Lenovo U410 14.0-Inch Ultrabook (Sapphire Blue)

It's been more than a month that I am using this laptop. It's a great ultrabook for the value. Compared to my old laptop (HP dv4), it takes longer to connect to wireless after I turn it on. The major headache is windows 8 which sucks! However, it's not the laptop's problem.

I love this laptop. The battery strength is awesome on this laptop. The only thing I don't like is the processor speed. The price was good. Big hard drive.

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HP Pavilion dv6423om 15.4" NOTEBOOK LAPTOP PC (AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core TL-58 1.9 GHz, 2GB RAM, 1

this my favorate laptop i have been threw i kept buying other laptops to see what was best and this laptop is the winner!! im using at the moment actually ha but best laptop ever!!!

I purchased this notebook (on sale with a printer and backpack) as I hoped it would work as a multipurpose notebook. I need it for school, work and use it as an entertainment PC and occasional internet box at coffee shops. It is inadequate for each of these purposes except as an internet box.

I purchase this as a replacement for a stolen HP DV6131od which I loved. This is similar in many aspects, better in some respects, but its pitfalls well outweigh its good points. I purchased it from OfficeMax and tried to return it within 48 hours. OfficeMax refused to accept its return because I had opened the box. I will probably have to sue them. I will boycott their store forever, and urge others to do the same.

The Good Stuff:

The AMD Turion 64 processor is more than adequate, and comparable to the Intel core 2 Duo T5200 in the DV6131. It has 2Gig of memory, which is more than adequate for most uses. Memory througput is excellent as the system has a very high speed bus and DDR 5400 memory.

The keyboard surface is slightly angled unlike many notebooks, which tend to be boxy. I work as a paralegal and law clerk, which requires a great deal of typing. The angled keyboard makes typing much easier.

The cursor touchpad has an on-off switch right above the touchpad. The cursor pad on just about all notebooks is right below the keyboard, and you can inadvertently make the cursor jump by touching it. This makes it easier to use an external USB mouse and more functional as a work computer. It has a section on the cursor pad which works like a wheel on the mouse for quick up-and-down scrolling.

HP has QuickPlay buttons above the keyboard and its own proprietary software which make it functional as an entertainment PC. I very much like the voume controls and entertainment buttons.

The system has digital optical output (although it does not come with the adapter) for digital audio output and S-video output to connect into home theater system.

The Shortcomings:

The video processor is horribly inadequate. Videos and DVDs do not play as smoothly as I would like. This unit is marketed and sold as an entertainment PC. It is barely adequate for this purpose. Given the speed of the processor and front side bus, this is probably the result of an out of date video processing system.

It only comes with a 6 cell battery. Battery life is short -about an hour and a half.

Vista Home Premium. Nuff said? Vista is, in my opinion, a major mistake. It is incapable of running much of the business software I use. Further, Vista Home Premium, which comes installed, has much of the commercial networking capabilities of Vista Ultimate and Business disabled. Knowing the problems with Vista, I bought this with the intent to downgrade the software. However, HP does not provide much support for Windosws XP. The drivers are available, but HP does not publish them on its website with this computer. HP does not have XP install disks for this computer.

Benchmarks:

The following benchmarks show the video processor is horrible by current standards:

3dMark2001 = 3315

3dMark2003 = 1036 (It is interesting to note that the CPU tests run the same tests at a faster frame rate than the video processor!)

3dMark2006 = 194

Overall benchmark scores:

Performance Test PassMark 6.1 = 372

PC Wizard = 2422.55

Subsequently, I downgraded the OS to XP Professional. Some very bright customer service tech at HP sent me a list of all of the XP drivers for the system. With the old XP o/sand got the following scores:

3dMark 2001 = 4610

3dMark 2003 = 1132

PC Wizard 2523.64

Performance Test Passmark 6.1 = 398

So, the system does better with a downgrade in the O/S, however, you loose all of the fun stuff (i.e., Quickplay) that is incorporated into this entertainment PC.

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This computer is awesome!!! It is great for gaming, searching the web, and anything else!!

I used vista at first, but that's too slow.

So I bought windows 7, that's much better! It does have a cd/dvd drive

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perfect first laptop. got at 16. lots of memory but doesnt seem to last long. needs more ram, good for personal use and movies and such. kind of slow over time but that is people i have so much on mine now. have to clean often. would love a nice new computer but for now no complaints, it works for now.

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I only buy HP laptops but this version has issues.

After a year the laptop over heats and burns out don't buy.

I recommend getting a laptop cooling pad if you do purchase.

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Sony VAIO(R) VPCYB14KX/S 11.6" Notebook PC - Silver

didn't buy it here, but thought i would chip in my 2 cents, in case someone comes across this...

pros: light, moderately good looking silver chassis, peppy enough for web and email and light movies chores, hdmi out for tv, battery life ok but not what it's rated....a little over 3 hours with moderate use, i LOVE the keyboard, and the mousepad is not stupidly touchy like some note/net books

cons: doesn't feel that sturdy really, on the other hand, like i said, it's light...no recovery discs ( yeah yeah blah blah i know, no optical drive, hidden partition for recovery blah blah yeah yeah, still PUT THE RECOVERY DISC in with the book, it would cost you chinese manufacturers about .03 cents en masse, good grief, c'mon )....it does run a little warm, NOT hot, but def warm...hd is a little busy at times....ac plug into the computer itself is HORRIBLE, very loose and shoddy....not much in decent software included, but that is to be expected...sound is a tad below where it really should be, again, not that unusual in these low end books...display is so-so, biggest downer is the 32 bit OS, and YES YES YES i know it's the spec on this, it's just disappointing really

other thoughts in case someone reads this...yeah yeah it's a hybrid kind of thing, between a net and a notebook...thing is, i would NOT NOT NOT pay anywhere near $500 for this, NO WAY....on the other hand, i got a demo model, a few days old, with a massive discount on top of the demo discount, out the door for $357 plus tax, so not too bad for a sony vaio branded low-end job...its a tad better than a notebook for sure, but the 500 buck price point is a no-go for me anyway...

so, to sum up, not a bad buy for $350, biggest downer is the AC plug in, and the 32 bit OS...

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HP Pavilion DV4-1430US 14.1-Inch Entertainment Laptop

Before buying this laptop I had bought one from Gateway and it gave me so many problems that I couldn't stand it. I returned it to the store and my only other option for the same price was this laptop. I absolutely love it! Its 100x sturdier than the Gateway and much better looking with its lightup "HP" symbol and cool design. Also, the performance is just as good.

PROS

-durability

-style

-speed

-price

-hardware

-audio quality(high definition)

-ports (HDMI, eSATA, VGA, USB)

-comes with a remote

-battery life (over 2 hours of heavy use)

CONS

-runs hot

-seems to be a little buggy (video card driver crashes every once in a while but recovers itself after a few seconds. Reinstalling driver didn't fix the problem)

-there is no program that comes with the computer or from HP that allows the webcam settings to be changed (resolution, quality, etc)

Overall I LOVE this laptop though and I'm glad that I bought it regardless of its flaws. The value is amazing!

-

It seems like I have get a new laptop every two years, I've gone with Acer, Fujitsu ultraportable (and ultra expensive), Compaq, Toshiba, and now HP. Honestly, the HP wasn't my first choice, I wanted smaller and lighter, namely the dell latitude e4300 which is about 2 pounds lighter, 13" and $900 more. The dv3 wasn't light enough for me to justify the extra hundred and fifty dollars I would have had to spend for a 13" HP. When the dell failed to appear at my price range I knew I needed to make a new choice. Having previously had a nearly indestructible Compaq, I settled for this model when I was able to get it for $50 less than the going rate (about 150 off of the initial manufacturer's recommended price)about 5 months ago; so far I haven't been disappointed. Battery life is about 3:45, about what I expected based on reviews and the always inflated advertised life. There's always a 12 cell battery available if I wanted to upgrade. On the other hand I will use it mostly plugged in since I don't see this as a "light" or "portable" laptop, IMO to qualify for that category you can't top 3.5 lbs.

