HP Pavilion dv6-7010us 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program The HP Pavilion dv6-7010 laptop computer is top-notch and will make an excellent gift for the college bound student or budding writer. It has stylish midnight black aluminum casing and boasts a 15.6 inch wide screen that is suitable for most users. It's large enough for good graphics without being too bulky or heavy to carry in a case while traveling, although it might be a bit large for comfortable use on an airplane. The color resolution is brilliant in full HD 1080p (pixel resolution 1920 x 1080) thanks to the AMD Radeon HD 764G, which might not be sufficient for hardcore gamers, but is appropriate for playing video games at optional lower settings.

The keyboard is an HP standard design with a numeric 10 key added on. The keys feel nicely weighted and firm, with generously sized touch-pads. The processor is an impressive AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M with generous memory: 6GB total. Paired with the Radeon video card and 3060 MB graphic memory, the HP Pavilion dv6 will support Photoshop, CorelDRAW, AfterShot Pro , and your other favorite creative software programs. The operating system is Windows 7, Home Version. The system powers up and is ready to work in about 30 seconds.

This laptop computer features Beats Audio technology great sound quality, with a sub-woofer fitted on the underside of the laptop.

There are four USB ports for connecting external devices, or for adding a standard or wireless mouse, if you don't care for the touchpad style pointer. Also notable is the lock option on the touchpad.

There is surprisingly little bloat-ware installed on this laptop. It comes with adequate software programs such as Microsoft Office 2010 starter (with the option to purchase the full version), Evernote, Blio and Skype. Unfortunately, the anti-virus Norton is in trial version, but that is commonplace with new computers.

The quality is exceptional and I expect this HP laptop to last and deliver the same standard of excellence I have received with my older HP PC, which has given me years of reliable service.

I only got my dv6 today, but I've delved into it and spent several hours updating and tweaking it, all the while debating whether or not to return it. I was initially impressed by the capabilities of the built-in speakers, the fingerprint recognition, and the high definition display, which handled a few PC games with no visible lag on decent visual settings. Right out of the box, it was a keeper.

But then I downloaded "important updates" from Microsoft, which have now caused all my games to crash upon launch, due to an inexplicably missing graphics driver. I've continued to download updates for the better part of the few hours I've had the computer, all the while wondering if I'll have to start all over again due to overheating. It's already reset twice for this (in less than 24 hours of use, mind you), and I've only used it on my desk or lapboard and it resets without warning and without any noticeable physical heating underneath. For a computer that advertises its intelligent cooling technology, and having just traded up from a laptop that never overheated in five years of use, that seemed a bit odd. I would rather not have to buy more accessories to fight such a glaring and vital issue, especially after having shelled out the money for the computer itself. I mean, what good is a laptop if you have to constantly worry about that, and if you must carry around cooling devices to prevent losing work? And I know that there was that checklist on the product description page, but the image with which we've been provided actually has the Blu-Ray Logo on the disc drive. Yes, the description is there, but it's a bit misleading the way it's all set up.

I'm still on the fence about this purchase. It has impressive capabilities, especially for this price, but the overheating is a gigantic issue, and I'm still trying to figure out what happened with these updates that has prevented me from doing what I could do before I installed them. I'll stick with it for a few days longer and see if I can't work everything out.

UPDATE: The issue has been resolved, thanks to the easy-to-follow HP online support articles. Still trying to fix the overheating issue.

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Customer review from the Amazon Vine Program I love this laptop. For many reasons. Primarily I like the fact that it's 15.6 inches not a behemoth yet handles all my multimedia needs flawlessly. The hi-def capable screen is well built and very thin, as is the whole laptop. Some of the included HP software and hardware are true innovations. It stays cool during long use and power is managed well.

First I fully charged it then I took it for a joyride the day I got it and started uninstalling programs I didn't use and installing programs I wanted on it. (took Norton off hate Norton...went with Microsoft Security Essentials which if microsoft does nothing else right does fully integrate and does not slow down your sytem like battleship norton! Tho I'm not saying the Norton on this laptop would since I didn't try it.) Fired up the wifi and did the obligatory updates first and the Windows 7 home premium was surprisingly up to date (it downloaded 235mb in less than three minutes). Put sounds on first so I could work and listen and that 'beat' sound system is everything my grandkids told me it was. Really full sound from laptop speakers! Tested out the new 'swipe' motion touchpad (does not have touchscreen and lamentably no blu-ray player yet does have multi-dvd writer player) and found with a little practice these old arthritic hands may just wind up using those motions more than the usual touch navigation system (have laptop mouse on the way for backup). Before I knew it I had been going at it for about six hours and my battery was still showing at least an hour left! NOW THAT IMPRESSED ME! Then I got the literature and read that the battery can last up to eight hours. My how times have changed. The AMD quad processor makes it move along like my desktop and even at 2.3 whatever max (I'm not a tech) it still handled multiple tasks without slowing down to a zombie pace. For instance I had some Hi-Def camcorder footage I wanted to watch so after transferring the files to my new laptop I used the hdmi port (comes with one) to connect it to my Panasonic plasma tv and watched it in Hi-Def without a snag. I like the fact that the stuff the laptop is supposed to do out of the box it does without hitches and snags and needed workarounds.

When I got everything I wanted on it I plugged it back in and charged it up again and then went to dinner and some shopping and came back and decided to test it's movie playing capabilities and boy was it great! The picture on my old Indiana Jones DVD popped on that screen and the sound was like being in my own mini-theater. (I use Corell) It also gave me a chance to try out my new 3.0 usb external harddrives since it has 3.0 ports and capability (the system is Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit) and I'm amazed at the added speed of transference with the 3.0 connections. On this device about 40% faster than on my pc which is 2.0. It comes with the aforementioned 8 hour battery and power cord adapter and is sleek and has a brushed metal cover. Mine is black and looks 'kewl' according to my grandson. At the price, and I have tested those 300 and 400 dollar units with the fancy I whatever intel processors and they don't process as fast as this baby, it's worth the extra to get the beat sound and the consistant quad performance. It seems sturdy and I like the fact that it stays cool too. So this old grandpa highly recommends it. I'm hoping I get to keep it cause the grandson is already scheming on how to trade me his much slower one for a speedy one for college this year!!!!

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Ok I researched and researched every laptop made around the $500 mark. For the money I think this is by far the best one out. The AMD quad core processor 6gb of ram and the AMD Radeon HD 7640 graphics are perfect for what I need. I run over 100 processes and use up ALOT of memory and this computer handles everything I throw at it and still runs nice and cool. The resolution is GREAT! The Whites are Bright and the Battery Life is better than AVG. Setup was a breeze and the finger print recognition is another plus. Beats audio made My Headphones and my Desktop speakers sound better than they ever have. The only complaint I would have is HP customer service is under educated about their products and when you call in for an issue you might find that you probably know more about your new PC than the Employee will. Hooking my laptop up to my HD T.V was quite an issue. MY TV would not recognize the resolution from my PC through my HDMI cord or my VGA cord. Other than that if your looking for a sleek looking, great sounding, quick machine for Under $600 I dont think you will find a better all around PC. Now if you're a hard core gamer and that's all you do, you might want to go another direction but for a user that loves to have 10 windows open in Chrome meanwhile like to have safari open and 20 gidgets widgets and midgets running in your background THIS IS THE COMPUTER FOR YOU!!! 4.5 out of 5 the only deduction is no blu ray :(

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First of all let me start and say, product received and exactly as advertised.

Now, I bought this machine for my daughter, right now I use a US$ 2850.00 Dell Latitude E6420 with Core i7 and 8GB of DDR3 (1600 Mhz), 500GB HDD 7200RPM with FFS Technology and Quadro Card NVS4200. My laptop score under windows shows 5.2 no matter how much I tweak it. When I opened my new daughter's HP Pavilion DV6-7010US machine, it took me few minutes to continue setting up the operating system and register it. Another few minutes to update both, the laptop and the operating system. Now it is ready for testing.

The machine is pretty fast for its configurations and of course its price. After the second boot to the OS everything is smooth and stable, even with all the HP loaded unnecessary products and software. After that I have tested some heavy duty programs and renders; it runs perfect. I tried some heavy duty 3D games such as Second Life with the original SL viewer and Firestorm. I was surprised! The graphics are on medium but much better than many other machines with better processors and graphic cards.

With Second Life I noticed some heating since the game uses one of the most powerful graphic engines in the whole world, tweaked the graphics card options and the SL viewer and BANG! It is even more smoother and faster.

