AS5742Z-4646 - DDR3 Sdram - Serial Ata - 15.6 Inch - Tft Active Matrix

Wecam, 15.6" screen,intel P6200 duo core, 4G Ram and 320 HD... great laptop! I use it for basic stuff: email, internetj/research, download music and that is pretty much it. I don't game at all. This is my first laptop and you need to understand that my old computer (6 years old) was a Pentium 4, 80G HD, 512 Ram. I've had this ACER for a month now and I am more than pleased with its performance. Speed is great. Screen is great. Keyboard is great (I never have to worry about my wrists accidently hitting the house pad), mouse pad is great. I haven't tried the webcam yet. Speakers are weak but I don't use my computer to listen to music. I bought this laptop for $379.00 with free shipping in early February. Too cheap. I wonder how much the workers in Asia are being paid to make them??? :(

-D

This is my second Acer Laptop, my previous laptop was good but this one is great. I just use my laptop when I am traveling, it has WiFi, keyboard has a very good ease of use and the 15 in screen is wide enough that I can watch movies and work without any eye strain, battery life is good at least 3.5 hours. I would recommend this to anyone who needs a good inexpensive system.

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Loves this laptop. I got it for him as he went off to college. Really good buy for the price.

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Acer Aspire Notebook AMD 64x2 Dual Core Model: 4520

Acer Aspire 7520-5115 Have this laptop and am very impressed with the quality and ease of use of the unit; also, it runs cool. Can't say anything bad about it ! This Acer model is a lot of computer for the money. My unit was upgraded to 4 GB memory, which is maximum . The monitor screen is awesome, as is the webcam.

I owned this laptop for just over a year. I upgraded the RAM to 4 Gigs. This was a great laptop. It was more of a desktop replacement though. It is large and bulky, but I knew what I wanted when I purchased it. Great screen, ran cool, great webcam, had aux input jack (which most laptops don't), and it just worked flawlessly. Hooking up to an external monitor/TV works great!

This is a great laptop, but is more of a desktop replacement. I think it weighs just over 9 lbs. Screen is big and bright with great resolution. Full sized keyboard as well as numerical keypad. Great system! I don't regret ever owning this system.

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ASUS Republic of Gamers G75VW-AS71 17.3-Inch Gaming Laptop

So I noticed some weak reviews for this product and am quite disgusted. I bought this unit from Best Buy and have so far been impressed. I typically am a desktop user, in fact, I normally custom build my own rigs. I was in the market for a laptop, and didn't want to frustrate myself with custom building one so I shopped around a lot. For the price, it will be difficult to beat this machine. The only laptops that will come close (Dell XPS, AlienWare, and MSI) would all likely cost and extra $500-$1000. Every game I have played so far (Portal 2, Skyrim, etc) have ran on ultra settings with extremely great frame rates. Now for the Pros and cons:

Pros: Great heat displacement, it has two large exhaust ports on the backside of the machine. This keeps the heat off of the bottom and allows for "lap-top" computing. Processing speed is amazing. Cost is low, but shop around, I got it at Bust Buy for $200 cheaper (though the build is not exact to this model make your own decisions as to what you need). Back-lit key board is extremely neat. Large vibrant HD screen. Its not loaded down with a bunch of bloatware and demos. GTX 660M is a great GPU for most all (with the exception of the have to have the most expensive and overkill, melt your face GPU) users. Additional port for secondary HDD. Easy access for upgrades to HDD an memory. Ivy Bridge! This thing has blistering fast multi-app processing power!

Cons (and the reason for 4 stars): The biggest drawback for me is the 1TB HDD, as it is slow (7200 RPM). For this reason alone Windows Experience Index rated it a 5.9. All other ratings were mid to upper 7's. Shame on you Asus. For $130 buy a 128GB SSD from Amazon and up your computing potential. Just use the 1TB as a slave. It is bulky, but to be expected as it is a gaming lappy. Good luck trying to find a case that fits it.Lastly the power brick is enormous and the battery is lucky to give you 1.5 hrs unplugged. Again, this is a gaming laptop so this is to be expected.

Other thoughts: The pros highly out weigh the cons! For the price this Republic of Gamers laptop by Asus is a great investment.

I'm not a super gaming computer geek, but i know computers well and am an avid console gamer. I like playing fighting games like SFIV and the like and I also love first person shooters, action games, etc. Well so far I am VERY impressed with this behemouth of a machine! Not that street fighter is the most graphically intensive game, but i was coming from runing on my macbook pro under bootcamp with windows 7. Night and day difference. I can crank up all the settings including 8x antialiasing and the frame rate is stunning. no lag whatsoever. full screen full resolution all the bells and whistles enabled. Just Cause 2 i couldn't get the same with everything maxed out, but you probably would need a higher end machine to do that. With everything maxed out i was getting like 20fps but when i turned off the GPU water effect and toned down a couple other things i was getting a solid 60fps on the in game benchmark tests. Batman arkham asylum and the newer arkham city look positively stunning and smooooooth. The picture is great on this machine and the sound is quite good especially with the subwoofer. The power supply practically needs it own carrying case! Seriously this is the biggest brick i've ever seen on a notebook. The keyboard is very nice as is the track pad. the buttons on the trackpad have quite a bit of travel and feel kind of soft, but not mushy. The track pad also supports two finger rotation and pinch to zoom and 2 finger scrolling and 3 finger aero conrol of the windows 7 windows ala macbook (although it's nowhere near as smooth as the mac, but i didn't get this machine for smooth window navigation). I LOVE the rubberized feel of the plastic of the case. I also love that the machine doesn't come with 100 pieces of "bloatware"

the 750gb hard drivecomes partitioned with about 300 (drive c) for OS and other programs and then a drive D (presumably for your gaming data) is about 400gb. There is still an open expansion bay for another hard drive I believe. Now remember, this is kind of the "bottom of the line" G75 with the 2gb graphics card (the 660) and the processors on the higher end units run a bit faster. So far the machine stays quite cool and it not even as noisey as my macbook pro (and not nearly as hot, you could make toast on my macbook when i was runing games in bootcamp). I don't know a lot about gaming machines but i've read that you can't just look at the graphics card or the processor but you have to look at everything together including how well the machine can cool itself because that can affect how well the gpu runs. I'm sure there are faster notebooks out there, but for 1500 bucks I am beside myself. I use an xbox 360 wireless controller and it works flawlessly, just make sure you download the 64bit driver from microsoft. For steam users, install it to the larger partition (the D drive). There is plenty of room on the 400gb partition. Even if every game you use is 10gb (which they usually are not) That's a lot of games with no external drive and you still have the C partition to store files on, plus you can always get another drive installed. I'm giving it 4 stars just to be conservative, but so far the only thing that's a bit off-putting is it's sheer size. it's much deeper than my 17 inch macbook and won't even fit (width-wise) into the sleeve of my 17inch backpack although it barely fits the length. I had to order an alienware backpack that accomodates the larger machines with the 17.3 screens. I travel A LOT and it is going to be really fantastic to have a complete gaming library with me wherever I go! Unless you're an uber-geek I would highly recommend this unit. Im sure it will do me for several years, but then again, technology is such that you're constantly kicking yourself for not waiting for the next better, faster, quieter, cooler, more power efficient thing to come along.

