VIZIO CN15-A2 15.6-Inch Laptop

This is the first review I write about a product in my entire life.

I bought this laptop from Amazon and it just arrived yesterday. (CN15-A2)

Screen

******

Absolutely gorgeous. Full HD. Colors are vibrant and exact. It is very bright too and its anti-glare (IPS)

Keyboard

********

It doesn't look like any keyboard you've ever seen before which makes it look weird at first, but the keys are wide and it is a pleasure to type on it with time.

Trackpad

********

I have to admit it was a bit bad at first. But as soon as I started the machine, I went to VIZIO's website and downloaded the TouchPad driver update and now its good.

Sound

*****

The SRS technology definitely makes a difference, whether you're listening through the speakers or headphones. Sound quality is superb. I've been listening to music on it since yesterday.

Body and Design

***************

This is a beautiful machine. It feels light (especially next to my HP G61 lol ) It is very thin (0.86 inches) and the ergonomics of the design make it look wider which is nice.

Cooling

*******

I've been playing HD videos, doing a bunch of heavy load tests and the fan is almost barely noticeable. It didn't overheat at all and having it on my lap the whole time was not an issue at all.

Processor

*********

It is fast! It is the fastest component on the machine (7.6 on Windows Performance Tool)

Harddrive

*********

Slowest component in this notebook but the 32 GB of SSD definitely gives it a boost. I feel like the SSD technology is still a bit too young to be asked for in all laptops. I'm looking for space and I definitely cannot afford buying an SSD of 512 GB. Note that this machine comes with 1 TB (1000GB)

Battery Life

************

You'll get around 4:30-5:30 hours on a single charge depending on your work load which I'm more than happy with considering that this laptop can literally replace a desktop.

Bottom line: Recommended.

Thanks for reading!

As a professional photographer and web developer who insists on using a PC, picking a new laptop turned out to be a pretty big challenge. As a father of two small children I also have to be budget minded. When I seen the Vizio concept computers announced I thought they looked cool, but who knew what the actual product would be like and how much they would really cost.

When looking for a new laptop I knew it had to have an i7, 8gb+ of ram, good screen, USB3, and a decent size hdd and possibly an ssd. When the actual production specs and prices were released I knew the CN15-A2 was going to perfect, especially for $1200.

I made my mind up and once it came in stock on Amazon I ordered it immediately. They were not in stock on MS site, Vizio's site or Walmart and I felt I was pretty lucky to get one as soon as I did. On to the review.

I was impressed with the laptop as soon as I seen the product packaging. Once I took the laptop out of the box I was blown away. As a budget alternative to a $3000+ Mac Book Pro I expected some noticeable "budget" cutting, but the build quality is truly impressive. The aluminum body feels great, and has a slightly darker color compared to the Mac's which makes it look a little cooler IMO. The design itself is also really sweet looking with just subtle Vizio logos being used. I even love that the shape of the brick power cord mimics the shape and bevel of the outside of the laptop. Nice touches like that go a long way towards selling the idea of a premium product. Even my business partner with his brand new $3000+ Mac Book Pro was surprised. The keyboard initially feels and types great. However, I must admit that it does screw up every once in a while and double types some letters at random. I know it's the laptop because I've never experienced this with an other laptop or keyboard. The trackpad is also both impressive and flawed. While it works pretty well, it could use some better calibration as doing some gestures like swiping and two finger scrolling requires a little bit more effort then Mac's I've used. Those are really the only two minor complaints I have about it. The Windows 7 Signature was a huge selling point for me and I am indeed impressed that it didn't come with all the crap like most pc's you get from Best Buy, etc. As far as performance goes, this thing is fast. I have NO problems using Lightroom, Photoshop, Photomatix, etc etc processing RAW files and larger PS files. I have yet to edit any video with it, but the i7, 8gb of ram, and invidia video card will do the job fine, although this isn't the ideal platform for editing video obviously. It'll do in a pinch. I also have to commend the screen. I calibrated it with an X-Rite Pro calibrator and the factory settings are the best I have ever seen out of a monitor including a $1000+ Dell Ultrasharp monitor. I can feel confident color correcting photos on this screen.

So, as far as bang for your buck goes, you almost can't beat this thing. There are some minor flaws, but I can live with them considering I saved over $2000 on a comparable Mac product.

EDIT: I updated the trackpad firmware yesterday after reading another review and it's greatly improved. I also increased the sensitivity and it works a LOT better then before. Maybe, not Mac good, but a lot closer.

Pro's

-Great build quality and design

-Great specs and bang for your buck

-Trackpad and Keyboard

-Display!

-Windows 7 Signature

Con's

-Keyboard and trackpad could use some calibrating from Vizio

-Hard to find online still

Buy VIZIO CN15-A2 15.6-Inch Laptop Now

We purchased the Vizio CN15-A2 about three weeks ago which gave us a reasonable amount of time to try it out. I do like the laptop but we had to return it for several key reasons.

Pros:

Looks nice, HD screen and it's non-glossy, awesome hardware specs, relatively light weight, decent battery life, it doesn't get too hot and there are no fan vents on the bottom to get easily restricted.

Cons:

Track pad is unpredictable and in our case it would freeze up to where you couldn't move the cursor. I downloaded the update from Vizio which seemed to improve it but with enough use it was still freezing up. If I closed the lid allowing the computer to go to sleep then opened the lid and started it, the cursor would work again but it's annoying.

The keyboard often misses a letter typed or it double types it. Also, only the middle region of the space bar works, if you press the last 10mm of either edge of the space bar, it won't register the type.

Something is rattling inside Vizio offered to service it but then we'd miss the return window available.

My palms sometimes rub across the track pad and change the location where I'm typing but I'd say this is minor and user dependent.

Because of the price and the fact that the cursor locks up and keys miss or double type and something is sliding around inside, we regretfully are returning the product. Vizio customer service was great but I didn't want to risk getting the laptop back and still having the same issues and no longer be able to return it. I think Vizio is developing a great product but needs to work out a few things.

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Bought for $700, worth more.

Very fast and can be sued easily for gaming.

The battery life goes down fast because of the major power requirements from the ram/cpu/graphics.

If i'm lucky, i may get 3 hours out of a full charge.

Want VIZIO CN15-A2 15.6-Inch Laptop Discount?

Keyboard stinks. When you type it double types characters, or misses the key altogether. Touch Pad is flaky. The wireless card is really bad. I replaced the wireless card already with an Intel one.

Performance is good. Battery life is good. Screen is good. To bad they went with a cheap keyboard, touch pad, and wireless card. It would be a killer machine.

I am living with it as I didn't want to pay the restocking fee thinking I would just get use to it. Its been a month now and I wish I would have sent it back and got a Thinkpad.

------

Update: I had the the notebook for about 2 months now. I have since upgraded to Windows 8. All of the problems I had before with Windows 7 I still have with Windows 8. The keyboard is bad. It mistypes all the time. Either double characters or missed characters. The touch pad is decent when it works. It just randomly stops working. Also the cursor will just randomly jump somewhere. For instance typing this review...all of a sudden my cursor will be in a different sentence!!! Still does this after I went to Windows 8. When I went to Windows 8 the first time I was lazy and just did an upgrade over the top. Things still didn't work right. So then I did it again by wiping the machine with a clean install of Windows 8. Not much if any improvement.

I've tried getting use to it. Figured it was just different then what I was use too. However now my Hard drive just went. Then I made the mistake of verifying the drive was bad. I had computers from other major vendors before and they always want to verify the part is bad. So I opened the cover and took the drive out and put in an external drive encloser I have and tested it on another computer. Drive is completely dead. I contacted support. They would not replace the drive for me as since I opened the cover I voided all warranty!!! After chatting with a manager they still would not budge on giving me a new drive since I opened the cover.

So after getting the system re-installed for a 3rd time and buying a new hard disk. There is no improvement. I am changing my review from 3 stars down to 1 star. I would strongly encourage anyone thinking about a PC from Vizio to pass and go with a Dell or Thinkpad. The notebook just is too junky, and the fact you cannot even open the cover to upgrade anything, or troubleshoot without voiding the warranty is not worth going with this company. DO NOT buy this machine!

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Sony VAIO VPC-Z213GX/B 13.1-Inch Laptop (Black)

I have owned this machine for about a month now. It is very fast with the best screen I have ever seen. The design is very simple and almost zen like with an understated poly carbon coating. The machine is made in Japan which is unusual nowadays. In my opinion this is a piece of art that also functions extremely well.

it is above my expectations , every thing is amaaaaaazing. the seperate deck for cd and hd show is very practical. i like it very much. i recommend it to every one.