Well.. After all, I can tell this is one of the best machines ever released for its value, for a bigger or middle type users, nothing else is needed. And I do congratulate AMD and ATI for such processor. I've been always a fan of them that company.

Regards,

NATTARIOUS

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HP ENVY DV7-7200 Quad Edition HYBRID Notebook PC; DV7T

My only complaint with this machine is that it came with Windows 8 and supposedly HP doesn't doesn't want to support it with Widows 7 installed. I found the correct support drivers and installed Windows 7 (This is an upgrade from Windows 8!). I really like the performance, fingerprint password feature and all of the capabilities and connections available. It's worth the money!

I liked that HP. But I had a real Envy 17. He was far superior. The frame was made ​​of aluminum, had a better charger and a velvet cape that impressed. Nevertheless, it is a computer top line. I think it's better than an Apple for a much better price.

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how do i downgrade to windows 7? i tried but had an error saying that windows 7 is not compatible with the hardware on this computer!

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Lenovo T510 I5-540M 2.53G 3 GB 320 GB 15.6IN BT XPP/W7P

I bought a Thinkpad T510 1 month ago. Just liking my previous T61, the T510 has super performance when running all the softwares I have including some heavy ones such as photoshop, CS and some other computer games. I enjoy the wide screen with very clear and high resolution, of course windows 7 is quite cool in running in T510.

Overally, T510 CTO is a cool laptop having all the good qualities originating from IBM.

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Toshiba C855D-S5106 Laptop Computer / 15.6-inch Display Screen / AMD E-300 Dual-core 1.3 GHz Proces

I purchased this laptop just over a month ago. Last week, the plastic veneer to the optical drive caught on my laptop bag and broke off. It's a small (5" x 0.5" x 0.5") piece of plastic with a button on it to open the drive. Maybe a $2 part that I could pop into place, myself. It had been in and out of the laptop bag maybe a dozen times in the month I've owned it. The laptop was not dropped or abused in any way. And of the five small plastic tabs that hold the plastic veneer/cover on to the aluminum drive inside, four of them had broken off.

After about 45 minutes on the phone with Toshiba's in-warranty, out-of-warranty, and supervisory groups, I got no help whatsoever. The best they could offer me was to ship the laptop in for diagnosis and repair. I would have had to have covered shipping, a diagnostic fee, and any repair costs, of course.

It would cost more to ship the laptop to Toshiba than this part costs! Evidently "physical damage" is not covered under Toshiba's warranty. Regardless of the fact that their product is so poorly designed as to fail after only a few instances of being inserted into a protective bag.

You want a laptop to be designed to handle those kinds of things and you want a manufacturer who will stand behind its product when there are problems. This would have been a simple, $2 fix and might have left a customer satisfied. I hope it costs them your business, instead.

I got the laptop for my sons birthday, laptop did not work so I had to send laptop back and still dont have a computer for his birthday.

Very dissappointed!!!!

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My Macbook died and I needed a quick replacement, I chose overnight shipping and it was at my doorstep by 8 a.m. the next day. Still getting used to Windows 8. Fairly easy to use and good for simple applications. Only downside I've encountered is that the webcam is super slow, the video I shot with it is super glitchy...

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Very nice laptop and very reasonably priced. I bought it as a gift for my grandson. He thought it was totally awesome!!

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It works fine for everyday use, emails, surfing, banking etc. It is light because the case is a little flimsy. If you were one to be rough with it, I don't think it would hold up well. The Windows 8 program is very hard for us old dogs to get used to. This is no fault of the computer. I'm sure when you know what your doing everything is great but when you are just an average computer user it is hard to make the changes from the Windows of old. All and all, for the cost, a decent machine.

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Samsung Series 5 3G 12.1-Inch Chromebook (Titan Silver)

Quick points:

Yes, it DOES work offline. There are loads of apps and games that do work offline, and offline mode is coming to Gmail, Docs, and Calendar very soon (this summer)

Web apps are nearing the usefulness of actual desktop apps

The vast majority of people don't need Photoshop or Final Cut Pro, or a 4GHz processor

Web apps are the future. They are compatible with any OS that has a browser, which is basically every OS

Seems even more secure against viruses than a Mac

No more paying for OS updates like you do with Mac or Windows

Don't need antivirus software running all the time

Open sourced OS is very technologically ethical, meaning more progress and more transparency in terms of what is going on inside OUR computers

The browser was becoming an OS itself already for while, Google is just separating it

Super fast start up time and long battery life are great pluses

What about music/video offline? It can't do that with a web app RIGHT NOW (it almost certainly will in the future, but you can easily download any kind of media (yes it does have internal storage like some critic say it doesn't), or you can put media on a SD card from another computer and pop it into this when you cant to watch a movie on a plane or something

the price IS very good. some people say it's too expensive for what it offers, citing the processor and the almost comparable price of a Windows PC. They are overlooking the fact that this has a solid state drive, which is a huge plus, that a PC running anti-virus software all the time slows down the processor, that most people don't NEED the desktop OS anymore, and a vast array of other reasons, including far superior build quality.

If you want to try this already extremely functional laptop, and are ready to jump into the future of operating systems, you can expect improvements in leaps and bounds very quickly, as Google will update everything in the background, and everything will get faster and better, and your experience will improve over time.

About a month ago, my husband and I got two chromebooks: one for me and one for my 75 year old mother. I absolutely love it. It has all but replaced my desktop.

Momma is 75 and very nervous of computers. My parents have a Windows desktop, and she is always complaining about how slow it is, how it always wants to install updates, virus warnings, firewall issues, and lots and lots of features she'll NEVER need. All she wants to ever do is deal with their Gmails, check her bank account, read the news, and talk to us across the ocean.

When hubby and I found out about the Chromebook, the first thing he said is "THAT is ideal for your Mom!". It took about 3 minutes to set up from start to finish, and she was off to the races. She LOVES it!! It is just so easy. All she needs to do is flip it open, and 1 second later she can browse all she likes, or chat, or send an email. No updates to worry about. No viruses. No buttons to push or X-es to click, no Start button to click when in fact she wants to Exit, etc...... FLIP open and she is ready to go, FLIP closed when she is done.

All I can say is, this is the BEST gift we could ever have given her. If you want to make a tech challenged person VERY happy, consider a Chromebook nothing could be simpler.

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I purchased this notebook to evaluate its use for students in a K-12 academic setting, where students and faculty all use Google Apps as their productivity/communication/collaboration tool, so this review will address the Chromebook from that perspective. If you are new to the use of Google Apps suite of tools, this notebook might not be the best fit for you until you've experienced what GA for business, education, or enterprise has to offer. Most folks who are panning this device clearly were looking for something else upon purchase.

We recently have become a Google Apps school, where students in grades 2-12 grade have access to school GA accounts (with graduated privileges as they get older). Being an all-Mac school, we have certainly done our share of pondering the role of iPads in students hands. With the initial swell of popularity, I think that there has been a slight "pressure" to make the them fit as a tool that every student should have in their backpacks; as a textbook replacement AND productivity device. While content publishers have been dragging their feet to jump into creating widespread electronic content for the iPad, we "hear it's coming" and would have already been making plans to put iPads into the hands of our students if they would function better as a PRODUCTIVITY device. Google already has the collaborative environment down with its GA services, yet with Apple locking horns with Google, refuse to allow its iOS to access GA in a fully functional environment without using a crappy, watered down mobile version of the site or with the use of cumbersome 3rd party workarounds to create and share documents.

Enter this Chromebook. As much as I hate to admit it, I would estimate upwards of 85% of student work on the computers at our school is based upon productivity software (word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation) and internet-based activities. From that standpoint, this Chromebook (coupled with their GA accounts) quickly and efficiently addresses the VAST majority of what students need at school and at home, at a very attractive price point. I would have no reservation recommending this device to any parent of a middle school-high school aged child if they use GA at school. Throw in the token 100mb of free 3G Verizon service (with the ability to have similar iPad data pricing plans), now our "commuter" children can spend time in transit to/from school getting a head start on their school work, not to mention take it with them on any trip away from home.

Positives:

* Great screen/keyboard size

* Decent construction

* Lightweight

* Very crisp picture

* Love the function keys replaced with meaningful internet "shortcut" controls

* Love the "instant-on" feature; would really save time in a classroom

* FAST CONNECTION SPEEDS (even with the 3G)

Negatives:

Mostly Verizon-based at this point.

