HP G60-501NR 15.6-Inch Black Laptop - Up to 3.75 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)

This is an inexpensive laptop, and not a bad value. It is all about expectations for what this computer can and cannot do.

As an alternative to a netbook, this computer is not bad. The positives versus a netbook. Full size keyboard and a number pad. Really nice big screen, actually a gorgeous screen. A built in optical drive. HDMI output for connection to a television. And a really nice track pad. A much faster processor. Easy hard drive and memory upgrades. The negatives compared to a netbook. Battery life, netbooks will run on battery power a lot longer than 3 hours. Weight and size, this is way heavier than a netbook. Portability.

On the overall positive side, this laptop will do most standard things a person wants to do with a computer, do email, connect to the internet, run Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, and Powerpoint run perfectly well), edit still pictures, and watch movies. It's a general purpose machine. It will not edit movies or play games. In the end, nobody should expect either of these two functions the video is on board shared memory and the processor is a 2.2GHz Celeron single core. These specs are way below anything games.

Windows 7 boots up quickly and the OS runs perfectly fine and fast. All the graphics effects work just fine, the changing wallpaper, dock like bottom views, Aero, etc. The machine does not struggle at all with this OS. Word, Powerpoint, and Excel started up very quickly and ran very well. The built in wireless adapter connected to my network with no problems. The wireless wizard worked perfectly with my WPA encrypted router.

There wasn't too much crapware installed. It was very easy to remove all the Norton programs. Microsoft Security Essentials installed very quickly and Windows firewall worked just fine. There are a number of free offerings and a silly HP program launcher that is very easy to disable. No need to pay anyone to clean up your system from these things.

I rate this computer fairly high because it is a very good deal at any price below that list price. As it approaches the price of a netbook, this becomes a very nice deal.

I did run into a problem that you might want to consider when you get this computer. The screen cracked the second day of use. I don't think we did anything particularly wrong with the computer physically, so I'd conclude the screen is very fragile. So be very careful and always use a good computer case. The other thing to consider, HP considers this a non-warranty defect. You cannot get HP to fix this under warranty. Instead you have to purchase an accidental damage policy from HP. They will then fix the display. Amazon is an incredible company and does stand behind their products. Thank you to Amazon for making this very right.

Just remember the specs, this is not a barn burner, screamer computer. It is very basic transportation; 2.2GHz processor, 2Gb of memory (very cheap and easy to upgrade to 4Gb), a 160Gb hard drive, HDMI output, DVD/CD burner built in, four USB ports, a multi-card reader (no Compact Flash), surprisingly good speakers, a solid keyboard with number pad, a nice track pad, and Windows 7. No it doesn't have a webcam but darn it those cost like twenty dollars. Yes the hard drive is not huge, but you can easily add a portable 1Tb drive for around a hundred dollars. Just be careful with that display.

I bought this on "Black Friday" but missed out on the $197 deal. I got it for $299, But still, I think I got a good deal. Amazon shipped it in 3 days and during the mean time, I read reviews where people said there wasn't any webcam. I've never had one and even though that would have been a great plus, I'm still happy with the computer. Hd quality screen, Windows 7 os, numeric keyboard. I was up and running in about an hour after copying my files from my external hd. I'm happy. I'm in school and keep most of my work work on a flash drive, so the size of the hd doesn't bother me to much.

Buy HP G60-501NR 15.6-Inch Black Laptop - Up to 3.75 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium) Now

Pros:

Value/Price when purchased on Sale

Windows 7 is a nice improvement

Reasonable quality given price

Full Keyboard with Number Pad

Cons:

Weight (6 lbs 5 oz or so with the battery)

Size for screen resolution

Only a single core processor

Bottom Line: This is a superb value in a PC laptop. The machine makes a great Internet computer or any other application that doesn't require a lot of processing power. The computer is very large and heavy given the specifications (my nearly 2 year old MacBook is nearly 1 and a half pounds lighter for better specifications with similar screen resolution, but it also cost significantly more).

My main use for the computer will be to take it with me on photo shoots and temporarily backup pictures to the hard drive using the built in SD card reader and to review pictures as necessary. I will also use it as an Internet computer. This computer will work excellent for my needs and at a cost less (sale price) than an iPod. I couldn't hardly buy an external hard drive for this price.

For those that are interested, this is a no frills machines. The memory is two 1 GB SODIMM DDR2 800 MHz by Samsung (at least in my unit), so upgrading would requiring purchasing and replacing the existing memory with 2 GB modules. There is no web-cam as some thought.

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Bought it through Amazon for $197 and it load and runs fast!

The down side is there is no web cam like it said in the description, but for $197 it beats any netbooks out there. Great bang for your buck!

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I got this laptop for $197, but I think even at the regular price of around $350 it's a nice "starter" laptop. The display is bright and clear (widescreen), the sound is amazing (how do these little speakers put out that sound?), and the "build quality" seems solid and sturdy. Because it's a single core processor and has limited memory, I wouldn't suggest this computer as a primary system for most people. It's a great second computer to check email and surf the internet. I am impressed with the card slot and HDMI out. It even appears to have a built in modem for those who are still on dial up! Also happy that it has built-in wireless.

The specs on the HP site say it's about 7 pounds... feels like more than that to me but I haven't weighed it. I would NOT want to carry this around as a work laptop on airplanes etc as it's too heavy for travel in my opinion.

Out of the box it was very easy to set up, and so far I am happy with this laptop.

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Toshiba Satellite S875-S7356 17.3-Inch Laptop (Ice Blue Brushed Aluminum)

Great screen resolution, and the built in software that makes older DVDs look better actually works. Energy saver cuts in automatically if you leave the screen open and forget about it. The keyboard feels great, it's just like a full size desk top KB. The two button cursor pad reacts quickly and is easy to use with one hand. It is set up as an on line entertainment PC, so if you want to use it for work, about half the software on the computer is completely useless. Windows 8 comes with a start page, which is just an extra step to get where you want to be. It is obviously designed for internet touch screen devices and it's a useless addition for a device without a touch screen, but that's more a comment about W8 than about this computer. It's plug and play with everything I connected to it so far, so no installation CDs required for any of my devices. Logged on to the internet and it immediately registered Windows and was ready to go. Microsoft Internet Explorer 10 is just as bad as all the previous versions, so I replaced it with the latest version of Firefox. A lot of software on there either expires in 30 days or you have to sign up immediately to use, which is pretty much what you get on every computer, unlike the good old days when you got free full versions of things like MS Word, complete with install disk, which I just installed on this computer and it works just fine, so I don't have to pay Microsoft for new versions of the same old software! For work use, the speed and memory are more than sufficient, but I just spent a few hours playing the free Penguins game on it, and it only stalled once, I don't know why maybe because I touched the pad with two fingers and it was confused. Only had it a week, but no problems yet.

I only wish this came with Windows Vista! I know that many might like Win 8, but the software I use in my business cannot run on it. I'm at a standstill untill I can get Win 8 offand transfer old files via Vista. Not Toshiba or Microsoft's fault, but would be AWESOME if buyers could choose which OS was to be loaded on their purchase.

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Love everything about the laptop BUT not thrilled with Windows 8. Should have a classic view setup, so you can get around quicker.

Read Best Reviews of Toshiba Satellite S875-S7356 17.3-Inch Laptop (Ice Blue Brushed Aluminum) Here

When I received this I was having problems from the start with connecting to my mobile hotspot. My old computer there was no problems. So the first call they blamed it on interface problems with Windows 8, after asking my Grandson to attempt to hook up with his Dell/Windows 8, he had no problems connecting to my hotspot. So I returned the call and I was given a royal run around. They said they could fix my problem if I purchased a additional $149. level 3 tech assist package. After spending almost 2 hours on the phone with them trying to resolve my problem, one hour with my Son who is a network engineer I finally gave up and returned the computer.