Oh, by the way, the unit is lighter than it appears. Still heavy, but it is a desktop replacment, so that's just part and parcel...Hope this helps

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Everything you've read in the other reviews about its power is true. Portal 2, Skyrim, etc. all look beautiful on this laptop. The matte screen with full 1080p resolution is very nice and easy on the eye. The jet engine fans on the back of the laptop have allowed for hours of gaming without feeling like I could flip the laptop over and grill an egg.

Now, some issues. One is that the space bar is not as responsive as I would like on a gaming keyboard. If I have my thumb too far over to one side, it will fail to register the press. This being the jump key in a lot of games, one can imagine the annoyance this has caused (I've run straight off of platforms like a dork).

The major issue, however, is that the subwoofer will sometimes play when you have headphones in. For a while, every time I started a media source that had audio, I would have to pull out my headphones and reinsert. This is quite annoying when you are trying to play something in a crowded room, or when someone in your house is sleeping. I uninstalled the drivers and let windows install its own, but now it mutes the audio until I click mute then unmute again. I don't know what is going on with this audio chipset, but there appear to be some kinks to iron out.

The audio issue is not a dealbreaker for me, as the laptop really is quite nice looking with excellent performance.I am hoping an update in the future will make my $1300 purchase perform as it should.

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I purchased this laptop from Amazon around a month ago. I planned to use it for analyzing my data in Matlab and gaming. Mainly as desktop replacement, but also for travels to conferences, collaborators, etc. I think I made the right choice, since up to now I am completely satisfied. Computer performance is extraordinary good, design is neat, keyboard is good.

I experienced one unpleasant problem which I managed to solve. The computer every now and then (couple of times in an hour or so) makes a latency spike for about 1-2 sec, during which nothing works and if you happen to listen to music or watching a movie, it will make horrible screeching sound. I am pretty tolerant person, so I didn't care until this thing started to interfere with my League of Legend tournaments (2 sec lag in a wrong place equals to loosing a 45 min game). So I went online, and found this thread on the Republic of Gamers forum rog.asus.com/forum/showthread.php?14960-G75VW-random-audio-and-graphics-spike). It turns out that many people have this problem with G75. Someone on the forum reported that uninstalling McAfee antivirus worked for him. I tried and it worked for me too. I do not experience this problem anymore. But I have to warn you that some other people report that this solution doesn't work for them.

There are other minor problems, which I want to report.

1. When the computer came, the bottom rim of the screen was detached, that is, disconnected from the screen itself. I fixed it by gently pushing onto the rim, so the holders on the other side went inside the corpus where they belong.

2. Sometimes, if I use a headset, the computer doesn't give audio output into earphones, but instead gives it to the speakers (sometimes both speakers and earphones at the same time). So I have to unplug headset and plug it in again.

3. Touchpad works strange in double touch mode. It is supposed to implement mac-like scrolling with double touch, but it works only half of the time. I found that it works better if you touch it sort of ridiculously gentle, like almost to pressure at all. Well, anyway I don't use this function.

Update-02/12/2013: Still very satisfied. Had no further problems, computer works very stable. Problem with headset has been solved in latest audio card patch. Touchpad scrolling works fine too, turns out I wasn't using it right: for bottom-up scrolling you are supposed to make double touch in vertical axis, but I was making in horizontal.

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I just bought my new Asus Laptop June 2 at a Best Buy. The unit I received has slightly different specs than the one listed here however they are minimal. The laptop I purchased has only 8gigs of RAM instead of 16 but has a 1TB Hard Drive. Besides that it is the same machine. However, I found it at Best Buy for 1299 instead of 1499 (which is rare because I never expect Best Buy to have the best price). I ended up paying 1566 after 5% tax but that included two year comprehensive warranty, Microsoft office, and two years of antivirus which I couldn't pass up. I went straight home to try it out and so far I am impressed. The unit looks beautiful with the matte screen and the fingerprint resistant finish. The resolution is stunning and the backlit keyboard is solid. (though the keys feel a bit cheap I am not at all concerned)

As my main concern was graphics, the first thing I did was download Skyrim from Steam. Booting up the game for the first time showed me how this unit is worth every penny. Many reviews talk generally about the graphics of their system but at the end of the day, I want to be able to say how it handles specific games. That being said, Skyrim looks FANTASTIC. I played it on my xbox360 in HD and the performance on this laptop makes the 360 version look like its from the 90's. The lighting effects, graphical details, and resolution are all amazing and the smooth framerate blew me away. I couldn't believe how well it was rendering the dense foliage and textures without missing a beat. I am confident this baby will run anything I throw at it for years to come. I also noticed that getting my music onto ITunes was fast as well. On my old computers, uploading hundreds of files into the program often caused it to crash and took hours. I got all my music up in a matter of minutes.

One thing I did notice was the vibrations of the DVD drive when it is reading a disk. I didn't worry at all but you always prefer quiet disk drives. As I don't plan on using much media from DVD/CD's the concern is minimal. Also the sound quality is rich and there seems to be a built in sub woofer but the volume doesn't quite reach loud enough for my tastes. However, I have external speakers whenever I really need great volume so this is another non issue for me. I have yet to find any real cons to this system yet although I have only had it for a day.

The computer runs very quiet and looks like a professional/nerdy mix of materials and design. I would also like to emphasize that I did lots of research before arriving at this laptop. I found that it had minimal negative reviews with many good ones that matched my graphical expectations and price point. While some people may complain about the hefty size of the computer or the large AC adapter brick that accompanies the unit, you must remember that this is a desktop replacement gaming laptop and it serves its role admirably. I would strongly recommend this laptop to anyone looking for a gaming powerhouse laptop without breaking the bank and is willing to sacrifice portability for power.

**Update**

I bought a SanDisk 120 GIG SSD on Amazon and went to Best Buy to let them install it. The warrenty I purchased covered the instalation and migration of the OS to the SSD. It took them three days to complete the job and I now have both hard drives in the machine: the 120SSD and the 1Terabyte 5400RMP-HHD. I have to say it was a great idea to upgrade. My computer boots in 20 seconds (as oppsed to about 60 before)I was able to load saves in Skyrim in five second as opposed to 10-15 seconds. This is as fast as I have ever seen a computer run. I store all OS related files and programs as well as games on the SSD and my music, docs, and movies on the HHD. The people at best buy did remove the recovery partition, but I can take it back if something happens. I highly reccomend doing a similar upgrade if you have an in store warrenty or if you know how to do it yourself.

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Rain Computers Livebook A2 LA2-02 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black/Silver)

I bought this laptop because I needed a powerful yet inexpensive laptop to use with software for creating music. This is a powerful computer that is consistently fast, does not overheat due to the top of the line cooling fans that are installed inside. It hooks up to my HDTV through the HDMI port using an HDMI cable and the picture is top quality HD! I can use this feature to turn my 50" TV into a computer monitor! I watch movies, play games, and I use it for both of my jobs. I use it to create music and you really can't beat the price for the performance that you get. The RAIN support team is knowledgeable, positive and friendly. I have decided to always buy RAIN computers from this point forward based on my experience with this RAIN livebook laptop! I HIGHLY recommend this!

I found this machine through the Warehouse Deals section of Amazon. Not sure why it was there, as the machine was perfectly fine. Only thing wrong with it is that the glidepoint design could be better it's hard to type without inadvertent cursor jumps happening. I've had to resort to using a mouse and just turning off the glidepoint altogether. Annoying if you're ever on the go with this machine (it cancels out the value add of having a glidepoint).