First the good stuff:

Mine doesn't run hot at all (apparently it was a problem with some dv4 models then fixed by HP) This is HUGE as I exclusively use my laptop in my lap; my compaq ran hot, the acer was unbearable, the fujitsu was so so.

I have recently taken to using a lap desk with it, and with a hard surface underneath I rarely hear the fan, even after hours of use.

The biggest plus though, it has more than enough power to do anything I want it to (I am currently running 29 tabs in Firefox, something that alone would have killed my last computer, MS Word, a remote desktop connection). The Adobe CS4 tests seemed solid for this class of laptop which went a long way in selling me on this model. In the end I switched from CS4 to Lightroom so I don't need as much processor power, but it is nice to know that it is more than enough machine to handle my hobby usage.

I don't expect instant boot but it is fast enough for me to turn on and pull up a document without becoming a painful wait for my client on the other end of the phone.

I like the fact that the DVD is removable and an insert is provided for travel/etc to get the weight lower. My Fujitsu had this and it made a huge difference when I used the insert (I took that laptop with me everywhere, every day, so it had to be super light) I have yet to use this feature on the HP but I have yet to travel with it either.

I am not a big video on PC person, but the few netflix streamed movies I've watched have been sharp and pretty with decent sound. The screen and keyboard are both comfortably sized without being huge. I love the HDMI option and the fact that the usb ports are on both the left and the right.

Finally the cons:

I seem to have problems with the touchpad when working in remote desktop, if a review of the dv4-1433 is correct, the pad is sensing the heat from my hands and the cursor ends up jumping around. Oddly I don't have this issue as frequently when not working remotely. The ability to turn the touchpad off adequately compensates for and solves this issue when necessary.

The shiny surface of the brown version of this machine (slightly different model number) can be a major fingerprint magnet. I happened to like the white better and luckily it hides fingerprints somewhat (not as much as a matte surface machine, but way better than the brown one)

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I bought this laptop right before my first semester (Fall 2009)of college for school stuff. And eventually I wanted it to replace my main computer (running Linux I was tired of the hassle). Its had its problems: the screen went out within the first year and the charger stopped charging are the big ones I can think of. But HP has a warranty for the 1st year to the screen was fixed quickly and freely! As for the charger, that was my fault this laptop has been dropped sooo many times, and a few on the charging plug while it was charging. But this problem was also fixed quickly and freely due the the extended warranty I bought. So its been almost 3 years, I'm still running vista because I didn't want to upgrade. As far as wear and tear the left/right buttons are starting to lose their metallic finish, but after 3 years of heavy daily use I think that's excusable.

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My sister needed a basic laptop to run Powerpoint and use web based apps like gmail, google docs, etc. And take it on the road while making presentations to customers. A netbook was tempting but she needed the DVD unit so we chose this one instead. It is slow, but that was fixed by turning off many unnecessary Windows Vista services that just consume too much CPU power. After tweaking Vista (it took about 2 hours, you can google the term "Tweak Windows Vista" and get to a great site with the proper info) we manage to run it very fast. We also did a clean install of Windows XP and it works even better. At that point we got what we wanted: a Netbook with god battery life and a DVD unit all for less that $499 after rebates. For $499 a good value. For $700 it is a bit overpriced as at that price point the basic Macbook at $999 is a better option hardware wise.

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I had high hopes for this computer, but it has given me nothing but trouble. I've had it for a year and a half now. During the first year, the computer went through a phase where it would just shut down for no reason. The sound card would also turn off intermittently, as would the sound control. The battery died the day the warranty expired. I'd been having trouble with the CD player for a while, but it would play some CD/DVD if I got lucky. I didn't use it that often. Now the CD drive is not working at all, and none of the fixes suggested in the support pages work.

The cover also gets very easily scratched.

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HP Pavilion 15-b010us 15.6-Inch Sleekbook (Black)

Using this laptop for basic uses, email, web browsing, itunes, etc. Got this to replace an 8 yr old Dell Inspiron that took a nose dive.

For my purposes, this laptop's performance is great. Everything seems to run smoothly and quickly. Still getting used to Windows 8 though. The screen display is pretty nice as well.

This laptop is also VERY lightweight and thin (when closed). This makes it feel a little on the cheap side, with plasticy surfaces and the keyboard strokes feel kinda light and the keyboard itself flexes (touchpad is nice though). Since I'll use this mainly as a desktop, my intention all along was to set this up with a nice monitor (25") and wireless keyboard and mouse, so these aren't a big deal to me.

One other thing: my laptop came with a single dead pixel in the very top left corner. I can't see it at all unless the screen is totally black, so I don't care enough to send it back (plus I'll be using solely the external monitor)

Overall I think this is a very nice laptop with solid features that should satisfy anyone with basic needs. The laptop looks sleek and modern, but the weight and mechanics of the keyboard downgrade it a little bit, making it feel a little on the cheap side. I was able to buy it directly from Amazon for $450, so for that price, can't complain at all. If you're considering paying retail ($700), you can probably find a more upscale laptop for that $$$.

If you're looking for something thin, lightweight with a big screen this is nice.

However, I'm giving it 3 stars because the build quality on the keyboard is very crappy. The keys feel very cheap and have to be pressed in the right area for the keypress to be registered. For example, if you press the right most side of the space bar down , it will not register the space.

It's also sad how HP comes bloated with un-necessary HP software.

I ended up returning mine and instead going with a Lenovo Z585. The keyboard and chassis build feels a lot more solid.

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I bought this product probably a month back and it's amazing. Everything is good in this product except the HP automatic alarms for updates or something. it annoys sometimes.. otherwise the product is good to be used and it's not too expensive to buy. Windows 8 works good on this product.

I would recommend this to my friends and family since its sleek n wide design is hard to be found in many other systems.

Cheers !!

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I just bought a few units of the SleekBook and was immediately impressed by the design and lightweight of the laptops. The keyboard material and surface seem a bit cheap for this system. I was also a bit disappointed that it didnt come with a DVDRW insert. i guess i had overlooked that in the spec sheets. Overall i would give this product a 3.5 star. HP is doing a great job at providing options for the entry level Notebook kudos

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I bought it on sale, and although Windows 8 is the first operating system I've used that doesn't seem intuitive, it's easy to figure out once I go through the user guides. The system is fast, light, very usable.

Save 32% Off

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HP Pavilion dv7-6c67nr Entertainment PC

Everything is good with this laptop, no problems its has a long charge on the battery.

It is also very fast. This is a good product.

I bought 2 of these. First, there is no light to tell you if the num lock is on or off. Now what genius came up with that. Very difficult for those of us who are touch typist and used to using the number key pad. And just try typing in a password.

Some of the keys on the right hand side sink into the laptop about a half inch when the keys are depressed. Again, an annoyance for us typist. I am afraid that something is going to short out.

The USB ports are on the side up front, anything plugged into them gets in the way.

The screen looks like a washout, faded, 30-year old photograph. This is an $800 computer. I expected more than what I got.

The second laptop, when I tried to install the battery it just falls out of the laptop.

HP has given a lot of lip service but to date no action. We use HP at work and they are junk too.

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HP 2000-410US (15.6-Inch Screen) Laptop

I saw some of the reviews on here and thought I would add my 2 cents. I bought this computer at Office Depot for 350 dollars (sorry amazon ... love your prices usually but not this time) For the price and specs this is an excellent computer. If you are looking for a computer that does more than surf the web and homework this is NOT the computer for you so dont leave comments saying that this computer is bad because the graphics are not great ... they aren't supposed to be great and those are not productive comments. If you ARE looking for a comp for school (as I was looking for) this is an excellent choice with great specs and a great price. As per some of the other comments, I have had no problems connecting to the internet and if you are looking for a bigger laptop with a key pad this is not the computer you should have bought in the first place. Battery life a great (in my opinion, although I have not pushed it yet to see if it goes past 3+ hours). I agree that the arrow keys are a little annoying but then again my last two laptops were Toshiba Satellites and I was used those types of keyboards for a while. I'll get used to it. Overall exactly what I thought I was getting and works exactly for what I want; surfing and reviewing/writing documents.