Why should I have to pay $149. to get a new out of the box computer to work? Only plus with this transaction was Amazon's return policy! In addition, the call center is in the Phillipines and the accents are so profound that it's almost impossible to understand.

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it took me a while to figure out windows 8 but since I have I like the computer. I thought it was the computer but it was me who had to learn something new.

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ASUS U24E-XS71 11.6-Inch Laptop (Silver)

My search for a new notebook came shortly after I returned from a business trip where I experienced major problems using LogMeIn to connect to my desktop back at the office (I was using my personal notebook and didn't sync the two...and why should I...it is a personal laptop). It was because of these problems, I decided to invest in an ultra-portable notebook which would be home to my email, proposals, contact and other documents and to use my desktop solely for graphic design and publishing.

Throughout the next month or so, I spent countless hours at a local store conducting research. I set up the following parameters and continued with my search: screen size of no more than 14", hard drive of no less than 500GB, i7 processor and NOT A NETBOOK.

I found quite a few that met some or all of my parameters, but most of them were Ultrabooks and I couldn't justify spending $1,000+. To make a long story short, I stumbled upon this notebook...only the XH71 version with the i7-2620M processor. Unfortunately there were only about 10 reviews on the XH71 model and I was a bit leery. Usually I purchase things with hundreds if not thousands of reviews. I was definitely out of my comfort zone.

When I was comparing prices online I noticed an XS71 version. This one had a newly released i7-2640M processor, expandable memory to 16GB (read more about the memory capacity below) and an 8-hour battery life. ALL THIS FOR ONLY AN EXTRA $50! The extra money was worth it and I ordered as fast as I could. BTW, there were NO reviews on the XS version.

Here's my initial take on this notebook:

Battery: Battery life is rated at 8+ hours on the XS. During my initial testing I turned the computer on, removed tons of bloatware, restarted the computer a bunch of times, played around with some settings and had my cooling pad plugged in the whole time. I was able to get about 7 hours and there was still about 15% left when I plugged in the charger. The XH version is only rated at 6+ hours. Did ASUS use a different battery? Both notebooks come with a 6-cell bat. Now that I have been using the notebook more frequently, I notice the battery lasting anywhere from 4-6 hours with light-moderate use.

Keyboard: The keyboard is a little different than what I am used to, but the layout is good and the keys are not crowded. My email is now set up and composing on this machine is like second nature. I've missed a few key strokes at first, but now that I am used to it my typing has resumed to normal. The keys do sound different (more hollow) than my XPS or even my logitech wireless keyboard, but who cares as long as they work. I would have liked a backlit keyboard as I usually keep the lights off in my office and the black keys with white lettering can be difficult to see. With the lights on, there is no problem.

Speakers: The speakers are absolutely horrible and the ASUS SonicFocus software is garbage. I would recommend uninstalling this ASAP. These are definitely the worst speakers I've ever heard on a notebook. With that being said, the speakers do work and you can use them for basic needs...just forget about being satisfied if you watch a lot of youtube videos or listen to music through the speakers. You can always plug in a pair of headphones...though for some reason that didn't sound the best either.

Screen: Initially, I was unimpressed with the thought of such a low quality screen. However, it's not practical to throw a screen with 1080p into a notebook this size as the text would be so small you wouldn't be able to read it! The 720p screen that came with this notebook is sufficient (and most notebooks 10-15.6" come standard with a 720p screen), but for the cost of this notebook I would have liked to see a resolution of at least 1600x900 (this would come in handy when connecting to an external monitor). I am happy to report ZERO dead or malfunctioning pixels and the screen uniformity is nearly perfect. Backlighting is powerful if turned all the way up and flashlighting is nonexistent.

Ports: This notebook comes with 2 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, VGA, HDMI, 3.5mm Headphone, 3.5mm Mic and an SD card slot. I would prefer the USB ports to be located further back from where they are, but it's not that big of a deal. One thing I will say is that the USB ports are extremely tight. I've never had an issue with tight USB ports before...

Size/Weight: This is an ultra-portable notebook that weighs just about 3.5lbs with the battery and feels as light as a feather without the battery. The height in the front is about 7/8" and in the rear about 1-1/4" (with the battery). If you removed the battery, the height in the rear is only 1".

Boot Speed: 30 seconds to login screen from off. 40 seconds to login screen if restarted. 10 seconds to shut down. Not bad, but I was hoping for a little faster boot time...I thought that once I upgraded the RAM the boot time would speed up but I really didn't notice any improvement. I do think the computer became fully usable (once logged) in much faster now it maybe takes 5 seconds or so and you can open any program (Acrobat X Pro, Photoshop, iTunes, etc) and begin to work.

RAM: This notebook only comes with 4GB, but compatible RAM can be purchased pretty inexpensively. You can purchase the OEM 4GB Hynix memory module for about $90 online, but I opted for an 8GB Crucial kit from JR.com for only $45 (CT2KIT51264BC1339). I did use the Crucial online memory scanner and found that this system will only support 8GB of RAM and not 16GB like in the description. According to Intel, the 2640 processor can handle up to 16GB. Maybe 16GB would work...maybe it won't. Either way, it's too much money for me to waste (if it didn't work).

Processor: The i7-2640M is fast. Up to 3.5Ghz in turbo mode. This processor has an L3 Cache of 3MB, not 4MB as stated elsewhere online.

Heat: I've had this notebook running for hours on end and did not notice any heat radiating through the keyboard or palm rest area. There have been a few times when the processor has kicked into a higher gear and the air exiting the vents is warm, but it is definitely nothing to be concerned about. I do use a notebook cooler with 3 60mm fans and that helps keep temperatures down too.

Overall, I am really happy with this notebook. The specs look very good on paper and ASUS managed to fit everything into a very light and portable notebook. I highly recommend this to the traveling business professional or the individual who was considering a tablet, but realizes the limitations of a tablet. This is a great product!

****UPDATE 4/09/12****

I've been using this notebook since the end of February/beginning of March 2012 and I am still convinced it was a good buy. I love the ultra portability of this notebook and I noticed a considerable improvement when I upgraded the memory to 8GB and the Crucial kit mentioned above fit perfectly and was immediately noticed/accepted by the notebook.

This notebook has a 500GB hard drive that's initially partioned into OS:C with 186GB and DATA:D with 254GB. When you create a folder or place files in your Document, Music, Photo, etc folders it automatically saves it on the OS:C partion. You may want to change the destination of these folders to save the information on the DATA:D partion and keep the OS:C for software/programs. Or I suppose you could probably get rid of the D partion and save everything on the C. Does anyone know how to do this?

The Bluetooth functions flawlessly and I even purchased a Bluetooth dongle for my desktop so I can transfer files back and forth. Also, I am using the Microsoft 5000 Bluetooth mouse. I have noticed that the bluetooth mouse becomes jumpy and skips across the screen if I am in the process of transfering files via bluetooth. Once the transfer is complete the mouse starts working as it should. Also, I've sent info from my smartphone to the notebook and vice versa and everything worked just fine.

Still no heat transfer anywhere thru this notebook. Everything stays cool to the touch and the aluminum exterior is definitely a plus.

I purchased the Case Logic LAPS-111 10-11.6" Netbook Sleeve here on Amazon. This notebook fits perfectly and I highly recommend this sleeve.

Ran the Windows Experience assessment after I installed the 8GB Crucial memory and here are the specs (sorry, but I don't remember what it was prior to the memory upgrade):

Processor Calculations Per Second 7.1

Memory Memory Operations Per Second 7.5

Graphics Desktop Performance for Windows Aero 6.3

Gaming Graphics 3D Business & Gaming Graphics Performance 6.3

Hard Drive Disc Data Transfer Rate 5.9

Everything about this laptop is great! Lots of CPU power, small form factor, good battery life, great screen. Except just one small thing...

