, don't buy this. If you want a computer to do basic tasks and some complicated ones that will last for a while (4 years at least), this is the computer you are looking for. You can't go wrong with an i7 processor and 8 GB of RAM.

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I bought this computer for my daughter just over 3 months ago through Staples online after a lot of research. She loved the speed, graphics and used it for some photo editing with Light Room, and Microsoft Office. She left for college about a month ago. The computer just crashed this evening. She called Toshiba and was told there was a known issue with the software that makes the computer crash. The tech she talked to told her the warranty was only good for 90 days and if she wanted them to fix it, he had gotten special permission from his manager to offer her the extended warranty through Toshiba for 2 years, but it would cost $300 and she had to make a decision tonight, or no deal. I am extremely angry about this. I read the entire warranty out of the box and it says a one year warranty for the entire computer. She tried a system restore and it did not work. She has only loaded one or two software programs on the computer since it was new, and nothing in the last couple months. It also has Norton Anti-virus on it. I have purchased two other Toshiba laptops in the past that lasted for 3 years plus that were lower end than this one. If Toshiba doesn't take care of this problem without charging us, I will never buy one again. I would also highly recommend anyone else considering one to spend your money elsewhere. Toshiba needs to stand behind it's products!.

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I have had 3 Toshiba Laptops, the first purchased in 1998 (Still have it and it will probably still power up). My last was an A205-S4707 I bought in 2007 for $750. It is still in operation but with Vista on it I was never truly happy with it because there were lots of compatibility issues with software and it always seemed to run slow. The battery and power cord/transformer gave out after four years but they were easily replaced.

I spent way too much time researching and reading reviews to buy a new replacement and I'd decided that A Samsung or ASUS would be my next Laptop. I really wanted to get as strong a processor as possible but at low cost. Right as I was about to buy the Samsung a big box office store advertised this Toshiba at a loss leader price so I reconsidered the old faithful Toshiba again. It was almost $200 less than the Samsung and had more upgradable RAM, accessories and modern features. I've had the laptop about 2 months now and I don't regret the choice.

What I like: The boot up and operation is lightning fast. Programs run easily and the screen resolution is good. The brushed aluminum styling looks and feels nice and it can do most anything I need it to.

What I don't like: This thing is big. With a 9 key numerical keyboard to the right of the alpha keyboard, there is an extra 3.5 inches in width.

I bought this laptop as an alternative to a desktop so I easily accept the jumbo width. I'm a middle aged finance guy who runs spreadsheets, word documents and is constantly using email and the web. Due to the integrated video card, this is not the computer for the heavy gamer or high def video fanatic. But if your vision isn't 20/20 and you don't mind the heft, actually type numbers on a regular basis and want a computer that is portable but not like a tablet or net book, this is a good choice. From reading other reviews and research I still think the Samsung and ASUS are good choices but I think Toshiba can deliver the highest end processor at the lowest price (must have made an early deal to purchase Intel Ivy Bridge Chip sets because Toshiba appears beats everyone in pricing on the i5 & i7).

There's always going to be some Lemons that slip through with any brand so make sure of your return policy before buying any Laptop. But for a solid i7 laptop under $700, I don't think I did too bad with the Toshiba S855-S5254.

Compaq Business Notebook NC6000 - 14.1" TFT ( DD522AV )

Compaq Business Notebook NC6000 - 14.1' TFTI would buy again from this seller. The laptop was packaged safe for shipping and arrived quickly. The product matched the description and was in great working order. No instruction manual included, so I would suggest downloading one or asking for one if you do not know how to use a laptop or are a beginner. I was nervous to purchase electronics online... no regrets at all with this one, very impressed.

When I purchased a refurbished computer I expected to get a computer that I could used for a year or longer until a new one cauld be purchased. After receiving the computer and using for two weeks it stopped working. In one months time I spent $500.00 and now have nothing to show for it. The computer is sitting unable to use because it does not turn on.

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I just wanted to say thank you so very much, I know this is an older model laptop, but it works amazing and looks like new. I will definitely buy from these guys again.... :)

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I was really skeptical ordering a computer over the internet, but this was a great buy. My daugter needed a computer for school and it works great for all of her needs.

