Lenovo U310 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Graphite Grey)

Purchase Details

Lenovo U310 Graphite Silver

Intel Core i5 3317U 1.7 GHz

Intel HD 4000 Graphics

I had this laptop as well as a couple others in my WishList for a good while but had problems deciding about which to choose. I got this from amazon on Black Friday for $599.99 and went with the Lenovo due to the Good Company Name and their Well Built Products.

The Main Things i needed in a laptop

Good Battery Life (>5 Hours with moderate usage)

Light and Small (Portability is needed as I am on the Go most of the time)

Ability to play 1080p content and run semi-intensive applications and VMs for testing purposes.

Initial Thoughts

The laptop is pretty light and has a nice finish on the outside lid. It feels sturdy and fits perfectly in my Bag.

Keyboard and Touchpad

While typing on the keyboard, you can feel the laptop flexing which can get annoying

when typing large documents.The Touchpad on the other hand is nice and large and the left click as well as right click buttons are easy to press. The gestures in the Touchpad software also allow you to scroll with using two fingers so you no longer need to use your fingers at the end of the touchpad to scroll.

Re-installation of Windows

I got irritated of the User interface in Windows 8 and reinstalled Windows 7 on the Laptop almost immediately. I didnt care for the interface in WIndows 8 as i mostly use applications external to Windows for school. . I noticed that the SSD built in was used for caching and the OS was actually installed on the Magnetic Hard Disk. I realised that UEFI was also enabled and had some issues getting Windows 7 to install. I wanted to remove UEFI and install Windows 7 directly on the SSD.

I Went into the system BIOS, disabled UEFI and then booted a Windows 7 Installation of a USB device. I then deleted ALL the partitions until there was none left. I then installed Windows 7 DIRECTLY onto the 24GB SSD. After the windows installation i had about 5GB remaining on the SSD.

Usage and Performance

Having Windows 7 installed on the SSD makes the boot time as well as opening of apps extremely fast. Windows 7 performs a cold boot in about 12 seconds and then takes a further 3 seconds to login. Applications installed on the SSD opens up instantly.

The i5 as well as Intel HD 4000 Graphics performs better than expected. I am able to stream 1080p content while browsing the web and using skype. This is more than enough for the average student. I mostly have the laptop downclocked in powersave mode and the device still performs like butter while playing music on iTunes and web browsing.

Battery Life

While iTunes runs in the background with Chrome and MS Word 2010 opened, i get about 5 hrs 30 mins battery life. With just Word Opened i can squeeze about 7-8 hours battery life once the screen is dimmed to the lowest with wifi on. This is more than adequate as i no longer have to walk with my charger to every class.

Wireless

The Wireless card equipped with this laptop is an Intel Centrino 2200 Wireless MiniPCIE adapter.

At home I have two Access Points (A Dlink DGL_4500 and a Dlink DIR-625) One network is 150N and the other 300N. The Wireless card in the u310 connects to these both networks at 54MBPs for some reason. My older laptop with an AR9285 Atheros Chipset connects at 150MBps and is able to attain transfer rates of 11MBP/s. THe 2200 in the U310 only is able to transfer at 2MBps and only connects to both networks at 54MBPs. WHen i connect to my Neighbour's 300N Network (TP-LINK TEW-633GR) i am able to connect at 270MBPs. I do not know why this is as it is. The range is also much less than my AR9285 but i assume this is due to the material of the U310's Lid. I although bought an external USB Adapter for this issue. I was going to replace the internal card, but there was a sticker on the bottom of the laptop that would voided my warranty if I was to open the device.

This card was also VERY difficult to get to work in UBuntu 10.10 and some other older linux distros. I have not tried to see if it works out of the box on any of the newer distros. I had to use drivers from the ipw2200 sourceforge page in order to get this semi-working.

Heat and Temperature

Using Speedfan to attain the Core and HDD temperatures while streaming 1080p content, the maximum the COre reaches is 55 Degrees Celcius. On idle, the core temperature goes down to around 41 Degrees. (This is in an non AC Environment) The fan also is very quiet and can only be heard while you have the laptop next to your ear. THe surface and bottom of the laptop do not get hot and for the most they get warm under INTENSE use. My old HP would get soo hot that i wouldn't be able to even keep it on my lap.