ASUS screwed up the BIOS and the machine will not recognize any SATA III device. The hardware should support it, but after two BIOS updates all the way up to version 207, no SATA III device will be detected on boot. Doesn't matter if the device is backwards compatible or not! So, if you have any ideas about adding fast hybrid or SSD drives to this machine, or ever breaking the SATA II speed barrier, you are out of luck. This has been a known issue since release but nothing has been done about it. Highly disappointing coming from ASUS.

Buy ASUS U24E-XS71 11.6-Inch Laptop (Silver) Now

I have just opened the box on this laptop today, but I will tell you my initial assessment is a definite thumbs up. This little laptop is just 1 inch larger diagonally than my wife's netbook, but it is as fast as a desktop computer. Graphics response with windows is immediate and clear. This is not a super quality screen, but still holds it's own. Ram is 4GB and works fine, but is expandable to 8GB if you require that. Despite the small size, the keyboard is high quality with great feedback to your fingers allowing you to really feel if you hit a key once or twice. Also, no missed key-strokes like some of the earlier ASUS laptops that I have owned. The touchpad is quick and accurate, but has not texture to it so it is easy to run your finger off the sensitive area until you are used to it. One of the best new features is the "Instant On" software that is installed on this machine. Just close the lid to enter sleep and 10 seconds later you are shut down. Open the lid when you are ready to go again and start-up is under 4 seconds. Battery life is estimated at 8 hours. I have not had a chance to test this fully, but I can tell you that I have been using this in Performance mode for over an hour and I have 91% batter left. Standby time is listed as over two weeks with a full battery and at anytime during that two weeks you can start it back up in four seconds. The processor behaves like a high end full size laptop, and scales it's power usage for maximum efficiency. Overall, if you are a student or business professional who needs on the go performance and power with a long life, but not all the gaming bells and whistles and super definition screen and sound options out there. This is an affordable, and well balanced option. Side note, it has a dedicated graphics processor with its own 1GB of video ram so it can play all the new games as well, but not on the highest video settings.

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First, I'd like to confirm this laptop works perfectly with 16GB RAM (as other reviewers have stated). I've installed the Komputerbay 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR3 PC3-10600 10666 1333MHz SODIMM 204-Pin Laptop Memory 9-9-9-25 and it works perfectly (just wanted to be clear this particular brand works fine). This memory is cheap and so far works as advertised.

The Windows Experience Index score for the memory is 7.5 (on a scale of 1 to 7.9), this is VERY good. In fact, this laptop scored very well all-around. Processor: 7.1, Graphics: 6.3, Gaming Graphics: 6.3 with the lowest score coming from the hard drive performance at a score of 5.9. I'll be upgrading the hard drive to the Seagate Momentus XT 750 GB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 32 MB Cache 2.5 Inch Solid State Hybrid Drive ST750LX003. More storage and it has good reviews and I'm hoping for an increase in hard drive performance (it will improve no doubt, but by how much is the question).

The footprint for this baby is around the same size as a piece of paper to give you an idea of just how big/small it is. When I compare it to my 10.1" Asus netbook its just a bit larger and a tad thinner. I love the 11.6" screen, compared to my netbook everything fits the way it should (web pages, programs, etc.). No more scrolling left or right to get the full view.

This laptop is also VERY fast, Firefox loads in a second or less and the instant resume is blazingly quick. While using this feature the laptop isn't completely powered down, but in a deep sleep. According to the battery widget, on a full charge there's enough power to be in this state for 11 days. Open the lid or hit the power button and it's on and ready to rip in just a few seconds.

All-in-all I like it, a lot. I'll post back when I upgrade the hard drive and if I should encounter any issues.

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I bought this early this month, so I've got about three weeks of hands-on time with ASUS U24E. I had previously bought the ASUS G74SX-DH71 Full HD 17.3-Inch LED Gaming Laptop Republic of Gamers (Black) as a desktop replacement, and was very pleased with the laptop, so when I needed a much more portable one, I ended up feeling confident that ASUS could provide a smaller package that I would like as well.

First, this little laptop has a display resolution of 1366x768, which is quite good on an eleven inch screen. For movie watching and doing up spreadsheets and Visio diagrams, you get enough information on the screen at once without having pixels so small as to be difficult to see.

I can verify that it supports 16GB of RAM. I put in Micron Crucial 16GB kit (8GBx2), 204Pin SODIMM, DDR3 PC3-10600 memory module [Crucial PN: CT2KIT102464BF1339] and it pushed the Windows Experience Index for the RAM from 5.9 to 7.5. Of course, the actual performance increase going from the stock 4GB up to 16GB is monstrous. You will see a decrease in battery life if you quadruple your memory for me, it's about an hour less than the stock battery life (which, at 5-6 hours, is impressive for a fully featured laptop) though I tend to have quite a few programs open at once. If you use your RAM more lightly, you might not see as much of a decrease. Also, the key board is much better than the ASUS keyboard on their Republic of Gamers laptops, which are notorious for missing keystrokes. I haven't had that problem on this laptop at all.

I'm a casual gamer in my free time, and this little laptop, with the 16GB RAM upgrade I threw in it, can play Skyrim and The Witcher 2 quite cleanly with no problems. The dedicated video card probably isn't up to the task of producing full 1920x1080 resolution in video games, but scaled down to fit the screen at 1366x768, it's plenty powerful.

Finally, the main reason I wanted to get a more portable laptop was that for my job I need to run around and connect to routers and switches and modems and the like. This laptop has the USB ports to spare for the connections I need, and can also quite admirably serve as my presentation laptop; with a VGA out as well as HDMI, I can put up presentations on a big screen as needed. Having all this power in a tiny shell is excellent. I obviously can't comment on the long-term reliability of this laptop, but just looking inside the case to upgrade the RAM shows a clean, neatly organized, firmly constructed board, so I have high hopes.

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Sony VAIO VGN-FW550F/B 16.4-Inch Black Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium)

personally I prefer windows to mac primarily because windows is better with home video and other networked applications based on my experience. However, one problem with windows based pcs from dell amd hp is their really poor design amd general ergonomics. I still believe when it comes to design and build nothimg touches an apple mac book pro.

However, after coming very close to getting a 17 inch mac book I decided to go with a windows 7 based vaio Fw. the one I got has slightly better specs than the one here. I have the full HD screen and a blu ray writer. Here is why i believe this is an exellent notebook;

1. simply the best looking large screen windows based notebook. Kudos to Sony for excellent styling. (Aesthetics is a toss up between Mac Pro and Vaio FW for me)

2. excellent build quality. way better than my dell latitude from work or my wife's hp from work. The construction is solid. Kudos to Sony engineering for excellent construction (Apple Mac Pro is #1, Vaio is #2 in my books for this criteria)

3. screen size is a perfect 16:9 aspect ratio. Perfect for movies. (The Vaio FW is #1 in my opinion, this screen was designed for multi-media use)

4. blu ray looks fantastic and it is a breeze to connect it to my tv using the hdmi cable. One cable for audio and video. (Vaio FW is #1 for multi-media, hands down!)

5. It comes with 64 bit windows 7 and I upgraded the hardware to 8 GB Ram for blazing performance when combined with the 1 gb grapics card. (Windows 7 64 bit is the best OS in my books, All said and done)

6. came clean with no crapware!

7. sony laptops in my opinion have the best key boards. (Again, Sony created the chicklet style keyboard (not Apple) and if you like it, this is the best)

8. battery is OK. 3.5 hours on such a powerful machine is not bad.

all in all this a superb combination of performance, styling, features and software. do compare this with HP and Dell and decide which you prefer. I bet most will pick the Vaio because of the better build quality, better screen (1080p and true 16:9 size) and aesthetics. Also, compared to a Dell Lattitude that I had from work the Vaio runs much quieter and faster although both have similar hardware specs. The DVD drive on the Dell was atrocious (Dell also did not have a Blu Ray drive).