* Verizon still does not have any information listed on its website as to the different data plans explicitly regarding Chromebooks. I know this device is fairly new, but the first two people I spoke with on the phone didn't know what a Chromebook was. It took me 3 different people all-together just to get my 100mb plan rolling, and it was certainly not a 1-2-3 step process (though not too bad). I would think that if Verizon is giving away data, they would want to make it much more convenient for folks to be knowledgeable about how to spend money with them (something Apple is SUPERB at doing).

* I am a little spazzy with the touchpad; you really have to make an effort to remove your "pointing" finger before you click with your thumb (or you end up displaying a right-click action). Apple products seem to be much less "touchy" in this regard.

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I've had my Chromebook for about a week now, and so here are my initial impressions.

I think the title of my post sums it up pretty well. I do not, in any way, expect Chromebooks to become a significant player in the laptop market. At least not anytime in the foreseeable future. It is simply too limited in its capabilities (in present state, anyway-it will only get better). It will, for obvious reasons, never make your PC or Mac obsolete. Virtualization will help.

But, if you buy it to complement your existing PC/Mac for the right reasons, you won't be disappointed. What are those reasons?

-The internet with no frills.

-Mobility, with its small size and the free or pay as you go 3G.

-Freedom from the leash that ties you to a power outlet.

-The cloud! Music Beta, Picasa, Google Docs, etc

-(Nearly) Endless room for the O/S and experience to develop

What are the downsides I've seen so far?

-Not sure this is a downside for everyone, but I do feel sort of claustrophobic always being in a browser. Not that I am yearning for programs... just a desktop... or something...

-Sort of along that line, I never felt that "wow" factor when I started using this as I did buying new technologies in the past. To me, there's nothing that is stunningly novel, other than the concept. It's a Chrome browser.

-It is slightly underpowered. It stutters a bit when streaming HD video. And in general, if you're doing multiple things at once (streaming music, loading heavy pages), it starts to feel a little sluggish. I really would've liked to see a second core. If handled correctly, that wouldn't even harm battery performance. I'd pay a premium for it, for sure.

-When you see something about Samsung's intelligent charging technology, you should read that as "slow" charging technology. I'm on board, as long as their promise of battery longevity holds true. But it's worth noting that once your battery does finally hit 0%, you'll be tied to the wall for 3+ hours before the 6-cell is back up to full.

-I'd like to see more multitouch gestures for the trackpad.

Ok, I'll touch on the laptop itself quickly: I really like the design. The screen, as advertised, is very bright, and I love that it's matte. The laptop is sturdy, and the keyboard is well executed. Pressing the buttons is decidedly satisfying. The trackpad is big and responsive. I don't like having to click the whole pad down, but enabling "tap to click" remedies that. Uncommonly used ports have covers, nice touch.

To wrap it up-I bought this because most of what I do these days on my laptop is cruise the internet. I didn't like using my bulky laptop for that, especially given its high electron diet. I still keep that PC handy for gaming or streaming video over HDMI through my home theater, but for day to day surfing and for traveling, I expect I will come up with little reason to regret this purchase.

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So, I'm writing this review from my new Chromebook in a cozy Inn just above North Lake Tahoe. I have access to all of my music (Google Music), all of my email, documents, calendar... everything. I received my Chromebook yesterday and I'm still running on a 90%+ battery charge.

The Chromebook is almost too easy to travel with. It's lightweight and small, shuts down and starts up quickly and has no problems connecting to wifi when available, or jumping over to 3G when wifi isn't available.

My only gripe, so far? The free 100MB of 3G access per month provided. It does seem a bit scant, considering I've used 3G for about 15 minutes total and I've used about 10% of my allotment for the month. For all intents and purposes, I don't plan to use 3G often it's a backup plan in case I can't find an access point.

For someone who is looking for an easy, lightweight travel computer to gain access to the tubes, the Samsung Series 5 3G CB is perfect. Very happy with this purchase. Can't wait to see how CBs evolve.

Edit: Stupid spelling mistakes. Still love the Chromebook (7/10/2012)

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Gateway NV7915u Core i3-330M Dual-Core 2.13GHz 4GB 500GB DVD±RW 17.3" LED-Backlit Windows 7 Home P

I have had this laptop for 6 months. I can not believe all the power this has for the price. I see the laptops that are listed near $2000 that have less power than this one. This huge screen makes a 15 inch look like a netbook when placed side by side. Yet it is still perfect for taking to the coffee shop to surf the web or play games. The battery life is amazing. It never seems to wear down! It has the dual layer dvd including the ability to burn titles or images on the front of the dvd. You just right click on any video file and a menu pops up with the option to burn to dvd. It burns perfectly every time. I haven't had even one burn fail and I buy the cheap blank dvds. I am happy with everything about this computer. I haven't had a single problem with it. I highly recommend this laptop.

So I lucked out a bit and Gateway replaced my previous laptop with the NV7915u for free due to a battery issue. Free or not, this is a quality Desktop Replacement, trust me it's size is beyond that of the "laptop" category. I wanted that, you may not, but be aware that this is not a PC designed with mobility in mind. Now onto to useage, I run a dual boot Windows/Linux system and she performs great in either system. If you just want to all-around computer and are not a "gamer" you'll be fine with this piece of equipment.

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I bought this computer in June. It did not include any disks for the software. I called in and they gave me a site to download the restoration disks. I did that and put them away. When the machine quit working after only six months, I tried the restoration disks and they would not boot up. I tried working with Tiget Direct who passed me off to Gateway, like they had no responsibility to support their sale to me.

Gateway was a total loss as far as support goes. I was told I could order a set of disks for 20.00. I did that and will have to wait about 10 days to get my system upo and running again, if it will run again.

As a buyer of a computer, I am entitled to software disks that will work.

I will not buy from either one of these companies again.

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Alienware M17x R4 AM17xR4-7895BK 17.3-Inch Laptop (Stealth Black with Soft Touch Finish)

**This review was originally written for the M17xr4 with 7970m graphics, 1600x900 screen, i7 3610m processor, and 6gb RAM, which i own. That being said, the rest is the same and the processor difference is very, very minimal since the 3630 is simply the "refresh" of the 3610, and NOT a new generation of processor. Anything marked** may not apply to the model you have purchased.

Now, on to the review. I will try to give an unbiased opinion as I have done months and months of research, comparing and contrasting every modern gaming laptop. This review will be fairly in depth (Should be for a $1800+ laptop), and I will try to be detailed, but also universal in describing details, so that you don't have to know any extreme technical jargon to understand the review as well as giving an up-to-date one. Enough said.

The Build:

First things first the build quality is excellent, and this will be the first thing you notice as you un-box and remove it from its protective casing. I researched for months on purchasing a high-end/Gaming computer, and i have learned very much about numerous modern gaming computers and components. Most of the reviews on amazon and on review websites have stated its build quality is of the highest grade and that it is one of the biggest selling points for this laptop, and for good reason. The laptop feels solid, secured, and a bit heavy (weighs in at about 9.5lbs). In my opinion, not overweight considering the amount of components stuffed into this thing. The rubbery matte texture compliments it's sturdiness well, and to me was a great material choice for this laptop as it resists fingerprints rather well and will not show scratches as aluminum or plastic will. Not to mention keeping the laptop light, and relatively cool. I dare you to find a better looking laptop (my opinion) that is more sleek and with better build quality (not opinion) than this one. The reason i put up with the weight over say a Sager NP9170 is that this M17xr4 is the thinnest 17inch gaming laptop with these components i could find. I'll take thinner to lighter any day considering, i will be hauling this in a excellent backpack (Everki Beacon or swiss gear) Where the 1 to 2 pound gain over the NP9170 will not be noticeable. Your port selection is numerous and above average, even for gaming laptops. 4 USB 3.0 ports (2 on the left, 2 on your other left), 1 USB 2.0/Esata combo (right) which is also a sleep and charge port which does just that (allows you to charge your phone, iPod or usb charging device while the laptop is asleep or even completely off). VGA, HDMI and Display port video outs (all left), 2 headphone jacks, 1 mic input, as well as an SPDIF optical out (All left). One cool feature is that the Soundcard software included can be used to configure the audio ports to do anything, For example configure all 4 ports to be headphone jacks, or 2 line -in ports. An HDMI-in (right) (not existent in any other laptop I could find. Trust me, I looked. More on this in "other features" below). Last but not least a 9 in 1 card reader above the optical drive (right) and a Kensington lock (left). The cooling system is well engineered with 3 intakes on the bottom, and 2 exhausts on the back, the left one being for the processor, and the right being for the graphics card. I can't tell you how nice it is having the exhaust shoot out the back instead of the bottom into your lap. You might think you lap will block the intakes but they are almost designed with a peak and valley structure, to allow lap use without block to the intakes. Don't get me wrong this laptop can get warm on the bottom especially during gaming, but it is rare I game on my lap. And when using a laptop pad or cooling pad, you won't notice it at all . The individual laptop exhausts are nice, first they limit noise to 1 fan most of the time, secondly they are effective and accurate at temp detection (i.e. Gaming, the GPU fan ramps up, Heavy app use or multitasking the CPU fan ramps up) not to mention the entire system is silent during basic and medium use.