Speakers

The speakers in the laptop are horrible. The audio sounds too mid-ranged and there are no hights. Using the Dobly Software makes the audio sound even more horrible and i am unable to find a decent setting that gives me the true sound of the music. I mostly use my headphones if i have to play any audio on the device. The speakers are located by the hinge which allows the laptop lid to open and close.

Screen

The screen is bright and vibrant and looks good on even the lowest brightness setting. Images and VIdeos on the U310 look clean and 10 times better than my old HP with a 14 Inch Screen (G42-475DX) Comparing images on the U310 and Mac Book Pro 13" was although a failure as the Screen in the U310 is no match for that of the MBP. THe images on the MBP look 100 times more crisp and the colours look more realistic when compared to the U310.

Closing Thoughts

The U310 is a good device for portability as well as moderate performance. It is perfect for students (With the exception of the Speakers) and I have no regrets buying this device. I although wished there was another wireless card on this laptop (Preferably Atheros Based) and that the SSD was slightly larger.

I will keep you guys updated as I continue to use the laptop for school purposes.

I ignored all of the postings on here about the wi-fi being defective because according to Lenovo there was a hardware change after sometime in July which was supposed to fix the wifi issue.

THIS IS NOT TRUE. My unit manufactured 10/27/12 STILL HAS THE WIFI ISSUE which Lenovo has failed to fix or acknowledge. (symptoms : It will not work sitting more than 20 feet away from your router, , Wifi speed is much slower than other devices on the same network.

How they can still be selling these defective models is beyond me. There are hundreds of pages on forums about the problem yet it is still not fixed.

While Lenovo's are usually rock solid machines (at least Thinkpad) I suggest people stay away from this model line. These were shoddily built, not tested and Lenovo is not supporting them.

Buy Lenovo U310 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Graphite Grey) Now

Priorities of a University student: 1st) Lightweight. 2nd) Battery life. 3rd) Quick on its feet

PROS:

+Quick Core i5 processor

+3 USB ports (considered a luxury in the ultrabook universe)

+A lot of other ports (HDMI, ethernet, SD card)

+Responsive keys and touchpad (and I like the feel of the keyboard)

+Light enough for me (although it falls a little heavier than the average)

+Simple, clean design

+Doesn't get hot after an hour of use

+Haven't had issues with its apparently infamous WiFi card

+Fan isn't annoying

CONS:

-Battery life not as long as I expected (I'm lucky if I get 5.5 hours as the day goes on)

-Screen brightness could be bit brighter

-My cousin who has the same computer complains that while typing it's too easy to tap the palms on the touchpad

I bought my u310 from Lenovo September of 2012, after extensively reading reviews. I don't regret my purchase [that much]. Obviously, there are going to be trade-offs for all the features floating around the ultrabook universe, so I kept realistic expectations. But anyways, I love my machine. It boots relatively quick, the keyboard is comfortable, the keypad is responsive, and to date, I've had NO problems with my WiFi. I liked its look better than its Sony cost-rival, plus there were some minutia tech reviews said were superior on the Lenovo. Bloatware is minimal (but still annoying). I can't speak much for the audio as I have a main entertainment desktop. The grey is a little dull, I suppose, but it doesn't matter to me, as mine is covered with Pink Floyd and The Oatmeal decals. :)

Sidenote: I kept Windows 7 on mine so I cannot speak on how it runs for Windows 8 (which seems pointless without a touchscreen. Plus, it looks childish.)

BUT, since I bought mine, they've come out with the u410. You should check that out.

Read Best Reviews of Lenovo U310 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Graphite Grey) Here

I purchased a u310 with manufacture date 10/30/2012. The wireless displayed the same problems that many others have seen. I returned it. I would recommend staying away from Lenovo products.

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Opened the box started using it... Of coarse it needed the usual updates and what not... After updating the system, I realized the laptop only works on wifi in 2 rooms in my whole house. The other laptops I have run at 5 to 6 mbps this u310 1 to 2. After I ran into the problem, I looked into it and found it was a known problem, and many people have the same problem with theirs. Then to top it all off, when I call the support number, the guy on the phone tells me to just take it back and get a refund. He said I must have bought a lemon. It happens 1 out of 5 computers. This is not the first time I have bought a laptop and I was not born yesterday. I have never had so many problems with a brand new computer. JUNK!!! I will never buy a lenovo computer again.

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Toshiba Satellite A355-S6931 16.0-Inch Laptop

This is my second Toshiba laptop. Number one is around 4 years old and still works well.