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I purchased a vaio vpc-z computer two years ago. The first machine would spontaneously reboot every 2-3 weeks. The first onsite repair left the machine unable to start. Over the next year the machine was returned 4-5 times. Turnaround was very slow taking weeks to months. Sony finally bought the computer back. Foolishly I bought another. It has functioned better but the screen developed black lines several months ago. I was traveling and wasn't in a location for onsite repair. In view of the weeks required for a factory mail in repair, I called and asked if onsite repair would be ok in a month... which was shortly into the extended warranty. I was assured onsite would be acceptable. Two days ago Sony set up an onsite repair. Today Sony calls and adamantly refuses onsite repair. Not only is tech support incompetant but now it appears that one cannot rely on their committment. Be very careful with any verbal promise. The computer is OK but Sony service is simply nothing short of disaster.

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i didnt pick it up from ups please send it back. i bought this on black friday and i dont want to have to pay full price

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HP Pavilion dm4-QA702AV Game/entertainment Laptop 3.5 Ghz/6g/640g/blacklit Keyboard/Bluetooth

I just recently bought this laptop so my experience with it is limited but thought it would be worthwhile to share what I've learned so far.

For reference, I customized mine to include:

i5-520 with 8GB RAM

512MB 5450 ATI Graphics

500GB 7200 RPM HD

Bluetooth

Oversized battery

I was able to get it for under $1000 using a $400 off coupon I found online.

Pros:

Metal Case

My last HP had a plastic deck painted to look like metal After about 2 years, the paint had worn off the trackpad buttons and was starting to wear off the trackpad itself. The metal case should avoid this problem besides looking better. I should mention that the case looks more of a gold color than silver Also, there's no annoying latch that you have to maneuver your fingers to open. Just put your thumb under the lid slightly and pull up.

LED Lighted Screen

The screen is first rate. Like LED TV's, it's noticeably crisper and sharper than CCFL lit screens and also means the lid can be thinner and lighter. Should also get better battery life and maintain its color longer.

Lightweight

The website says 4.4 lbs but more like 6 with the oversized battery pack. Still very light. Doesn't feel like a lot of weight on your lap at all.

Heat

A big improvement over the previous generation. It will get warm, especially in warm weather and near the vent on the left but I would say only about 20-25% of the heat that my previous 3 year old laptop generated. There is some fan noise but probably only 1/4 of the noise of my previous laptop.

Windows 7 64 bit

Windows 7 performance is definitely far better than Vista so it's a welcome change. The fact that it is 64 bits also means it can use a lot more than 3GB of RAM. Knowing the value of having more RAM, I opted to get the maximum 8GB up front and have found it very worth the money. The new taskbar took some getting used to. If you have 3 copies of an app running, you see only a single item on the task bar and no indication there are three copies running until you mouse over the icon. However when you do mouse over it you get thumbnails of all the open windows and mousing over the thumbnail will reveal that window on the desktop. After playing with it for a while, I've decided this is actually an improvement over Vista/XP. On the minus side, you can no longer put folders on the quick start menu. I used this to organized the applications under Vista and XP. Fortunately I found a third party tool (jumplist launcher) that will accomplish essentially the same thing. In other respects it seems similar to Vista.

Performance

This machine screams as I expected it to. Streaming video loads and plays almost instantaneously. In fact, before getting this laptop I had assumed the slow loading was due to a network issue (either on my end or the server) but I can now see that a large part was just due to the laptop. Adobe Lightroom used to take a minute to load and display the thumbnail gallery at the bottom but now takes only a few seconds. Can't say which feature is responsible for this but its presumably a combination of the new processor,64 bit OS,8GB of RAM and the graphics hardware.

Sound

The speakers are not great but they are acceptable. My only real complaint is they don't have a lot of volume but there is a workaround which is to purchase an external speaker.

Keyboard

The keyboard is fine. Key spacing is good and tactile feedback is fine. Would have liked it if they were sculpted as well but certainly quite workable as is

Features that put it over the top.

QuickWeb

Ironically this feature isn't even mentioned in the description on HP's website but it works great. Basically, the laptop includes a copy of Linux with a built in web browser so that within 10 seconds of pressing the on button, you can be surfing the web. From the looks of it, it is using Mozilla for the browser, one of the best web browsers available today. It also supports a gmail client but even if you don't have gmail, chances are your provider has a web client available and so you can use the browser to view and send mail.

You can also browse photos or listen to music but I probably wouldn't use these as you haven't logged on yet so anybody who started your laptop would be able to see them. If you don't perform some action within 15 seconds, it auto-launches Windows 7 so if you just press the on button then come back, you won't find yourself stuck with a laptop that has yet to boot. This feature is great when you just want to quickly look at something on the internet. My previous Vista powered laptop took over 5 minutes before I could do this. Window 7 itself takes about 1 minute (although it may get slower as I start to reinstall applications) which is certainly much better than Vista but no match for quickweb.

eSata port

Haven't yet got an eSata drive but will certainly do so in the near future. With HD's now pushing the 500GB+ limit, the old USB drives are getting to be too slow for me to use for backing up. An eSata drive should be at least a factor of 2 faster than a USB 2.0 drive and theoretically much more.

Fingerprint reader

I love the fingerprint reader. Works without a hitch. The placement on the deck is also an improvement over previous models where it was on the lid. With those you were mainly limited to using your thumb for the biometrics. Now you can use any finger.

USB ports on both sides

Eliminates needs for usb cables running across your lap because you want the device on a side of the laptop that doesn't have a USB port

Media Card Reader

I've always found these much easier to use for transferring photos/videos than tethering a camera or camcorder to a laptop

802.11 n and Bluetooth support

Don't yet have an 802.11n router but good to know that when I get one, this laptop will take full advantage. For the small extra price I also think the Bluetooth support is well worth it. You can use it to easily download pictures from your smart phone with no cables. You can also buy an inexpensive bluetooth monaural or stereo head set to allow private listening with no messy cables. You can also use external wireless keyboards and mice without needing to stick a transceiver in one of your USB ports.

Webcam

Works great with skype. Good quality picture, even in low light.

With all these good things, what's there not to like?

The Trackpad...

I tested this laptop in the local store before buying and had trouble with the trackpad. Because this laptop had so many other good features I decided to chance that it was just the trackpad settings in the store that were the problem. Unfortunately, that's not entirely the case. What was happening is that I would mouse to a location and suddenly the cursor would zoom to another location or I would get the "zoom" icon. After some experimenting, I figured out the problem. The live surface of the trackpad includes the buttons! As I imagine most people do, I rest my thumb on the buttons and use my index finger to mouse. When I want to click, I press the button with my thumb. To select the drag, I hold down the button with my thumb and move my index finger. Because the buttons are treated as part of the live surface of the trackpad what was happening was that I would slide the cursor somewhere with my index finger then my thumb would touch the button which is located on the opposite side of the trackpad and the cursor would zoom over to it because the buttons are part of the track surface. Similarly, if my thumb moved slightly while my index finger was sliding on the trackpad, it would assume I was using a two finger gesture and display the zoom out icon, even with the two fingered gestures disabled.

To be able to use the laptop I've had to learn to keep my thumb off the trackpad while mousing and to keep my index finger off the pad while clicking. I've checked if there's a way to limit the trackpad live area to not include the buttons but haven't found it yet. Hopefully HP will provide a driver or software update to fix this problem.

In summary, if it weren't for the trackpad issue, I would give it 4.5 stars (it would have to have no significant heat or fan noise to get 5). Instead it gets 4 stars.

Guys please please never ever buy any HP products.

I got my laptop somewhere around June 16th or 17th 2010. Within one month there was a scratch on my laptop screen. I know I didn't do it but HP forced me to pay for it.And when i was trying to convince them that it is not my fault, the case manager asked did you sometime closed your laptop very hard. The only explaination I gave him was how hard can you close your laptop. I mean everyone knows how to close the screen. But that is ok since i had no proof for it so I payed the amount.

July 29th, 2010 was the date i sent my laptop to HP for repair and today is September 11th, 2010. I have no idea when I am going to get my laptop back. For my case i was being transferred to senior case manager who said that since its taking so much time to repair your laptop so let me order a new one as a replacement.

But since then he is not replying to my mails. Whenever i try to call him, most of the time he won't come on the phone. If he comes also then he says he has already ordered the new laptop. But when i ask him to send me the confirmation of new order then he has no answer.

I spent almost 1000$ on my laptop. Right now I am so much frustrated and irritated. HP really do not care about their customers.

So guys i seriously advice you if you want peace of mind then just don't even look at HP. No matter how good specification they give in laptop but in case if ever you will needing their tech support or customer service support then you will realize that how big is a mistake in buying HP PRODUCTS.