Other than that, runs like the champ I expected. There was a problem with the battery not charging all the way, but I submitted a ticket to Rain, got a couple things to try in response, and before long, the issue was resolved the battery now fully charges to 100%. (Whoever decided to return this A2 back to Amazon so I could pick it up for more than half off, THANK YOU!!)

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Apple 14in iBook G4 @ 1.07ghz 512MB 40G CDRW/DVDROM Wifi Osx 10.4

The computer arrived in a timely fashion, much more quickly than I even expected.

I haven't had any problems using it.

I know it's been factory reconditioned, but it acts like a brand new computer.

I'm very satisfied.

I considered just dumping it in the trash. Its not worth anything not even the simple basics like cant even surf the web on tons of basic things example icloud isn't supported with the system things like that I even tried downloading firefox nope not supported by the system but that's NOT why I'm upset with the product I mean its an older computer I'm upset because its just malfunctioning on the simple things . Not to mention how much it kept FREEZING continuously.

tried contacting the seller to return this computer under the subject"unwanted " or something like that cuz is worthless but that was useless too.they said about dealing with deffective or doa but it is defective!! again malfunctioning and freezing i cannot do anything on it. So i wrote the exact same thing back on a second review under the subject"defective" And he wrote back OH alll of sudden its defective....uh no its been from the start.So i took that as a rude remark.

and then yesterday i tried using it one more time and BAM shut off on me ...

yeah its cheap but there is nothing that you can do with it. I would feel bad to even try and re sell it. With all sincerity SAVE YOUR MONEY FOR SOMETHING BETTER AND ACTUALLY USEFUL.

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matches the description very well wonderful laptop does everything i need it too setup was very easy and over all a great choice other than for having to replace the battery which i already knew from the description

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If you're reading this then don't buy!!!!!! I bought two. They worked for a month 1/2 and the hard drive crashed on mine and my brothers charging port fell out and they're constantly turning off! they dont support adobe of any types, cant play disks in them (sims games, cds barely work, dvds work ok, any games NOPE). you cant get on your email because it wont support the old program and not to forget that the charger sucks so it constantly breaks if you move it the wrong way. i bought over 5 in one month. rediculous, I thought I was getting a deal. turns out i was only paying for the looks. almost $300 altogether WASTED.

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I made a change from windows to apple. What big change. I getting use to apple censoring, what I download and sticking to a lot of apple products. However, it work really fast

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HP G60-630US 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

This laptop worked perfectly right out of the box! I had absolutely no problems setting this machine up or in getting it to connect to my network. It does everything that it was advertised as being able to do. Even the built in webcam works great. If there is even a single negative , it's that it comes with a lot of superfluous HP software. Other than that, I am incredibly pleased with this laptop.

Overall, I'm very happy with this laptop. Works great, is fast, clear picture, and love the Windows 7 vs. my old Vista. Only gripe is the battery lasts under 2 hours with normal use not the 3.75 hours listed. We keep ours plugged in mostly, and use on the go as necessary. Would buy similar one again, just upgrade the battery.

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The internal microphone is broken, and not just in the one I bought. According to HP, it's broken in the entire G60 series of laptops. I've had mine for one week; I discovered the microphone was broken on the second day, and I've been talking with HP's case managers about my options. Looks like I'm going to return it, because there's no fix in the works at HP. And who needs a laptop that you can't use for videoconferencing, Skype, Gmail Videochat, and so on? It's a shame, too, because the laptop is otherwise great.

Why is HP still selling this product when they know it's dysfunctional?

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I too was very frustrated when I purchased this laptop and discovered an issue with the mic. However, HP has put out a downloadable software driver and I installed it and it works fine now!!! My wife uses skype and messanger. As for the rest of the laptop....we are very happy with it. The webcam has fantastic clarity even in not so good lighting. So, ignore the previous gripes with the internal mic. You may purchase the laptop with the defective driver but you can download the new one in two minutes.

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I have only had this laptop for a week and so far it has been working very nicely. I have always been an HP fan so I love it even more. I love the look and feel. The graphics is wonderful and the brightview screen enhances the colors. All the features makes it very exciting to use and I love the fact that it has a built in webcam and wireless network ready. I have also notice that it is not a noisy machine in which is a plus.....thanks its wonderful!

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Sony VAIO VGN-Z610Y/B 13.1-Inch Widescreen (Black)

For the casual user who needs to browse the web, run basic multimedia, and edit documents, this is a very nice laptop. The fingerprint security system was easy to set up but can occasionally take many tries afterwards to recognize the main user. The screen is wide and offers excellent clarity.

There is no keypad section, which would be a big plus if you are someone who needs to enter numbers and calculations often.

It is weak on processing power and can take forever to boot up, a notoriety with Sony's Vaio bloatware. If you can manage to whittle down on the unnecessary software, this unit can run quite steadily.

First let me say I have always been very pleased with Amazon.com. Several years back I had a bad experience with E-Bay and stayed away from internet purchases altogether. I eased back into internet purchases with Amazon and have been thoroughly pleased ever since. As a matter of fact, Amazon out did themselves this time. I placed my order for this laptop on Thursday May 28 with standard shipping through Advancity. It arrived the VERY NEXT DAY! I love Amazon!

Anyway, now that I got that out of the way, I am very happy with my purchase. After many days of research I decided what features were most important to me. 2.4 Ghz speed was sufficient. 4GB DDR3 SDRAM was hard to find in a laptop, but this one had it. 320 GB SATA hard drive (7200 RPM) was also hard to find but this one had it too. I also wanted Windows Vista Ultimate 64 bit. If I feel like it, I can always replace it with Windows Microsoft 7 when it becomes available. The 13 inch wide screen is just right. It's weight is only an incredible 3.2 pounds. Battery life seems to be O.K. although I frequently keep my laptop plugged in. It looks and feels great. I really don't have any major complaints. This Sony product is another in a long list of Sony products I own including a 40 inch Bravia LCD TV, digital camera and Bluray player. There are some complaints about the price of Sony products, but I think you pretty much get what you pay for.

When evaluating products for purchase, I feel it's really important to first decide which features are most important to you and are they practical. Price of course fits in there somewhere.

UPDATE: It's been over two weeks since my new Sony laptop arrived. I am still very pleased, especially since I paid Advancity $1,729.00 and today's price is $2.199.00 from Techno Intelligence. Over a $400.00 price increase. Maybe there's a lesson to be learned here. I usually like to see a lot of positive reviews to comfort me in my purchase. Maybe it's not always bad to be the first to buy and review.

UPDATE: Now the computer is no longer for sale. What does this all mean?

UPDATE: Now the computer is $1,999.00. It is a great computer. Pick your price.

UPDATE: March 25, 2009. My Sony Laptop is still going strong. I have no major complaints. The fingerprint identification works well except it takes some getting used to. You have to run your finger over the sensor precisely the same way each time in order to get it to recognize you. I bought a Windows 7 upgrade but haven't installed it yet. I've had absolutely no problems with Vista.

In case anyone is interested, I signed up with an internet company called IYOGI to solve and fix computer problems. On a few occasions where I got over my head they came to the rescue. They are in India (yes, I know) but they have never let me down. They've done an excellent job. On one occasion where they were stumped, they actually sent someone to my home to fix the problem. Incredible! Look into it. Oh yeh, a refurbished model is now $1850.00 Over $100.00 more than I paid new.