Given that Sony was one of the prime drivers and developers of the Blu Ray format, one would expect their Notebooks to have the best Blu Ray performance, or at least as good any anyone else out there.

I preordered this laptop and Amazon was great to deliver exactly on 10/22/2009 when Windows 7 was released. Great Job Amazon!

A bit of background... I am a true Sony fan and over the years have collected several of their excellent products LCD TV, DVD Player, Home Theater, Cell Phones etc (some of them from Amazon too). I am very impressed with Sony's design, quality, and performance. Obviously you have to pay a 10-25% premium for the "Sony" brand, but you get a good quality, long lasting, good looking, high performing product, which in my opinion justifies the price premium. Having said that, I am really disappointed with this laptop's keyboard. The keyboard looks good and keys are well spaced out, but the quality doesn't seem to be high. It might be because this particular laptop is "Made in CHINA" :). The keys on this laptop's keyboard look fragile. In my laptop, the '-' key (above letter 'P') came off on 10/25/2009 just 3 days after getting the laptop!

I have been using personal/business laptops (mostly Dells and HPs) for over ten years (some laptops are upto 5 yrs old) and this is the first time a key has came out of the keyboard. I have put the key in place and pressed it and it seems to work OK for a while, but after hitting it 5-6 times, it comes out again. Rest of the keys seem to hold (but I don't know what will happen after 2-3 years of use). Even though this particular issue could be because of a manufacturing defect, I am little disappointed with Sony.

I contacted Amazon's customer service and they apologized for the inconvenience, and were ready to replace it (but were out of stock on VGN-FW550B, my laptop's model). Since I want to use it for business, I couldn't afford to wait for 1-2 months (Amazon's fulfilment time) to get a replacement model. Moreover, my confidence in Sony's laptop, at this point, has shaken a lot. So I am just returning this back to Amazon and would probably go back to Dell or HP.

I would have given it a 1 * for quality (which obviously is Made in CHINA), but had to give them 3 * for their design, price, performance (see useful comments below), which probably is "Made in Japan or US".

Other thoughts: The screen is excellent (glossier than most business laptops), Windows 7 is different, but you get used to it in a day or two and customize it according to your preferences. The Intel Processor and 4 GB memory are enough for me (I don't use it for gaming), battery lasts for a few hours when fully charged, time to charge seemed slower (but it could be just me, didn't time it), the weight is comfortable to carry around (even for the 16.4" screen, which is great. The charger's power cord is little short (but is OK). The resolution (1600x900) is perfect for work writing text files, word documents excels etc.), the price is Excellent and competitive to other models. Good Luck (I wish the one I got was good and hope the best for you)!

Buy Sony VAIO VGN-FW550F/B 16.4-Inch Black Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium) Now

this machine is configured to run today's graphics intensive video applications. much to my relief, windows seven ain't bad. i run multiple intensive applications without problem. the design is sleek & ergonomic. construction quality is very good. it boots fast and loads websites very quickly. even the internal speakers are excellent.

if you want to watch blu ray videos, or want to do video & image editing (not blu ray), browse the web, play games or use productivity software, this model performs quickly, smoothly & beautifully.

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I purchased an FW laptop in November 2008 and the keyboard failed in August 2009. Service was responsive and replaced it. In January 2010., keyboard failed again and Sony will not cover since the computer is "out of warranty". I have another brand that is still working after 8 years. One year life is outrageous!

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I bought this laptop from sony directly back at the end of September. I have the C2D P8700 Processor, the 1080P screen (get it, it is SO worth the money!), and the 1 GB graphics card, and the bluray reader. I got a free upgrade to Windows 7 Home Premium through Sony. This thing is an entertainment powerhouse. It can play most games I have thrown at it (San Andreas, Oblivion, others) at medium to high settings. The 1080P screen is absolutely gorgeous, with excellent black levels (much better than most competing LED screens can offer, with the possible exception of the RBG LED of the Dell studio XPS 16. The brightness is more than adequate, in a slightly darkened room, the screen must be turned down or it hurts my eyes. Thats a great screen in my opinion.

Despite many of the negative reviews on the keyboard posted here, I feel that this computer has one of the best laptop keyboards I have ever used. It does not feel "cheap" or flimsy at all to me, and the keys have a nice click to them with no "give" if pressed quite hard. That said I do have a slightly older model than the one listed, and I hope that Sony has not changed the keyboard out for a flimsier model.

I popped in the Planet Earth Bluray and was blown away by the detail. It looks better on this computer than it ever did on my Sony HDTV.

Complaints: There are very few

1. There is a slight creak that has developed underneath where my right wrist rests on the bottom edge of the computer. This may just be a loose screw, but I haven't had time to open up the bottom of the computer to check it yet.

2. There is a slight amount of wiggle in the top bezel of the LCD. It is not enough to worry me, but it is noticeable when you grip this part of the screen to open the computer. Other than these two minor niggles, I have no complaints about build quality. The outside of this computer (at least the Chocolate Brown model that I purchased) is made of Magnesium not plastic, with a plastic bottom and keyboard.

3. The speakers flat out suck. This is the only truly disappointing aspect of this computer. This thing is so amazing at all things related to multimedia, I cannot believe that Sony would fit such terrible speakers. I have ordered a set of Logitech V20's to put in my bag for when I travel with this computer. Output via headphone is just fine, but don't plan on enjoying bluray-quality sound through the built-in speakers.

Other than these minor complaints, this thing absolutely rocks my world. I am an engineering student, and I rely heavily on this computer day-to-day at school, and it has not let my down. With the extended battery, I see nearly 4 hours of battery life with WiFi on.

Ive done the research, and I don't believe it is possible to get a better quality computer for less money than this. Sony should have called it the FTW.

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Sony VAIO VPC-EH32FX/B Intel Core i5-2450M 2.50GHz 6GB 500GB DVD+/-RW Win7 15.5" (Black)

The computer came with a corrupted restore partition in the D drive. Which means, if this computer crashes, I have no way of restoring it. Sony technical support can provide me with the restoration software. but at a cost of $75.00! The service technician told me that because I purchased the computer through a third party, this issue is not covered under warranty. I therefore ask, what good is having a warranty if when the time comes to utilize it, it's rendered invalid simply because of the vendor??? This remains an ongoing issue that has yet to be resolved.

This laptop was OK but it felt cheap and it froze up while playing DVDs, CDs, or trying to make a recovery CD. The screen wasn't as clear as most other computers I've used and the sound quality was very bad. I couldn't recommend this laptop.

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Toshiba Satellite C655-S5121 15.6" Laptop

I've been a Toshiba notebook fan for a while, this is my third. The notebook is loaded with windows 7 but only 2gb of RAM, I'd suggest grabbing a $15 stick of RAM when you purchase it so you can immediately upgrade your memory. I run Adobe CS5 on this with no problem and also some lightweight video editing. It's a great computer for office work and I'm pretty pleased with the battery life.

It's perfect for what I need. I mainly need it for school and entertainment. I can watch tv.com or Hulu just fine on it. It didn't have Word or Works, etc, but I use Google Drive anyway. The only problem is a tiny little white spot in the screen, but it's hardly noticeable.

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I really enjoy my lab top It is very dependable and has window 7 on it. The only thing that I have liked that I did not get was a mic and camera in it. But that was my mistake. The wifi works great. Will buy a nother toshbia.

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This is a very nice laptop easy to use and serves it purpose no issues love it. Toshiba makes a product worth it's reputation, in other words it is high quailaty.