I purchased this laptop for about $300 after $50 rebate, and for the price it is a very good deal with one exception. The wifi/bluetooth adaptor does not work if you are anywhere more than a few feet from the wifi router. Web browsing is slow, drops connection or operates at limited capacity if you move away from the wifi router. I spent 4 hours e-mailing back and forth to HP support in India without a solution. The support is efficient and polite, but was unable to resolve the issue. Finally I discovered a work-around that provides good wifi connectivity, however, I do not consider it a fix because it involves disabling power saving features of this laptop. To find the solution search for "Wireless issues on HP2000-US with Atheros AR9485" and read the posts on HP's support discussion site.

What I did to fix the problem (I now get amazing wifi coverage throughout the house):

Simply go into device manager, select Network Adapters, select Atheros AR9485..., select Advanced Power Save Mode turn to "off"

Next under Control Panel, select Hardware and Sound, Under Power Options select Change Battery Settings, Select "change plan settings" set both battery and plugged in to "Maximum Performance."

I would like to see HP actually fix the problem so that I could get better battery life, but for now this will do. Aside from this wifi issue the laptop provides decent performance. The screen is very sharp and bright. It has sufficient disk capacity and memory can be expanded if you want to juice performance in running multiple aps or large graphics. Overall a great laptop for the price. I just wish I had the 4 hours I spent figuring this out back.

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This is is good laptop for everyday use, such as homework, light gaming, e-mailing and surfing the web. The Pentium CPU is a much better and faster CPU then the AMD E Series in this price class. Its speakers o.k. (they certainly are not Beats Audio quality) and the touch pad can be touchy, but those are my only complaints. I have seen other reviews saying they have had overheating issues, but mine has been fine thus far. To get a laptop for the price of a netbook, I think this is a good choice.

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Pros:

Win 7 64 bits runs smooth.

Really fast processor B960 almost an Core i3 without threads but save alot of money.

Silent fan and 500 GB disk.

Nice slim keyboard.

Little charger the same size of a HP mini laptop.

Wifi N + Bluetooth.

Average speakers.

Cons:

Screen a little big 15.6', better will be a 14'-14.6' because no num pad is include.

A little heavy, actually dvd could be optional and can save some weight and more money.

Neither hard disk nor dvd leds so you can't see whats happening.

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I compared the price on the HP site and it was about fifty dollars cheaper hear, and it would have taken about a week longer to get it. I have had the computer for a couple days. At first it seemed a little slow but after doing all the updates it is doing fine. Loads fast. I did a download speed test on it and it was 3.1 Mbs (My service is 3Mbs from AT&T) so I am pleased.

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Sony VAIO VGN-NW270F/S 15.5-Inch Silver Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium)

Since my previous laptop is now technically in two pieces due to the plastic bezel of the monitor breaking, I wanted a laptop that could withstand wear and tear of daily use without compromising on flexibility. After looking at the other brands around the same price point, I felt the VAIO NW was superior in terms of the design and durability. Having used it for a few days now, I am very happy with this product and I would recommend it to others.

I purchased the sony vaio VGN-NW270F. Initially I was happy with it and the blue-ray. Shortly however I noticed when I charged the laptop to 100% and turned the laptop off,24 hours later the battery would be at 90% or less. This issue is common on ALL newer vaios, google it if you do not believe me. Search "Sony Vaio battery drain". Sony will not release a "fix" for it,in fact in one customer service report they describe this as a feature. The battery life never exceeds 2.5 hours either (4 hours listed). I jumped the gun big time buying this laptop. Do your research, now I will take a 85% hit in return price and need a new laptop for school starting January.

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After comparing all the laptops in the BestBuy store, We pick this laptop for the BEST.

Not only elegant design, beautiful body, but it also has a very sharp and bright lcd screen for the built-in Blu-ray Drive!

In short, You can't go wrong for the price of this laptop!

Sony will become a big guy in the computer market!

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After playing around with every brand of laptop at various stores it was clear to me that Sony does design better than anyone but mac. The overall feel is better than the competition. The track pad has a unique texture of raised dots that keeps fingers from sticking, and is very precise. The key board is well proportioned, the space between keys allows for more accurate typing than many of the newer keyboards that feel like one giant flat key.

The screen is beautiful, it is glossy so it looks mirror like, but suffers from minimal reflection. It is 780P which is fine when you are looking at a 15.5in screen. Bright, rich colors are refreshed quickly in fine detail. Bluerays played on a 1080p TV looked perfect via the hdmi output, zero hesitation.

The speakers are good. Average volume, but sound great.

The box is slightly lighter than similarly priced laptops, the textured waves look nice and do not collect finger prints. The folding action is smooth and firm.

Microsoft word opens in about 2.5sec.

The battery life seems less than advertised, 2.5hrs is about all I get. It could use better controls for volume, one must use FN>Fx keys to adjust volume/brightness.

I'm happy, at $715 it was worth the extra $50-75 over similarly configured laptops, (none of which had a blueray payer). I'd rather have the Sony design than $75 worth of extra gigawatts.

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I am a self proclaimed apple fan (not a fanboy) -as I a have an imac, macbook air, 2 iphones, and too many ipods to mention and all I can say is that this is a sweet computer I always keep a pc around b/c I dont like to run parallels or other programs to run on my mac --and I usually use a netbook just for size. I saw this at bestbuy (699) and was intrigued. The specs are awesome and the fact that it has a bluray drive with HDMI out sealed the deal. So far so good -it's really fast -at least compaired to my old sony viao w netbook (I tried the new viao x but that was slow as molasis too actually took a 15% hit -200 bucks to return it). It is pretty nice looking -I kinda dig the texture. It is really heavy -I would not use this to carry around all the time (macbook air is much better for that) -but overall this is a great computer at a great price (sorry amazon it is cheaper at best buy and not even on sale there)

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Blue Hp 14.5" Pavilion Dv5-2135dx Entertainment Notebook Pc

Wanted a 13.3" laptop, something smaller than my 17.3" Toshiba and larger than my Acer Netbook. The 17.3 is too big for travel and netbook has several limitations and requires external drives. Started looking for a reasonable 13.3" but found this HP dv5-2135 DX midsize unit is slightly larger (.5" wider) than a 13.3" and had everything I was looking for, so I ordered it.

When it arrived my first impression was it was physically larger than I thought and I too at first had a hard time with the sensative touchpad. But was soon relieved when I compared it side by side with the 13.3" and I have aclimated to using the touchpad, yes it is different from those used in the past. Learned to use only one finger as the buttons are part of the pad. The screen is very bright which is good for persons of a certain age, ha ha. Contrary to some others comments, I really like the keyboard it has good key spacing for my large fingers, is positive to the touch and I very seldom missed keystrokes compared to the high dollar Toshiba! The wiFi has been flawless so I can't understand why someone complained unless they had a lemon.

Now, was this the perfect laptop? Has anyone ever found the perfect laptop? In my application it's as perfect as it get's and I would highly reccomend it.

If I didn't have the learning curve with the touchpad I'd give it five stars, I gave it four, as there is no way to give it 4.5 which is where I think it belongs.

JerryB

omg. this is a great computer. the screen is bright. the speed is fantastic. the wifi is good. check your own router. all i can say is that it is a very good laptop. there are some things u need to know about this laptop. the battery lasts about 2 hours. the mouse is sensitive but thats good as u do not need to press hard to operate it. the sound is a little soft hence a reason for headphones jack. the keyboard is fine. it's called an island style keyboard.

so to sum it up very good laptop. have it about a 10 months. got it for university. works great for all my projects and etc. the entertainment aspect is great also.

games can work.

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Nice screen, keys are well spaced so if you have larger hands this is just the ticket. The built in mouse is jumpy and just a pain. Buy this computer and plan on getting a usb mouse soon thereafter...

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Overall laptop build and performance is good.

But there are two major issues because of that it becomes a no buy

1. It makes too much noise and heats up very fast.

2. Audio output is not audible with all the noise process makes.

This can't be called an entertainment laptop if you can't even hear a thing in it.

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We were a little nervous about buying a re-furbished item but the description about almost new and never out of the package sold us and he has been extremely happy ever since he had to replace the exact same one that one of his brothers friends stepped on and broke!!!