Buy HP Pavilion dm4-QA702AV Game/entertainment Laptop 3.5 Ghz/6g/640g/blacklit Keyboard/Bluetooth Now

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Asus S56CA-XH71 15.6" Ultrabook Computer, Intel Core i7-3517U 1.9 GHz, 4GB DDR3 RAM, 500GB 5400 rpm

I ordered for the S56CA after working with a lower version; the UX31A I refer to as the Asus i5. The lower version could compete very well with the MacBook Air I bought at the same time. So when we needed a new computer in the office I naturally went for the higher version. The speed is fine but I was surprised with how basic the S56CA is. To start with since I joined the Mac family I had got used to back lit key boards and since the Asus i5 had it, I assumed that the i7 will have it. No it does not come with it. To make matters worse, the CAPS Lock does not light up when you are using it. Imagine checking every time you use it to make sure that you are in caps. I knew that there are still makes that miss out on such features but they do not cost this much. My story ends rather badly. The colleague who would have used the i7 rejected it on the basis of the absence of a backlit key board. So I gave away my more user friendly i5. Of course, if I was living in the States, I would have traded back the i7 for the i5 just to enjoy a lighting key board and keys.

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ASUS G50Vt-B1 15.4-Inch Laptop

I was so excited when I got this laptop. It was so powerful and ahead of the other machines, who wouldn't be excited! Initially, it performed great, ran well with Photoshop, Illustrator, Corel, especially gaming. I was disappointed in the weight, weighing in at 9 pounds for just the laptop and power supply. It was impossible to travel with (I had hoped for mobile power, but I got power that needed wheels). Traveling a lot for work and needing to do design on the road just became cumbersome. Once you add in your spare hard drive, mouse, headset etc. the airline won't even let you carry it on.

It lasted about 1 month before it started crashing on simple programs like MS Word. Really? I was able to back all my data and files up to a Western Digital hard drive (those rock!). Just in time before the whole machine crashed. Even my keyboard wasn't working. I sent it back to Asus, and after testing it, there were a ton of hardware failures the wireless LAN card, the motherboard, one of the hard drives and the keyboard. Getting parts replaced wasn't too hard the first time.

About 4 months later, same issues. Still under a year old, I had all my important documents for work on the machine and hadn't backed them up for 4 months of design work (my bad). My hard drives failed and I wasn't going to just have them replace it again and lose all that data, I had to get my data recovered before I could send it in. They offered no technical support for that and when calling in to speak to a supervisor, it literally took me about 3 weeks and about 12 hours of being on hold (I'm like a bulldog when someone makes me that mad, so I refused to let go and give up). After finally getting through, she didn't say anything different that the peanuts I spoke to before and the only solution was to send it in and make sure I either back up my data or am prepared to lose it because they only replace parts. So I ended up having to go to an IT place where it took them 3 days (very expensive!) to get my hard drives to intermittantly work to recover my data.

Once recovered, we sent it in, they AGAIN replaced the motherboard, hard drives, keyboard, WLAN card. Turns out this machine runs hot and just fries the components. So after nearly losing my work data twice in under a year, and the amount of time it takes to get Asus to help (I give them a 0 in customer service), I would steer clear of Asus laptops. I will never buy one again. Unfortunately, they have the most flash parts out there I avoid the brand now, but it's hard and I cringe every time I have to support that company. We're building new desktops now to get more power and be able to cool the machines more efficiently, I opted to spend $200 more on a motherboard that wasn't made by Asus. But I guess if you can just throw it away when you're done and don't mind upgrading often or have important files you store, then maybe it's ok for you. In my opinion, it's a very expensive laptop to throw away, which I have done. Think "Office Space".

This is actually my first laptop ever. I am so glad I invested the money in this. I have not had any issues with this. As you know ASUS is a gaming brand, I am not a heavy gamer, but i know that any new game i buy i do not have to worry about system requirements. This puppy has a super fast processor and enough memory to last you for a good while. I recommend for those who plan on gaming, graphic work or anything that requires something quick to do the job.

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Lenovo IdeaPad Z585 261729U 15.6-Inch Laptop (Grey Metal)

Lets start with I have owned many Thinkpads in the past and i think they are the best machines out there. I picked this up at Fry's this weekend for $479. Wanted something that would play some games that I have laying around. Was skeptical of the AMD Fusion series. I own a x120e that has the fusion and that Thinkpad does a good job for what it is but just barely. After testing and updating the machine it has three downfalls.

1) The hard drive is slow but on the flip side its 750GB.

2) The keyboard layout is not great. They keys are fine but the layout is cramped and I'm constantly hit the wrong keys. I would have preferred they remove the 10 key and spaced the whole keypad out better.

3) The AC adapter is not a straight plug but a small L shape and has the EMI thing right by the plug. Its a terrible design and gets snagged on anything. That and its right crammed up by the USB port. I like the AC adapter plugins on the back side of machines personally.

Overall the fit and finish is typical Lennovo which is very good. The Screen is clear and not bad for glare and folds back almost flat which I like. Its not a light machine but not super heavy either(under 6lbs). The track-pad is nice, not great but not bad. There is no track-point on the Ideadpad which for some is no big deal, I personally like having it.

The machine runs fast and seems faster than my Dell Lattitude I5 that I use at work. Overall a solid buy. Its fast and has killer graphics that blow away the Intel integrated. If you need raw CPU then move to a Intel CPU. I'm not biased by Intel or AMD they all have their spot in the marketplace.

Just got this laptop today via UPS. I also purchased mine from Frys for $479 (sorry Amazon!).

Likes :

Nice finish. The casing of the computer itself as well as the back of the monitor has a nice brushed metal sheen to it, but isn't overly shiny.

I have large-ish hands and the keyboard seems spaced very well to me with a couple of exceptions. I seem to keep missing the backspace key since it's a tad small, but that's really about it. I think that having a numberpad though outweighs the small gripe I have with the backspace key.

Pretty fast for a laptop. I have a Phenom II X6 1100T based desktop, so I wasn't expecting it to be as fast as my desktop, but it seems to keep up nicely. Windows transition quickly, and everything loads pretty fast. I suspect that if you bought this and swapped out the hard drive for an SSD this thing would blaze.

It's light gaming capable. You're not going to get crazy fps on newer games, but on some older games it works like a champ (Left4Dead 2, other Source games, etc). I went with this machine over similarly priced Intel based alternatives for this reason alone. My daughter likes to take over my desktop, so the option of playing some games against her from my laptop is pretty much why I bought it.

Dislikes :

Not a whole lot to not like at this point. My only observation thus far is that there seems to be quite a bit of heat kicking out the side vent, but the keyboard area and bottom stay relatively cool so I'm assuming that the cooling solution in place is doing a rather nice job of expelling the heat.

I would say that if you can find this laptop in the $470 to $550 range it's a great buy, but the current price of $650 to $750 seems a tad high as you can get some similarly specced ultrabooks with low end discrete graphics in that price range.

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I ordered on Thursday, shipped on Friday and delivered on the Monday (Fast free shipping). It was packaged really well and secure. I have currently had it for a little over 2 weeks.

I have only 2 negative items on this laptop, that keeps me from calling it perfect (4 1/2 stars not 5 intended):

1.) The manual useful and in only 1 local language (this is the good part). The bad, not enough details in the manual or literature, the worst was the lack of description about the optical drive, i.e. what type of disc formats are acceptable? (Yep, I still use my optical drive on a daily basis.)

2.) BloatwareChrome pre-installed!? (IBM/Lenovo, must be getting funds from google, ok, if it keeps down cost of product, supposedly?) Why not just use a desktop icon to install/not install option? I like other Chrom-ium based browsers, minus the spyware. If IBM/Lenovo & google want a pre-installed program, why not Picasa (much better) or something else instead? OK, enough of the rant of the negative (not too bad overall). ;)

Onto the positive (much more and better):

1.)AMD A_Series_Quad_Core_A10_4600M Processor 2.3GHz turbo boosts up to 3.2GHz (I WAS a long time user of PCs' with Intel processors, but since my first AMD processor (Desktop) mid-2010, I have never looked back. Comparing apples to apples, the AMDs' load the OSs' much quicker and overall much-much snappier opening/running proggies, hands down!

2.)6 GB DIMM RAM DDR3=more than enough!

3.)750GB 5400rpm HDD (The biggest I had seen for a laptop...until the updated version of this laptop 1TB HDD(10-12-12 amazon w/Win 8, but 200 bones more?)

4.)15.6-Inch Backlit LED HD display=beautiful!

5.)AMD Radeon HD 7660G graphics=awesome

6.)720p HD webcam+bluetooth+2xUSB 3.0

7.)Dolby Home Theatre v4=exceptional sound for a laptop.

8.)A Lenovo program to boost start-up time+a program for making backup or snapshots(Discs/Images)of the OS.

9.)IBM/Lenovo is ranked very high on various Linux sites, for high compatibility to various Linux distros (in this regard, Dell,Acer/Gateway and HP are noted as well with good results. ;)

10.) A nice full and roomy touch/track pad, very comfortable.

11.) Battery15 minutes to do a full charge, for 5 to 6 hours of usage=good stuff.

12.)Of all the various laptops, I have used/tried before, this Lenovo is really solid and sturdy. In fact the only other one I can think of that felt more solid/sturdy, was a Panasonic brand laptop, from a few years back, but it was built extra rugged, even for in a combat situation.