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Alienware AM18XR2-8728BK 18-Inch Laptop (Black)

The m18x has a very solid build, good looking (but glare-y) screen and fantastic specs.

First off, i was looking for a desktop/road warrior spec that I could use to run a full network of VMs on under linux, play games well under windows and generally do some of the heavy duty computing that's part of my day-to-day life. This probably isn't the laptop for you if you just want to surf the Internet. You can put three harddrives in it, 32 GB of RAM, upgrade it to SLI video cards and upgrade the optical drive to something awesome like a BD-RE drive.

Things to be aware of:

1. This monster is heavy 10-12lb, but shows zero flex when lifting it by one end. When it's resting in your lap, it really digs into your legs. I stopped noticing that after a while. Again, that's not what this is designed for.

2. Screen has tremendous glare issues, but you can solve this with matte overlays. There are some made specifically for this laptop that makes this almost a non-issue. I generally do not have a light source behind me, so this problem is rendered moot.

3. The keyboard does flex some while typing, but it isn't bad. It's just noticeable coming for apple keyboards to this. The keyboard is well laid out, types quickly, and requires a little more force than usual to complete key-presses. Types really well though.

4. It's full of awesome and will consume your undivided attention.

The 18.4" screen is gorgeous and everything I view comes through crisp and clear. Zero dead pixels for me though I doubt that was an issue with this laptop. I look forward to getting my upgrades into the system: additional hard drives and RAM. It's core i7 processor chews through all of my work beautifully and the drive that comes with this laptop is very snappy. Ubuntu & Windows both boot quickly and none of my apps or VMs seem to strain it. The situation will improve drastically with additional drives. I do wish I could throw SSDs into and really let it scream, but I'll have to budget out for that.

Heat dissipation is incredible on this laptop. I have been running seti@home to help identify any hardware issues. It maxes out all 8 cores plus the GPU and it doesn't get hot to the touch. The fan noise is fairly quiet at full speed a plus.

I'd recommend putting the laptop through its paces immediately to identify any issues that might arise in the first 30 days. It's a big investment, but one that I think is justified as it will probably be more than adequate for my purposes for at least 3 years especially with the ease of upgrading all of the components.

I was originally looking at the Toshiba Qosmio desktop replacement laptops but decided to give Alienware a try since I heard great things about one from my friend. I was looking mainly for a powerful multimedia/gaming laptop with a larger than life screen, so Toshiba first came to mind since I've seen them at my local Bestbuy. After I did some research my confidence swayed towards the Alienware. Once received and powered on, I was happy to see it rip through some of my favorite games and video editing software. Overall very satisfied with this gaming rig so far! Time will tell...

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-Like: finest assembly, easy self-customizing with plenty of extendability, calmness, cool look

-Dislike: Its name is labtop, but actually it is not. You will need a car (with big backpack) to carry this.

-Recommend: after you recieve this, add immediately a solid state drive (SSD). Don't need to replace preexisting hard disk drive (HDD). There are two additional spots for full-size drive, and one m-sata spot.

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My initial impression of the laptop was overall positive. For the most part the laptop worked as expected.

After using the laptop for a little over 4 months the laptop stopped charging when the power was plugged in. The laptop registered the power was plugged in (blue light when plugged in > yellow when unplugged > back to blue when plugged back in) but refused to charge.

I contacted tech support and apparently because it was purchased from Amazon they will not provide support but if I call back during off peak hours they will do a 'customer transfer' after which they might provide support.