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HP 2000-2a22NR, AMD E1-1200, 15.6" Screen Display, Notebook With 4 GB Memory, 500GB Hard Drive, HDM

The keypad is difficult to use ... a very strong touch is needed to use it. I also hate the feel of the pad to move the cursor. It actually scrapes my fingertips if I use it for a long time. The computer itself works fine but I really, really am sorry I bought this computer because of the keypad issues.

This is a nice computer. For the price I can't imagine much better. Battery life is good so far, Does great multitasking, I usually run 3 to 6 tabs online at a time and this laptop has been keeping up great, even compared to desktops. And the screen resolution compared to my old laptop blew me away. Also the sleep function is good saves battery life and still wakes up fast. That said room for improvement: the cord is way shorter than I am used to and would be much better in the back and there are lights on both sides that make me crazy at night, I have to unplug it to get the right side to go out and cover the left side to stop the blinking madness. The top while very nice in appearance out of the box, scratches much to easy. Minor set backs in a nice product but annoyed me enough to mention.

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Works great and was a good dot for my 15 year old who likes to create beats but needed a unit to do school work. Inexpensive but looks expensive.

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I bought this laptop from this company EXPECTING to get Windows 7 seeing that, THAT is what is advertised. Little did I know that I would have received Windows 8 instead. I contacted the seller about the issues and they showed no TRUE concerned about handling this matter as they stopped replying to my emails and left it like that. I am so upset by the disgusting customer service and lack of professionalism received with this purchase and company and I will NEVER purchase from them again and never encourage other to do so because the experience was terrible.

I thought that was all until I also noticed the error messages that came with this laptop which I made the company aware of and up to date haven't received any replied on the matter.

IF you intend to have a business please remember that the only way your company is generating money is through the customers so if you intend to treat your customers like this then it's best you choose another career path.

This company is FALSELY ADVERTISING this product and they have a "don't care" attitude about it. It sickens me to know that I am now left to fit the bill to get these issues resolved. This has been the WORST experience purchasing through Amazon, ever!

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HP ENVY 17-2280NR Notebook PC - Gray

Let me lead off by saying I'm a devoted fan of HP's laptops and desktops. I use equipment from just about every manufacturer and always seem to come back to HP (speaking solely of Windows OS machines, my choice for Linux and Apple of course would be different). So I was really excited to be able to get this Envy 17 at a really good price.

For the dollar, it's loaded with an impressive array of hardware (RAID Array 0 HDs, slot BluRay, true HD display), the extra battery was a bonus, and the ability to upgrade RAM from 6GB to 16GB was sweet.

Turned on and was wow'd (in a good way) by the 1900x1080 display. Played a little with it and was then wow'd (in a bad way) by the laptop locking up. No problem I thought, just the Envy finishing initial OS installation reboot and drive on.

But no, the system would lock up continually (and usually in the middle of some disc/RAM intensive operation) and completely. A bit frustrating, but such a sweet laptop. Maybe a little system maintenance would fix the problem. So on to some Level 1 tech fixes reseat/swap RAM, reinstall system, clean out bloatware, check BIOS settings, etc. In the end, nothing I did could rid the system of the dreaded lock-up. Could be the RAID setup, could be a million things. But I wasn't interested in paying for a laptop that was going to spend more time in the repair shop or in the post than in my hands. So I did a system restore back to the original OEM setup, packed up the box, and submitted for a return back to Amazon.

Three final thoughts. First, look at reviews of other Envy models (especially the Envy 17-2290NR). You'll note many reviews where owners are having similar problems and returned their laptops to Amazon. So Amazon, if you're reading this, you might want to talk to HP about this. This isn't good for either one of you.

Second, kudos to Amazon for their return policy. I have bought/buy almost exclusively from Amazon (to include computer hardware) and rarely have a problem (this is the first computer I've received that had a DOA issue). I really appreciate Amazon's customer service and easy return policy. As a result, I plan to stick with Amazon for 99.9% of my shopping needs.

Finally, while this Envy 17 experience was a disappointment, I plan to stick with HP. I'm no "fan boy." For example, I thought HP's giving up on the Touchpad and WebOS was stupid, bordering on imbecilic. But occasional stupid things aside, I think that when one takes an objective look at what HP offers and their prices, HP remains an excellent value.

Screen is very nice. Slot loading Blu-ray, back lit keyboard and sound quality are excellent. The graphics adapter crushes most things thrown at it. Coupled with the processor included and there is little this thing cannot do. The power brick is giant but that is to be expected. Little bloatware too. Very satisfied thus far.

UPDATE: Finallly got around to playing some 3D games on Steam. Guess what? The machine will shut down after about 2 minutes every time! The fans are insufficient to cool the processor and it overheats each time. I've tried elevating the machine and removing any speck of dust from the fan assembly to no avail. Do not expect to game on this machine. Thanks Amazon!!

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The keyboard have the function keys changed. It's necessary combine to get the function (inverted). It's like anoyng 'breaking standard'.

However, the most awful is the touchpad. It moves the mouse pointer to ramdom positions on the screen. This makes you click on the wrong area. Even setting up the touchpad for the better settings, this seems to be a 'normal' behavior. Beyond that, the touch sensibility is not good, even tunning the settings. Such CPU, RAM and HD could be included in a better computer. Another fault is the few USB ports.

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I purchasd this from Amazon because the benefit in price was such that I could deck it out with third party poducts and still save a bundle over purching the configration I really wanted directly from HP. I have other laptops and a desktop, so I was in no hurry to get this unit fixed. The HP warranty is out, but I have a 3 year third prty extension in case the unti ges back and ca fix the software myself. This review is witten one year after the purchase.

There were some surprises.

1. The unit has two drives in a RAID 0 configuration. RAID 0 puts data striped across the 2 drives so when you read large files you can be reading different pieces of the file simutaneusly from both drives. But, RAID 0 has your data on both drives and if you ever have a failure, you loose ALL your data even though you have 2 drives. RAID 0 is also more difficult to backup. Windows backup of RAID 0 identifies the backup size as that the partition which is spread over the 2 physical hard drives, in this case 1 Terabyte. Thus a restore requires that a 1 terabyte partion be available and that the data is fully backed up. Third party software must be procured e.g., Easus partion Manager, (takes a geek to operate, so no typical user should purchase this laptop unless they have a geek friend.

You an use Easus (or the like) to shrink the 1 TB partiton to more managable size. Windows disk management will notallow sufficient shrinkage.

2. The 2 drives are controlled by special Intel hardware and software (Intel Rapid Storage) part of which is hiden in the BIOS and not seen by the OS. In my opinion this gains a bit of performance at the cost of simplicity and data securty. It is not easy to remove this feature and is undocumented feature as provided by HP, but there s some help in forums. I have spent aproximately 12 hours reconfguring my drives including several hours on the phnone with HP and watching the system doing backups and restores. Afterthis, I am currently exactly where I started, but I now understand the details of the processes involved. I intend to removeIntel Rapid Storage and install RAID 1 (mirroring) on the 2 drives with a system volume (C drive) on each physical drive and a D vlume on the second drive mirrored on the first physical drive. The performance should be equal or better than RAID 0 with benefits oneasy backup and recovery. I will likely use windows to do th raid.

3. Undocumented lack of features. I was told by HP that this laptop WILL NOT support solid state drives because the entire run of this production was made eliminating features to save money. Presumably there are other missing features.

4. No docmentation specific to this unit. Using the HP Owner software (which is actually quite good) for the HP ENVY 17-2280NR Notebook takes you to the documentation for the standard model. HP support could not find any documentation for this one off model.

On the good side, this unit has plenty of power and HP had revolutionized their support where they are actually trying to reflect the best interests of the customer. The screen is beautiful and the hardware is solid. It does not overheat. During the learning process to undo RAID 0, I was able to talk to some of their HP's best support people. Unfortunatley, it does not help when the engineers are directed by HP Product management to release a product without adequate documentation. Support cannot adequately support undocumented features for which they have not received training.