13.) The look of the lid/back of the screen, in a word "cool". It has a brushed metal, medium2dark lavender (The descript. says "Gray Metal".) look to it, unique and nice.

14.) The fan is very quiet and Lenovo added a program to run the fan in a "maintenance mode" to clean any dust out. Nice touch.

15.) TemperatureThe keyboard area and the bottom, stay very cool to touch. The main vent area (left side), only when really pushing it really hard (intense graphic games and video editing+over a dozen other proggies running browser/flash, MS office, email, messaging,video chat, etc.), the vent area gets only slightly (I do mean slightly.) warmer than room temperature. Very nice!

16.) 15 bones refund Visa card (Win 8).

17.) Optical drive-burns at good to excellent speeds (I have only used DVD+R, thus far)

18.) Keyboard-perfect for composing letters, documents or whatever. Overall it is great (for me anyway).

Summary: For a 500 bones laptop, it is very impressive, solid built, a real "workhorse", fast, more than efficient and high quality. The best thing, I can say about this Lenovo product is, IBM/Lenovo now has 1 more built in future customer. Keep up the great work and high quality. Cheers and enjoy. :)

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Just got this laptop (will update after a couple of days, weeks, month etc.) for school use and light gaming and video editing. I was immediatly surprised by the build quality on this thing. It's AMAZING. Full metal brushed aluminum (or whatever material) lid. Metal sidings look very durable, the bottom is plastic but thats fine. Also, it is a very purpleish reddish brown gray color. Not really plain gray like the pictures suggest. Also I found the layout of the keyboard to be weird at first. They merge the shift button and the up arrow together so that the shift button is only as wide as say the control key (a bit wider than normal keys, but not the normal inch and a half that im used to). When normally typing, I only hit the far left half inch (which this shift key only is), but sometimes when editing documents I'll press the up key instead of shift and it gets annoying. Funny how the left shift is full sized. The keyboard is a great keyboard in my opinion. The keys feel almost macbook pro like and have good spacing between them. The number pad is really squished and I wish they had cut it off and spread out the rest of the keyboard out. Maybe they could have put the same A10 and all the internal components in a 14 inch form factor. The first boot up was a bit over a minute, but the lenovo boot optomizer thing automatically started up and made the next restart only 45 seconds and then the next 40 seconds. Very cool stuff. When I close the lid, it almost immediatly goes to sleep, and then when i open it up it almost immediatly wakse up and shows the locked/log in screen.

The screen is moderately good. I'm used to 17 inch laptop or 11-13 inch screens so it was a change for me. It looks fine. When you tilt it up or down or side ways, it loses contrast and looks all weird. IT is definitely the IPS fancy HD macbook screen. It's pretty low res at 768p. I just did a windows experience index check and it got 6.9 processor

6.9 memory (RAM)

6.2 graphics (windows aero)

6.2 gaming graphics

5.9 HDD (pretty normal, all HDDs non solid state get this score mostly)

The 6.7 and 6.9 are very good scores and this laptop should preform very well for my gaming and video/photo editing needs. I'm downloading some of my video games at the moment (TF2, Portal, Assassin's creed, Battlefield Bad companty 2) and my editing software, adobe production premium CS6. I'm going to try and hack after effects into supporting the openCL acceleration from the AMD 7660m/A10. Will update and tell how it works.

The trackpad felt a bit awkward at first, it is very far to the left. IT would be perfect if the laptop were 14 inches and they cut off the number pad, but with the num pad it is too far to the left. When typing I sometimes hit the top corner of it. Will change the trackpad settings later to prevent this.

My first impressions are very good. This laptop is excellently built, should be very fast, and is a great price (bought it for under 600 dollars a steal! ($550)).

The speakers are also really good which i didnt expect.

It certainly isnt lightweight (not an ultrabook, lol) but its a great laptop for the price. I might suggest looking at the Lenovo Y480 if its in stock anywhere. Saw it going for only 600 bucks on newegg a couple days ago (now out of stock) which is a great deal. a pound lighter than this, better dedicated graphics, quad core i7 (i believe) and a 14 inch screen.

EDIT:

Upon downloading a couple of games and programs I can say this laptop is awesome! It plays Team Fortress 2 at high/very high/ultra settings with maxed out anti aliasing and filtering 16x smoothly at ~60-100fps I'd say. It boots up super fast (under a minute consistantly, more like 45 seconds). When running after effects, I can make use of all four cores and have it render multiple frames simultaneously, with 1gb of ram for each core. I will soon upgrade to 8gb of ram. Not sure if I can go as high as 16gb or 12gb or whatever. I also plan on taking out the optical drive and replacing it with a solid state drive to speed the system up even more.

I can't emphasize it enough, for the money this is a great laptop and is everything that I needed. Excellent build quality, great gaming preformance, and portability.

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You get an unbelievable amount of technology for a very reasonable price. Most laptops with these specs cost twice as much. Very fast and the graphics are quite good. Build quality seems very good and every thing operates as it should. Am very pleased with this purchase.

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MSI A6000-029US Laptop Notebook - 16" widescreen / Intel Core 2 Duo T6600 / 4GB Memory / 320GB HD /

I purchased this laptop shortly after Windows 7 came out. I found a deal on it for $450 or so at Office Depot. I am not an avid Office Depot shopper (and actually used to work there), but I decided to check this out. I got the laptop, had everything setup relatively quickly, and realized that it came with Windows 7 32-bit installed (my lack of homework, but didn't turn out to be a problem). This is the one of only reasons (see next paragraph for other) I give this laptop a 4 star rating. Someone who is even moderately tech savvy can install Windows 7 64-bit with the exact same key, which is on the bottom of the laptop completely free and 100 percent Legal (Windows 7 keys allow for EITHER 32-bit or 64-bit installation). Some of the software for the computer that is on the disc is a bit more challenging to find the 64-bit drivers for, you will have to look for the 64-bit folder. This is worth the extra effort in my opinion. Google it and you will find plenty of forums if you need any help (especially on ).

Pros: This laptop for bucks with 4GB RAM, 320 GB Hard Drive, 16 inch wide screen, HDMI output, and 64-bit Processor and 64-bit Windows 7 (with a bit of work as said above), is clearly a steal! A brand that is lesser known in the mainstream market, because of less advertising, means you don't pay for the Dell, Apple, or Sony advertising. This is a well known brand in the motherboard industry.

Cons: The one problem I have noticed is that occasionally when it tries to hibernate it will not be able to come out of it. I just restart and everything is fine. I have avoided most of this problem by forcing my hard drive to stay on in the power settings. I know it has crashed when the power button LED does not flash anymore (which it normally does when its sleeping). This may be a Windows 7 thing, might be specific to Windows 7 64-bit, or may be the laptop. I am not 100 percent sure where this problem is coming from.

In repsonse to the reviewer talking about tech support and such. Obviously MSI support can only do so much when you haven't done all your research. In your review it even sounded like they answered all your questions and waived some of the cost for you. There were things you did not understand from the get go that you should have. This is not a case of poor MSI support, rather lack of customer due diligence. I am tired of customers rating the product poorly because they haven't done their homework. It sounded like this reviewer looked at a few laptops, chatted with a sales person at Office Depot for an hour, and thought he knew everything he needed to purchase a laptop. The Office Depot guy's job is to sell you a freaking laptop, NOT to do all your homework and make the best decision for you. He is going to have basic knowledge of the products for sale, not enough for you to make a great decision.

I will 1st note that I've had this laptop for just under 5 months after having the fortune to grab it during last Thanksgiving Black Friday special during which Office Depot had it on sale for only $429!

At that price, it was a sure BUY and and I would rate it the top 5-star rating for 'meets expectations.' Still, even not accounting for the amazing price I got, I rate this laptop 4 stars for both overall features and quality.

My last 2 laptops, purchased in 2004 and 2007, were both by Toshiba, so admittedly I had reservations buying "MSI," a brand I had never heard of before. But after finding out that it's actually a very large maker of mother boards and other innards of pc's for other brands, and that MSI gives a 3yr warranty, that was enough for me to take a chance and buy this brand. Thus far, I'm very happy with the solid construction of the laptop and the fact that (1) everything works right out of the box, and (2) there were very few pre-installed programs and trial-ware software (mostly junk) that other companies like HP or Dell would include that would just slow down the computer (especially at start-up) and take up space on the hard drive.

Windows 7 works and looks like a dream come true, and runs super fast with this Core 2 Duo and 4gb of RAM A+ for that! I'm using it in 32bit, not 64 like some folks.

Finally, the bottom line positive point of this laptop for me was that, after my negative experience with 'integrated Intel graphics' that was on my last Toshiba laptop purchased in 2007, I swore my next laptop must have a graphics chip from Nvidia or ATI, not Intel! At this price, specs/screen size, one would be hard pressed to find a comparable laptop that doesn't force u to have 'integrated Intel graphics'! If you don't game at all, then Intel graphics shouldn't matter, but if you play any games, avoid integrated Intel graphics.