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I have had this laptop for 3 years now. I bought it off of a friend for $250. Which before that it belonged to someone else. So it's been in 3 different peoples possession(counting myself). I don't know how much they used it or how often, I use it almost everyday. But in 3 years the only problem I had was the computer froze while doing something, which somehow corrupted my hard drive. To have only 512 gb ram it runs really fast. Start up time is only about 20 seconds. Barely ever freezes or crashes. Only had to completely reboot twice, which I don't think is bad because for some time I didn't have virus protection and got a couple virus's. The battery still works great. It can still last between 3-4 hours on a charge. As for multitasking, it can only handle about 3 or 4 things open at a time, which is fine because how often are you going to have more then that open? The negatives are there is no built in webcam(but webcams are only $10-20 now) or a dvd burner, only cd burner. But it has been great for my needs. Overall, it is almost everything you would want in a laptop.

Quality5/5

Features4/5

Overall4.5/5

Acer C7 C710-2847 Chromebook 11.6" Intel Dual Core B847 1.1 GHz 2GB DDR3 320GB 5400RPM HDD Wifi HDM

Acer C7 C710-2847 Chromebook 11.6' Intel Dual Core B847 1.1 GHz 2GB DDR3 320GB 5400RPM HDD Wifi HDMI USB3.0 VGA Card ReaderExecutive summary: $199 is a great price. Chrome OS is quite an interesting and enjoyable computing environment which serves a wide range of needs (close to all of my family's computer use for sure). The Acer C7's performance is noticeably better than that of the $249 Samsung ARM Chromebook for certain things, notably 720p video and Flash games. Plus, the Acer can be opened up and upgraded, unlike the Samsung. Along with "cheaper" those are basically the only areas in which the Acer beats the Samsung, but those made my decision for me. The major flaws of the Acer C7 are the tiny hard-to-use cursor keys, and the downright horrible speakers; the major flaws of Chrome OS, for me, are local network file access and limited supported media formats. Those are significant problems, but for $199 they are not showstoppers.

I'm quite fond of my Acer C7 Chromebook. The overwhelming feature is the price. $199!

(Edit June 2013: so where can you get it for $199? Not, it seems, at Amazon. Currently Best Buy and apparently Walmart a selling a $199 Acer C7 with a 16GB SSD instead of a 320GB spinning hard drive. That's the Chromebook I wish I had. As I say below, many users will see more benefits from a small fast silent SSD than from a big slow noisy hard drive.)

Chrome OS offers a zero-maintenance solution to having a second computer around for family members who essentially only need a web browser anyway. I've come to really enjoy using it. I enjoy knowing that I will never need to provide much tech support for it.

A potential buyer of the Acer C7 might also be considering the $249 Samsung ARM Chromebook. I think the Samsung Chromebook is substantially more beautiful, has no fan or spinning hard drive, and has a much better keyboard and speaker. However, it is underpowered. At Best Buy I was able to try them side by side. The Acer was able to handle 720p video from YouTube almost (though not quite) perfectly; on the Samsung dropped frames were much more noticeable. I also tried a Flash game, Bloons Tower Defense 5, which I've noticed is surprisingly stressful for my older laptops. It runs fine on the Acer C7, but is very choppy on the Samsung. Finally, it is easy (if potentially warranty-breaking) to expand the RAM on the Acer C7 up to 16GB (!), and even to replace the silly hard drive with an SSD. The Samsung ARM Chromebook is essentially impossible to upgrade. That, for me, was the clincher.

The Acer C7, though not actually ugly, is not a particularly pretty machine. The plastic around the display has a particularly cheap look-and-feel. The hinge at least feels strong. The display itself is reasonably nice, with a decent viewing angle. It's glossy.

I do not like the keyboard. I think overall it's not a great keyboard (especially compared to the Samsung ARM Chromebook which has a lovely pleasant-to-use keyboard). The really awful thing is the cursor keys, which are startlingly small and also scrunched up with the page up and down keys. It is really, really unpleasant to use the cursor keys on this keyboard. There are other oddities, if not real problems. The Enter key is oddly shaped for no apparent reason other than gratuitous ugliness. The keyboard has a Caps Lock key (usually replaced by Search on Chrome OS keyboards), and also a Fn key, the only purpose of which is to have a Wifi-Disable keypress Fn-F11 (did anyone really need that?) and to send function keys over Chrome Remote Desktop (I suppose someone might need that---but I regret having a whole key for it in prime territory). This keyboard puts the Chrome OS Search key down with the Control and Alt keys, which is unusual in Chrome OS devices, but it does work to my benefit as it sends Command to Macs over Chrome Remote Desktop. In case it helps anyone, right-Control also sends Command.