Components:

I will go into greater detail of the components i have added separately or replaced later in the review. For now, the components it comes with. First off the processor, The Intel i7 3630m is the baseline mobile model for i7 cores in laptops. It is snappy, and has no problem devouring numerous tasks at a time. For gaming an i7 core IS MORE than enough considering most games don't utilize 4 cores to begin with (exception: Farcry 3). In fact you would do just fine for gaming if this laptop had an i5 core and you would not notice a frame rate difference.

**On to the Graphics, this laptop uses a combination of AMD Radeon 7970m ( Nvidia 675m on this model) discrete or dedicated card, in concurrence with an Intel HD 4000 integrated chip. First the 7970m, this is a nasty card that destroys most any game, modern or old. You can comment on this review, and I can test a game you might want me to play and let you know how it preforms. To name a few recent ones it preforms extremely well with that I have played. Black ops 2 (not very difficult for any machine), Battlefield 3 run great maxed out, Arkham city runs great, Farcry 3 runs insane on this laptop due to its great scaling on all 4 processor cores (all though I have had some crashes with this game). I've even played as recent as the Crysis 3 beta which runs great since the new drivers update. I cannot stress this enough, the ability to play such high-end games with such good results, all on-the-go, is a crazy feat to me. I run this laptop to a 27 inch monitor most of the time and it's hard to believe the graphics are coming from my laptop and not a desktop. Comparing it to the GTX 680m recently released by Nvidia, the 7970m in my opinion is on par with it, and even runs certain games better according to benchmarks. That being said in power consumption and cooling is better with the 680m. The biggest difference is the price. When I looked to configure my laptop on Dell or Xotic PC, the price difference is over $350 which is simply not justifiable, even for a Nvidia fan boy. I knew and researched both the 680m, 7970m before I even wanted to purchase here, so seeing that amazon had the 7970, it only pushed me further to buy here. Intel HD 4000 is simply an integrated graphics chip which is used for anything but high-end games and uses MUCH less power. Heck, it will even run older games or less resource hogging ones great. AMD uses "Enduro" technology to switch between the 2 graphics solutions based upon your power source (battery or plugged in) and application (Video game vs. Google chrome) this all can be configured manually, but by default your computer switches to the Intel HD 4000 when on battery power EVEN if you are trying to run a high-end game. But like I said, this can be changed manually with a combination of power and graphics setting changes. All that being said, the drivers are a bit faulty, especially with windows 8. I could not decide whether to install AMD's drivers for the 7970m from their website or Dell's which seemed outdated. I spoke to a few Alienware techs on this issue. All said that it is preferable to use Dell's drivers, but AMD's should be compatible. I noticed some performance loss using Dell's driver version, so I cleared the drivers completely and installed AMD's 13.2 version which had updates for the Crysis 3 beta.

* For your hardrive and standard 7200rpm Seagate 750gb drive. Nothing special here. See my upgrade.

* For RAM you got 6gb** (8gb on this model) of 1600mhz DDR3 ram in one 4gb stick and one 2 gb stick** (2x4 probably on this model). Fine amount of Ram,I was going to upgrade anyways so I didn't care.

* Wi-Fi card is an Intel Centrino 2230, great reception, great speeds wireless N as well as 2.4ghz/5.8ghz bands. Not much else to say

* Standard DVD/CDRW that is a slot-load drive. I happen to prefer slot-load over tray load because: one, sleeker looking, and 2 no worrying about having a clumsy tray slide out and hit something, getting stuck, breaking, etc.

* For your sound card you get a SoundBlaster Recon3Di instead of a basic sound card, paired with a pair of Klipsch speakers, it sounds great. Where it really shines is when you hook this laptop up via optical or analog (stereo out) and tweak settings in the SoundBlaster control panel. I found the Rock preset to improve the sound even more. This excellent sound card is a rare and welcome addition to a gaming laptop. The speakers definitely aren't booming loud, but they are crisp, clean and have decent bass and are plenty loud for nearly any use. I think they could have used a slight volume boost in playing music, but with laptop speakers, it's tough considering power provided and space to put them in. The speakers are definitely above average and much better sounding than Sager or MSI laptops alike.

**(This laptop does have the 1920x1080 Full HD Screen)

The screen as stated before is 1600x900**, decent colors, so-so viewing angle. Before you write this laptop off for the screen resolution, consider these two things. First, at only 17 inches (yes only) you won't see a ginormous difference between 1920x1080, and 1600x900. You will probably see it. But is it worth 200 dollars extra upgrade? Your call. Secondly, I personally route to a 27 inch monitor for gaming which I display 1920x1080 on. If your majority, or even part of your use is to an external monitor: just another reason you don't need 1080p on the actual laptop screen.

Personal Experience/Other selling points/Tips

**The 3 largest selling points that had me choose this laptop over the Samsung series 7 gamer, MSI GT70, and the Sager NP9170 (in my opinion its top competitors) was first, the powerful graphics card which beats the 675m and lower cards (670m, 660m, etc.) by a large amount. I was aware of the driver issues with the 7970m but I decided to take the risk, trusting they will be updated (and they have and will continue to be).

Secondly, the slim profile of this laptop. It beats all 3 mentioned AND has more powerful components. Now this laptop is nowhere near thin at about 1.98 inches but its as thin as its going to get for these components. You want super thin? Razer blade is $2599, and you get less powerful components than this laptop, but the razer blade is super portable (6lb,.88 inches thick).

Thirdly, the icing on the cake for me (it might seem strange) the HDMI-input port. Why? The simple fact that being able to hook a console, Blu-ray player, or nearly any device to use this laptop, solely for use of its screen, is genius. Now I understand that some people do not have use for this feature because they do not own consoles or any form of device to utilize this feature and those that could have use for it might say, "Why would you want to hook a console-a less-powerful system--up to the screen of a more powerful system" well I personally have many friends on console and we often have "system link parties" the idea that my laptop could serve as a screen instead of having to haul a TV or monitor to play on is awesome. Not to mention you feel as if you have full control over your laptop to do as you choose and knowing that by the time the computer gets outdated (not for many, many years), you could still always use it as a screen! I have used it with my Xbox 360 and it is excellent, just the right size, and the Xbox's sound even routes right through the HDMI and out the laptops speakers (HDMI carries audio and video). It was a huge selling point for me and NO OTHER laptop has one of these that I have found.

Another minor cool feature I like is the speaker placement. Since I do use this on an external monitor I prefer to shut the laptop screen when doing that. This might not matter to most, but for me, when I do shut it and just prefer to use the excellent speakers on the laptop it will not block the sound. Why? The speakers on are the front of the laptop (the colored, grill looking things). With most laptops you have a sound bar near the media controls and if you were to shut the screen the speakers would get blocked. Being able to use the speakers with the screen closed is a cool feature for me.

Another selling point for me personally, is it came with components that are hard to upgrade in a laptop that I wanted (7970m graphics**, i7 processor) and nothing I didn't want (6gb ram**, basic HDD). The laptop's accessibility is great. Pop the battery out, unscrew 2 screws, and you're in to most of the system. 2 of the 4 ram bays, HDD bay --which it has 2 of by the way--, fans, even your graphics and your processor can be seen. Again Alienware is giving you nearly full control of the system. Even the Wi-Fi card, other ram bays and optical drive are accessed through a little further, but not too difficult dis-assembly.

Here are the upgrades I have chosen and installed myself easily:

-Samsung 840 250gb SSD (purchased from Newegg for $150 with Farcry 3 Samsung MZ-7TD250BW 840 Series Solid State Drive (SSD) 250 GB Sata 2.5-Inch) an SSD is said to be the single best system upgrade you can make that will grant you the most noticeable performance boost to your system. And after installing one myself, I am a firm believer in just that. Honestly with processors so fast these days your limiting factor comes down to your HDD and good ol' disc drives can only spin to access data so fast. I would even go as far as to say if you don't get an SSD you're missing out on a chunk of your system's performance especially with a processor such as the i7 3610m. Not to mention SSD's silent, cooler, more reliable, and less power consuming operation than traditional HDD's as well as SSD prices dropping like crazy and 1 open bay in this laptop, what have you got to lose? Unleash your processor!