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HP Mini 1000 Notebook, Intel Atom Processor N270 1.60GHz, 10.2" LED Brightview Infinity Display, 51

This machine hits the sweet spot for travel. It's light has all you need for running office and surfing the internet.

The touchpad is hard to get used to as the click buttons are to the left and right. Get a wireless mouse!

Webcamera produces very dark images, but I really didn't buy it for that. I just wanted a small lightweight machine that could run office for travel.

An added bonus: it has windows xp!! Yay! I hate Vista.

I bought this product for essentially two purposes. One is to stream music wirelessly to my stereo and built in speakers and the other is to web surf when my kids are on our other laptops. I wanted a small unit in order to save space on my bar at home where I placed it. At the end of the day it is a cool little unit, however with a couple of drawbacks I am thinking perhaps I should have gone with a full size laptop which in retrospect would not have taken up that much more room. The first drawback is that the keyboard is not quite fullsize so it is taking some getting used to, to be able to type without making a lot of errors. The second is that for some reason the screen can only lay back at a limited angle. This is awkward if you are standing while typing or sitting in a higher chair. You just get the feeling you want to push the screen back some more but can't. I do plan on using this laptop on the road for short business trips, but for longer trips,where I would be typing more, I would probably stick with my full size business lap top.

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Bought this as a replacement for my 18 inch laptop since I can comfortably have this in my jacket pocket.Seller was very good and kept constant communication with me till the item reached me.The laptop came in good time whichis always a good thing.I would definitely recommend this seller to anyone out there!!Thanks KSY.

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HP Pavilion dv2845se Special Edition Notebook PC (KN999UA)

I purchased this laptop about a year ago online. The laptop had decent specs and I planned on using it for (light) gaming and general browsing and school work. At first the laptop seemed good, it performed well and played games like Half-Life 2 at max resolution and medium settings. However, over time the laptop developed severe over-heating issues. At first I thought it was due to faulty video drivers so switched out my video drivers a few times and that didn't help at all. Eventually I Googled, "dv2845se heating issues", and found forums rife with complaints about their dv2845se laptops running extremely hot.

It turns out that the way the gpu's thermal foam that is applied to the gpu deteriorates over time and eventually can even heat up enough to cause the gpu unit to de-solder itself off of the motherboard causing many more problems in the process. Fortunately I was able to combat the issue somewhat by installing Windows 7 and altering the performance settings to "Power Saver" which allowed the laptop's gpu to idle at around 67c, which is still pretty hot but not hot enough to do any damage as long as I don't do anything graphics intensive (no more 3D games for me now). Recently I tried applying some thermal paste to the gpu, but that didn't help the issue at all and in fact made it run hotter then before.

The thing that really upsets me about this laptop though, is the fact that HP never extended the warranty of these laptops or issued a recall even though this is a very prevalent and well known issue with this model. I can say with certitude that I will never buy an HP laptop again.

This computer worked fine until it didn't! After buying this computer to more or less replace my desktop which took up too much space for the minimal amount of usage it received, I was very upset to find it simply wouldn't turn on after less than 2 yrs of very light usage. Although it is a laptop, it essentially stayed at my desk as I used my netbook to travel with me back and forth to work. I was even more upset to find that there are a lot of people out there with the same complaint, and HP refuses to recognize the issue and take care of it. I have personally purchased 8 laptops/netbooks over the last 10 years and advised many friends and family members on their purchases. I guess I will now be purchasing #9 to replace my HP Special Edition paper weight! I can guarantee you (which is more than HP will do!) that I will not be purchasing another HP product again... nor will any of my friends, family or workmates if I can help it.

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I've had this laptop for a little over three years and it's run pretty well with the exception of the video card frying recently. That being said, however, I ran this laptop nearly non-stop for three years before that happened, took it into the African bush, and hadn't cleaned it out in some time. It's a good one... plus it has FIREWIRE!

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I bought the HP Pavilion dv2845se about 2.5 years ago. I would NOT recommend it to anyone. After a few months the CD drive broke and after another few months the replacement drive they sent broke as well. Also, if you look up this model on several forums, it has a history of dying after about 2 years. The power button stops working and you can no longer turn on the computer. This is what happened to mine, so eventually I left it on permanently, but eventually it turned off and I haven't been able to turn it on again. HP knows about the problem with the power button and won't offer an solutions unless you want to pay to send it in to them. You might as well spend the money buying a new laptop. HP has really gone downhill in the past couple years. Most people I know who have bought HPs have had problems starting around after the 1yr warranty ends. The over-heating is also a problem mentioned by other reviewers. I'm never buying an HP again.

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Cons-

As others have said this laptop has heating issues. I had no problem with it till a couple of months ago when it straight up melted my hard drive. Luckily a good replacement only went for $60. I have found out that I can run it on high performance with a two fan cooling pad and I have no problems. It is frustrating that it has this issue, but it is avoidable.

Another issue is fingerprints. It looks great but anytime anybody touches it you can see it from far away.

Volume controls freeze the laptop temporary.

Pros-

Great specs. I bought this two years ago and was the most powerful laptop I could buy for under $1,000. I recently looked at new laptops and the specs are the same except for a slightly faster processor.

Keyboard is great. The keys are quiet and really user friendly. Everything is spaced out perfectly.

The mouse controls work well.

Three USB ports.

Built in wireless control. Great for presentations.

Its durable. I have had it for two years. In those two years I have taken it to class everyday, watch countless DVD's, hours and hours of videos, and made many presentations. Its still looks good and is solid.

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Dell XPS 15z XPS15z-72ELS Laptop (Elemental Silver)

Bought this system based on a friend's recommendation who works for Dell. Also was a strong Dell loyalist for over 10 years because my previous laptops were all Dell. Unfortunately my experience with this system has been fraught with troubles.

My new laptop arrived and setup was a breeze. However within a week the batter stopped charging and was disabled. After hrs on the phone with Dell and everyone assuring me this was a unique problem, they sent me a new system. guess what same problem 10 days later. Another 2 days on the phone with their customer service folks in Hyderabad who kept trying to fix the problem. Ultimately they sent in a technician who replaced the battery and the system has been working fine since then. They extended my warrant by 4 months to compensate me for my troublesi guess i should have just bought a refurbished one which is what I essentially got for buying their top of the line laptop.

Now a month later, the wireless card has started acting up. If I step into a room away from where the router sits, it randomly disconnects and tries to connect. Its disconnected 90% of the time. Funny thing is I have a 6 year old Dell Inspiron which works fine and streams video movies without once dropping the signal sitting right next to this machine. I've tried new wireless routers but the problem persists. Called their customer service and they claim it is a software issue without even looking at it and want to charge me to troubleshoot the problem. Dell's service was one thing going for thembut i'm afraid that has started to suck too now.

I would strongly discourage anyone from buying this unless you enjoy being on the phone with a service technician being bumped from hardware to wireless to software to XPS support teams.Other than that it seems like a pretty decent machine that looks sleek, works well when no issues.

I have owned several brands of laptops in all different size screens, but I have mostly stayed with Dell. I opted for all the bells and whistles on this one such as a higher resolution 1080 and the Core i7. Therefore, the configuration is higher end than the one listed here. But, basically it is the same computer. This XPS 15z is by far the best one I have had to date. I might add that I also have a MacBook Pro 15 inch. Both computers have their good points, but overall I prefer this Dell XPS.

The design is similar to the MBP, yet keeps a distinctive style. The keys on the keyboard are well spaced and the key travel works just fine and I find it easy to use. And of course, the backlit keyboard really comes in handy. I have had this feature before and love it. The screen resolution and brightness is fantastic, very sharp and clear. The speed is, well, fast. What else can I say. Everything just zips right along. The sound quality is above average for a laptop. The large touchpad is well placed and also easy to use.