This review is more about the A355 chassis, than this exact spec laptop, and should apply to just about every one of the laptops in this series whether they run AMD or Intel chips.

The first view is that the materials are just plain flat out gorgeous. From the shiny exterior, to the semi rounded base, the two large chrome mouse buttons, the nicely integrated Harmon Kardon speakers, the illuminated touch areas, the big beautiful monitor, and those shiny keys. Yes this is one very pretty computer.

Under that pretty hood are some interesting specs. It used to be incredibly rare to see an eSATA port on any computer, let alone a laptop. Well this one has exactly that an eSATA port that doubles as a USB port. Nice option to hook up external hard drives. It also includes an iLink, Firewire, or IEEE-1394 port an incredible rarity (even Apple dropped this port). The audio ports and volume control are on the front, nicely placed. There's absolutely no ports on the rear. There's also an express card slot (not a PCMCIA slot, but EXPRESS card slot) and a multi flash memory card reader (they've dropped CF from the list). It does not include Bluetooth a very strange omission since every single bluetooth adapter uses the Toshiba stack to run. Use either of these adapters, they work perfectly: IOGear GBU421 Bluetooth 2.0 USB Micro Adapter or Cirago BTA3210 Class 2 Micro Bluetooth Adapter (Black Tip) both are outstanding miniscule adapters.

Toshiba stuffed 4Gb of RAM and a 320Gb hard drive into this big baby. Those are some pretty nice features in a laptop this inexpensive. Those Harmon Kardon speakers sound very nice.

You'll either hate this or love it, and fortunately you can turn this off if you hate it. The Toshiba name, a little band above the scratchy navigation pad, and the media buttons all light up white (pretty bright at that). I think it looks pretty cool, but others have hated all those lights.

The monitor, oh that monitor is gorgeous. Movies pop, they look absolutely fantastic on this computer. It's a nice big screen. Yes it is a gloss finish and you do get some reflections here or there, but generally it's not bad.

June 2009 Update my son managed to crack the display. I can see no reason to blame the design nor Toshiba for this crack. Thank goodness I have a 3 year no fault warranty which replaced the screen at no charge (well they charged for the policy). I would not be surprised if my football player son fell asleep and rolled over on top of his laptop. No company in the world can design around that scenario at this price point (yeah you can buy a toughbook but it's way more expensive than this one). Huge display, light weight... no elephant can stand on this baby and not expect it to break. Downside to all this, he's been without this computer for 2 weeks and is driving me crazy (again, not Toshiba's fault).

The keys are all glossy and the fanatical among you might not like all the visible fingerprints, but I think most will get over that quickly. There is just a ton of room to put your hands to type and use the computer. That surface in front is sweet for a palm rest.

Function-wise, this computer is a decent performer. Nobody is buying this to run heavy games or render video it won't do those things. But for the occasional game, the occasional video edit, you'll score well here.

Do note, this computer runs Windows Vista Premium 64-Bit. Please don't be afraid of that operating system. I'm running 64 bit on two computers and it runs just beautifully. There is almost no new hardware that won't run under 64 bit these days. It's a rock solid platform. And that OS allows all 4Gb of memory to be seen and used (32 bit tops out at 3Gb). And if you don't believe me, type this into google pcmag 64 bit computing. Read the first article in that hit list.

This is no lightweight computer. It's a big, pretty heavy laptop. Great for around the house. Not something you would travel everywhere with. But it is portable. Heat generation is nothing extreme. It does pull air in from below, so be careful about couches or beds plugging those holes.

It's a good solid fast computer. There's a bit of fan noise, nothing huge, but you will know the machine is running. I hate to comment on battery life, that's so dependent on how bright you make the screen, processor speed settings and the like. I got a good solid 2 hours of hitting it very hard at max everything. You could probably get a good 3 hours, maybe 4 at more conservative settings.

Something to keep in mind, Toshiba ships all their laptops full of bloat-ware. It's a really good idea to remove it all. Almost none of it is necessary. There are two websites that will clear all that garbage out of your computer. It's explained in a great article at PCMag. Type this into google, PCMag make the most out of your new pc. The first hit will be a fantatstic article on how to remove the garbage.

Overall, this is a big, beautiful, good sounding, heavy, hard working, well priced laptop.

I needed a third computer for use when I was away from my desktop system and ultra portable light weight.

I chose this system which had the better processor but the video processor intergrated with the chip.