Update 2012 12 19

I have just backedup my data and via Easus Partition Manager shrunk my main partition (C drive) to 70GB and then backed up to external drive with Windows backup (system image). 30 minutes of work, several hours cmputer run time. ready to remove rRAID and Intel Rapid Storage Technlogy management of drives and then restore from external hard drive via bootable recovery disk. I can then mirror and configure cache n second drive to boost performance and provide data security.

Update 2012 12 21

I am unable to restore the system image I madeusing windows after shrinking the C drive so that the restore would fit on one drive. I found out that the internals of the sytem image folder do not contain ".vhd" files for the actual system image but instead contain backup sets. Restoe aparently can't work with themand gives me a error saying it can't restore to the target. My guess is that this has something to do with the Intel Rapid Storage manage and my not having enabled ACHD driver before doing the system image and breaking the RAID 0 array with the firmware which destroyed the data. But bottom line is that I no longer care and am re-installing and accepting the data loss. I have now re-installed via HP Recovery disks. Now comes the long task of reconfiguring windows so it is usable, removing the bloatware, and re-installing all the many third party products.

Bottom line is do not put Intel pseudo raid 1 on a 2 drive laptop unless you are into S&M Pain or have a real good backup & restore method.

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I didn't buy the notebook from Amazon but I am posting this because I am a very happy Amazon users and buyers need to be aware that when you are buying an HP ENVY you are at the mercy of your luck. I am writing this while my hubby is driving all the way back to FRY'S ELECTRONICS to return the worthlessMAC PRO look alike.

We just bought it couple of hours ago and when I registered the screen started blinking and I couldn't do any trouble shooting after a few restartswe gave up on the damn thing.

Waste of a star...

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Toshiba Satellite L855D-S5242 15.6-Inch Laptop (Mercury Silver)

This the 3rd Toshiba Laptop that I have bought for my household! The 1st one was 18 months ago, the 2nd for my daughter for x'mas and this last one for myself! When I was looking at computers I wanted fast, memory, and storage. The L855D-S5242 delivered on all accounts. Getting started was simple and I was up and running via WI-FI in less than 30 minutes! The Fn keys, which also serve to adjustment various operating parameters is really slick! Screen brightness, Speaker Vol, >> the player all via the Fn keys! I prefer the Numeric Keypad on the computer and there is plenty of room. Actually, the keyboard is not much different than a full size keyboard. Having large hands and fingers I don't have any problem moving about the keys while typing. The keys have a soft, yet deliberate feel to them, almost a very soft click! It's not a super small laptop and it's not the larger one that I bought for my daughter but I find it perfect for traveling and connecting to WIFIs. I give this 5 stars! If it had one drawback it would be lack of software installed. It's got all the basics and I guess Microsoft stopped putting Microsoft Works on with Windows 7. I would thing this is their push for folks to purchase MS Word! I would definitely purchase another.

Pros:

Decent Performance

Beautiful screen

Cons:

Battey life

Screen is much too reflective for outdoor use

Sound

Summary:

I use this mostly use this as a replacement for my previous desktop which quit working on me. It offers comparable preformance to my last PC. It gets a 5.9 on the windows experience index (held back by hard disk write speed). The 6gb of ram is great for a mobile device. I don't play many PC games but in my experience it runs minecraft smoothly, granted that's not saying much. On average I get about 5 hours of constant use before I really start needing a charger.

Also, the speakers on this rig are HORRIBLE. Everything comes out bizarrely squeaky and hollow sounding. This isn't a problem for me because I have it hooked up to my surround sound speakers.

All in all, it's a decent machine but there's better out there.

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Had to upgrade laptop for my work and wanted something that could still handle entertainment and basic gaming duties while on the road. Windows performance index score is 5.9, but only due to the slow hard drive that comes with the laptop. All other components are rated a 6.7, except the ram which is a 7.3. Screen is very good with crisp text and vivid colors. Have played several FPS and racing games and haven't had any issues. Used the HDMI out to watch videos in a hotel and it was perfect. Ordered a Samsung SSD to install which will take care of the slow index and expect this computer to perform even better. All of my work is done virtually so the WIFI has gotten a workout and hasn't had any issues. Wish that they would have put a dual band adapter in the system but it is only a 2.4 ghz. There is no Bluetooth and it does not have the antennas to add one internally, already had a dongle so I just plug it in when I need to use Bluetooth. One thing I noticed and didn't like was that there is no locking clasp for the display, it must use a magnetic or other internal sensor to detect the lid being opened and closed. I had the option enabled to turn the computer on when the screen is opened and somehow it did this in my bag while traveling. Really am enjoying this laptop.

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I was looking for Windows 7 and upgrade ability of the RAM to 16 GB and found it with this great laptop. As a new insurance agent I was told Windows 8 won't work with the software in the business. This is one quick and powerful machine. Thanks Toshiba and Amazon.

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Do not buy Toshiba. Screen just all of a sudden cracked. Bought from Best Buy and they refused to even look at it because they said Toshiba was the only company that would not accept them sending it. Toshiba wanted to deal directly with the customer. Toshiba won't replace or fix even though it was within warranty. Spent a LOT of time on the phone trying to get them to fix my computer and they said the warranty does not cover a cracked screen no matter what. Horrible computer, even worse customer service.

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Acer Aspire 5739G-6959 15.6-Inch Widescreen (Crystal)

This laptop was an awesome buy in 2009 and considering I got it for $650 I couldn't go wrong. I only have 3 problems with this laptop.

1. The touchpad doesn't work right while gaming and I have the newest drivers and such

I don't know why someone would want to use a touchpad for gaming but if you do it won't work

2. The sound quality is very nice but it is also very low...

It has amazing sound quality but in a slightly noise environment you can forget about using the speakers

3. It actually overheats during intense gaming and will shut off completely for 10 minutes. I had the laptop hit 108 degrees Celsius...

This is easily solved by purchasing a cooling pad but those aren't very cheap.

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Toshiba Satellite C855-S5346 15.6-Inch Laptop (Satin Black Trax)

Great value on this laptop..works great...all the cool features my daughter wanted like windows 8, webcam and sim card slot.

This computer for the price is OK. I was disappointed in the quality of sound! But it works well, and has most of the things in it that I needed. Handy size and so far, a long lasting battery.

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I'm still not sure why this laptop is cheaper than others less powerful, but we're very satisfied with this purchase.

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Bought it in January 2013. On March 10 the screen failed without any physical damage done to it.

Called Toshiba and explained the problem. The technician instructed me to send the computer

computer to Toshiba Repair Depot (cost $25.00) to be fixed. Upon receiving the computer, Toshiba

informed me that their warranty did not cover damaged screen. First of all, the screen was not damaged,

it simply failed to perform. Second, why did the technician instructed me to send the computer for repair?

The compute cost me $365.00 at Amazon.Toshiba Repair Depot offered to fix the problem as follows:

Cost of the repairs (all amounts are USD)

Parts: $ 206.95 (LCD Panel)

Labor: $60.00

Total: $ 266.95

Plus: $25.00 already paid for shipping

Total $291.95

I declined their offer, of course. Contacted Screendoctors.com and bought a

a brand new replacement screen ($81.00 + 14.53 shipping = $95.53 total), including the tools

needed to do the repair (that's 1/3 of what it would cost me to have laptop fixed by Toshiba).

And the replacement screen comes with a two year warranty which Toshiba does not eve offer.

Shame on them!!! I will never buy another Toshiba product again and will spread the word around.

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I want to describe the positives and insist that if you buy it or already own it, you must download the Toshiba Value Added tools to unlock the BIOS/CMOS and do so immediately since it can be done from within Microsoft Windows and eventually when Windows 8 fails to start, Toshiba Tech Support will unsympathetically dismiss your warranty and refuse to render service if you haven't unlocked the BIOS. Their solution is demanding a fee to replace a hard drive they intentionally setup for failure.

Aside from that, this is a very underappreciated and overpowered system, dollar for dollar it is a high performance server disguised as a 5lb sled with a lid and the prettiest screen you can buy for any price, even Apple Retina displays can't outdo the brilliance of this display. Spend about $50 for a RAM upgrade to the max 16GB and you can host a true server environment such as Microsoft 2012 Server used for cloud computing (they're trying to) or 2008 DataCenter the top line Battlestar of Microsoft Servers, even the 2008HPC r/2 that is gibberish for a purposely built Ferarri Windows Server tuned for efficiency this Toshiba can use.