-16gb Corsair vengeance laptop RAM (purchased from amazon for $84.99 Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory (CMSX16GX3M2A1600C10)) I wanted more than 6gb of ram and if you go higher than 16gb its near impossible to stress it. This RAM had great reviews, fast speeds and seems reliable.

-Killer Wireless N 1202, Faster 2.4/5.8 ghz speeds.

-Windows 7 professional OEM (purchased on amazon for $102) I had a feeling I would not care for windows 8 (and I did not that much, not to mention the drivers for the 7970m are nearly unusable on win 8). Bought this fresh OEM copy at a steal price, popped in my new SSD did a fresh install, Used "Sean's Windows 7 installation guide for SSD's" Which you MUST checkout if you do similar configuration as I, with the hard drives. I then formatted my original 750 GB HDD to use for storage space, and boom. My system flies with cold boot times under 18 seconds, and massive amount of storage space. In the future I will definitely move to windows 8 once graphics drivers are updated and the OS becomes more stable. But for now, it's windows 7 professional for me. Your system didn't include Windows 8 recovery disks for when you want to upgrade? No problem. Call up Alienware, and they will 2-day ship you your recovery media on a handy, dandy flash drive.

-One of the many accessories I suggest for this laptop is the U3 Coolmaster cooling pad Cooler Master NotePal U3 Laptop Cooling Pad with Three Configurable 80mm Fans (R9-NBC-8PCK-GP). The reason I liked this for my desk set-up is it seems of good material mostly aluminum which is naturally cool without fans! It uses USB power, fits the M17xr4 perfectly, and the fans are even movable, and Removable. I lined all 3 fans up directly with my m17x's, 3 intake vents which really keeps this thing cool. You do not need a cooling pad, just a personal choice for me! A cool system, is a happy system. The compatibility with my system made this one a winner for me, but I do use it as a stationary "dock" at desk, it's really too big to lug around. For more accessory suggestions, Comment!

-Personally I use this laptop for school, web browsing/multitasking, high-end gaming, and a screen for my Xbox . Even though it is heavy, and many will say it is only a desktop replacement. It is still portable and I have no problem using this computer around the house, on my lap, or "docked" at my desk.

For purchasing locations I would suggest either here or Xoticpc.com. I chose here mostly because of the standard price and the partial refund I receive for the screen mess-up issue.

I do highly suggest this laptop, and encourage you to research more sites for yourself to see if it will fit your uses. I only wish it took me less than 3 months to figure that out. But at such a high price I wanted to be 110% sure this was the one I wanted.

Please feel absolutely free to comment with any at all questions, regarding why I chose the upgrades I did, or anything on the system I didn't touch on well enough, Specific Game performance, purchasing options, how to configure anything, component or accessory suggestions, or other laptop comparisons. I will do my absolute best to get back to you. Also let me know anywhere to improve on the review besides grammar (after a few pages I gave up ;). I will update this review with new info, and corrections.

You have reached the end, congrats and thank you for your time if you have stuck with me, and if you did not stick with it, Hey, I don't blame your skimming.

Thanks again.

Id like to first tell you that when you buy this Labtop your getting an excellent mobile gaming pc Ive owned a alienware in the past before Dell bought them out and they really stepped up there game. The build quality exceeded my expectation of the newly owned alienware. the soft touch finish has a good feel to it. the lighting effects are awesome and had many comments from people about it. I am a pc builder my self and wanted a gaming labtop for once and i have to say its not a disappointment. The battery life is considerably good for what it does and has. I'd say a few hours on high performance setting. and 6+ on balanced . I play wow and battlefield and on good to high settings i was getting 65+ Fps on BF 3 and 90-100 fps on WOW.

I opted to buy the 1600x900 resolution which is perfect display very nice and bright I cant see the bargain for the 1080p vs the 900p. for gaming its perfect plus its a 17" screen and 1080p is not necessary. Good luck to you!

Notes to builders/customizers: Ive wiped windows 8 clean off drive and replaced module 0 bay with Samsung SSD with windows 7 pro and works flawlessly and put physical drive is module 1 ( extra bay) bay and took out Msata bracket. please note for this system you will have to disable secure boot and enable legacy boot option in the bios for putting windows 7 on the new drive.

Buy Alienware M17x R4 AM17xR4-7895BK 17.3-Inch Laptop (Stealth Black with Soft Touch Finish) Now

After we had a house fire in which my custom-designed PC was destroyed, I decided to bite the bullet and finally get myself an Alienware. I didn't buy it from Amazon but directly through Dell. First off, once I got the laptop I was over the moon. The system was awesome and it ran my games beautifully. The problem was and still is the flimsy keyboard. I'm not sure how it happens, or why but the keys pop off and if you don't place them back properly they break because they're so sensitive. I contacted Dell about the problem and they decided that I was abusing my system and no matter how under warranty my laptop was, I would still have to pay to get it fixed. So to sum it up Dell has the worst customer service available. Nothing was done so I found myself having to buy my own replacement keyboard and install it. Same thing happened and I'm now having to use an external keyboard that I had laying around. The keyboard is the only major complain I have. For all its bells and whistles they could have made a stronger keyboard for a very expensive laptop.

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I has been broken after 3 day. It was a gift; I bought it in Houston and took it to Europe as a present, and what a shame it has been broken.

I am going to return it

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Toshiba Satellite C655D-S5336 15.6-Inch Laptop - Black

I don't think you can get this much bang anywhere else for $350. The only downside is both usb ports are on the same side. It can be annoying when you have usb devices with short cords to have to rearrange the work area to accommodate the laptop

Well this is a very cheap laptop ( price related ), ive been faithful to toshiba this is my 3rd laptop, I always sell them and buy new ones... Gotta love the whole keyboard, the design is simple but kind of roughed which is nice( not scratching )... LCD LED is nice widescreen, very fast i already loaded all my files and still running fast, turn on in less than 2 minutes, other pc's take a while to load up all the starters programs... The only thing im not so happy is that it only has 2 usb ports and no HDMI port... before i forget battery life is good, last around 5 hours may be more if you set it up right, it doesnt get hot ( thanks god ) ...

Bottom line if your on a budget toshiba c655 is the way to go, your not going to regret it, if you have a lil more money try the L55 and let me know :) ... toshiba all the way, cant go wrong with them !!!

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This is my second Toshiba Satellite laptop. I bought my first in early 2007, have used it for several hours most days, and it is still going strong. I needed a separate laptop for a new job and this is just perfect. Nice keyboard layout, and I like the starter office program that you really do not have to upgrade if you just want to do simple documents. Nice and lightweight around 5 pounds to take places, good screen resolution. So far, so good. Price is right!

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i purchased it from Amazon.com and the service was excellent,the computer is more than i expected meaning its a great computer

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for all you "kids" that dont know the half of it, great computer, great price. The first laptop i bought cost me 3K....i know, long time ago. For the bargain basement price of $349 i got myself a lean-mean-fightin machine. Love it..if i had kids i could afford to send them all to college with this bad-boy. Suggest step away from google chrome, ram hog. Best thing about this one, upgrade-able to 8g ram, long time before you need to upgrade on the computer itself. throw another g of ram in....lightening speed. go toshiba and amazon

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Dell D630 Core 2 Duo @ 2.0GHz Laptop Notebook 4GB. 120GB. DVD±RW, Bluetooth, 9-Cell Battery

The first set of 2 computers were returned at my cost as verified defective, then the second 2 had the typical worn out hinges. Still waiting for a refund, still shipped at my cost. How they are still active on Amazon is amazing to me. these were not purchased as used units, but represented as properly serviced ready for work... Steve

They delivered the faulty laptop and I have to send back to fix this,with my own expenses.They promised to reimbursed and never got the money back. Worst part is when i got my laptop after many days.. It was not same configuration which I ordered..I got the less RAM..

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Overall the computer has been working. The keypad is messed up somehow and jumps around on the page as you type. It's a 32 bit not 64, so the only way to add memory is to upgrade software.

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Messrs

amazon this notebook has a good reference, says new, on June 6 I receive in the city Medellin, Colombia, that sadness to receive the laptop is too old.

This too grating, by use and abuse, that the owner was a child of 8-12 years dragged him across the floor, over and over again, the only thing which is new is the keyboard that looks like it changed and the briefcase, where palm rest is broken.

I've bought used goods where the seller says like new and I received in perfect condition.

amazon gentlemen, this seller needs a sanction for selling things in such bad shape.