Clearly, for hard gamers and intensive video processing, the systems with the seperate video memory is necessary. However, for surfing the net or performing editing, the system is fine.

I have had no problems with Vista 64. The sytem booted up without a problem and instantly connected with my WIFI /n system.

There is a fair amount of crapware, but it can be easily removed through a variety of programs or simply removing the programs in the uninstall aspect of the control panel.

The screen is great and the key board is one of the nicest I've had in a laptop.

For the price, the system has a great screen, excellent keyboard, DVD/CD player and burner with a fast chip and tons of RAM.

I would not hesitate to recommend this unit to anyone. Gamers will need a faster video card

Buy Toshiba Satellite A355-S6931 16.0-Inch Laptop Now

Again this machine has no HDMI port. I suspect that the eSATA port is mistakenly identified as an HDMI port. No other source of this machines description seems to have an HDMI port listed.

Read Best Reviews of Toshiba Satellite A355-S6931 16.0-Inch Laptop Here

I've had this laptop for just over a week. I was slightly skeptical about running Vista, but I've had no problems with it thus far. This is my second Toshiba my first is four years old and cost more than double this one at the time. For $650, this is a great deal. I was worried the screen was too big at first (yes, too big!) but I love it for watching Hulu, videos, etc. It's not heavy, although I don't move it very much from my desk. Battery life is OK not Toshiba's strong suit by any means, but it's not terrible. You just have to remember to run it down periodically. In terms of bloatware not horrible. Easy to delete. In terms of restore disks you can create them with the utility provided. I made three backup DVDs the first day I had it, no problems. As far as the fingerprints go yeah, it's kind of an issue, but it's not terrible. You get used to it or you use the microfiber cloth provided to wipe them off. Generally speaking, I am very happy with this machine. It has plenty of RAM, disk space, etc. For the casual home user, it's perfect. I'm not a gamer or website developer, so I don't require a ton of power. Bang for the buck, it's fantastic.

Drawback: periodically, my typing skips around on the screen. Not sure if this is because I type very fast, or a flaw in the OS, or what -but it's annoying. Not insurmountable, but annoying.

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This computer is very fast after 4-days of configurations/tune-ups. No complain about the hardware, or Vista (Vista is actually very good, but I'm buying this one in order to upgrade it to Windows 7). After I deleted most of the crapware, the computer ranked to be 'top 12% computers in the world' by PCPitStop.com. Now with all kinds of software installed, including Windows 7 RC on drive E:, 2 external hard drives hooked up, it is a 'top 18%' computer when running at full power/High Performance (Balanced and Power Saver dropped it to 28% and below 48% respectively). (Update: The Toshiba Face Recognition works so well every time, I don't need to type the password for sign on anymore.)

The computer unboxed with warped keyboard which I have to push it down hard in order to settle it in, but the function key portion is still higher than the frame in the middle. One very noticeable thing is that the computer's touch pad, wrist rest areas are very hot. the touch pad chrome buttons are hot like a coffee mug at all time. Don't know whether this will be a trouble or not for me in the future (July 16, 2009 update: The hot touch pad should not be a problem. The heat is not coming from the hard drive. The reason it is hot is because I have connected the computer on power cord at all time and have the battery removed. Hence the heat sensor does not detect the high temperature at the battery region and the fan dose not run all the time).

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HP Envy dv7-7250us 17.3-Inch Laptop

PROs: Absolutely INCREDIBLE light weight for such a large laptop. Setup was reasonably easy (except for my frustration with Windows 8 more on that below). A real DVD tray instead of a slot. Beats Audio = pretty amazing, customizable sound from a laptop. An amazing battery life (so far).

CONs: Windows 8 (more on that below) but this is overcome-able.

This replaced a Dell 17" Studio 1735 (Upgraded) running Windows Vista, purchased new in 2008 for $1100 a magical machine for its first 18 months, at which point it began overheating & shutting down suddenly whenever it was given a processor-intensive task like watching a DVD movie or running a full-disk security scan or even converting a single camcorder video or watching a YouTube video longer than 1 minute. (Bought a Logitech Cooling Pad N120, USB-Powered, Silent-Airflow Fan with Low Power Consumption (939-000345), and that helped somewhat, but still wouldn't allow a full-system scan.)