The only 2 negatives worth noting are:

(1) the speakers on the laptop are surprisingly weak and would sound like they are cracking when you play music/movie above 80% of max volume; and

(2) the touch pad is way too sensitive as other reviews have stated when you type, your palm or fingers will brush on it causing the cursor to jump elsewhere and u end up typing in the wrong place or clicking when u didn't mean to. 100% of the time, when I have a mouse attached to the laptop, I will 'lock' the touchpad (turn off the touchpad).

Thank you Office Depot for offering a GREAT price for this pretty awesome laptop!

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The MSI A6000 is a good performer at a great price. But MSI is a TERRIBLE company to depend upon. As others have noted, there provide no documentation, warranty papers, disks etc. with the computer. Try to reach them--they hide their company phone number. MSI does not offer an 800#, no 24/7 tech access, no phone answered live at HQ.

They want you to contact them on the Internet about problems with your computer--with that requirement you are out of luck if you don't have a second computer at hand while trying to fix your MSI.

That's a crazy business model on which to build a base of satisfied customers. Their site and blog says how responsive they. But they are not responsive at all. While I like the A6000, I didn't know thill now how risky it is to depending upon MSI's primitive company tech service system. I now regret purchasing this MSI machine. I will resell it and get a computer brand with 24/7 support. BEWARE OF purchasing MSI products untill they get a real and responsive customer support and service operation going in the USA. CBY

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i bought my first MSI back in Jan of 2010 and it still functions like new. I bought 2 more MSI laptops. Now i own 3 MSI A6000-030US the only difference from the A6000-030US and the A6000-029US is the blu ray player that is all. @Jalard i totally agree with your post. They have been flawless for me. I Dj and use all 3 of them. they have never let me down. Never froze never slowd down and never heated up..... they are fast. Too many haters here. They have no clue what they are talking about. For the person who posted they cant reach customer service lol WOW!!! dude i speak with them all the time lol cant find number here you go 1-888-447-6564 oh and this one 1-626-581-1551. MSI is know for those who say they are unknown. MSI is well internationally known for their motherboards. I have been a comp tech since 1990. Also its like a car. if you dont maintain it it will break down on you. Take care of your laptop and it will take care of you.

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I do not like this laptop at all! The keyboard setup is a major pain, very cramped, and where the mouse pad is located everytime you type, you accidently touch the pad and it moves your cursor! Half the time the numbers on the other side of the keyboard don't work, and after only 6 months the battery is completely dead! What's the point of having a laptop is I have to keep it plugged in! Not worth the money! Keep looking people!

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Acer 13.3" Laptop 4GB 500GB + 20GB SSD | S3-391-6448

First off, I bought this laptop brand new on ebay for about $400.

Now on to the laptop itself. I wasn't expecting much except for an ultrathin laptop. I was actually quite impressed when I first booted it up. Before this laptop I had any extremely bulk HP Probook 4436s with extended battery that was a pain to take around college. It had 8 GB of ram but suddenly, after booting one day, only recognized 4. That laptop died for reason I don't know why, but anyways back to this review.

Acer didn't cut any corners with this sleek laptop. It has a nice sleek brushed aluminum look and very minimal plastic. This ultrabook is so sleek that I can carry in my backback and barley notice it as my textbooks sometimes weigh even more then this. The performance of the core i3 1.5GHz is good for the needs of me, a college student. I can do web surfing with multiple browser windows/tabs open at a time and still have minimal lag. The 4GB on memory is soldered onto the board so it is NOT upgradeable if that is what you are looking for. It is speedy enough to do work on Libre office. Boot times are fast, but the sleep wake time is a little longer then what they state. It is more around 2 seconds but still not bad as my old laptop would take 15+.

The keyboard is extremely nice to type on. It is very quite and when I press a key I don't have problems with it not registering. I am a touch typer so I am more gentle then others when typing. My old HP would have problems with registering a key click and it would bug the crap out of me as I had to constantly go back and fix "lok" and "shool" from my writing. This is not a problem present in this Acer.

There is very minimal heat when this computer is doing basic tasks like word processing and surfing. It does get a little hot, I would say around 90-100 F but I don't know exactly. The fan is quite and even when it does turn on it is blaring loud like other laptops can sometimes get. If doing an intensive task it will get louder but nothing that isn't bearable.

The screen is altogether great for the price. It is not full HD like other screens but then again you aren't paying an extra $100 either. Viewing angles from looking from the top are bad. If viewing from the side or bottom it mostly gets dim and glare is more noticeable. As there isn't a anit-glare coating that I can see of. Colors are vivid on medium to high brightness.

The charger that is lightweight and doesn't feel like you are lugging around a giant brick. Also, it is somewhat small and fits nicely into a bag. Can't really say much more about that since I am not a electrician.

Had it for about two weeks and am so far impressed with this slim, speedy little beast. Might write another review after I get some more real world data.

very nice and good looking laptop...... but the only thing that is annoying me is having no cd rom drive on it.

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Toshiba Satellite P755-S5184 Laptop (2nd Gen Intel Core i5-2450M processor, 640GB Hard Drive, Windo

Received that laptop in it's original factory packaging. Backlit keyboard is awesome, (but it doesn't work with Linux yet, oh well). I was going to put an SSD hard drive in it to match my media server's speed, but with the i5 2nd Gen, I can almost say that it's just as fast even with the mechanical HDD! Keyboard is always cool to the touch, and the mouse responds accurately. Battery power got me through a whole weekend in Chicago with power to spare. All in all, I'm impressed with the speed and the usability of this laptop!

I've had this for a few weeks and it is working great. I don't use the number pad and I've had to get use to it but I knew that coming in. I like the speakers and it's much faster than my old one. It was a good purchase.

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Bought this for my daughters college.(Go UK!) She loves it and I will buy another for the family computer replacing our antiquated dell desktop. God bless.

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Lenovo Ideapad Z580 215124U 15.6-Inch Laptop (Gun Metal Grey)

I bought the Lenovo Ideapad Z580 from Amazon about a month ago. My objective was to get a new laptop onboard while preinstalled Windows 7 was still available. Overall I rate it 4 stars out of 5. With one exception everything works OK and performance, WIFI connectivity and display are fine. There is one bug however. When typing with the keyboard, the computer will unexpectedly jump the cursor back to a random place in the text already completed, and proceed to insert any further typed characters starting from there. This happens independently of the application receiving the text input. Having to stop after this happens and correct the erroneous text really slows down my typing speed. My guess is that there is a problem in the Lenovo's keyboard buffering (it seems to unpredictably lose track of the position of last character typed). Using a USB-connected external keyboard takes care of the problem otherwise I would have returned the product for refund.

I personally own a Lenovo Z570 and I love it. I purchased this Z580 for my girlfriend as a Christmas gift to replace her aging desktop. She works from home and it meets her needs for work (mostly spreadsheet editing and web searches) as well as her personal use for photos and entertainment. This is a solid performing budget laptop in all categories. Highly recommended!

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Gigabyte 14-Inch Notebook with Intel Core i5-2520M Processor and 1366x768 LED Backlight Display (M2

I haven't bought this because I can't justify paying that much

for a 14" notebook. The features do not justify the cost. A couple

of bones less might be good but the current price is just too much.

I'm sure, being it is a Gigabyte product that it really does merit

5 stars because I have built many computers using Gigabyte motherboards

and none of them have failed including one computer that I have had running

24/7 for 5 years now. Bring down the cost and I will be an instant customer!

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HP Pavilion DV4-2045DX 14.1" Notebook (2.20 GHz AMD Turion II Dual-Core Mobile Processor M500, 4 GB

I bought this explicitly for using as a budget HTPC. I didn't need Blu-Ray or long battery life because I intended to park it on my components and plug it into my big screen via HDMI. I did need a computer with good graphics and a pc that was powerful enough to run flash and HD video without hiccuping. Picked this up yesterday and by the time I had the OS decrappified of all of the junk software they add to these budget computers I was up and running and connected to my entertainment center and watching youtube on the big screen in no time.

I'll leave some updates later but here are a few important things to keep in mind.

1. There is a little button above the touchpad that turns it on and off. Make sure it's on before you freak out.

2. You have to touch the wireless icon in order to turn on the wireless card. It glows red and changes color to blue when it's on and it's touch sensitive.

Both points aren't made clear in the manual.

This laptop was my daughters graduation gift..now 15 months later it's a desktop unless I pay HP over $300 dollars(original cost $550) to repair the LCD screen. Oh and to ease the pain of having to pay $300 for the repair for just $1 more they will throw in a year of free tech support..WOOHOOO!!!Very dissapointed in this purchase. If you have or are planning on buying a HP get the extended warranty you will need it.