I like the Chrome OS keys for back, forward, refresh, full screen, and next window.

The touchpad is quite a bit more resistant to clicking than I would like. I use tap-to-click instead, but there's no tap-only variant of click-and-drag. (I want the 3-finger drag from Apple.)

I often use this Chromebook attached to an external display (and keyboard and mouse... think of it as a desktop replacement!). When I first posted this review I mentioned some issues with this configuration. A Chrome OS update in mid-February 2013 fully resolved these issues for me. The OS auto-update feature is delightful, by the way, automatic and non-intrusive.

With an external Mac keyboard, Command sends Control, which is great for someone whose hands are used to Mac key shortcuts.

The absolute worst thing about the Acer C7 is the speakers. They are bad. Really, really, bad. They're quiet and tinny and I can hardly stand to listen to them. I'm no audiophile, either---I think almost anyone who uses this machine will cringe a little bit at the sound quality. Was this really necessary to hit this price point? Be prepared to use headphones or external speakers. (And not Bluetooth external speakers... I'm told they are not supported in Chrome OS at all, and this machine doesn't have Bluetooth anyway.)

The fan is audible. Not awful, but this is no silent machine. I can't really tell which sounds are the fan and which are the spinning hard drive.

The Acer C7 comes with a 320GB hard drive. The question here is... why? As far as I can tell the only filesystem access you get is your Downloads folder. Which the OS is allowed to clear at will to free up space! Chrome OS was designed for minimal local storage, and frankly I don't see how this space will ever be that useful. I suppose there's the "load it up with movies before the car trip" argument. I'll probably even do that myself when I go to visit my family this holiday season. But I'd prefer to have a silent, fast, tiny SSD for normal use, and bring my movies on an external hard drive.

I wish it had USB 3.0. Oh well. (Another point in favor of the Samsung ARM Chromebook, there.)

On to software. You can use the Web. You can get a terminal with Control-Alt-T and use ssh (but no real local shell). Chrome Remote Desktop is entirely usable. Google Cloud Print seems to work fine, for those of us who have an always-on computer around anyway. Offline Gmail and Google Docs are great if you sometimes lack internet access. Flash games work fine. Google Hangouts has a dumb name but is a fantastic videoconferencing product (the camera and microphone are fine).

While I'm on Chrome Remote Desktop: You'll want to right-click the app icon to get it to "open as window", because if it opens as a tab Chrome itself will consume keypresses like control-N and control-W instead of sending them to the remote host.

One thing that is lacking is the ability is access network file storage. We have an always-on computer filled with video and audio and I'd like to be able to access those files conveniently. What I've done that's workable is started an FTP server on that machine. But it's not a great interface, and each file has to be downloaded before playing, rather than being streamed. "Sneakernet" via USB drive works fine too of course. I think there is pay software, like TVersity, that will set up a media server for you with a nice HTTP interface, but I haven't tried it. And I wish this was built in.

Media playing is a mixed bag. This is irritating... why can't every computer just come with a player as nearly universal as VLC? I haven't had trouble with audio; it seems to play my various mp3, m4a, flac, and wav files just fine. Video is trickier. It seems to play mp4 files happily. It will play some avi files, but not others. Wmv files don't work. For the somewhat technically proficient: you can convert to Chromebook-playable MP4 using various products, like Handbrake or VLC, or the command-line tool ffmpeg: "ffmpeg -i file.avi -c copy file.mp4", "ffmpeg -i file.avi -qscale 5 -strict -2 file.mp4", and "ffmpeg -i file.wmv -qscale 2 file.mp4" are three simple sets of options I've found useful. Frankly having to learn about ffmpeg is, again, irritating; this should just work.