The color blue and violet is the best barometer when testing any LCD since those are the hardest colors mammals can interpret and it is masterful at depicting the entire color scale. I could give you links to blue scarves or ocean scenes to chase down but they won't accurately depict the intensity unless I refer you to an online professional color scale site that shows mathematically how brilliantly and expertly this LCD is and you should visit it with your computer to determine how yours compares.

But, it has major drawbacks that can kneecap your entire experience

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Toshiba Satellite L655D-S5076 LED TruBrite 15.6-Inch Laptop (Grey/Black)

Worth every penny when it comes to looks, performance and display.

I've owned a Dell Inspiron 6400 before this, so my entire review is influenced by my personal experience with that machine.

The Dell I owned was a highly customized laptop with some of the best specs available to me 3 years ago. But the battery sucked. (Only time will tell how good the battery is on this TOSHIBA)

The one thing I miss in my Toshiba is Bluetooth, since I'm used to transferring pictures and taking back up from my phone all the time, over bluetooth. A conenience definitely, but its absence in Toshiba is definitely not a Limitation.

Pros:

The Display is brilliant. At its highest setting, the screen looks bright enough to be able to read even in bright sunlight in a park (not that I do it, but its just an example to give you an idea of how bright it is)

The Multi-touch fingerpad is quite useful once you get used to it. You can tweak its settings from the properties, and I have my 'Right Mouse Button', 'Middle Mouse Button', two finger scrolling, pinch zoom, picture rotation, all set on my fingerpad. I barely have to use the buttons under the finger pad. A lot of other settings enable me to control my mouse pointer like a well seasoned chef playing with a chef's knife!

The processor, albeit a tad noisy, does perform the way it is supposed to. I mean hey, its a Quad core, and so I tested it out by having Firefox and Chrome with 4-5 tabs each open while I played Left 4 Dead. I could never do this on my Inspiron (Core 2 Duo with a 2 GB RAM, but here on TOSHIBA it was a breeze!!! (Touchwood!)

The battery lasts me a good 2.5 3 hours with lots of applications running, some videos, and gaming (all of this at 50% screen brightness) which I think is pretty decent.

I like the little button above the fingerpad which lets me lock/unlock my fingerpad; so if I'm merely typing something, I can avoid mouse interference when my wrist or palm brushes over it mistakenly, by simply pressing that button and locking the mousepad.

Cons:

The fingerpad is placed on the left half of the computer, so using it with my right hand is a little inconvenient. I am ambidextrous so it isn't too big a deal for me, but still I wish it was a little more to the center.

There's no depression or demarcation of the fingerpad from the rest of the body (except that it gets a little rough textured) so my fingers tend to run out of the fingerpad when using it to scroll or do fancy stuff.

A little noisy at times. The fan starts running and doesn't give up... It doesn't happen all the time, and its not a big problem to me, but its just something I noticed. (Considering the fact that there are 4 processors at work here, I think high fan work is expected)

Definitely a finger print magnet.

The keyboard and mousepad buttons seem a little delicate and too plastic-ey!

-Lack of Bluetooth!

Loads of useless software comes pre-installed, but you can always remove it, so its not a major problem to me.

Summary:

Overall, I think this is a very good machine, perfect for someone who is not into extreme computing or super rich!

Good price, more than a decent performance, and good battery life.

I definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to buy a nice processor at a nice price!

The reason I've given it 5 stars despite a not too short list of cons is because none of those cons are a deal breaker to me, nor do they even remotely outweigh the pros of this product.

UPDATE (6/4/2011):

The battery life is not so great as i expected initially. It lasts me exactly 2 hours, when using on power saver setting or eco mode. This is not too good specially considering how I don't use a lot of applications at the same time, but mostly browsing. All in all, I say if you don't mind plugging your laptop for charging every now and then, this is a good choice considering its performance. but if portability is even the remotest concerns you have, this one's not the best choice. Would I still buy it, probably not, since there are other laptops with almost as good a performance, but a better battery life at a close enough price.

I've had it for a couple weeks now, it runs great, the graphics for my video games are awesome, and it was easy set up. I got this machine for gaming, surfing, keeping in touch while traveling. It works perfect for all those things; I have no complaints at this time.

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Pros:

Decent gaming power

Runs Premier Pro with some HD video

Adequate storage space

Relatively fast processing

Cons:

Unreliable-Hard drive failed in less than 5 months. Sent back to toshiba a second time 6 months later to have failed motherboard replaced.

Less than 2 hour battery life. Even when only using an internet browser. Less than an hour if using more than 70% cpu power.

Customer Service Representatives are Outsourced and Incompetent! Several communication errors. Payed $14 dollars for "speedy warranty service". All you really get is next day air shipping to the repair facility. They spend a week on the laptop and sent it back ground. "Speedy service" took a total of 1.5 weeks(in the middle of finals).

Overall: I would strongly recommend against purchasing this laptop.

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Good laptop with economic price.

However due to AMD cpu, CPU fan is always working to cool down the CPU.

Also Average CPU temp is higher than 50C.

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Okay, this is the first time we have purchased a computer or laptop that wasn't from Dell, and I guess we picked the wrong computer from toshiba. I totally agree with the other poster that gave this item a 1 star review. We have encounter poor customer service, they tried to get us to buy another warranty for the software saying that was the problem & wouldn't fix it since it was a software problem. We informed them that we had a diagnostic scan & that it was indeed the hardrive... again. They took it & fixed, twice. We have had it back for less than a month & now there is something else wrong with it. We have never had trouble with the other 4 computers/laptops that we have owned.

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ASUS UL30Vt-A1 Thin and Light 13.3-Inch Silver Laptop (12 Hours of Battery Life)

I got to use this laptop for a few days and it's brought me dangerously close to buying one for myself. If you are looking for a thin-and-light notebook with great battery life and a little gaming life under the hood this is (in my opinion) the best choice on the market today. What sets this notebook apart is two things:

1. At the push of a button you can switch from a low power Intel 4500HD graphics processor to a higher power NVidia G210M with 512MB DDR3 RAM (this defaults on when plugged in and defaults off when unplugged).

2. At the push of a button you can enable the "Turbo 33" mode which uses a mix of hardware (such as overclocking the cpu) and software to boost performance by up to 33%. I ran some basic benchmarks and it seemed to work pretty well.

CPU The 1.3GHz Intel SU7300 Core 2 Duo Processor 3MB Cache 800MHz FSB is a great fit. Some of the thin-and-lights in this class ship with either a Core Solo (i.e. single core) or Celeron CPU. I tend to avoid both because the single core CPUs tend to choke on all the Internet Security software you need these days and the Celerons come with cut-down cache and now power saving modes.

RAM The included 4GB of DDR3 is just the right amount to really start taking advantage of a 64 bit O.S. I also like that Asus used DDR3 which uses less power than DDR2.

HDD It comes with a 500GB hard disk drive which is more than most users need today. The 5400RPM speed is slower than the 7200RPM drive you will find on some models but I prefer the reliability and power savings that come with a 5400RPM drive.

DISPLAY The 13.3 inch widescreen is glossy and reasonably bright. Outdoor use will suffer from some glare but the backlit screen helps. I found the vertical viewing angles are a little tight but it wasn't a big deal.

GRAPHICS As mentioned above it switches between a low power Intel 4500HD graphics chip on the motherboard (fine for most non-gaming tasks) and a more power hungry NVidia G210M that will actually let you do a some 3D gaming (though newer games will still run best at reduced settings). This simple and clever innovation really sets Asus apart. Oh and either chipset can do 1080P HD video.

Battery It's rare to get a battery this good in a notebook this thin: 8 cell 5600mAh. I couldn't get the claimed 12 hours of battery life but I got very close (doing a normal mix of MS Office tasks and web browsing I got just shy of 11 hours). Even doing very compute intensive tasks like gaming or playing back video I went over 6 hours. Most notebooks can't run Word that long.

Touchpad At first I hated the touchpad but as I got used to it I really liked it. It two-finger scrolling and three-finger right click which may trip you up at first but after a few days you won't want to go back.