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The HP dv4-2045dx has an abundance of features that makes it a great value for its price. I upgraded from my older Windows Vista-based HP notebook and immediately noticed a more stable and faster operating environment with the dv4-2045dx, which comes with 4GB of RAM and a 7200-rpm hard drive. While shopping for my new notebook, I found most competing models in the same price range to have only 3GB of RAM and a 5400-rpm hard drive. Further, the HP dv4-2045dx comes with a dedicated memory card, as opposed to the shared video memory of many other models in this price range. The aesthetics of the notebook are very slick, as is typical of HP notebooks. This model has a sleek white finish, and I personally find the 14.1" screen to offer the perfect blend of portability (feels much noticeable lighter than 15" and 17" notebooks) and usability (keyboard not cramped like my 10" netbook). The keys have a nice tactile feel, although the touchpad of this model (like other HP notebooks I've owned) has more than optimal friction. The speakers are suitable for general purpose use, although if you like listening to iTunes, I'd get a set of external speakers. As is common these days, the notebook comes bundled with a lot of third-party software which I'd just assume strip from my computer.

To summarize my thoughts, this computer provides tremendous value and relatively strong computing power for its price range. There are a lot of little features (such as the 7200-rpm hard drive, e-SATA port, dedicated graphics memory, etc.) that aren't typically found on a notebook in this price range. I wouldn't hesitate to buy this model again.

Pros:

+ Relatively powerful AMD Turion x2 Dual Core processor at 2.2 ghz

+ Dedicated graphics card

+ 4GB RAM

+ Windows 7 64-bit is a tremendous improvement over slow Windows Vista

+ Nice blend of portability and usability

+ 7200-rpm, 320GB hard drive

+ e-SATA interface allows you to take advantage of faster external hard drives

+ HDMI out

Cons:

No bluetooth

Uses DDR2 RAM instead of DDR3 RAM like Intel Core Duo 2

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I purchased this computer at Best Buy. Apparently thier return policy states.

Exchange or return your item anytime from the original purchase date within the timeframe below:

*14 days for computers, monitors, projectors, camcorders, digital cameras, iPads, tablets and radar detectors

Nice. So I bring my brand new laptop (I had'nt even web surfed with this computer yet just wrote on word) on the 15th day because the computer suddenly started to show the blue screen of death and then the computer stopped turning on. They ran in store test, diagnostics, etc... The GEEK Sqaud guy decided that it was my Hard Drive. He said the Hard Drive could cost anywhere from 200$ or more. Hearing this, after I just dropped money for this brand new computer was EXTREMELEY AGGARVATING. He said on top of the Hard Drive Cost, Best buy would charge 150$ to send it out, to DOUBLE CHECK that it was in fact the Hard Drive.

The manager at Best Buy wouldnt budge to refund or even exchange it... and all she could say was I'm Sorry.

I called HP, sat on the phone with a Help Desk agent (who I couldnt understand) for 3.5 hours of Troubleshooting. Once the agent realized that he couldnt fix the computer over the phone, he then accidently but conviently disconnected the phone call. Apparently the HP warranty is a year but it is THIS much work just to get the computer through the warranty process. When I called back, the new agent wanted me to go through the same troubleshooting steps. I was irrate.

Lets just say, I AM NEVER BUYING ANYTHING FROM HP OR BEST BUY EVER, EVER, AGAIN. Worst Service, horrible product.

The best way to describe this computer: junk.

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Purchased from Best Buy in Dec 2009, and it just died this last weeked, May 6, 2011. The computer will constantly turn off and will only start up for about 1-2 seconds before shutting down again. Most forums indicated that this is either hard drive, motherboard (due to overheating), or fan needs cleaned. I ordered an external enclosure for the hard drive off Newegg so I can pull the data off no matter the outcome, but decided to see if I could clean the fan. In order to get to the fan on a HP Pavilion laptop, you have to dissasemble the ENTIRE computer. To do this, you really need a plastic "case cracker" tool, which you can find in a Zune Repair kit (google it). I ended up just using a butter knife. There are quite a few youtube videos that will walk you through the process. This youtube video was the most thorough:

HP DV4 Take Apart / Disassembly to Clean CPU Fan

I even took pictures as I went, but ended up with a few extra screws when done, and it didn't fit back together that well (keyboard). Either way, it didn't help and it wasn't the fan, even though the fan was dirt. I'm almost positive it's not the hard drive, since it would startup and I could use the computer off and on the last few days. I think the motherboard just died, which seems to be a common problem with this laptop.

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Acer Aspire V3-571-6698 15.6-Inch Laptop (Midnight Black)

I'm going to preface my review with the caveat that I bought this laptop to replace my 10+ years old(!) laptop. So basically, I'd be impressed with anything made in this decade.

In any event, I bought this after much online comparison between this and a Toshiba laptop. The Toshiba laptop had slightly better specs (one more additional USB 3.0 port and higher RAM) but the Acer laptop just looks better. And sure enough, once I brought it out of the box, I was impressed by how sleek and sexy it looks in person. Yes, it's a sexy laptop!

So, pros (asides from sexy appearance):

I'm most impressed so far with how fast it handled iTunes. Even on my husband's newer (but still old) desktop computer, iTunes take forever to load. This probably loaded iTunes in a few seconds.

USB 3.0 is fast. An album pretty much transfers instantly from my portable harddrive. If I selected 20 or so albums at a time, it probably takes less than a minute. It used to take at least two days to transfer some 5,000 songs to my iPod on my old laptop. On this computer, it took about two hours.

Sound and video both play well on this laptop. I don't need my laptop to be an entertainment center so my expectations aren't high in either regards. But from what I've used of the audio and video components, the laptop more than meets my expectations in terms of having a good sound when playing back audio and video looking crisp.

It's extremely quiet, even when the fans come on. Along with the quiet, it hasn't had issues with overheating. I've ran it for 2-3 hour periods and it's never felt slightly warmer than room temperature. It's advertised to have up to 4.5 hours of battery life and so far, that's been correct. Running a game lowers the battery life but it's to be expected and not a major issue. It's light (again, compared to my ancient laptop). I had to run up and down the stairs a couple of time with it and I barely know it's there.

Recently, I've tried accessing my work computer from home with this laptop in an attempt to debug whatever was wrong with my work computer. The laptop handled really well with running that task while installing a game and surfing the internet at the same time. I didn't notice any lags or slowdowns at all.

The only game I ran on it so far is Sims 3 and I haven't had a chance to play too much of it yet. So far, the graphics handled well and the game played smoothly for the most part. There were two times while in the game that I was kicked out to the desktop. The first time, I just pulled up the program again and the game continued right where it left off with no issues. The second time was the battery low warning. I don't know what the reason for the first glitch (maybe also battery?) was but it was no huge deal since it didn't affect the game much at all.

The cons:

I was initially put off by the Windows 8 interface. To be honest, I still hate it. But after some tinkering, I was able to make the Start screen somewhat less offensive to me by uninstalling and unpinning a lot of the useless apps. Still, I think the Windows 8 interface is a big downgrade. But I can't really blame the Acer laptop for running whatever is the newest Microsoft product and so I'm not letting stupid Windows 8 affect the product rating. Maybe one day I'll downgrade it to Windows 7.

The Charm Bar. Ugh! Another useless Windows 8 invention. I used Windows registry to suppress it but it still comes up occasionally when I hover in the lower right corner too long

I think the touchpad is a bit too sensitive sometimes. I had to turn off the one touch drag feature because it was too difficult to navigate with it inadvertently dragging a lot of the windows and icons about. Even after it has been turned off, I still get inadvertent clicks. I've already changed the sensitivity of the touchpad in the settings but I'm still getting inadvertent clicks. But I guess I'll just have to continue fiddling with the settings until I get something I'm satisfied with.

In conclusion, the only real con against the laptop would be the too-sensitive touchpad, which I'm sure is fixable with some tinkering of its settings. The Windows 8 one of the most terrible OS ever hoisted upon consumers can't really count against the laptop's rating. It's a really great computer for work, internet, entertainment (for the non-discerning audience) and light gaming. I'm really glad I got this over the other laptops I was looking through.

Even though it was a gift given I heard that it is amazing. When he connected it to his network it transferred all his desktop files easily. He is very happy with it.

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I love it love it love it, not to fond of windows 8 yet but learning. This is my second Acer computer and I have found they are one of the best out there. Great sound, great graphics, beautiful styling, clear screen FAST FAST FAST Great gaming computer as well as everyday use. An A++++++ recommendation

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My son loves it! He got if for Christmas and loves it. It is very fast, does not crash, and does not over heat.

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a lot of adjusting to be familiar with windows 8 but after you get the hang of it...everything is fast and smooth and great. for a low price laptop i find it very helpful

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Dell XPS XPS14-9092sLV 14-Inch Ultrabook (Silver)

I love this laptop so much! The screen is super clear the resolution is absolutely stunning! The keyboard is so smooth and it being backlit is just an extra bonus. The trackpad is super smooth and I love how there are no raised buttons on it! It boots up very quickly and the battery lasts for such a long time. Just today I've been on it for about 6-7 hours and it just died about 20 minutes ago. It doesn't overheat and the top always stays cool. The only place you feel any heat is on the bottom. In comparison to a Macbook Pro, it is heavier, but worth the extra weight. It's a solid machine and it looks so sleek! Love this laptop, great choice if you're considering a Dell, Utrabook or trying to decide between Mac or Windows. The only downside to this laptop is that it doesn't have a DVD drive, but it's still an excellent choice!