I really cannot fault this computer at all. Even though nothing is perfect, I have yet to find anything I don't like. I am just not the type that will complain about the cup holders in a Lexus. That is pointless.

If you want a high end laptop, then I highly recommend this Dell XPS 15z. Give it a try and see for yourself.

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I bought this laptop in 07/11 when it was newly launched. I must admit that the looks got me. Dont get me wrong, its a decent laptop. Sleek looks, good display, light weight and decent battery life...it had it all going for it. Until one day, out of the blue, when I got a message while starting it up "the battery has been temporarily disabled. Please turn off your computer and try it again when the unit is at operational temperature". Initially, I thought that the system might have gotten overheated, but with a surrounding temperature of

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HP dv6t QE Laptop - Windows 7 Home Premium, Intel i7-2630QM 2.0GHz, 8GB Ram, 750GB HDD, 1GB HD 6490

This laptop completely overheats quite often. This laptop gets so hot it caused 4th degree burns on my childs lap.

What the major drawback about it is that due to improper cooling vent placement and super hot processor, the whole

laptop basically combusts and can get hot enough to fry an egg on. Buy this laptop if you want a dud. Oh do I

even have to mention that the laptop auto turns off when it overheats... buy it if you like wasting money!

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ASUS G55VW-DH71 2.40-3.40GHz i7-3630QM 16GB 120GB SSD 2GB NVIDIA GTX 660M DVD RW

Make sure you get something with a larger SSD. The 120GB come out of the box with only 90Gigs usable. That means Asus allocates 20Gig to recover partition. And it is easy to fill up the rest fast.

The laptop also stains easily and you see finger prints on it quite easily. It's also very heavy. But fantastic performance.

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HP Pavilion dm3-3010us 13.3-Inch Laptop PC - Up to 7.5 Hours of Battery Life (Black)

8 MONTH EDIT: After owning the laptop for 8 months I've noticed some other things. First, the battery life is around 3.5hours for browsing the internet. Second, the laptop has started to heat up significantly compared to when I first got it. I think that this might be HP's bad heatsink installation, as I've had problems like this with other HP laptops. Third, the laptop cannot play Hulu or certain flash based videos due to the slower processor. It can play youtube 720p when connected to my TV, but there is a slightly noticeable drop in smoothness. Overall, I would lower my rating to 3 stars.

The HP dm3-3010us I got from Amazon was, at first look, all I expected from a portable laptop. It's got the following:

PROS:

-Thin and lightweight. Feels very thin because of the tapered design (similar to macbook air)

-Great size and weight balance making it easy to carry or put on a lap.

-Nice softtouch exterior with very nice styling (I like the black color and design better than apple's macbook styling)

-COOL bottom with fan vents on the side (this has to be the only laptop that has never gotten hot on my lap (it's barely as warm as my skin temperature at even the warmest spots on the bottom)). I have no problems keeping this on my lap all the time. No fan vents on the bottom mean its OK to keep this on carpet or a blanket in bed or anything without worry about blocking the vents. Definitely a great feature that is not included in most laptops.

-Easy to use keyboard with inverse function keys (don't need to hold function to access volume/brightness/wifi/monitor keys)

-bright, clear screen

-HDMI, VGA, and eSATA ports make for this to be a very good media laptop to connect to my TV

-webcam and microphone work well

But I was misled by the some of the claims, even though I should've known better:

CONS:

-Battery life. More around 4:30-5:00 hours with mainly text based internet browsing (definitely nowhere near 7.5h). I have not tested it with youtubeHD or movies, but I assume it would even lower in those settings.

-Touchpad. Is a pain (as stated by some reviewers). So the touchpad size and surface are great. However, the multitouch is very annoying. It requires a lot of fooling around with settings, and even then the only mildly useful thing is two-finger scrolling. But that doesn't always recognize, and about 20% of the time, I have to lift my fingers and retry the scroll gesture to get it to recognize. This touchpad made me very aware of how important scroll functionality is while browsing the web. Even after much tweaking, I still prefer using the traditional scroll area on the right side (thankfully works well), rather than two finger scroll.

-Touchpad buttons. There are good and bad sides to this. The buttons are integrated into the pad surface making the total area bigger. However, I control the cursor with my index finger and use my thumb to hit the buttons. On this trackpad, the touch sensitive area continues over the buttons so it will often think I'm trying to perform some two finger gesture instead of just a click. I've basically converted to using the tap-to-click functionality now.

-HP Bloatware. This laptop is loaded with so much crap out of the box that it's almost unbelievable. It's like the good old days of AOL, except twice as bad. After first bootup, I was so disgusted that I decided to reinstall Windows from the "recovery partition," but even then it still reinstalled a lot of the crappy software. So I had to manually uninstall several programs still. The good thing is that this might keep the price of the laptop down a bit for consumers.

Other Thoughts:

-Don't expect a powerhouse of this laptop. It can barely handle 720p youtube videos without noticeable drop in FPS. However, switching to 1080p causes considerable drop in FPS to unviewable territory.

-Windows 7 runs fine with aero etc.

-General internet browsing using Firefox 4 beta is as snappy as any computer.

-The sound output is respectable in that I can watch a movie in bed comfortably. Its max volume is loud enough to be heard in most noisy environments.

It lives up to the hype. I've gotten great battery life out of it, and it's so light, and the resolution is AWESOME. The matte Black finish is semi-grippy as well, so it's easier to hold on to. I wish it had one of the i -series processors, but you can't have it all....except you get so much anyway. On-board Bluetooth (Best Buy kept telling me that BT was being phased out, and nobody used it; guess what dweeb? I DO!), and lots of memory... it's a very nice machine and just the right size. And there are tons of 13 inch Macbook sleeves and cases that fit it PERFECTLY.

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Have had this machine for a week now. I wanted a very portable, but not wimpy, notebook PC to take to college classes and to use around the house when not in my home office. So far, I'm very pleased.

If I had to describe it machine in one sentence, I'd call it a "netbook on steroids."

It is very thin and light, but not too tiny. I'm in my fifties and need new glasses, yet the display is very readable for me. The keyboard is taking a little getting used to, but should not be a problem. I do like the "island" style because I don't "catch" the undersides of keys with my fingertips as on other laptop keyboards. (I'm a relatively fast touch typist).

Unlike some underpowered netbooks, this pc is nice and responsive thanks to the 4 GB of RAM. I have not measured the battery life per se, but it's clearly way better than my more powerful, but not-very-portable, 17" desktop replacement. I think 5 hours or so on a single charge would be doable, if one tweaked the power settings. That's just an estimate, though.

I haven't tried any truly intense tasks with this machine yet (like editing large graphics or video files), but I can say that remote-desktopping into my more powerful machine works beautifully.

One thing that freaked me out a bit at first was the absence of "Home/End/PageUp/PageDown" keys. But pressing the FN key along with an arrow key gives you the same functionality.

So far the "gestures" on the touchpad aren't really working for me, but I always have some trouble getting that sort of thing to work for me. (Must be my "magnetic" personality...)

All in all, a lot of machine for the money. And very, very portable.

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We just got the HP for the light weight and screen size. It's a fast computer, bright screen, light weight and well built. We have had it for about 4 days now and I think I will order a second one....just in case. For 1/2 the money of the Macbook air with twice the ram and memory it's a great computer.

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The case seems very durable, the screen is bright and easy to read, the keyboard has a nice feel, and the whole laptop is thin and relatively light. Comes with Windows 7 and all the bells and whistles. But the mouse buttons on the touchpad are unbelievably stiff. If you have any kind of repetitive stress injury, you'll feel the extra effort to click in the tendons in your hand and wrist after only an hour or two of use.

Am having to buy a separate mouse to use. I would not have bought this laptop if I had a chance to try it in the store first. Why, HP, why??