Since 2003, I'd always bought Dells but between that miserable experience and the fact that a basic Dell Inspiron we'd purchased in 2007 as a Christmas gift for in-laws was also a lemon, I refused to buy another Dell. My last 2 work-issued laptops have been HPs, and I'd been impressed by the reliability and battery longevity, so I looked at HPs this time around.

I need a large laptop because it's our only home computer and I do a lot of photo and video editing need the big screen. The Dell weighed close to 10 pounds it was a heavy clunker but I'd always just assumed that a large laptop would be heavy. This HP is amazingly light, and weighs almost as little as my work-issued 15" ProBook.

Windows 8:

I bought this assuming I could get up to speed with Windows 8 as easily as I have migrated from the first Windows, through almost every version since Windows 95 (plus all my employer-specific versions of Windows that are ever-so-different from what we use at home). Nope. It was PAINFUL and FRUSTRATING. Part of that is my fault I just thought I could "get up + go" like I always have in the past, from ancient Windows95 and 98, through Windows XP, to Vista and Win7...I just figured it out on my own. Nope. On this machine, I fought and cursed and wrangled my way through this new OS. Two weeks later, I finally looked at the Windows 8 guides that were pre-loaded on this laptop....umm, am much better now. ;-)

I've always bought DELL laptops in the past, for at least the last 10 years or so. So I was uneasy about getting a different brand. Sure enough I purchased the HP 7250 and its been awesome! The only modification I made was swap the 1TB HDD for a 240 GB Solid State Drive. It's super fast. I also added Office 2013 for Excel, Word and Outlook for my emails, and I am so glad that I picked up this PC. I'm not IT person, I simply bought the Solid State Drive and handed it to my IT department, and they swapped out the hard drives. Nonetheless, this PC is lighting fast. I also upgraded to Windows 8 PRO, and although it doesn't have a touch screen, I can do all I need with the Logitech Zone Touch T400 Mouse, which makes it like I am touching the screen. All in all I use this computer for work, as I am in sales management, so I am always working on spread sheets and a CRM system. And this computer has been great. For anyone switching to Windows 8 from Windows 7, don't be afraid, as Windows 8 allows you to toggle between the Touchscreen interface to the Conventional Desktop mode, which you are all used to on Windows 7. The only reason I upgraded was because I had my laptop stolen, but all in all, great purchase. I don't see how any other PC would have worked for me! Oh yeah, and this PC, although not stated, can be upgraded to 16GB RAM, as it only comes with 8GB. I am only running on the stock 8GB, and it hasn't shown signs of being slow at all. Everything is SUPER fast, from startup, to shutdown. Even opening files is extremely fast.

Hope This helps! 5 Stars in my book!

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Although I've only been using this for 3 days, I'm impressed with the machine: it's fast, full-featured, and has the potential to store a lot of data, which was a big plus on my wish list. The speakers and sound system are awesome, and I've streamed movies on the big screen several times already: very impressive! Keyboard works well (a little clicky, but easy to type on), and the touchpad is very nice. Getting used to Windows 8 will take some time, but I've downloaded an app that restores the Win7 shell and that makes it easier.

HP continues to make awesome machines, thankfully.

Read Best Reviews of HP Envy dv7-7250us 17.3-Inch Laptop Here

I had originally purchased a Samsung Series 3 laptop as it was a very good price for what looked like good specs. After receiving it however I was sorely disappointed in the pathetic performance. I bought this HP Envy DV7 instead and am so glad I did.

This is by no means a small laptop. With a 17.3" screen and over 1 1/2" thick it is still surprisingly mobile. Battery life has been very good so far and I run everything all the time on the High Performance setting. I just turn down the screen brightness which is usually the biggest draw on your battery.

This machine with its i7 processor is super fast. This laptop does have a couple of components that hold it back from its potential: a 5400 RPM hard drive and built-in Intel HD 4000 video. However, I have found the HD 4000 video to be very capable. And even with the 5400 RPM drive the machine still boots up very quickly with Windows 8. It also has USB 3.0 ports for fast file transfers with compatible drives and USB sticks.

Most importantly, and I'm surprised at some of the other reviews, but I was surprised at how little extra bloatware/junk that was pre-installed. Most of the software installed is HP software for support, recovery, etc. The extra software like HP EasyRoom (an IM/Twitter application) is all very easy to identify and remove via the normal Windows Program uninstall process. The uninstalls also go very quickly with the fast processor.

Typical of most laptops any more, this laptop does not come with installation media. The recovery program will allow you to create media and will require at least a 24gb USB stick, 6 DVDs, or 4 DVD-DL.