You can enter Developer Mode using a particular keystroke during bootup. This gives you a root shell which potentially allows all kinds of fun. It also wipes all storage in your "stateful partition", so don't do this after filling up your silly 320GB hard drive with things you want. The wiping also happens on leaving Developer Mode. Developer Mode also makes Netflix stop working. After playing with this for a bit I decided I didn't really need it. I like that it's there... the principle of the device being unlocked is pleasing to me. But in the end the clean, minimal, just-works built-in Chrome OS is essentially what I want from this machine.

Conclusion: At $500+ Chrome OS is an oddball. At $200 Chrome OS is a remarkable new paradigm in computing. It's pleasant to use, and for $200, the various hardware and software flaws aren't bad enough to give me much pause. In fact, for $200, if you're at all tempted, you might as well buy it and see for yourself. A reason to pause would be to consider the $250 Samsung ARM Chromebook, which has significantly better aesthetics and might be a better choice for some people. For me, the Acer C7's better performance for 720p video and Flash gaming, plus the ability to upgrade memory and hard drive, makes it the winner.

First of all, I didn't purchase this from Amazon, since the only sellers here are selling it at absurd prices, there are plenty of places selling it for the $199 price. Because of the low price, I wasn't sure what I was going to get. I was quite surprised to see that although it is hardly a premium build, it is quite attractive for the price. Basically, this is about a $300 machine (if it ran Windows) being sold for $199.

I am getting about 4 hours of battery life, which is more than I expected. Since unlike the Samsung unit the battery is removable, I am sure that extra batteries and batteries with a longer life will soon be available.

Compared to the Samsung model this unit costs about $50 less. What you give up is (a) battery life (but the Samsung battery is not removable); bluetooth, some weight and size, and you get a 320gb hard drive instead of the Samsung's 16gb ssd. What you gain is a slighty bigger keyboard, a slightly better screen, and the ability to play Netflix (since the Acer uses an Intel processor). Although there isn't too much use for a large drive in ChromeOS, it is a huge benefit if you want to install Ubuntu which is easy to do on the Acer if you want a "real" OS on it along with ChromeOS. You can also easily expand the RAM and swap the hard drive out if you want, although it will void your warranty.

My big worry was that the hard drive would result in slow boot up times, but honestly this thing boots up from off in about 15 seconds and is extremely quick while surfing, so it hasn't been an issue.

What this thing is NOT is a Windows computer that will allow you to download programs like Office or iTunes. I am amazed at the number of people bitching about this when it is so easy to read and find out what ChromeOS is.

What this excels at is web surfing, not having to worry about viruses, and having automatic updates. WHen I use my Windows and Apple systems I seem to spend most of my time updating, worrying about viruses, etc. For the times when you are watching netflix, hulu or amazon video, catching up on emails, surfing, using goole+ hangout for video chats or doing light weight work with Goggle docs this Acer is quick, cheap and maintenance free. What more could you want for this price?

Buy Acer C7 C710-2847 Chromebook 11.6" Intel Dual Core B847 1.1 GHz 2GB DDR3 320GB 5400RPM HDD Wifi HDM Now

I researched the chromebook prior to my purchase and was worried that I had made a 200 dollar mistake. Many blog reviews mentioned the poor design or cheap materials. So I pictured this very ugly and flimsy laptop showing up. I opened the box and was delighted by what I found inside. I thought the Acer Chromebook really looked good. It passed the preverbal test of I would not be ashamed of being seen with the device. To me it seemed too many reviewers had taken the smallest things and made them seem like critical defects. In my opinion from an appearance perspective the Chrome book holds it own in the economy laptop world.

Performance on the Chromebook has been pretty good. The battery life seems low with only 3.5 to 4 hours. I cant stress enough that it is a different world working with a Chromebook. Not a bad world just a different world. I really like the simplicity of the device. I was not a big google product user so that has been the biggest part of the learning curve. After two weeks I have found that I am really learning to let go of a Windows universe. Life after Windows has been refreshing.

I picked the Acer due to the cost and tasks i typically use my iPad for. For example, I wanted to watch Netflix and other video streaming and the other Chromebook with the SSD seems to be unable to do that at this time.

Some reviews have mentioned the fan noise but I have not had any issues with that. It does turn on but it is not a distraction. I think much of the really detailed criticism is more for people who are very refined in what they expect for a laptop. For 200 dollars this is a great machine to surf the net, watch movies, do social media, and do homework on. It has build in virus protection and no other software is needed. The apps/ browser extensions allow for a great deal of variety in how you use the device. Add a ten dollar wireless mouse and this little machine is good for a casual evening of digital consumption or the typical homework assignment.