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ASUS G51J-A1 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop (Blue)

I have been waiting for the i7 core laptops to release and here it is. I originally had a dell XPS 16 on order forever and a day (32 days to be exact) and they delayed it AGAIN, so I looked elsewhere. Amazon had this one in stock and got it for next day shipping for $40! And saved a ton off the dell version.

As for the laptop itself, it is a great machine. It boots very fast, does not run hot (considering equipment). The screen is beautiful and the keyboard has a nice feel to it. What it used to take my Core 2 Duo desktop 12 hours to do, this does in 4 (compressing and archiving over 100gb of photos in a .rar)! I have tried to tax the crap out of it and can never get the processors to 100%. Gaming will fix that.

I am not a huge gamer, but wanted a powerful machine for a lot of photo \ movie stuff and also play the occasional game (COD MW2). Also, as a graduate student, I often hook up external monitors and use Dragon NS 10.1 and it has absolutely no issues with it. This is way overkill, but a sweet machine nonetheless.

Prosbuilt in Blue-tooth, sweet wireless card, cooling seem adequate. Core i7!

Some minor annoyancesLights on external lid can not be shut off.

One more noteAmazon's write up states only 4gb, but it can actually go to 8gb according to ASUS and a lot of 'boutique' sites.

Reasons for not getting four stars:

Very low batt. lifeGaming laptop, so take that for what it is worth

No fingerprint reader (comes with facial recognition, but that can be beat with a photo)

Dual drives but no RAID?!??

A very excellent gaming laptop for the money. Sure, it's not as fast as a dedicated desktop gaming rig, but for a portable one it's hard to beat. My only complaint would be the LCD is somewhat washed out which appears to be from the LED's in the top of the lid. Notice when the rig is asleep and the screen raised, one can see bleedthrough from the blinking LED in logo. Not a big deal, but if I had one complaint, that would be it. Also, much to my surprise this thing stays pretty cool to the touch. I expected it to get extremely hot, but it doesn't. The air coming out of the left side is very hot, but to touch the laptop remains cool. You can actually play games on this for hours without baking your hands and face off.

Pros:

* Great performance for the price

* ASUS provides an awesome warranty and accidental protection for this, so you can take it to a lan-party and not worry

* Plays Dragon Age, Torchlight, Empire Total War, LFD1, Warhammer: DOW2, OFP2: Dragon Rising, MSFlight X, Demigod, all extremely well at native res

* World of Warcraft runs beautifully at native res!

* Keyboard functions well and has adjustable illumination

* Relatively quiet for a gaming laptop

* i7 processor is blazingly fast

* HDMI and VGA output means this can be used to game on a TV (keep lid open!)

* Included mouse and bag are both excellent and high quality

* Totally reliable, no crashes even after hours of playing

Cons:

* The LED lights in the lid can bleed through into the LCD

* ARMA2 runs very poorly

* 260M graphics card slightly underclocked on this model

* Cannot be used to game on an external monitor with lid closed (not really unexpected though)

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Pros:

-i7 mobile processor

-Sturdy Construction

-Beautiful Display

-Backlit Keyboard with a num pad and superb feel.

-Great Graphics (Full 1920x1080)

-Solid Webcam

-Free Accessories (Bag and Gaming Mouse)

Cons:

-Battery Life (Not really that bad considering the amount of horsepower in this machine.)

-Another review mentioned the RAM being upgradable to 8GB but I'm not seeing that on ASUS' website:

-Does come with ASUS' bloatware but some of it is actually useful unlike every other laptop I've ever owned.

I was in the market for a new laptop that I could take with me to and from work. This was the only machine I could find that had the spec set I was looking for.

I don't do much gaming on my PC. I mostly use it for work: multimedia editing/production. In the short time that I've had this machine it has blown me away with its performance. Video previews render out very quickly for a laptop. Captures also perform admirably. Disk burning and ripping is fast and flawless.

I would recommend this machine very highly to anyone looking for a portable multimedia editing station.

Out of the Box Windows Experience Index:

Processor: 7.0

Memory: 7.3

Graphics: 6.7

Gaming Graphics: 6.7

HDD: 5.9

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There is a lot to like with this laptop. Including: great performance, good price, beautiful screen, sturdy feel, good standard warranty and the two hard drives. I have very quickly become a fan of ASUS, it seems you get a lot for your money and the company is really trying to build a quality differentiated product. The added mouse and backpack are a nice touch and are very reasonable quality.

The screen and size of the laptop feel a lot bigger than the 15.6". I think it is the illusion created by the HD 16-9 format screen and the high native resolution 1920x1080. Win 7 seems to run very quickly on the machine and it frankly is a huge upgrade of Vista/XP.

So what kept my rating from 5 stars is a couple of quirks that could be a deal killer for some people. Number one is the often mentioned battery life, if you are going to be using this on battery, expect about an hour give or take depending how you use it. I like full screen brightness and power and at those settings about an hour is all I get. I know, it is a gaming PC, but still an hour seems a bit short. I just purchased a bigger 9 cell battery and we will see how that does. The 9-volt battery should be standard or at least an option. Nonetheless, the battery life is the main reason why I gave the machine four stars and not five.

While, I love the dual drives, not sure why they partitioned the drives into 4 separate partitions, it doesn't take much to undo the default set up but was a minor hassle. Also, they should give you the option of having the drives in a RAID configuration, which as far as I know is not possible. So while I like the dual drives it could have been implemented better.

Also, the 120W ASUS power brick is exactly that a brick. I know it is giving off a lot of power, but the thing is a boat anchor. It feels like a couple of pounds which takes the total package weight up. I ended up buying a second power adapter, for work so I don't have to carry it back and forth from home to work along with the laptop.

I like the keyboard now, but it did take some getting used to. The keys are similar to a Mac keyboard and they squished a full keyboard with num keypad. At first, I really did not like it as it was causing a lot of typing errors, and some of the keys are in slightly different spots. After a week or so I am used to it and now really like it. I like having the full keypad/numpad and I am used to the size and the keys. Some people may find the keyboard a deal killer as well, but like I said I didn't like it at first, but it only took about a week to get used to it. Now I really like it.

My other complaints are that the manual was very skinny and the web presence for ASUS is lacking so not much info there. I suspect as ASUS gets bigger in the states that will improve. Also, I could not find a travel adapter for the machine that works on airplanes and ASUS does not make one. I guess the downside of a lesser known brand is the fewer peripheral choices.

Overall, the quirks were not deal killers for me and after investigating numerous gaming/multimedia laptops this was far and away the best choice in my view.

Want ASUS G51J-A1 15.6-Inch Gaming Laptop (Blue) Discount?

NOTE:This is for the Intel Core 2 Duo model. Not the I7.