I live in Colombia, I can not return the laptop because I get very expensive,

but you must require the seller to reimburse me 50% of the value of the laptop.

amazon have very good references on the web,

because this is happening, they should improve.

If the seller says as new must have word

Amazon should create a communication between the vendor and the customer, prior to purchase is the way to be safer product status

in Colombia, on page question open market buyer you need to know the product, ustdes can enter for them to know what to improve, attached link

http://articulo.mercadolibre.com.co/MCO-405631634-acer-iconia-a500-tablet-ipad-pad-tableta-_JM

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I purchased this item for my teenager for Christmas. Was extremely happy to see there were no scratches and that it in fact looked brand new. Works like a charm and my son is one truly happy teen.

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Dell Inspiron N5030 iN5030-2112B3D Notebook PC - Intel Pentium T4500(2.30GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3

I purchased this laptop in hopes that I was going to get my moneys worth. It turned out that the motherboard went out on the laptop and the warranty had been expired for a years time. So whoever is selling these items are buying them, and putting them into their names because I had to get the laptop transferred over into my name. Then come too find out the warranty I had paid for was void.

the keyboard on this computer has serious problems in that it skips and jumps all over the place. the mouse pad would be too sensitive with the pointer moving the screen all over the place or no sensitive enough where I literally would have to "drag" the cursor from 1 place on the scree to another.

the entire body is lacuqered in black paint with raised logos which makes the computer very slippery and will slide off almost everything you put on, including the car dashboard when I parked my car. Unfurtunately it fell off the dashboard so I decided to write this review to tell potential buyers to stay away from dell notebook unless you can physically inspect it because the description will almost never tell you about the body/case of the computer and the keyboard designst

estion

sugget(supposed to be suggestion but the cursor skipped without warning): stay away from this computer!!!!!

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Great Notebook at a great price

works great!!

One of the best Dell has right now.

Will prurchase again if necessary

Nice product

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Dell Inspiron 15 i15RV-6190BLK 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black Matte with Textured Finish)

As a college student on a budget, I really needed a computer that would do many tasks on the road without hurting the wallet. I have a prehistoric 7-8 year old Dell Dimension E510 desktop that is super slow. So, I made the decision to buy a laptop under $400 yet still faster than my desktop.

I set my eyes on this laptop from a local electronics store. I compared specs, from the size and weight, to the nitty features like the number of USBs. And so, here I have it.

Let's start off with the design.

The design of this notebook is, well, plastic. However, it isn't cheap plastic. The materials used are actually pretty good for its price point. The notebook is nice and rounded around the corners and the thickness of this notebook is about one inch. Now, most notebooks for this price point would be much thicker...Around 1.3in-1.4in, but Dell managed to squeeze everything in 1 inch. This is pretty darn good considering the tools this notebook provides. On the left side of the computer you have a headphone/microphone jack, 3 USB (2 USB 3.0) (1 USB 2.0), Ethernet, HDMI cable, and a power outlet. On the left side you have the optical drive and one more USB port (2.0). So the total amount of USBs this notebook has is 4. 4 USB ports, 2 of which are 3.0. USB 3.0 is relatively new for the market, and this allows much quicker transfer speeds compared to the 2.0s. However, most computers at this price point do not have USB 3.0s, or if they do, it would only be one or two. But keep in mind that this notebook has 4 USB ports. And at this price point, most if not all computers only have about 2 or 3. The optical drive is also a neat feature. For a 1 inch laptop that has an optical drive is pretty impressive considering the price. Most notebooks that are 1 inch or less usually skip the optical drive. Now, the bad thing about the thinness of this notebook is that it does not have a VGA port. You might need a HDMI to VGA port adapter for that. However, considering VGA's thickness and the thinness of notebooks that are coming out each year, VGA is bound to be obsolete due to the benefits of HDMI.

On the interior, the notebook has a LARGE track pad. And this is good especially when it is running on windows 8 (I'll get to that later).

Below the track pad, there are two left and right buttons. These buttons feel and sound cheap but that is not to be unexpected. When running, the track pad get quite warm. You really can't fault the computer for this because this is a one inch notebook. Since the ram sticks are essentially below the track pad, prepare yourself to have warm fingers. The keyboard is an island style keyboard that are evenly spaced. The key travel is okay. After writing a 5-6 page essay. It's also got a 10 key number pad. However, I do wish that number lock had a tiny light located on the button like the caps lock does. As I'm typing, I sometimes reach over to the number lock while attempting to backspace. One minor complaint is keyboard flex towards the F8-F10 keys, not a big deal since these keys aren't often used. Also, like other reviewer have mentioned before. This computer has a sharp lip. As you are typing, the sharp lip is somewhat irritating. Doesn't hurt to take out a fine grit sand paper is smooth out that lip.

Lastly, the spacing between the keys have a glossy finish. I notice that this attracts dust and requires occasional cleaning.

As for the hardware,

You get 500gb of storage but only 456gb of that storage is usable (the non-usable storage has to be used for the operating system. It runs on 4gb of ram and although it is sufficient, you may want to upgrade to 6 or 8 gigs of ram as you load more programs. But if you're an average web browser, 4 gigs is good enough. To just give you a idea at idle, it is using about 46% of the computers ram. The computer has one extra slot. Downside is that this computer only supports up to 8 gigs of ram DDR3 PC-12800 (you can't fault Dell for the 8GB of max ram since the processor can only handle 8GB). Upside is that when you throw in that extra ram slot, it will give you extra performance due to the dual channel configuration. After removing all the bloatware and Windows finally settled in after dozens of updates this notebook starts up well under a minute. Considering a startup to be when the computer starts to idle.

-by the way, uninstall the additional trial anti-virus. Windows 8 already has Defender and so that antivirus will just eat up your resources, I think it comes with Kaspersky or McAfee-

The operating system,

Now, I'm coming from Windows XP and 7, to be honest...Windows 8 is actually pretty cool. However, if you're an old geezer who likes the traditional interface, Win 8 probably wouldn't be a great option. Anyway, the big benefit of this laptop that allows you to enjoy Windows 8 without the use of a touch screen is the large track pad. This Dell has a 4 and 1/2 inch track pad and using multi gestures features makes it extremely easy.

Of course, you can always disable the Windows 8 start up and have it behave like Windows 7. (Look up Windows 8 RetroUI) Other than that, the OS would definitely benefit with a touch screen but without it the system is still enjoyable.

Battery life,

On a full charge, I get around three to four hours of regular internet browsing.

Now for the thinness of this laptop, this computer has a 4 cell battery vs the 6 cell that are in most laptops. Under intense radio loading such as streaming, it will drop to 2 hours...Maybe 3. Keep in mind; you do not want to torture your batteries. The lithium ion batteries used in modern laptops do not like to be charged and discharged abruptly. So make sure you cycle your battery every now and then. But, I'm willing to sacrifice 2 cells for a thinner and lighter laptop than have a big and heavy 6 cell.

Screen:

15.6 inches, 1366x768 glossy.

Screen resolution isn't an issue here since most laptops--especially at this price point, have this type of resolution. The problem I commonly have is the viewing angles. This Dell uses a TNF panel, which is offers a distortion of colors when it isn't at the right angle.

As for the glossy finish, well, it sucks. It still amazes me why computer corporations still use a glossy finish. The glossy finish and the bad viewing angles makes it somewhat of an unpleasant experience.

The WLED screen is bright but the colors could use more saturation.

Webcam:

It is equipped with a 1 megapixel camera.

After using Skype, the picture quality is pretty good.

If I compared it with my other Lenovo G560 which has a 0.3 megapixel camera, the difference is like light and day.

Processor

Okay, so it doesn't have TurboBoost or 4-way processing.

I have using an Intel Pentium Processor on a Lenovo notebook on Windows 7 and it's pretty good. It gets through most tasks however you must know your limitations.

Considering the computers size, weight, and battery configuration, the processor is clocked at 1.8ghz on dual core. I have previously used a Pentium 4 @ 3GHz (a single core processor) and this laptop is significantly faster considering the dual core. Out of box, it scored a 4.7 on the Windows Experience Index. After everything got settled in with the way I liked it, it dropped to a 4.6. Using my way of testing the processor speed, I calculated Pi (Using SuperPi) to one million digits and it did it in 21 seconds. Not bad considering my Dell Desktop does it in 43 seconds... It handles HD streaming off YouTube without problems however when you stream in 720p you CPU usage hovers around 40-60%. Yet, doesn't give you a lot of room of other tasks.