This laptop also has the capability of installing a second hard drive if you wanted to. This would allow you to get a solid state drive to use for the OS partition and keep the 1 TB 5400 RPM drive as a data drive for all of your files and would make this machine even faster. To use the second drive bay you do require an additional drive caddy and SATA cable to connect the second drive.

While this machine may not be a full fledged gaming PC, for the average user, it is more than capable and is a lot of value for the money paid.

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I've had an HP laptop for years and wanted a faster, more powerful one. This one is much lighter and I really enjoy the biometric finger scan in place of a password

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Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E430 14" Business Notebook PC - 6271-56U

The 13.3" screen laptop weighing less than 5 lbs. are the ideal dimensions for a business laptop. A few years ago, there were a number of business and consumer laptops with these dimensions selling for $500-700. However, with Apple's success with the MacBook Pros, other PC manufacturers started copying Apple with higher priced ultrabooks. Now, it is practically impossible to find a 13.3" notebook that costs less than $1,000. This leaves the folks pinching pennies with the less than ideal 14" notebooks.

I have owned this laptop for a few days and I have listed some of my observations. I will update this review if I find any glaring deficiencies.

With stock parts, the machine scored 2,200 on the PC Mark 7 and a 5.0 on the Windows Experience Index (WEI). The graphics performance on Windows Aero was the lagging metric on WEI at 5.0.

Pros:

1. Intel i5-3210M Processor – It might be the slowest i5 processor in the market right now but it's still good. It should run most office applications with aplomb.

2. Size and weight – The size and weight of this laptop is just right (almost). It has a 14" screen that has a maximum screen resolution of 1366x768 (720p). It weighs 4.7 lbs so you can carry it or lug it along your bag without too much effort.

3. Expandability – It has a PCI Express Mini Card free. This gives the users the option of adding an mSATA drive to improve the laptop's performance. After adding a Plextor 64GB mSATA SSD, the scores jumped to 3,700 on the PC Mark 7. The main WEI score stayed the same at 5.0 but the Hard Disk score was significantly improved at 7.8 from 5.9. Users can also expand the memory to 16GB (according to the Lenovo software) and the hard disk. For some reason, Lenovo only offers the 1TB drives at 5,400 rpm. I believe it was a technical decision to keep the laptop cool.

4. Price – It may be last year's model, but the performance and value are really at a sweet spot. You will be hard pressed to find another laptop with the same price/performance at less than $600.

5. Good documentation – Lenovo provides a Hardware Maintenance guide to help users upgrade their laptop. It is a pretty comprehensive guide that even shows users how to replace the LCD and motherboard.

Cons:

1. Ctrl and Fn keys are switched – This is not a big deal though since you can switch the keys in the BIOS.

2. Some LED indicators are missing – For some reason the hardware engineers at Lenovo decided to ditch some of the indicator lights. There are no indicator lights for Caps Lock, wifi and the Hard Disk. In fact, the only lights that you will see are the small red lights indicating power on and a small green light on the right side indicating battery charging.

3. Relatively low memory and Hard Disk space This is also not a big deal because of the low price and good documentation. Instead of configuring the laptop on the Lenovo website, you can just buy a prepackaged one and upgrade it at a lower cost. Upgrading this laptop on your own should take a few hours at most.

4. No Windows 7 media – Users need to make a copy of the Windows 7 recovery disks on DVD or a thumb drive. In addition, there's a lot of documentation on the web showing how to write your own Windows 7 copy on DVD or USB. Lenovo provides recovery disks for Windows 8.

I upgraded the memory to 8GB with Kingston HyperX sticks and the Hard Disk to 1 TB with a Toshiba hard disk. The final benchmarks with all the modifications are 4,300+ on PC Mark 7 and 6.5 on the Windows Experience Index. The 30% increase in Windows Aero performance indicates that the stock 4GB in memory may be too low and was affecting graphics performance. Overall, I find this laptop to be a solid value buy. It is a 4-star laptop at stock but a potential 5-star machine with the right upgrades.

it is not as perfect as I thought before.

some noisy!!

be sure to pay attention to the place of "Ctrl", "Fn" and "PrtSc" buttons. its not as usual.

also, you need to press "Fn" button to activate F1 to F12 buttons!!! that's awful!!

look at the youtube links about this product.

but overall, its price is low and it is not a heavy laptop.