It comes with most of the usual stuff: HDMI port (for an external monitor or compatible TV), Ethernet port, wireless b/g/n, 3 USB ports, headphone jack, microphone jack, and a vga (for an external monitor). It does lack any kind of optical drive, so no playing CDs or DVDs without an external drive. For this you would need the ASUS UL80Vt-A1 14-Inch Thin and Light Black Laptop. It's a "thin-and-light" which as you would guess means it is thin (1") and light (3.75lbs). I also found it to be very quiet. It comes with a facial recognition feature that allows you to login without a password but this was disabled by our IT department so I wasn't able to try it out.

I see a lot of notebooks and I've generally been impressed with the build quality of Asus notebooks. The build on this model looks great and it's helped by the sleek and simple design: no fancy little bits that fall off in a year. In my opinion this is the thin-and-light to have if you need great battery life but don't want to give up all the fun. If you don't do any 3D gaming you don't need the Nvidia chipset and you probably should save a little money on a notebook without it such as the nearly identical ASUS UL30A-A2 Thin and Light 13-3-Inch Silver Laptop. Otherwise this is a great choice for a student or business traveler who likes to do a little gaming.

I am told I over analyze purchases and must say I have been watching laptops for a couple of years. My goals were lightweight and portable but not so small I could not read the screen and LONG battery time. After all it is a portable! I tried a 15.6 but what a moose! A 14" seemed just right but the chassis was bigger and heavier. I was afraid of a 13.3 but then it dawned on me that is was the same resolution as the 14 and only .7" smaller, not a full inch. I went from store to store lining a 14's up next to a 13.3's and I really could not tell the difference! Listen my fellow middle agers,I have exceptionally poor eyesight so if it worked for me it will for you! (no offense to my eye Surgeon, Dr. Barry Lee, he did a great job with what I gave him to work with!).

I have a powerful desktop so I did not need a desktop replacement class Laptop. I also can't stand a slow poke so a netbook was out and so was a celeron. The T6600 CPUS are the sweet spot for price and value and they are plenty snappy but they are power hungry (compared to the SU's). The SU7300 was just the ticket. Yes, I got the TURBO 33 VT version but I don't think that matters at all. I wanted it for bragging rights only. Same goes for the separate GPU, I want to hedge my bets in case I do some vector art editing. I am NOT a gamer.

I wrestled with the lack of a DVD drive but hey you can download ANYTHING, DVD drives are really on the way out, don't sweat it!It's worth the size and weight savings. The keyboard is REALLY GREAT, I am not a touch typist and the keys have nice spacing and definition. (I would have paid BIG money for a back lit keyboard but that just narrows the field TOO MUCH. Touchpad is fine also but I live with my Logitech NANO V450 mouse anyway.

The battery life is the real deal and that sold me on this unit. I am coming up on 4 hrs with wifi, bright screen, remote desktop, iTunes, 2 browsers and only down 25% on the battery. Seriously! I charge it and leave without the power cord. I really wanted the silver cover after seeing a black one in person it really showed finger prints. Silver is GREAT!

Another thing I like about the VT version is a little bit faster DRAM and Bus, I don't believe anyone could tell a difference but it makes me feel like I have the latest and greatest and am hedging my bets regarding being outdated sooner then later. If you need to save a few dollars, don't worry about it!

There are no compromises here and if you don't know ASUS, they have been around FOREVER and have been an OEM supplier since, like FOREVER! Don't get hung up on the big name companies, it means nothing! The ONLY complaint is the lack of documentation. I got NOTHING to help me figure out the VT features like discrete graphics switching or the Turbo boost (That's the over clocking feature. It steps the CPU up 33% This is VERY unnecessary, I can not come close to pushing this thing in standard mode.) I suspect most will never adjust these features anyway but HEY ASUS, are you listening? Send me a manual, pdf is fine! If its on here somewhere then you made it too hard to find! :)

Buy ASUS UL30Vt-A1 Thin and Light 13.3-Inch Silver Laptop (12 Hours of Battery Life) Now

I have been following the 13.3" laptop market for the past year waiting for someone to offer one with a powerful video card at a fairly low price. ASUS has done it with the UL30Vt! This is the second ASUS we have in our household and it definitely does not disappoint -the build quality is as good or better than the other name brand laptops we have in our stable and I traded a 14.1" HP for this. I do not regret it.

Pros:

Light -I can carry it one handed anywhere I go and I'm not worried about dropping it.

It is like carrying a spiral notebook!

Great video card -The laptop automatically switches between an intel video chipset

(low power demand) and a powerful NVIDIA card when as you plug and unplug the laptop

into the powercord.

Great screen -the HD screen is awesome and looks better than others provided by other

well known brands.

DDR3 Ram -blazing fast and low power usage.

Intel Power efficient processor -while the intel chip is rated below 2.0 Mz, it runs

faster than my 2.6Mz chip on my work laptop that also has DDR3 memory. Don't know how,

but it gets better "Experience Ratings". Also, you can overclock the chip using ASUS

software, but I haven't needed to.

Cool -the machine runs cool. I have never had it become uncomfortably warm.

Battery life -battery lasts a long time. Have put in a 7200 RPM HDD to replace the one

provided by ASUS... and the battery lasts 10 hours or more.

Looks -holy smokes, looks cooler than my daughter's school MacBook Pro. I cannot

keep her off my machine.

Keyboard -I was a bit leery of the 'chicklet' keyboard as I learned to type on a a

"Selectric". However, the keyboard supports my heavy typing style and hasn't slowed me down.

Cons:

A bit more 'bloatware' than I expected, but most was ASUS software to try to make the

machine more 'user friendly' Had fun figuring out what to turn off...

Overall?

A great buy and I'm glad I waited. There are at least two other named brand laptops that offer a similar laptop

(switching video cards to save power) but they run at least twice this price or more. ASUS created a winner here...

... and I'm the ultimate skeptic of computer hardware.

Read Best Reviews of ASUS UL30Vt-A1 Thin and Light 13.3-Inch Silver Laptop (12 Hours of Battery Life) Here

I have owned this laptop for about 10 days now and used it both at home and on the road. That being said...

The Good:

Absolutely beautiful screen display

Very lightweight

Battery life (not anywhere near 12 hours though, closer to 7)

The Bad:

Rude, non-existent Tech Support

HDMI / Graphics switching is buggy

Bloatware is overwhelming

Keyboard dropped keystrokes (knd of lke ths) when typing at moderate speeds.

My problems began when Win Media player would suddenly "pop up" unexpectedly. I believe this was due to the touch screen being flush w/ the front wrist pad. Somehow the combination of my keystrokes and inadvertent touchpad entries launched the program. Solved this by uninstalling media player but shouldn't have had to do this.

A journey on Google offered up the suggestion of uninstalling IE8 to solve the keyboard entry lagging and that did seem to help but the jury is still out on that one...

As far as the HDMI connection is concerned: One of the reasons I got this particular laptop was for the HDMI port (wanted to watch Netflix on my bedroom TV) so this was perhaps even more upsetting than the keyboard problem and warranted a call to tech support. Woe to anyone needing to call ASUS tech support. For my money you are much better off spending a day searching for the answer on Google or dropping the extra bucks if you know a local tech. My first call ended w/o tech ever picking up and the second, a day later, was answered after about 15 minutes on hold. Not great but not terrible for tech support waits I guess. My real problem was with the lack of support and interest I received. After the requisite "is the laptop turned on... is the tv turned on..." I was told "It should work." Well duh! I know it SHOULD work! The problem is that it DOESN'T! After 10 minutes of this the tech told me that he had done everything that he could do and it must be my HDMI cable (which I had already informed him worked perfectly w/ my DVD player) or my TV was unsupported. When I mentioned that it could be any number of other things as well he acidly replied "like WHAT?!". Um, maybe the HDMI port is bad? Maybe the driver is corrupted, how about a bad anything else you can think of on the motherboard? His suggestion? Wait for a few days and try again! If I still had a problem I could call back. Nice eh?