I got the Case Logic PLS-14 14.1-Inch Neoprene Laptop Sleeve (Black) to protect my laptop when I have to take it places. This sleeve is high quality and the perfect size for this laptop!

i bought this after returning a lenovo t430s that came defective, this laptop is great, it's not too heavy, beautiful 1600x900p screen, great battery life (around 6 hours for web browsing and basic stuff), sleek design, surprisingly great multi-touch trackpad nearly as good as ones on apple macbooks. I've had it for about two weeks and so far there have been no issues.

Buy Dell XPS XPS14-9092sLV 14-Inch Ultrabook (Silver) Now

I purchased this computer from Dell Outlet (as a refurb...find a dell coupon and get a better deal). I went with the standard i5 processor and the intel hd 4000 video. I have added 8gb of RAM, a Samsung 840 series ssd, and windows 8 pro. I realized after owning it for a few months that something was wrong with it. I'm the type to re-install an operating system when I get a computer, I hate the bloat. After doing some reading this is what I realized:

-If you do a complete reformat and install of windows...you need to initially tell it not to download updates or drivers automatically (you can prevent the need to do this if you clone your drive to a new one, or if you use the windows install without full format. Apparently Windows 8 preserves the diver structure, which is new to me.) . If you let it do this, windows will grab the "best" drivers it can find, and will install drivers that are far from optimal from the hardware company, and usually leaving you only half working.

-After you boot and activate windows (with expectation that firmware is up to date) go to dell and grab all drivers at once, install in the following order:

-Intel chipset drivers (restart)

-Other Intel software, video, sound, networking (all system hardware drivers..restart)

-Dell software you want (I like the Dell quickset software. It has some good power saving features that are great. I also suggest the touchpad, and

audio software)

-Activate your TPM in bios (this is unnecessary, but I had issues with the rest of the process if TPM was active before this, Bitlocker is great)

-Activate windows 8 quick start in bios (SSD + Quickstart gets me to my login within 4 seconds from cold boot!)

I know this is a bit complicated compared to other typical setups, but for some reason, and Im guessing that it has part to do with Dell power optimization in Dell specific drivers, this is what works. Dell needs to make this clear, but they have failed to. On this front, the product fails. But, once properly setup, this laptop is AMAZING.

Pros:

-The Upgraded Warranty. I even got this with my refurb model. It is a huge jump ahead of Dells regular service. It is easiest to take care of any Dell service issue through the chat service they provide. Ive had two experiences since I bought it. 1. They send a DVD with windows on it (no dvd drive), and I wanted to install my SSD. I called them, they furiously apologized, commented on my computer prowess for installing a new drive (I hear this is part of the "xps service" ;), and then over nighted a USB key with windows 8 Pro (upgrade from the home that came with it). After finding that they would do this, Id kinda suggest everyone who gets a DVD request a USB key as soon as they get the computer. 2. When installing the SSD, I lost a screw...I chatted with them, they commented on my computing prowess again (which I love ;), and then over-nighted me a new set of screws (like all the screws for the device). I believe they may have seen the light and are trying to return to the Dell roots of great service, which was lost along the way some where in India.

-QUALITY build! This machine is a block of aluminum. I would actually say that (except for the keyboard) this thing is built better than a Macbook Pro. It feels rigid, and has a little more weight than you might expect from it..but I like that. I'm done with the "featherweight" direction electronics have taken. They feel cheap, this feels EXPENSIVE

-Amazing battery. Once I successfully optimized this thing it has been regularly hitting 8+hrs of mixed internet use (maybe 20% media/video, 80% text/pictures)

-Screen resolution. Some have declared these screens substandard (for not being IPS), I honestly do not find that to be the case. My screen is bright, vivid, and I find 1600x900 (though not an industry standard) is my new preference.

-Once I mastered Windows 8 gestures (kill lock screen, setup script to go to desktop automatically, few other tweaks) , I've found the touch-pad to be great. You do need the dell touch-pad software for any gestures to work

-Sound is pretty good for the size of the device. It sounds good as long as you have the dell sound software running

-HD4000 can get through light gaming. I played through Portals 2 on Mid/High settings, and was also able to play through the Tell Tell Walking Dead game on high. This thing wont WOW you graphically, but with an SSD it can keep you entertained. This is obviously the price you pay for increased mobility and battery life. There is an upgrade available for the graphics, but I don't play enough to be tempted (I also read accounts of the laptop having issues switching between the on board hd4000 and the graphics card upgrade. Seems the power savings software creates choppiness. This may have been remedied).

-Dell refurbished price. Their refurbished stuff is like new! I've been buying it for years without issue, highly recommended!

Cons:

-Weight! I know I said I liked it, and I do, but..I think there may be a happy medium just a few ounces under this.

-Lack of a dvd drive. I know this is an "ultrabook", but from my understanding, the only reason that it is, is that it doesn't have a disc drive (dvd/blueray). I wish they had done exactly what they had done, forget about Intel branding, and added a light weight slot load dvd (like Apple has done for years). I bought the laptop knowing this, so its not like I can blame them.

-Software/driver issues from above. This took me a while to figure out, and I have some "computing prowess". It may just be too much of a headache for the lay user.

-Retail Pricing (its like 60% premium to the refurbish stuff)

-The type of screw they used on the bottom of the device are very delicate. They are torx based, and are not hardened well enough. After opening the device twice I needed to replace the whole lot of them (which they sent for free..so its hard to complain about!)

-The black rubberized finish on the deck of the laptop attracts grease from palms. Use rubbing alcohol on it, or use whatever you clean your lcd with (carefully, and lightly or you could damage the electronics).

-The real reason I took a star off is the keyboard. I came from a dell vostro laptop (low end business model) that had a great keyboard. It had a good tactile feel, it had a splash tray underneath it for spill protection, and it allowed a certain access to the undersides of the keys for cleaning. This keyboard has a more consumer feel. The letter font is "cutting edge", the keys are smooth and slightly concave, and though I find the back lighting to be great from time to time, it makes it look a lil flashy (it an be turned up and down form the keyboard). the keys are also built in a way that they raised out of finely cut key holes, this prevents most trash/dirt from interfering, but if something get under a key, its hard to get it out!

In all, as long as it lasts (this is written at month 6 of ownership), and the aluminum holds up (so far I cant even find a scratch on it), Im a very happy camper!

Read Best Reviews of Dell XPS XPS14-9092sLV 14-Inch Ultrabook (Silver) Here

I bought this computer on black Friday, about 800 dollar. Honestly, it worth for this price. I had check many 14 inch computer on line, and most of ultrabook are over 900 dollars.

pro: battery. it can last over 7 hours. It is good for people who have a long travel.

high resolution for 14 inch PC. It is 1600*900

Ultra thin. it is about 3 CM when i fold it.

con: it is noisy when i was running game, and the heat is a little bit too high.

touch pad. there is no hot key to disable it

a little bit too heavy. it is good for PC to have a metal shell, but it too heavy for a 14 inch PC.

The graphic card need to improve. GT 630 M doesn't match i5 CPU.

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First, I must say I am a pro consumer who knows and follows the current technology. I used many notebooks the last 20 years and followed the progress. So my review is from many perspectives which are the build quality, the technology used, the value of the item, etc.

This is an excellent notebook. It is light, very powerful for browsing, photo editing, video playing (inc. MP4s etc) even for light gaming with the GT630 version.

The screen is superb (have the 900p), can be seen from many angles. The screen also looks very nice as the entire surface is glass though the screen it self is actually smaller. So it is a smart design IMHO.

I saw wireless issues reported when I researching, took the leap of faith and did not experience any problems with the wireless connection.

Since it is all metal construction I would expect some wireless problems (metal blocks RF waves). Either they improved it or my environment/router is wireless friendly towards this notebook.

Shortly, for the price tag this notebook is an excellent deal. I got mice form the Amazon outlet, it was a scratch item but only the box was actually. The notebook inside was untouched, brand new.

This notebook uses the newer thinner 7mm hard disks so upgrading it to more than 500GB is an issue but I actually put a 480GB 7mm SSD in it. Plus an msata 256GB SSD to have 2 drives. The memory is upgradable to 12GB at most which should be sufficient for most people.

Excellent ultrabook. 5 stars.