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

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

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

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

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

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

PD: dont forget to buy one ;)

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

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DELL Studio 15 Notebook, Laptop PC - Midnight Blue, Glossy widescreen 15.4 inch display , Intel Cor

I bought one of these laptops from Dell, not only for the Name, but the reliablity. I normally build my own PC's, but this one is a true Gem! I have ran it through the wringer, and it has NOT ever let me down! I do alot of graphics-intensive work, mainly 3-D animations, and this little powerhouse never even burps, it handles everything I throw at it.

I also LOVE the Finger Print Identity, I never have to keep a log of my passwords (which potientally could be hacked), just swipe my finger and TA-DA!, I can log into any pass protected program, web page, account, etc. without having to remember all the login & passwords (and I have quite a few!). It also gives me peace of mind if I'm out in the public, I can "lock" my laptop, and nobody can gain access to the machine, making it VERY secure.

Speed, reliable, and very sleek....

By the way, I did not realize this until just recently, but the CD/DVD burner is capable of burning Dual Layer Disc's, which is awesome and rare to find, comes in very handy for backing up the whole laptop, or making backups of ALL my PC's (or burning backup copies of my XBOX game disc's) on just one dual layer DVD !!

I also love the fact it has a complete compliment of I/O ports; at least one (if not several) for everything from USB to HDMI. It is very thoughtfully laid out, and you can tell that Dell uses only quality components to build thier machines.

All said, I am very pleased with the speed and performance of this Studio series laptop from Dell.

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Acer Aspire AS5250-BZ873 15.6" Widescreen Laptop (1.0 GHz AMD Dual-Core Processor C-50, 2 GB RAM, 2

Very dissapointed! Wireless adapter made by "Aerothos"...never heard of them....

Can't be more than 10 feet from the router...., whats the point of it being wireless?

Even went and exchanged it for another duplicate lap top because I thought the first one must have been defective...

Nope! the second one was the same....I even called tech support at Acer....tech admitted it must be a poor brand of adapter...no fooling....dont waste your time or money on this one!

I purchased this laptop from Walmart, not Amazon, for $278.00, smoking price.

I never really buy computers because I usually build my own. Since you can't build your own laptop at $278.00

I had to give this one a shot. Needed a laptop just in case my desk top took a dump.

All the bad stuff everyone is saying about this is true, but once I reconfigured the operating system it works great,

the wifi is working fine, even for an old G router I am using.

It took about 4 minutes to boot up and had about 10 icons next to the clock loading up all kinds of garbage.

After reconfiguring the system it now takes less than a minute to boot and has only 5 icons loaded up.

Manufacturers have no clue when configuring Windows OS's, MORONS really.

Do yourself a favor when buying any computer from an Acer, HP, Dell or whoever, re-do the OS and you'll have

a completely different system, for the better.

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This is my very 1st laptop i have a 2 core quad desktop but have been wanting a laptop for a long time.

Prices on the ones i wanted were to high for me to afford so i hadnt gotten one.

I was at walmart the other day and seen this dual core processor and it was priced at $278

I purchased it brought it home and its a awesome computer for the money.I see not much differance in my core 2 quad this one.This computer gets a A ttt from me

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Out of the box I couldn't be further than 10 ft away from the router for this to connect to the wifi. I went to Acer's website and downloaded all the updates. I could then be further away from the router, but I kept losing the connection even though the signal was excellent. Three days after I bought it, I returned it.

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Bought this for my granddaughter at walmart and she had nothing but problems with internet connection. She took it back and exchanged it thinking it was faulty then she called tech support when the same problem happened and they really did nothing. This lap top is not worth the money it took to make it! If you are looking for a good laptop dish out the extra $50-$100 for a higher quality one.

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lenovo IdeaPad Z570 (1024A6U) 15.6" Notebook, Intel Core i7 2670QM(2.20GHz), 8GB Memory DDR3, 750G

I bought this laptop to replace my desktop. This would allow me to work at home and take it with me on trips etc instead of having to have two separate computers. I like the fact it has the HDMI input and the number pad. I got with windows 7 and as I understand I was lucky since windows 8 seems to have few wrinkles to be ironed out still. The processer its fast, unit is well made. Its quite and does not run very hot. I recommend this unit.

Fast quad core i7 8 gigs of memory. This thing runs several programs at a time without slowing down.Windows updates can install automatically without your knowledge if you so desire

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