I really loved this computer, i say loved because i just didnt think it was necessary for me, since i already have a PS3, 360, and a gaming Desktop, so yes it was a bit overkill. But i'm glad i tried it out just the same. I got this laptop right after the release of the windows 7 models, also i had a friend who had the old Asus G51 i believe, with the Nvidia 9800GTM, with 512mb of memory. This one comes with the Nvidia Geforce 260M, which isnt quite as powerful as the desktop models, but holds its own for a laptop. I actually have an ATI 4850 1mb that beats this card quite a bit, and can play pretty much anything at 1920 x 1080, but thats neither here nor there. Being able to play pretty much any game thats on Xbox on this laptop is a very cool way to do things, especially if you travel and want to whip out, Call of Duty MW 1 or 2, Dead Space, Devil May Cry 4, Borderlands, or even something old like Doom 3 or SIMs 2, whatever your pleasure. So bascially yes this is a portable Xbox 360, and plays much the same, resolution wise, etc. The speakers leave something to be desired, but if you go down to your icons next to the clock you'll see the real tek red speaker. Click on it, go to the menu underneath where it says sound effects, you'll get many options like Club, Rock, Classic, etc. Choose live, and the volume will shoot up drastically, the only time you should uncheck it, is when watching a movie, not sure why this is, but it works. The native resolution is low, but even the G72 is still only 1600 x 900, and not full 1080p, but most laptops aren't considering the punishment the smaller screens will take with this high resolution. You really shouldnt start getting into the 1080p area until about 24inches or so. Besides if you look on Xbox live and see the demos, it tells you exactly which games have what resolution. Well sadly, very very very few have it, and most are 720, or 1080i. The only draw back i've seen or heard are two things, what i've heard is the wireless drops quite frequently and even on all the Asus models it may do the same. Thats the biggest issue i've heard about ASUS in general. While i didnt have a problem in this area, what i did notice is when copying movies, the max speed you can get with the software your given is 4x, this i thought is totally unacceptable. Next to my girlfriends cheap Toshiba(which i gave her) it was really really slow at burning. Converting is fast and a breeze, and why the drive slows when copying or burning, i have no idea. Thats why i decided to move up to the G72 which was a beast in itself, but just to much money for me to blow. After using it for a few days i decided i didnt need it, but compared to its little brother, the burning was fine, speakers where much better, the resolution was well, about the same, but had 6 gigs of RAM to make up for the slower 5400rpm hard drive. So all in all they are about on the same level, and if you check with this model the calculations per second and the Pentium Core 2 Duo of 2.13ghz actually gets 5 stars, as compared to the G72 getting 4 on the intel sticker. Best buy now has this model(not the I7 which i imagine is sweet) for 899, i would definitely get one while they last. So if you want a great computer for all around, and its not to big, get this lil bad boy, or just up and get the big brother, they are really about the same.

Also something else to note is i really liked the rubbery texture to rest your hand on as opposed to the high glossy blue that comes on the G72. This one shows prints much less and can easily be removed. Another thing is don't always rely on the Windows Rating Index, this computer shows the same as the G72 pretty much in every area, which i don't see how its possible considering the bigger model has a 2.53ghz duo core processor. Strange. And least but not least, do not i repeat do not but your PC games anymore at Gamestop(which is stopping anyways) or Best Buy. Go and download them from either GamersGate or Direct to Drive dr2d(my personal fav) and you'll find anything you want DRM free. No kidding, the DRM is removed and there are no discs and you can re-download anytime you like. Also i've heard went Infinity Ward gets up off its rear and finally fixes all the flaws with the pc version of COD MW2 they are aiming for these sites to be the first with the fixed versions. So definitely take the warning, stay away from discs, download digital. :)

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Asus G72GX RBBX05 Notebook PC

Although this laptop makes a few sacrifices in quality for the sake of bringing you affordable power, it is really a great little, or should I say BIG, laptop.

First off I want to address the overheating issues that others mentioned. I originally thought that my G72 was overheating too. It would randomly slow down during games sometimes and it didn't seem to me to be linked to how hard it was working. I would usually just restart the laptop and it would be fine. Then I noticed that it seemed to only do it when I played games after waking it up from sleep mode. I stopped using the sleep and haven't had the problem once in literally months. I'm not sure exactly what's causing it but it definitely seems to be linked to the sleep. It is probably a driver problem or something. This laptop in fact has great heat management. I have played Shogun 2 Total War on max tubo gear(the little overclocking program that comes with it) and on max setting(almost) for literaly hours at a time without any overheating problems.

The Pros: This laptop has great power for the money. Even today the GTX 260M GPU is no slouch. You can run games like Oblivion, Medieval 2 Total war, Bioshock, Batman Arkham Asylum and other such games on full setting with no problem at all. The newest game I have played on it is Shogun 2 Total War. I run it with the best settings except for some of the fancier shadow effects, I don't use blur effects and only use 4x anti aliasing. It does very well. The larger battles slow down a bit but over all it's very playable. The laptop is also pretty cool looking with the lights and stuff. It has decent battery life for the type of laptop(about 2hrs). I mean let's face it, for gaming laptops the batery is just to get you from one outlet to the next.

The Cons: This laptop isn't perfect though. I only gave it 5 stars to ballance out the other two reviews that I thought were misunderstanding the heating problem. My biggest complaint with this laptop is the screen. It's not terrible. The refresh rate is good. You don't get streaks and blurs when the action is going. The problem is the colors. I've just seen better color ballancing on other screens. The other problem is it's a little picky about the angle you look at it. The construction of the laptop is also a little on the plasticky side if you know what I mean. I guess you have to skimp somewhere to get the price down.

Over all I was very pleased with this laptop. Had it for almost 2 years now and it's still running great. The screen flickers sometimes but I think that's just due to a dirty connection. When I bought it it was $1000 but even now $670 is a good price for this machine.

I've had this laptop for over a year and it's my favorite thing ever.

This laptop runs almost everything. There is some lagging on say Civilizations V and GTA IV, but you can overclock this easily. On that, definitely get a cooling fan for this laptop, as it really helps to increase the life and play of this laptop. Asus makes very quality products for a relatively low price. A definite must.

I rate this a 5/5, but there is one thing that will have to be attended to either right away or months down the line. Once it happens, it requires hardware work every couple of months. The cord for the laptop (I forget the name of it on the top of my head) was made too short and Asus had it designed to be held with simple hard scotch tape. When it disconnects, all you get is a white screen when the brightness is on max and black when it's not. There is a video to fix it, so it's not a complete loss.

Besides that, a very customizable laptop (two hard drive bays!) and runs so many games smoothly. Of course most likely outdated now (technology moves quick) but it's still good enough to play even new games at the best settings (Ultra settings Skyrim is possible even without overclocking).

Also, rip off the shields on both sides for the USB ports and Headphone/Mic jacks. They're annoying.

Buy Asus G72GX RBBX05 Notebook PC Now

This laptop is amazing! It powers through all the games in my Steam Library. The Nvidia GTX 260m is very fast and over clocks nicely providing for excellent frame rates. The 500GB hard drive is very roomy with plenty of space for all my 100GB+ Steam folder. This laptop is a true mobile gaming beast! Buy it now, you won't be disappointed! The battery life is a bit short but that's normal for computer of such processing magnitude.

Read Best Reviews of Asus G72GX RBBX05 Notebook PC Here

I bought it year and half ago and it's still running as new. For gaming laptop under 1000$ I consider it very good. Very powerful for that time it could run majority of games on high settings. A little bit heat doesn't bother me if you put it on the table. I also connect it to 24inch monitor if I need a big screen to work. Plenty of memory let me work with internet without any delay.

Want Asus G72GX RBBX05 Notebook PC Discount?

I got this for my high school graduation never had a laptop for gaming my desktop was my main computer but obviously not very mobile so asked for this. I have had it for less than a year the first 6-7 months it worked amazing but after using it a while it started to slow down. the thermals characteristics are horrible it will run any of my games but after a couple hours it gets so hot i cant even run them on low. then a month back i ran into a much bigger problem the ac adapter stopped working and it would just bring up the ac/battery logo every second back and forth and at first it would charge the batter if computer was off but not on then it would charge batter at all but if i took it out the ac only would run the computer just fine and then that stopped working and i ordered a replacement ac adapter for 60 bucks since this particular model seems to have an impossible to find size and power output even the universal rocketfish and others didnt work. so ordered the replacement from amazon and it worked great for about 2-3 weeks and now im back to where i was no laptop at all i recommend getting a different laptop.

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Dell Latitude E6420 14 LED Notebook Intel Core i7 i7-2640M 2.80 GHz 4GB DDR3 320GB HDD DVD-Writer I

Estimados

Excelente compra y excelente producto, estoy muy conforme con la compra de este computador. El teclado estaba en inglés, sin embargo se adapta fácilmente al idioma español.

Atte.,

Wenceslao Alarcón

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