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Sony VAIO VGN-NW350F/S 15.5" 4GB 320GB Laptop Silver

I picked this laptop up last night. It was the only high end brand I could find with HDMI and blu-ray under $800 that had good processing ability along with other specific features I wanted... and I looked... and looked... and looked... The white keys and bright display are helpful if you occasionally use your laptop in the dark (though having a back lit keyboard would have been a nice bonus). Compared to all prior, dark cased laptops, I can finally see the keys clearly. Ive had a Vaio in the past and it's build quality was excellent. I once again can say that it feels like a solid laptop and I am going to be quite happy with it. This laptop's design is straight forward and relies highly on the function keys. Advanced users might appreciate the simplicity and straight forwardness of this laptop more than the average or novice who may need things more specifically laid out (or if you are a big fan of buttons).

It features a boot to internet button to quickly bypass its already speedy Windows 7 boot process.

Blu-Ray looks great. The only disappointment ive had with it is the speakers, but I havent had enough opportunity to truly judge them yet. I put in a blu-ray movie last night and it was so quiet at full volume I had trouble hearing it. Granted, normal Windows volume had a decent projection so I probably just need to check a few things out that I havent gotten around to yet.

The HDMI port along with the Blu-Ray allows me to connect it to my TV and gives me the option of removing the entertainment desktop I have next to my tv.

Would I buy it again? Definitely.

Side note: I love Amazon, but I found it for $730 in store. Sorry Amazon but you were a little too expensive this time around!

I bought this to replace a SonyFE model. I was pretty happy with the FE but wanted to upgrade to a new computer because I need better specs. Overall I am pleased with the NW model. I love the texture of the case and the silver color. Windows 7 is easy to navigate through once you get used to the change from XP. It is much faster that my older sony. The reason I did not give it 5 stars is because I prefer the old screen. It is much crisper and easier on the eyes. The Sony NW screen doesn't seem as bright or maybe the contrast is off and almost looks faded compared to the FE model. I read somewhere that is is due to the technology differences behind the screens. We also recently purchased and HP610 and prefer the screen over the Sony. Side by side the HP Screen is much better. The speakers on both are not that great and it is difficult to listen to webinars. Thank goodness for earphones.

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This is a great computer. No, the screen isn't the greatest, but I got it in store for under $700. Also, it's LOADED with Sony software, which occasionally takes up all the RAM, slowing it down. Other than that, I love it. HDMI output is great. The keys on the keyboard are spaced perfectly for my big hands. My girlfriend told me that she finds the touch pad hard to use, but I like it. I would absolutely recommend this computer to a friend.

Read Best Reviews of Sony VAIO VGN-NW350F/S 15.5" 4GB 320GB Laptop Silver Here

I bought this laptop about 6 months ago, and am so glad that I did! I was hoping to spend $500-600, as I figured these days you can get somewhat of a decent comp for that price. I was looking at a Gateway with a 17" screen, which I thought would be nice for my art and photography... But THEN I took a walk on the wild side to the nicer lineup of comp's and saw this Sony. It is quiet (you dont even hear the fan running), fast, doesnt get hot, easy to type, amazing HD qualities, awesome windows 7, web startup with a press of a button, etc... I was very worried about spending $750 or so, when buying a MAC is only a few hundred dollars more. (I'm a MAC lover!)... But really, this is a great computer with everything that I need (and some). Dont settle for a crappy machine when for a little more you can have this reliable smooth Sony. Best Buy has an 18 month no-interest deal on their credit card, which I did. You wont be dissapointed...

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Sorry......but.. the one I bought in 2010, I paid (with taxes,shipping,) about $800.00 ON SALE..

I think it was...Best Buy on line..anyhow, Had it a year, it was a manufacture's defect in the SD card USB area. That fried my C driver...(extended warrantee was outrageous)so had that fixed.. I suppose the kid put a trial Windows on it.. well, shortly after that expired...the C driver that I put about $150.00 into...FRIED AGAIN..so.. I am now having to EAT almost a thousand dollars and hope to sell it on EBay for parts.. I'm lucky to get $150 dollars for it so I can clear at least $100.00 and the shipping and handling costs.. I'LL NEVER EVER BUY ANYTHING COMPUTER WITH SONY ON IT.. Sony has great camera's and music equipment..but...STAY AWAY FROM ANYTHING computerized with Sony...

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Toshiba Portege R705-P35 Laptop, Intel Core i3 Processor, 13.3" Display

I agree with those who say the keyboard is a little weird at first, but it took me little time to get used to it. I also agree that you should not buy this machine here since I just picked mine up at Best Buy for $699.99 with the added convenience of being able to take it back to them should anything go wrong (in the first year).

As with any computer you ever buy, the first question you ask yourself is, "What am I going to use it for?" I don't plan on doing any heavy lifting with it and the specs are better than either of my desktops which I've used to run Photoshop and AutoCad. I don't see how anyone can complain about the speed for the price. I want to do word-processing, surf the Net and watch video. This laptop handles all of these things nicely. Why did I pony up an extra $150 for this model over the other Toshiba at the store? It's small. Very important to me.

After reading a thousand reviews on this thing, I have one last thing to say: Suggesting to me that I should go get a MacBook instead of a Toshiba is the most useless thing you can put in a review. I already have a MacBook that I got as a hand-me-down, and it's sitting on the ping pong table in my garage. I don't like Macs, and there is nothing wrong with me because of it. It's like saying, "Oh, that's a nice laptop, but you really should have bought a Chevy." Just tell me about THIS computer, and then go make out with your Mac.

At 1st I wanted to buy a mini because I thought of it being more portable. Then I found out that they are quite slow when you start to add programs like Microsoft office because they are mainly for internet, email, etc. plus they don't come with a CD drive (unless you purchase one separately)

But the laptops seemed too big and heavy for me to carry around (student).. After doing tons of research I found this computer. The R705-P35 it's super light, might be as light as a mini. It has tons of memory and it runs many programs at once with no problems. It's quiet, it's thin, and it's pretty small! 13.3in!! So, if you are looking for a mini with the memory of a bigger computer, this is the one for you.

Can't say much about battery life because I always have it plugged in, but I will make sure to update if there are any issues.

Buy Toshiba Portege R705-P35 Laptop, Intel Core i3 Processor, 13.3" Display Now

This is the laptop I've been waiting for. It's light. It's lighter than my old netbook but includes a real processor (no atom) with a dvd player. Finally I have something I can do real work on that doesn't wrench my shoulder out of its socket. It has great battery life. Recently took two connecting flights down to FL no battery problems, and it was on pretty much the whole way. Amazing. And the small form factor means I can actually use it on the airplane without any yoga positions. It's plenty fast for what I need it for light duty programming, office apps, surfing the net, etc. Did I mention its lightness? I'm always handing it to people to amaze them with its miniscule avoirdupois.

What I don't like: not a whole lot. Toshiba limits the crapware it installs, but I wish it were easier to get rid of their proprietary "enhancements" to the OS. There's one left that I can't figure out how to ditch the webcam controls that pop out annoyingly from the side if you move the mouse over the edge. Something dumb that I wish I didn't have to pay for but that doesn't hurt anything Wimax. Useless to me (and most people I suspect). Also it's fan is sometimes a bit noisy but only a problem when watching dvd's with the speaker's volume turned down.

Read Best Reviews of Toshiba Portege R705-P35 Laptop, Intel Core i3 Processor, 13.3" Display Here

Pros:

-Big hard drive (500gb). Wont run out of room on this thing.

-New intel i3 processor is peppy. It runs fast and multi-tasks quite well.

-Portability (amazingly light)

-13 inch screen is just the right size for a decent work space.

-No noticeable screen glare

Cons:

-Chiclet style keyboard is not well executed. The keys are slick to touch and mushy to press. Space Bar is especially bad. Feels very cheap for a computer of this price.

-Touchpad needs to be fine tuned. Default settings for sensitivity and multi touch features are crummy

-Speaking of multi touch... It is EXTREMELY spotty. I installed Ubuntu Linux alongside the provided Windows 7 and the two finger scrolling worked much smoother

-I'm BIG on battery life. I got this computer especially for it's advertised 8-9 hour battery time. In reality, however, it gets around 4 1/2. Hardly enough to last me through the day. (This is on low screen brightness and in the "eco-mode" power setting)

All in all, this is a good machine. I would love it if the keyboard wasn't so crappy and it got a little better battery life. Still, for the money it's tough to beat the specs provided. If you've got some extra cash I would probably go for the MUCH better constructed Macbook or Macbook Pro.

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I've been looking for a PC equivalent of the MacBook Air since...forever. But so far, nobody has been able to combine light weight, big screen size, and affordability. I've looked up and down, and only the R705 can beat the MBA.

Pro:

1) Only a feather heavier than the MBA 13";

2) But has twice the specs in CPU, hard drive, and RAM.

3) Also has eSATA, SD reader, HDMI, DVD burner, WiMax and one more USB port. MBA = nada.

4) In case you haven't noticed, it's so much more affordable.

Con:

1) It's not sexy like the MBA. You're not going to fall in love with it. Strictly a workhorse.

2) Power adapter is still the same brick that Toshiba has been including for the past 10 years. No innovations there. Cable management definitely needs improvement.

This is THE laptop to get if you need a light but powerful travelling laptop!

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