Well, now for the good part. I did get the HDMI to work on my tv. How? Google, perseverance on my part and a very informative laptop help site. The guru there mentioned that the graphics accelerator that ASUS uses in this, along w/ other UL style laptops, is buggy and screws w/ the displays during certain power stages. So a simple button push, a tweak in the graphics properties, and I got it working (for now at least).

Overall

Very attractive, fast to boot (win 7), good battery life, and an absolutely gorgeous screen display that is marred by subpar hardware-driver-software interaction, poorly located touchpad and support that does not come anywhere near deserving of the name.

If you get this and it works well out of the box you will probably like it a lot. If you have to call for help save yourself the trouble and go for a long walk. Who knows, it may work when you return.

Want ASUS UL30Vt-A1 Thin and Light 13.3-Inch Silver Laptop (12 Hours of Battery Life) Discount?

I did a LOT of research on this baby before I bought it and have NOT been disappointed. I had no issues with it out of the box what so ever. A couple of things I did, neither of which are necessary for an average user:

1. I did a clean install of Windows 7 64-bit and re-installed all my drivers without a hitch.

2. Over clocked the processor to 1.9 and had no problems at all. I should also add that I had been using the machine without over clocking it and thought it was plenty speedy. After the over clock, well, it just got better.

I was planning on upgrading to a SSD but I can barely even hear the stock drive when it's spinning and the thing is blazing fast (I can only imagine what people using a faster internal drive or a SSD drive are getting for response times, but I'm very happy with it as is). I think I'll wait for SSD prices to drop a bit before making that investment.

Trackpad wasn't responsive enough for me with the original settings, but it was simple enough to enter the settings and increase the sensitivity. Found it to be nice to have the dimpled texture as it helps me know when I've moved my finger off the trackpad while navigating the desktop.

Display is great. I guess some people may be used to something I'm not, but the viewing angles are more than good enough for me. Streamed HD video via Hulu, etc, is crisp and smooth.

No problems with the wireless at home, at a cafe, etc.

I don't do a lot of laptop gaming since I have a PS3, so I haven't had a chance to give that a go using the discrete Nvidia card.

I'm a touch typist so the non-backlit keyboard doesn't bug me, but it might be nice to have. Probably install one in a few weeks. The current keyboard is good enough, probably give it 4 or 4.5 stars. Not as loud as some would make it out to be.

The thing is light and I have no problem carrying it around. I use the Zeroshock case throw it in my backpack no prob.

Did I mention that this thing is fast? Yesterday I had MediaMonkey open playing music/podcasts, 4 youtube videos open but not playing, 6 other browser tabs open in Chrome, a pdf file open, an open office doc open, and doing some PHP work using Kodomo edit on the IIS webserver I setup on it. I'll try to remember to update this once I get a virtual box up on it running Ubuntu.

I'm in love and her name is ASUS.

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ASUS U33JC-A1 13.3-Inch Laptop (Bamboo)

First off, the bamboo finish is fantastic. I love how it feels and looks. The newer i3 processor in it is comparable to most i5 processor out now, so it is fast. The laptop actually comes overclocked, so it is faster than stock intel. With the Super Hybrid Engine, you can actually underclock it a bit, extending the battery life. Even with it off, I can easily manage a single charge per day (battery life can easily do 9+ hours for office work). The switchable graphics is seemless. I have only noticed it switch on for Photoshop and Youtube flash videos when you need it. The laptop is also almost dead silent. I have yet to hear the fans, so it has good vents. USB 3.0 is also fast (I have a portable USB 3.0 drive). I also upgraded the 500GB to a SSD for extra speed. The only real con I find with this laptop is the screen. Wish it was matted or a better display. So far, I am loving my purchase.

It's difficult to list all the great features of this laptop within a short review. Plus, I won't go through all the specs because you can read all that stuff in the description.

At first glance the beauty of this little gem is apparent. With the bamboo it's one of the best looking laptops I have ever seen. Of course, what is more important is how it performs.

Pros:

Screen size is just right for my uses.

Screen brightness is more than sufficient. I keep it turned down to about 80 percent.

Speed is not the best, but does get the job done.

The 3 USB ports, including a 3.0, is great. Many smaller laptops only have 2 ports.

The light weight is far better than most others, especially those with larger screens.

Battery life was one of the main reasons I bought this laptop. It gets me through the entire day.

The lack of an optical drive is not a problem. I just bought an external one, but rarely use it.

Cons:

The keyboard is the only thing that I haven't been able to get use to. The feel and resistance is not like any other laptop I currently own or have owned in the past. I find myself hitting the keys harder for some reason.

The keyboard is really only a minor complaint and doesn't detract from all the other great features of this laptop.

If you want a good looking laptop, with a medium screen size, all the speed you need, light weight, and long battery life, then this is the laptop for you.

Buy ASUS U33JC-A1 13.3-Inch Laptop (Bamboo) Now

Great laptop except for glossy screen. I bought this laptop based on

-13.3 in screen size,

-no optical drive(didn't want movable parts that break and/or use more power).

-usb 3.0 port

-hdmi port

-removable battery

-removable hard drive

-intel core i3

-under a $1000

I couldn't find another laptop on the market with these specs. If only asus had included a matte screen instead of the glossy one it would be about perfect (An oled screen would make it perfect but obviously more expensive) After I received it I replace the hard drive with a crucial 128gb ssd. The laptop is now very fast with no moving parts and battery life that lasts at least 6 hours (haven't been away from power for longer than that). Also I really like the fact it has a back panel that is easily removable which made changing the hard drive incredibly easy and/or adding more ram unlike what I've read about the new asus u36. Again other laptops I've owned aren't always as easy to remove panels in order to change out parts. The bamboo is nice, its only on the cover and palm rest it has plastic bottom, I'd prefer aluminum top and bottom (didn't want an Apple), but hey for under $1000 what do you expect.

The usb 3.0 only works with the software in the operating system (windows 7) not in the BIOS during startup. The hdmi is great for plugging into my HDTV only had to go into the windows 7 control panel to change the sound out to the TV instead of computer. Asus did include some bloatware, which I removed when I swapped out hard drive. Over all a great computer. Hopefully if Asus people are reading this they will included a matte OLED touchscreen in the next iteration of their laptops when I'm looking to buy another one. Thanks Asus. No I don't work for Asus just an average user that's owned this computer for several months.

Read Best Reviews of ASUS U33JC-A1 13.3-Inch Laptop (Bamboo) Here

Pros:

Beautiful computer, great hardware for a great price. Above average battery life. true 4.5 lbs w/ battery. Keyboard reminds me of a macbook 13".

Cons:

I received my first unit from Amazon with a broken screen out of the box. Have had my second unit for two weeks & the screen broke when I picked up the unit. Logically, I suspect it is a problem with the bamboo not providing enough support to the screen.

Want ASUS U33JC-A1 13.3-Inch Laptop (Bamboo) Discount?

I like this computer but the screen is close to unusable. This is a glossy screen just like my old one (Sony VAIO vgn-sz110) but it is more reflective which is bad because the room is lit so I have to increase the brightness which ups the eyestrain.

Not the biggest problem but what is a big problem is the viewing angle. I'd estimate it to be about 0 degrees vertical and 15 degrees horizontal. Although the horizontal is still clear it is darker when you go outside that range. The vertical on the other hand is useless if you don't have in angled just right. Its a little better with the lights out but since it doesn't have a backlit keyboard, and not everyone wants to sit in the dark) I don't think that is good enough.

Besides the screen I really do like the computer. The keys are nice and spaced. The reason I bought this computer was it was the first 13" laptop with USB 3. The fact that it looks so nice is a bonus. The bamboo looks even better in person.

The battery is another plus. I haven't tested it but it is a lot longer than you would expect with a $1000 computer or any laptop for that matter. The speakers are decent. Overall the computer runs pretty smoothly.

I would have given it a 5 if it wasn't for the screen. It is really bad and I expect more from ASUS. I've built computers with ASUS motherboards and I have an ASUS netbook so I know they make good products. The screen on the ASUS netbook isn't that great either (still, by far better than this one) but I assumed it was because it was trying to maintain the $300 price point. Also, because of the netbook I knew I would be okay without a disc drive but that could be a consideration for others.

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