Be aware that if you want technical support if things break you should seriously consider purchasing it direct instead of from Amazon as purchasing it form Amazon prevents you from receiving support on the laptop.

~~~

EDIT: I shut the laptop down to save battery and when I turned it back on prior to calling support it was charging correctly again. The manufacturer responded to the review with a link to register the product that gave an error an another link that was supposed to lead to a form that would resolve the error and instead led to the generic support page and the form was not on that page.

The manufacturer also suggested that I could try to get support from their community forums and twitter (I assume instead of jumping through the hoops they set up to actually get technical support on the product). This seems like a very poor substitute for actual technical support.

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I am now hooked on alienware. I did upgrade ram to 32g and upgraded the drives to ssd but even before that Photoshop screamed. I was able to put together a 200g panorama in less than a day of processing. Plus my clients think the colored keyboard is really cool. Nothing cheap in this box.

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VIZIO CT15-A5 15.6-Inch Thin + Light Ultrabook

I was considering purchasing the Vizio laptop CT15-A5 only as choice #2...the Samsung Series 9, similar to that of the Vizio except for the 8GB RAM memory, was my primary focus. However, taking into consideration Vizio's specifications, its price, and Amazon's association, I decided to proceed with the Vizio acquisition.

The shipping/delivery packaging, both by Amazon and Vizio, was excellent, neat, tidy, safe, and simple. The laptop's stunningly unique appearance, [lightweight, slim] and durability cannot be denied. The manufacturer's future considerations and modifications must continue regarding opening the laptop with one hand, currently it can only be done with practice and patience. But this should not be a dealer breaker.

I cannot say enough about the boot ramp-up time, absolutely phenomenal with a threshold of 3-7 seconds. Additionally, Out of the box you will have approximately 200GB of free space. Let's not forget that Vizio has a MS signature allowing for no bloating software, I applaud this initiative.

Historically, from my own personal research, there has been significant negative reviews pertaining to Vizio's `track pads'. Not so with Vizio Windows 8, all functions are readily available, easily accessible, two finger scroll [up, down], zoom [in, out], double touch throughout, [right, left] click, etc. This is by far one of the best track pads I've ever used.

I compared the screen with the Samsung series 9 which is owned by a friend, the S9 is superior, especially while viewing in daylight. Saying this does not mean the screen is bad, I watched several movies and the screen did not disappoint me at all, it was adequate.

The battery charger's cable houses enough length extending its usage to outlets immediately out of reach. It also provides visual indicators such as `yellow', `green' notification during the charging process. Depending upon usage, battery life is approximately 3 hours on MS Signature Power Plan.

WIFI reception has not been an issue, it has actually been outstanding. Proximity during usage in my home, which is relatively spacious, far surpasses that of the Samsung 9.

I have yet to max-out speaker volume...Vizio has provided more than adequate sound during my recent movie viewing.

Amazingly, Vizio's heat venting and dispersemant system is incredible, I have not experienced any unnecessary grills during operation and the fan's performance is barely audible.

In conclusion, as its name implies, Vizio is visually impressive...it looks cool, feels cool, runs cool, and most importantly my fingers are happy dancing around its keyboard. On that note, Vizio, Visual that is, back-lit keys should have been implemented improving its night usage.

Congrats to VIZIO for getting the the windows 8 ultrabook right. This is the cheapest ultrabook of all core i7 that has a 256GB SSD. Start up is truely instant.. something around 1-2 secs. The design make it so slim that you don't mind carry it everywhere. It beats my old hp. The screen is great to watch movies, do work, read email. I love the multi-touch trackpad, especially with windows 8 gestures.

My only recommendation to Vizio is to offer a upgradable storage option. I would have enjoyed a 500gb one.

UPDATED 11-21

I want to add that if you update the synaptic touchpad driver to the latest (go to Synaptics website), you can enable 3 and 4 finger windows 8 gestures built specifically just for this large touchpad. It is really awesome!

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I previously owned a 15" Macbook pro i5 (about 2 years old) and moved to this vizio. I've been using the vizio for about a week and can comment on most important aspects of it in comparison to my old mac.

Pros

Designfeels great. Fantastic build qualityeasily on par with my mac. very light too! The chassis feels very solid with very minimal flex. I think I remember reading vizio is using some unibody-type construction like the macbooks do.

ScreenFantastic. I got so sick of the glossy screen on my mac so the matte screen on the vizio is a very welcome change. The resolution is fantastic and viewing angles seen to be better than most laptops.

SpeedI am doing mostly document editing, lots of web browsing and some video watching. Most computers are plenty adequate for this and the vizio is definitely overkill here. The SSD is incredibly fast (both in real world use and benchmarks). One of the best thing about this computer to me though is that it is so fast and does NOT get hot. My macbook would literally burn me if I played a flash video or anything slightly intense. This vizio doesn't have ANY heat problemsI'm really impressed here.

Neither pro nor cons:

Battery lifefor web browsing and document editing you should expect to get about 4.5 hours. This is fine for me but it simply can't compare to the 6.5 hours I got with my mac.

Speakersgood for laptop speakers, but they lack a lot of lows and are definitely inferior to my previous mac's speakers.

Touchpadit is probably the best touchpad you will find on a PC! That being said, it still isn't quite as good as the apple touchpads. What I think I miss the most is how fluid the scrolling was on the macthis vizio can't quite compare although I think it is more a limitation of microsoft windows.

Windows 8Windows 8 is just plain weird. I'm slowly adjusting to it, but this is seriously weird. I've used PCs for all except the last two years (when I got my mac) and have had quite a few confusing moments with it. I think I will get adjusted fine eventually though. The good news is that Windows 8 appears to be very efficient power and speed-wise.

Cons:

Keyboardit kind of sucks. The key travel is very low and there is a small amount of flex. Put these two problems together and it is definitely not the easiest computer to type on. You will end up accidently double-typing a lot of letters. I think this may be something I will adjust to though. It just will require you to adjust the way you are used to pushing on keys though. The keyboard on the macbook is the best there is on any computer and it definitely beats the vizio. Note the samsung 15" ultrabook has similarly low key travel issues too but I found it more comfortable to type on that this computer.

ChargerTwo problems: 1. It is piano gloss blackwhat this means is after 1 day of use you will already have plenty of scratches on it and it is going to look like crap after a couple of weeks. 2. I really wish more comopanies would design their power bricks so they can be directly plugged into the wall like apple does. As someone who always commutes with my laptop it is really annoying to have to pack not only the charging brick but ALSO a huge annoying cord as well.

Overall, I'm very happy with this computer though. I did pay significantly less than retail during a blackfriday sale but you will be very hard pressed to find a 15" ultrabook with specs anywhere near this for the price. Unless you really need the extra space and speed of the CT15-A5 the CT15-A4 may be a much more affordable option and likely has even better battery life.

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I finally bit the bullet and bought it from microsoft store for $799.

Mainly because I thought that for 1080p IPS Laptop with Core i7 and 256GB SSD is pretty good deal and I can live with any downsides. And I think I am justified.

The main feature of this laptop is 1080p IPS MATTE SCREEN. Very vibrant and well color balanced. I am absolutely thrilled how good it is. I had a think pad x201 tablet and it was difficult to work with in direct sun but this one is workable even at the half brightness. The brightness is a little bit more than SONY VAIO S series 15" notebooks.

The second most important feature is 256GB SSD. It is not a whole lot of space to store your media. But other than that it is more than adequate. I run two VMs off of it and have documents and other stuff and does the job. Pretty snappy boot time. I had a samsung SSD SATA-II based and it is easily twice as fast as that.

If these two features haven't made you fall in love with this then third one is large trackpad and bloatware/trialware free windows. It looks nice and very sleek and lightweight and has a neat look. Boots in 3 seconds.

Great. Now stop here and go buy the laptop!!!

Okay Great you bought it!!! Honeymoon is over and now work on the compromise and respect each others's feeling. Stop complaining about the keyboard! Yeah I know you don't like it. The old thinkpad had a pretty good keyboard...but live with it. After sometime you will begin to like it.

Yes my only wish was dedicated PgUp and PgDown key and full size arrow keys. The key does misses sometimes. But hey that black spot above your nose doesn't look right either.