Gaming? Well, not much. Don't expect to play WoW or Crisis. It should handle basic games.

I was able to play RuneScape on the highest screen settings (other than full screen) with the use of their client rather than the browser. The CPU usage hovers around 80-90%. Game play was still smooth considering it is a 3D game. However, with 80-90% usage, again, does not leave much room for other tasks.

It's portable, offers a large track pad, good keys, and is loaded with 4 USBs and an optical drive @ just one inch. Overall, this is a great laptop but I wouldn't consider this to be a everyday user. (I use it as a primary since I'm coming from a prehistoric computers, in fact this computer is twice as fast than my old desktop) The processor is the caveat. If you have the option, go for their higher end "i Series" of Intel Core Processors.

-UPDATE-

I reran the Windows Experience Index (WEI) and it jumped from a 4.6 to a 5.1. I guess Windows obtained a better score after removing bloatware and installing the latest drivers. Additionally, a dual channel RAM configuration will allow a slight bump in graphics performance.

So here are the subscores that the WEI came up with:

Processor: 5.9

Memory (RAM): 7.7

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HP - ENVY DV7-7255dx 17.3" Laptop, 3rd Gen i5-3210M, 6GB Memory,750GB Hard Drive,Natural Silver

I traded in my MacBook pro for this laptop and I have to say that I absolutely love it. The computer has Beat audio speakers so the sound on this is amazing. It sounds amazingly crisp,clear and can sound extremely louder than the MacBook. The top part of the laptop is made out of aluminum but the bottom is made out of tough heavy duty plastic which is great because it allows the computer to be lighter than if it was completely aluminum. Overall, I'm extremely happy.

This laptop was purchased for my grandson who is serving in the US Air Force. He wanted a computer that he could play games on and yet still be very mobile. In talking with him before writing this review he stated that he is extremely pleased with the performance of this device. He says that it is very fast (when internet signal allows), it has a very good graphics card and he is very satisfied with this laptop. The item was shipped directly to his base and was received in excellent condition. Because of my Prime account he received it in two days. The price was very reasonable which was a very big plus for someone on his salary. He would recommend this to others.

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Have had quite a few HP computers over the years and they have proved to be very reliable. Love this Laptop. Runs very cool (Temperature That Is). Had this Laptop on a good part of the day and no noticeable heat build at all. Screen graphics very good. Side viewing is not that great. You pretty much need to be pretty much centered in front of it. That's not much of a negative at all considering all the other good qualities of the Laptop. Sound quality is very good for a laptop. Very pleased with this laptop.

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Up and down arrows a bit small but otherwise excellent. Good battery life, backlit keyboard an excellent addition in respect to previous models.

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Toshiba Satellite L675-S7018 LED TruBrite 17.3-Inch Laptop (Grey)

There are many things to love about the Toshiba L675. The screen is fantastic. It's bright and wide and clear and easy to read. I also like the traditional PC numeric keypad to my right. As a former bookkeeper, it makes adding up lots of numbers easy work. The Toshiba L675 has lots of memory, and as an architectural historian and writer, I need that. My last laptop had more than 30,000 high-res photos. This new laptop has plenty of space for ten times that many photos.

However, if I had to buy a $700 laptop again, I think I would spend my hard-earned dollars elsewhere. I've already had a significant problem for which I had to talk to tech support (in the Philippines) and their remedy was not impressive. In short, if this problem (discussed below) is not resolved, I have learned that it will be my personal responsibility to reformat the computer and reload all software and only then will Toshiba pay for return shipping. And then, it's a two-to-four week wait before I have a laptop again.

The problem: The Toshiba laptop gets into some kind of weird loop where it will not allow me to type normally. Keystrokes do not result in letters appearing onscreen. I type at 100 wpm and yet when this problem arises, I have no choice but to type about four words per minute, pressing each keystroke slowly and then waiting for the corresponding letter to appear on screen. It's bizarre and maddening. One day, I was ready to take the laptop outside to the woodshed and "fix" it, once and for all with my 20-pound sledgehammer. I'm a writer and I can not tolerate an ill-behaved, recalcitrant laptop.

In desperation, I called Toshiba and after the obligatory 24-minute hold, I reached "Miguel."

Toshiba's solution is this: About once every 7-10 days (when the problem occurs), I have to turn the computer off, remove the battery, depress the start button for 15 seconds (to completely drain any power) and then restart the computer sans battery. After following this procedure, Lappy returns to normality.

I'm disappointed that this is Toshiba's best solution to this odd problem. I'm disappointed that if I grow weary of this maddening problem, I have to deal with reformatting the computer and fiddling around with it for who knows how long.

However, this purchase represented a tremendous investment. I feel stuck. And so I continue, about once every 7-10 days, turning off the computer, removing the battery, depressing the start button for 15 seconds...

In the meantime, I had the hard drive on my old laptop replaced. When you have a Toshiba, it's good to keep a spare laptop in the house.

Rose Thornton

This is my third laptop and I think this was an awesome BUY! Great price for the stuff(bought it from Costco $699), very nice bright pleasant screen (I wanted to have a big screen17.3") and graphics are awesome, speed is great too with 4GB RAM. I have plenty of hard drive( 500 GB)to store videos/pictures. I am satisfied with the audio loud clear sound. The only cons I feel so far is WebCam seems to be cheap picture quality not that good. I didn't have web cam in my other laptops, so my expectations were high. Also, I was video calling international contacts... just haven't tried enough yet. But overall I am very happy with this laptop.

I JUST LOVE IT !!!

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I have been very happy with this laptop. I purchased it to provide a portable CAD-CAM computer that would function fast enough to use in front of clients. The Intel Core i3 chip, combined with 4 gigabytes of RAM is more than capable of performing this task. I use it with a mouse and like the fact that I can easily switch off the touchpad (recessed switch below the space bar) which frees me to use the keyboard without fear of accidentally triggering a catastrophe as my hand inadvertently brushes the touchpad. I have large hands, and the full-size keyboard, as well as the separate number pad were important to me. Battery life is better than I expected, even when using the external mouse; rendering drawings doesn't seem to have much effect on the battery. There are a few negatives (and I use that term loosely) with this computer. First, the button that opens and closes the carriage on the DVD/CD drive is recessed and usually usually requires several pokes and a peek at the side before I am successful in opening it. Second, be aware that the 17.3 inch screen means that the laptop is wider than most and your selection of laptop briefcases will be limited and more expensive than with smaller units. The only real negative I have found is with the installed RAM. There are two available slots and each slot is populated with 2 GB, meaning that if you wish to increase the memory (as I wanted to do) you will need to discard one or both of the existing memory cards. I like the fact that it came with 4 gigabytes of RAM, but wish that Toshiba had chosen to do so using one single 4 GB card, which would have made it very easy to add another 4 GB to bring it to the maximum possible 8 GB. Still, I would recommend this lap top without hesitation.

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Like so many others I got a screaming deal on my machine from Costco. I think the screen is great, the hardware for the price is great, the bloatware is tolerable, Toshiba has a good track record, but the keyboard is a pain. Despite the feel (which is a bit awkward, if you do any more than minimal typing you're going to get mad. Keys that are hit once will respond twice, keys hit once or twice may not respond at all. The lady who said to take the battery out, hold down the power switch for 10 seconds, and replace the battery was right on. It DOES fix the problem, temporarily. Thanks to her for the advice.

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I used to like Toshiba computers until I upgraded to the Satellite L675. The price seemed good, and the memory and processing speed appeared fantastic. However, shortly after starting to use this computer, I found the keyboard to be terrible. It is slow to respond and will often not respond at all. I was a fast typist before using the L675. It is a terrible machine. It even messes up web addresses, passwords, simple searches. Toshiba has, as far as I can tell, offered NO support to the dozens of people who like me complain on-line. Shame on Toshiba for offering a terrible product, and shame on Toshiba for not offering a means to fix it. If it can't be fixed, Toshiba should replace these computers with ones that work. (I had to correct about 30 typing errors and I rarely make mistakes -here's an example of direct typing on this machine -thi is an exampleof wht it swould look lke if I were o type directly and nt attept to fix any errs due to the inaccurat keyboad response.

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HP Pavilion g6-2210us 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

I had an hp pavilion from 2007 and decided to stay with the line because of the four good years I got out of that hp computer. I purchased this pavilion because it was(at the time) under 400 dollars. Windows 8 takes some getting used to, but I haven't experienced many frustrations once I downloaded chrome. Firefox and Internet Explorer did have some strange issues and once in a while took some time to open(which I think is a windows 8 issue) so I downloaded chrome, adobe flash, open office and have been using my new computer mostly hassle free.