I would buy it again.

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First off, I gotta get it out there... I am absolutely IN LOVE with this thing! I have been a Googlephile since joining Gmail in 2005, so obviously this is right up my alley. But you don't have to use all the Google services to appreciate this revolutionary piece of machine.

Anyone thinking about switching to the Chrome OS needs to know what it can and can not do. In a nutshell, if you can do it with a web browser in Windows, you can do it here. There are a few rare exceptions, but those are disappearing. If you are willing to rethink how you do things, I've found that the Chromebook can do about anything you would want to do. I am a heavy computer user, fix PCs for a living, and I have not once had to use my Windows 7 desktop since purchasing this Chromebook on 12/21/2012.

Now you won't be able to use a lot of peripheral devices with it, but most of the standards work. Keyboards, mice and external storage devices will work fine. Things like cameras, phones, etc will not (though they will still work for charging of course). This does not mean you can't accomplish your task though. The Chromebooks still have SD card slots, so for something like a camera, rather than plugging the camera in to dump pictures, you just take the SD card out and plug that in. Same task done, just in a different way. It also will not interface directly with printers, but with Google Cloud Print, that's not a problem, and you'll still be able to print from it just fine.

As far as this particular Chromebook, I don't have much to say or to compare against other models. This review is mostly about the Chrome OS itself, which is certainly the shining feature.

As someone who spends most of his days cleaning up viruses, re-installing software, etc, the Chrome OS is a HUGE breath of fresh air. It simply works exactly how it is supposed to, and it works the same every single time. I haven't had to install a single bit of software or wait for a single update. All the software you need comes from the cloud through the browser, and all the updates are done silently in the background, and at MOST will make your boot up take an extra 30 seconds. I have not once had to restart the Chromebook because of an odd glitch, though that's not to say it's impossible. Just hasn't happened to me at all through a month and half of heavy use. My Windows machine surely would of done it many times in that month and a half.

The other really great thing about living a cloud-based computing life is never worrying about losing your stuff. Services like Google Docs are constantly saving your work in the cloud. I can in theory (and have once just for fun) stop in the middle of working, go sign into my sister's Chromebook and pick right up where I left off. Fantastic. Gone are the days of losing everything you've done simply because your computer died.

The Chrome OS is also GREAT for people who share a computer. All information is kept private between accounts, unlike Windows where some security exists, but most files are still open for everyone by default. Someone could use my Chromebook to look at all sorts of awful things, and I would never know. The guest mode is also great for the security minded. Anyone who's ever owned a laptop knows that people are CONSTANTLY asking "Hey can I use your laptop real quick? I gotta check XYZ". Well in the Chrome OS, they can just use the Guest account so that they will not mess up any of your stuff, and unlike Windows' guest mode, Chrome OS will delete everything the guest downloaded/viewed as soon as they log out. It's a beautiful thing.

I feel like I could keep going on and on about how much I love this thing, but I bet hardly anyone will read it, so I won't bother. So, on to the wrap up... Oh and did I mention, like everyone else has, just how quickly this thing boots?! Less than 20 seconds. Jesus...

The Chrome OS is not for everyone, but actually it pretty much is. And it is constantly getting better and adding even more features. If you're ready to give up all the frustrations you normally have with a computer, and want to spend your computer time actually DOING stuff rather than working to keep the thing running, then get a Chromebook. If you just spent 10 minutes waiting for your computer to boot up because it had 20 updates to install, and it sent you into a fit of rage, get a Chromebook. If you're tired of paying $50 a year for virus protection that slows things way down and ultimately still lets a virus through, get a Chromebook. If you simply want to be cool like me, then get a Chromebook.

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This is a fantastic little unit. Bought this back in November. For 199.00 you can't beat it. It's like an 11" tablet without the touch screen but with a keyboard, which I prefer simply because all the fingerprints on a touchscreen get to be annoying after a while.

I'm surprised at the price gouging. You shouldn't pay more than $199.00 for this little gem. You can also get it NOW for $199.00 from Googles Play store.

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