Okay I know your next complaint, Windows 8... well it is not too bad. You will get used to it. Learn a few gestures and with good trackpad you will have the honor of educating your friends on how to use windows 8 and start convincing them to drop their iProducts and make a switch (as if they will ever!! after all they earn for apple).

Battery life is what everybody said. And I am comfortable with that. The only complain is that to replace it is a pain when time comes. Good news is that replacing battery yourself will not void the warranty. Does it matter if it wasn't covered? Hell no. Because you will most probably be replacing the battery after warranty expires in one year. If you buy additional warranty, check if they will cover battery replacement or you may end up losing your warranty. You have been warned!!!

On warranty side, A three year warranty on this thing will probably cost you about $200 with ADP. So once you pay $200 and anything happens you get back $799. But that means you effectively netted $599 to get a replacement. So save your money ($200) because after two year you will want to buy a new laptop anyway. Hey Haswell is just around the corner. Isn't it?

For those brave souls who want to install Virtual Machine. The key to get to BIOS is F2. (to save yourself time to search). If you are unable to get to BIOS after repeated shutdown and pressing F2 then you are probably just resuming windows not restarting. Use the restart option of windows 8 and then press F2 and enable Virtualization in BIOS and you will be good to go.

Will update if I notice any problem....

**UPDATE 2/1/2013 **

Spilled some coffee on the laptop. But was quick in drying it out so didn't encounter any issues. The key felt sticky for next two days but became fluid again.

The keyboard feels fine now..that I am getting used to it. So folks .. it takes some time but you will eventually forget about it.

The screen still feels very good... I work with about 30% brightness and still think it is very bright.

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**EDIT April 10 2013: After deliberating for 4 months and looking at the latest 15.6" laptops, I finally settled on the HP dv6t-7300 Quad Core with 1920x1080p 15.6 inch screen. The HP is a serious powerhouse with 2.4-3.4GHz Quad Core CPU and state of the art Nvidia GT-650m 2GB graphics card. It has all the ports I wanted, and a DVD/BlueRay drive plus backlit keyboard. I ordered a 1TB hdd with it, and you can easily add a mSATA SSD (up to 480GB) if you want, providing a total of 1.48TB storage. The total cost after discount is still under $1K! The only negative is weight, the HP is 5.6lbs, but I think the additional weight is well worth it for the features I get in return.

----------------

Original Review:

Purchased this from Amazon a week ago, tried to like it, but the defective battery and questionable design choices ultimately doomed this laptop. A bit of background I am a laptop aficionado, after all I have owned close to a hundred laptops over the years, from a 4.5" Sony Vaio UX to 17" gaming machines. I simply think if you are going to shell out a grand or more for a machine, you should expect a lot from it. Here are my observations for the CT15-A5:

Pros:

1. Thin and relatively light for a 15 inch laptop

2. Cool industrial design striking to look at

3. Nice rubberized bottom

4. FAST Toshiba mSATA SSD (Windows experience index 8.1 -fastest I have ever seen!)

5. Nice, sharp screen with good viewing angles

6. Windows 8 really made this machine fly boots lightning fast, shuts down quickly, a pleasure to use

7. Great WiFi I am getting 300Mbps connection one floor up from my WiFi router, using 5GHz band. This is the best result I have ever seen amongst all the 20+ laptops I currently own.

8. Solid chassis and lid. The chassis is solid with no flex, and the lid is almost perfect no matter how hard you press on the lid, the LCD screen will not show the slightest bit of waviness. The chassis should be very good for frequent travelers.

Cons:

1. Defective battery this brand new laptop is already showing 13% battery wear (using battery meters), and only lasts about 3.5 hours on a full charge, instead of the advertised up to 7 hours. While I don't expect a full 7 hours, I was hoping at least 5 hours. This is really disappointing.

2. It feels a lot heavier than it looks, probably due to its large, thin form factor. When you hold the edge with one hand, the size makes it unbalanced and hence feels heavy.

3. Slow CPU/Graphics speed for a Core i7 they killed performance by using a single channel RAM (below par graphics and memory speed that could be easily rectified by using 2x2GB instead of 1x4GB RAM)

4. Touchpad STILL not the best difficult to get charms and double finger scrolling (yes I upgraded the driver to the latest version)

5. No backlit keyboard would have really made the design great

6. Wrong screen color balance too much green and red hue on the 15.6 inch display, had to adjust it in Windows calibrate color to make it look neutral

7. Proprietary AC connector good luck trying to buy any 3rd party power accessories like AC adapters or external batteries none will work

8. Aluminum design means it will scratch, ding and nicks easily

9. Machine is not upgradable in any way, form or shape. You are stuck with what you have.

10. Not enough ports just two USB ports, HDMI and headphones?? Why can't they add more ports and an SD card reader like the CN15?

This is a nice, fast machine for day-to-day usage (not games), but the defective battery forced me to return it. This is really sad, as I had high hopes for this machine and was excited for its potential. However I am still in the market for a 15" laptop, and these are now my choices:

A. Sony Vaio S 15.5: Nice backlit keyboard, light 4.4lbs, internal DVD/Bluray, lots of ports, but I don't like the numeric pads that skewed the keyboard, and standard battery life is not much better at 4 hours. Around the same price as the CT15-A5. Optional sheet battery will increase the battery life to 8 hours at the expense of 0.5lbs weight and 1/2 and inch added thickness. Crummy speakers.

B. Samsung Series 9: The lightest, thinnest 15" at 3.5lbs, but no optical drive nor HD screen and pricier at $1500 average configuration, but even sexier than the Vizio. A really nice machine, but I want full HD on a 15" screen.

C. Vizio CN15-A5: power hungry 45W Core i7 runs hot (The Vaio S is 35W and the CT15-A5 is 17W), no backlit keyboard, heavier at 5.2lbs and still no optical drive, but slightly cheaper with 32GB SSD accelerated 1TB drive and more ports, same battery life, Not quite sure about this guy.

D. HP Envy 15: slightly older design, thicker and heavier, but built like a tank, nice optional full HD screen and lots of ports, may have been discontinued though. I think there is a new 15" Envy with full HD screen, lighter but weaker battery.

E. There is always the ultimate MacBook Pro 15" Retina display laptop, but it will burn a big hole in my wallet.

Not sure which one I will get eventually... leaning towards the Sony right now, will have to get the sheet battery and live with the extra weight + thickness. Just hope I can learn to tolerate the skewed keyboard.

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Toshiba Satellite L755-S5244 15.6" LED 4GB/640HD Laptop with Intel Processor

I bought two of these for Xmas presents for my grandchildren. I powered them up and personalized them. One thing I noticed right away is that when you plug in a mouse, the smart pad is automatically disabled. I love that! My own Asis laptop does not, so when you type you can accidently cause unintended commands to happen.

The screen is bright and large. It has a full numeric keypad. Bloatware is minimal. The wireless connects instantly and pulls in a strong signal. It has an attractive outer surface which makes it look like a high end unit.

On the negative side, like many new notebooks, the cover does not latch when closed, but the hinge is very tight and it stays closed.

Battery life and reliability will need to wait to be tested till after the holidays.

Update: A person asked about the speakers. They are typical of laptop speakers in that they are not very good for music or movies but acceptable for speech. But is there a laptop of this size that is good for music or movies?

whatever you do keep your virus software updated!! i didnt now my laptop has become victim to death..replacing the parts and software is going to cost more than the laptop is worth. other than that i love it! i miss it! im saving up for a new laptop

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Had it for only 3 weeks and it has already crushed.

seems to have hard drive issues.

Be happy to return it.

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Bought this laptop as a gift and the Recepient of the gift has been so so happy with it. She is and Entry Level Banker and claims it absolutely serves all her purposes and that she would recommend it to anyone

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Bought this Toshiba 15.6 inch laptop last week for business travel. I am just loving it. Great quality and style. All my family members have Toshiba laptops. My wife has the 17 inch version that we bought last year from Amazon. We still use the 5 year old Toshiba 14 inch with Windows XP laptop in our guest room. Over the years I have had a variety of different brands. We stay with Toshiba because the internal components just last. Never a problem.

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Sony VAIO VPC-EB33FX/WI 15.5-Inch Laptop

I love this computer. In fact, I bought one my husband, loved it so much, I ordered one for myself.

computer is awesome..but it says its white but the only thing that is white is the keyboard and where the mouse is the rest is all silver ..soo its silver and white even the outside where it sais vaio is silver..they wldnt except the return even tho it says its a white laptop..but i do love the features and the design of it ..