I would recommend this computer to anyone who is going on the internet, word processing, streaming videos, and saving pictures and movies. I don't know if it's good for gaming or putting together videos. I wouldn't pay the 450 or whatever price it is now for this computer due to some of the hardware limitations.

This laptop is awesomely fast and terribly pretty to look at. Plenty of computer for a student or home office, with pretty good gaming capabilities too. Boots up like lightning, shuts down without a bunch of questions, and never gets hot due to the HP cooling feature. A little big for your lap on a bus, but I have a small lap. lol Windows 8 has a glitch or two, but I think I like it and they stay on top of it, update-wise.. If you want something really familiar, go with XP or Windows 7.

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This computer has been very reliable. The keyboard keys are a little small or shallow for fast typists. The touchpad keeps affecting typing. When you type, you might drag you thumb on the touchpad a bit. This moves the cursor sometimes which then changes the text insertion point. Result? Lots of typos that you have to go fix. Changing the touchpad sensitivity helps but it still happens a bit. Two fingered typists wouldn't notice.

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Bought this in November and has been very good as advertised. Selected this model because of the slightly bigger hard drive 640, USB 3 ports and still has a dvd read/write drive. I also wanted to go with Windows 8 since I had not upgraded since XP. Setup was very easy and Wi Fi connection worked with no problems. Windows Office is installed but not activated. Bought the activation code and Office installed with no problems.

Windows 8 has pluses and minuses. It loads quickly and you can customize the Startup screen to your liking for quick access. The touch pad takes some getting used to and I do not like the first screen that comes up in Windows 8 that does nothing for you! I bought an HP printer 6510 e model (wireless) also through Amazon for a great price and it installed fine.

I did have some crashes prior to the last Windows (never ending) updates that caused me some problems. I had the wireless printer working fine until I think I did an HP support assistant update when I lost direct printing. I did a painfully slow system restore to the day before and the computer is happy again. Really unsure what caused the problem in the first place.

Also I do not care for the Windows Pictures App on the start page for importing pictures or for that matter looking at them. But there are plenty of other picture programs out there. Battery Life is good, audio is good and the performance is good. I like it! A backlit keyboard would be nice, but none of those models came close to the price of this one.

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I would recommend this product. My Hp is fast. The Windows 8 is a joy to work with. All of my educational needs are met. I love my Hp, watching movies online never felt soo good as well. :) You guys will enjoy it!

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Asus X54C-RS01 laptop 320 GB Hrad drive with HDMI

I bought the model shown with one exception, it had 8Gb of ram and Windows 7 Home Premium. It can, and has done everything I needed, and after 30+ years as a systems engineer, I only wanted to be able to use my Microsoft Flight Simulator without any jerks, pauses, strange looking ground and/or clouds, etc.. I must say, I was very impressed with the AMD processor, being an Intel fan. It is a dual core processor, which helps greatly if doing spreadsheets, presentations, flow charting, or as I love, playing with my flight sim since becoming disabled with cancer. I have all the controls, of which plug right into the USB with no problems, the color is great, and of course, since it's a laptop, the speakers leave a little to be desired, but do appear to be better than most. I spilled a softdrink on the keyboard almost immediately after purchasing the laptop, and while the keyboard was toast, I found it very easy and cheap (!) to replace, unlike a Compaq/HP unit. The only issue I have with the device is that the HDMI out that I wanted so badly, it was the deciding factor in purchasing the laptop, died as soon as the warranty ran out, and before my spilling drink on it. No matter what trick I used, and I have extensive training from places such as Microsoft when I worked there, just nothing worked. I also would have liked bluetooth, but you can't expect all the toys to be included at that price it has plenty as it is! I don't turn off my systems either, but do reboot daily, and have seen no problems with over heating at all. I use intensive software that hammers the processor, and all have worked flawlessly. Watching videos sometimes will sputter, but I attribute that to having several applications running in the background and having 3 dogs and 3 cats bouncing all around me.

I have also recently ran into a major issue, but it is Microsoft's problem, not ASUS' MS now says the Win7 that came preloaded is not genuine! It came preloaded, and the product key is clearly marked on the bottom, but Microsoft's solution for breaking the activation of the software is for the user to go out and buy another copy!! No FREEKING WAY, BILL GATES!! MS Security Essentials is responsible for destroying the build, it happened after a windows update including an update to essentials, so I blame Microsoft for the problem, and will force them to fix it, one way or another. There is also always Linux, of which loves this laptop, my son bought the same model when I did, and loaded Linux on it instead of Windows. So far, he has seen zero issues. I would also like to see a blueray recordable DVD as an option, and possibly a 2-3Tb hard disk as well, but as it sits, it's a great value and I would do it again as long as I get the extended warranty. Good luck, and I hope no one has the issues I had with Microsoft having an identity crisis.

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ThinkPad T61 Notebook

A friend bought me a T61 over 3 years ago as a belated birthday present. Mine came directly from the manufacturer though. Mine also has Windows Vista Home Premium. This laptop is my every day laptop. I use it pretty much all day for work, games, music creation, video creation, graphics, etc. It handles everything I throw at it, including virtual machines in VMWare and VirtualBox, and runs the Visual Studio 2008 development system just fine. Despite what many say about Vista, I haven't really had any device driver problems or too many problems in general. It's very stable. And I even develop for a robot which needed a special LibUSB driver on the laptop to recognize the robot when plugged in to get to the robot's linux console.

I've also been able to use wireless keyboard and mice as well.

In the 3+ years I've had the laptop, I've upgraded to a larger (Western Digital) hard drive only because I needed more space. I also had to replace the keyboard last month but that is because my old one was shot. I use it every day for extended periods so naturally the keyboard went on me (some keys didn't work and the matrix was starting to wear off). Found a good used keyboard like new on eBay and it was easy to replace.

The WiFi is a bit weird in that even with latest drivers, it will still go off and on after coming out of sleep mode. I have a ton of things to start up with so it does take awhile to boot. But it's not too bad.

I give this computer 5 stars as I have used it for so long and it just lasts and lasts. It's a great computer and with the way I've used it a lot as my main home computer, I can say it's very sturdy and holds up very well. I highly recommend the ThinkPad line (I have a T23 I got used that also works great as my backup computer).

The laptop isn't overly large but not small either. Mine has a 14" widescreen monitor and it handles watching streaming videos (hulu, iTunes, YouTube, Vimeo, and here on amazon.com) very well and very smoothly. I can even create my own videos, and while I'm waiting for it to process, I can be doing other things without really noticing a slow down.

The laptop does get rather warm when in use so it's not really a great "lap" top. Don't wear shorts if you been using it awhile and want to place it in your lap!

For the small annoyances which are trivial, this is one very good quality, long lasting machine. I highly recommend it.

Best laptops Iv'e owned...I have been a thinkPad junkie for a while now...after a couple cheaper "home" model laptops kicked the bucket, I bought a T31 It lasted through years of constant use. when it was time to buy another one, I chose a different brand to save money, what a mistake! A year later I purchased a T42 from IBM and again, had YEARS of constant use with virtually no problems. I now have a T61p that is still live and kicking, it was "designed" for XP, but were prepping for vista (glad vista was NOT an OEM install) I have now installed 64bit Win7 and threw 4gig of ram in it. Wow, all drivers set right up with NO problems...NONE. I wouldn't look at for this laptop for just "gaming" purposes but, if you have the dock (which I also have) you can install a PCIe graphics card in the dock...now it's a whole different animal I have ALWAYS had great respect for these ThinkPads and the Lenovo transition seems to be right on. No issues, love it!

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This is probably the worst computer I've ever owned. I've had it less than two years, and it's already close to kicking the bucket. The battery life is horrible, and to top it off, the power cord isn't working. I literally need to hold it in my computer to keep it charging (if I let go of the cord, it goes into battery mode). It takes ages to start up and has started to go into standby randomly without warning. I've owned many kinds of computers in my life, and I promise you that I will never own a Lenovo again.

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Sony VAIO VPCEA3AFX/WI 14" Laptop Computer

I love my Vaio!! I get so excited everytime I use it. I would definitely recommend this computer to everybody. I'm already looking for one for my boyfriend. They are so nice and sleek. Way better then any other laptop i've seen. The price was great as well. Wonderful product!!!!

positive: its not heavy at all

negative: the wide screen, photos taken with other format, view really smaller like a 10'netbook.

and in my case dont came with the back up software.

neutral: only inside have white color, outside its light silver

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