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ASUS X55C Series Laptop Computer, Intel Core i3-2328m, 6GB Memory, 320GB HHD, WiFi, Webcam, Windows

My previous laptop was perfectly adequate but the screen pixels were dying. I asked our IT guy at work for a recommendation and he suggested ASUS. So far I've been extremely pleased with it. The speed is great! I wasn't sure I was going to like the scrolling over screen but am getting used to it. It has plenty of memory for my purposes it may actually be more computer than I need...

this laptop was well above my expectations. absolutely love it. never have i had a better laptop than this one.

Buy ASUS X55C Series Laptop Computer, Intel Core i3-2328m, 6GB Memory, 320GB HHD, WiFi, Webcam, Windows Now

I am getting excellent performance from this laptop. The configuration of this laptop is perfect for me. Super fast laptop! The battery of this laptop is also great. Overall, this is perfect laptop for me.

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Perfect size, look and details... included with a nice hardware makes it a great choise!!!

PD: dont forget to buy one ;)

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I purchased two of these laptops. The specs are great on paper, but I have had nothing but problems when trying to install updates, restart, or install applications. It may be a Windows 8 issue, or defective hardware. I figure if I am going to spend the money on a product it should work out of the box. I would spend more time troubleshooting the issue if my kids did not need them for school.

Save 30% Off

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ASUS A55A-AB31-PK 15.6-Inch LED Laptop (Pink)

This is a 3rd Generation Intel processor combo, CPU/Graphics ... smaller die size means runs cooler, faster, better graphics, longer battery life. This model has 4 GB RAM ... I added 4 GB more (make sure the added memory is 1600 mHz frequency not 1333. The screen is bright and clear, though I don't know how color accurate it is. The keyboard is excellent ... the touch pad requires only a light touch, but is tricky when typing a lot. When keyboard adapter is plugged in, can setup to auto turn off pad, nice. I prefer an external mouse. Speakers are okay (for a laptop, but no bass frequencies). External Speakers are obviously much better. Wlan (WiFi) has good range. Though I am adding an Alfa wireless range extender...for use in boonies ... see below (1). Camera and microphone are fine for Skype like chats. No bluetooth, but it can be added via USB 2.0 adapter. SD camera card reader is actually SDHC ... I like the new USB 3.0 ports ... two of them and one USB 2.0 ... total of three ... nice.

Overall, a well made, great performing laptop by ASUS ... fast, runs cool and has reasonable battery life for a non SSD storage drive system. Tons of storage ... 750 GB HHD ... Pricing is very competitive. The instant on is really nice. I prefer ASUS build quality, reliability and customer service... one of the best in the industry.

Amazon customer service has also been outstanding on this and many other items I have bought. Cooperative and helpful.

(1) Alfa AWUS036H High power 1000mW 1W 802.11b/g High Gain USB Wireless Long-Rang WiFi network Adapter with 5dBi Rubber Antenna and a 7dBi Panel Antenna and Suction cup / Clip Window Mount for Wardriving & Range Extension by Alfa

Pros:

-Good battery life (3 hours on high performance)

-No bullshit bloatwares on setup

-Graphics can handle most graphically taxing games on low-med settings

-Great processor for everyday uses

-Comfortable keyboard, great screen

-Simple design, sleek looks

Cons:

-Touch screen a bit too sensitive, delicate to the touches

-Mediocre built-in speakers

For those of you who are looking for a work laptop without heavy tasks such as video editing or hardcore gaming, this is a great laptop. Furthermore, this laptop can handle games such as WoW, Guild Wars 2, and Starcraft at Medium-low settings at 40-50 fps, which is good. Great price for a versatile entertainment laptop

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The specs are pretty good and i'd say you get what you're paying for. what's not mentioned above is that the sodimm is expandable to 8gb, and the graphics card is a 1gb, and it's got a usb 3.0 and insta-on.

Good comp runs everything smoothly and i've doing a lot of heavy STATA data analysis and massive excel sheets. the battery life is about 2.5 hrs (pretty bad), and the WORST thing about this computer is that the SPEAKERS ARE ON the BOTTOM!!! WTF?! why would you do that? so when i put the laptop on my lap...I can barely hear any sound on full volume!

I didn't realize how wide this computer actually is...it's got that number pad on the side too so just make sure you want that.

and the smart touch thing is retarded...i have had to disable touch click b/c my cursor keeps redirecting while typing.

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My wife has had an HP laptop for several years. It had Windows Vista as the operating system. I have an Acer laptop and an HP desktop, both with Windows 7 installed. My wife's computer was fairly slow and didn't talk well with my Windows 7 home network, so when my grandson needed a laptop to do homework on, I jumped at the opportunity to give him the Vista laptop and get a new laptop for my wife with Windows 7 installed.

After having two HP computers (laptop and desktop), I am not enamored of HP computers, so I was looking for something else that had good ratings (on Amazon of course). I like my Acer laptop, but the keyboard is kind of chintzy it flexes a little when you type. Reading reviews on Amazon and Consumer reports, I decided to try an Asus brand laptop. I wanted something with a large enough screen that my wife could comfortably read and that didn't take up a huge amount of counter space since the laptop sits in a countertop desk in the kitchen. 15.6-inches is the same as her old laptop, so that is why I picked that size. Amazon had a good choice with the right options and processor and the blue color stood out as my wife's favorite. So, for all the reasons above, I picked this laptop.

The laptop came boxed and packed well. No problems with damage. It is beautiful. The blue is rich and everything seems of high quality. I had a lot of fun customizing it for my wife's use. I took off all the crapware and added the programs I like to have on my computers like OpenOffice a free clone of MS Office and other similar programs that we use every day.

This laptop is fast and has solid hardware. It has not given me any problems and my wife likes it a lot. I would buy another Asus after my experience. One slight issue I have with the case is that the back sits a little low for me. This makes the keyboard face upward at a fairly high angle for my tastes. I would like to see the back end raised a little higher so the keyboard is slanted more towards the user. That makes it easier for me to find the keys with my palms resting on the counter. I am 6'-2" so I sit a lot higher at the counter than my wife who is only 5'-1". However, my wife says it is fine with her, so that is what counts.

This is a great PC boots fast, has a lot of zip, runs everything that I need to run and I cannot say anything bad about it. I think it was a great buy.

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This laptop has everything I need decent integrated graphics, fast CPU, upgrade-ability, won't burn my legs... on the surface, it ticked all the checkboxes. But I had to return it because of the space bar.

I type A LOT and my wife types a lot, too. She's going to use this laptop for school, and a spacebar that works 30-50% of the time isn't going to cut it; school papers with words mashed together that requires doubleand triple-checking to correct is a deal breaker. I don't have the time and I have plenty of things that frustrate me in life, a keyboard doesn't have to be (and will not be) one of them.

Sorry, Asus I love your motherboards and video cards, but your laptop really, really let me down. I searched around and this is a pretty common problem with keyboards on Asus laptops, so I will unfortunately be going with a competitor's product.

If you plan on using this more like a desktop connected to an external keyboard and mouse and only need occasional portability, then it's a fantastic deal. But if you're an accomplished typist and need to rely on a keyboard that has a spacebar that works, I suggest you go elsewhere.

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Dell Inspiron 15R I15RN5110-7160DBK 15.6" Notebook (2.3GHz Intel Core i5-2410M Processor, 6 GB RAM,

This laptop replaces an aging desktop and has proved a good replacement. It takes advantage of the fast download speed offered by my internet provider and gives me the mobility I wanted in the home. Set up was quick and intuitive. I like that the keyboard includes a numeric keypad.

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Sony VAIO VPC-EA44FX/WI 14-Inch Laptop (White)

I always thought vaio's were out of my budget, but at amazon it was much cheaper than anywhere else, and even cheaper than an equivalent dell with my stundent discount. I chose this computer because it is pretty light, has a decent keyboard, a lot of memory, and big hard drive, great for the simulations I run. The only things I didn't like is that the screen reflects too much (but I guess all the new computers are like that now), the mouse click is kinda lound, the cd drive seems a bit fragile and squeaks, and it did not come with the windows cd in case I need to reinstall it. I got this computer only a couple of months a go, so I can't tell how durable it is. The battery seems to last 4hr at the most, which I believe is standard. I mostly use it plugged in. You might be able to buy a battery that lasts longer and put in it.

I got a great deal on this computer through Amazon and it is by far the best computer I have owned. Given that I've had a Dell and HP, this VAIO was a huge step up from both. The processor is insanely fast. I just got done watching live TV while downloading songs at the same time and this laptop had no problems. Highly recommended!

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I got this laptop a while ago because it seemed to be a good fit for all the specs, plus it was pretty sharp IMO. It was great for a little while, everything was fast and worked perfectly. After a while it started getting a bit slower and now it makes this awful sound. kind of a grinding, clicking sound. I am not sure if this is the fan or the hard drive, or if it can be even be fixed. So based on my experience with this computer I would recommend you to keep looking and find something better. I know for a fact that there are better computers for cheaper prices. Don't waste your money.

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This is a good, very good laptop! 7/10 !

All i need from this model, i get ! And much more :) I'm recommend to all!

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I came from Brazil anxious to buy a computer here and I would like a Sony Vaio. I really liked it. Until now, I did not have any problems. I do not understand a lot about computers but I know that it is a great computer.

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ASUS G53SW-XA1 Republic of Gamers 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop

I've had this computer for about 3 days, and my feelings on it went from wanting to defenestrate it, to pure love. For starters, I ordered a separate 256GB corsair solid state drive so I can have fast boot and load times for the OS and apps. Now, installing an additional hard drive in most laptops requires mostly just removing the bottom plate, but not for this laptop. With this laptop, I had to remove the keyboard by prying it out and then carefully unlatching the connectors from the computer. Then, I had to remove the the piece with the touch pad and unscrew a set of screws that are holding the bottom plate in. Then, I'm finally able to remove the hard drive cover underneath the laptop after the last bit. Why did Asus have to make such a trivial thing so complicated?

Anyways, after I finally got to the hard drive bay I found out that the second empty bay has no bracket to hold a hard drive in. I looked online and nobody was selling them. Yes, that's right: this computer IS ADVERTISED as having the capability of storing an additional hard drive, but the company is not including or even selling any bracket to allow me to do it! I couldn't find them anywhere! So luckily, my drive was a solid state, with no moving parts. What I ended up doing is taping some business cards underneath the solid state drive and letting it rest evenly on those, and then folding one of them between the space that the drive and the bay would occupy so that it doesn't wiggle around. No issues so far, I'm pretty furious that I'm being put in this situation, and I'm definitely giving Asus a call and demanding that they ship or sell an extra bracket to me. There is absolutely no reason at all why I have to do this.

Lastly, once I got everything in place I decided to use the recovery cd's that I created in the beginning to reformate/unpartitian the primary drive and install windows 7 on the solid state drive... but guess what? The recovery cd's do not have the capability of reformatting. What I had to do was hunt down an .iso of windows and burn that to a disk, then use it as my windows install... because the recovery cd is not a 'true' windows. I don't understand why Asus doesn't include a generic windows dvd since, you know, I PAID for the licence and it costs them next to nothing. They did include a driver CD, which is generous.

So that's all the bad stuff out of the way. Once I got everything up and running and with the right setup, things got much better. For starters, the performance on this thing is top-notch. With a solid state drive as the main OS, this laptop boots up in 20 seconds. It handles everything I throw at it with ease. I have the laptop outputting to a second 24 inch monitor as an expanded desktop and it runs starcraft at full resolution and mostly high settings at around 40-60 fps. Best of all, it doesn't 'downclock' to cool down like most of the laptops out there do. The reason for this is an extremely efficient cooling system in the back that blows air out one vent and sucks in air at the other. This keeps things relatively stable, and quiet. I'm not waking up my GF while I game on starcraft after she goes to sleep, and in comparison the Envy 17 I had and returned before this (which cost a beefy 2300) sounded like a jet engine.

This is a top-notch gaming rig, and I'm very happy with it so far. Would I recommend to anyone else? Well, it depends. If you're going to be happy with the measly 500GB of storage, then yes. However, if you want to do what I did or install a larger capacity hard drive, then I recommend you tread lightly or have a certified technician do it for you.

We all know this is an incredible buy for the price, except for the reviews. I looked into this machine long and hard before I purchased it. Many from many vendors haved arrived "doa" and also had issues with the power button. Well believe it or not you can fix it yourself in about 5 seconds, all you have to do is swipe a magnet over the palmrest area (I go from right to left across the bottom) and wham your laptop WILL turn on. I recieved this yesterday as many had, it would not power on, let it charge for a bit, and tried the button some more, still didnt work, then tried the magnet trick and it has been working great ever since. There is a video on youtube of someone doing this as well if you need further assistance. Further what is actually happening is a sensor that is supposed to sense the lid closing is too strong (it is magnetic) it can over time while sitting build up a "magnetic charge" and thinks the lid is closed when it is not, by using a magnet you are resetting the switch. Should you have to do this? No, but at the price I dont find it to be an issue (mine has been working fine since the initial swipe of the magnet, ie the power button has been working, and if it stops in the future I know to keep a magnet handy).

Buy ASUS G53SW-XA1 Republic of Gamers 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop Now

Excellent laptop, people who want to play games, but don't like to spend 1000$ +

It was problems with magnetic proximity switch it (is remain magnetized, so when you push start button nothing happened). Basicly it think's that Lid is still closed and preventing laptop from starting (this is Asus safety measures).

For people who are not advanced in PC hardware it can be a real chalenge. Cause they can think that laptop is not working and try to return it. Don't do it please... The laptop is ok, there are no any hardware problem.

This is my solution (I am assembling PC's since 1996):

you just simply need to demagnetize the Sensore/switch:

Keep the system off, lid should be open and the battery in. It doesn't matter if the power cord is plugged in or not but its better if it is plugged in;

Ok now take a paper and put it on the palm-rest to the lower right side from the touch pad. To give you an idea, this is a 2 inch x 2 inch spot under the small sticker that says "New Revision Certified Design" and lies between the touch pad and the large sticker that shows system specs and features. Furthermore this is the very spot where the magnet in the LCD lid (located to the right side of the camera) comes in contact/proximity when the lid is closed;

Now take a light magnet with medium intensity, shouldn't be too strong or big and rub it in circles on that 2 x 2 inch square spot where you have placed the paper(The paper is only optional but it is recommended as it would save the palm-rest from scratches if any). Do this for a minute or two.

Press the power button and voilà! You are done.

Happy New Year and Kind Regards

Read Best Reviews of ASUS G53SW-XA1 Republic of Gamers 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop Here

For me the laptop came and is working flawless. No power button issues or any problems for that matter. I can play Skyrim on high settings, and I'm blown away by the screen. 1080p on a 15inch looks very very nice. I don't normally write reviews but I had to on this item since it seems to be getting bashed pretty badly. I noticed the negative reviews before my purchase but took my chances based on the fact that all Asus motherboards I've bought were always top notch products. Needless to say at $900 you really can't get a better or a more powerful laptop. You have the assurance of buying from Amazon so if you got a faulty one, you can always return or exchange. Asus also comes with a one year accidental warranty which I thought was a nice touch since my last laptop from hp was ruined when my wife's friend spilled wine all over the keyboard..

For anyone who's on the fence about this laptop, I would say go for it. Chances are there are many who's bought this laptop and has a had no problems like me. The laptop is cool to the touch and the construction is very sturdy. The back cooling system looks great and works even better. I'm at lvl35 with my bow/thief in skyrim, and it's always so amazing to me that such a small little machine can run it so smoothly.

Want ASUS G53SW-XA1 Republic of Gamers 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop Discount?

I received the Asus G53SW-XA1 as a gift for christmas/birthday. This gaming laptop is a beast and runs all of my games perfectly, I would highly recommend buying it if you're an avid gamer!

There is a slight drawback though there are two minor flaws that can be easily fixed/avoided.

1) Power Button won't work: Rub a medium strength magnet on the bottom right area of the touchpad.

2) Power Pin is fragile: Buy an "L" connector for the power supply pin.

An interesting fact: the video card of this older series (G53SW/G73SW) is actually faster/stronger than the newer series (G53SX/G74SX).

G53SX/G74SX Video Card: GTX 560M, 128bit bus

G53SW/G73SW Video Card: GTX 460M, 192bit bus

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