ASUS - 15.6" Laptop - Intel Celeron - 4GB Memory - 500GB Hard Drive - Black

I got this on Saturday for $192.99 at BestBuy. It is now $229.99. I guess there was a 2 day special. I was lucky because I got the last one in the store. I got this for my 8 year old beginning 3rd Grade this year. He loves it. I should have bought one for myself at another store, because this laptop is great for the price. The manual is easily accessed online, but it would be nice if one was included. That is the only reason it got 4 instead of 5 stars.

A nice and simple design for this ASUS Laptop; It's a great option as a child's school basic laptop for homework; Comfortable keyboard; Very fast overall performance; Above-average battery life; Fast boot and transfer times. And the price was awesome.

the laptop is not that bad for high school kid to be use for their school work and entertainment.

I bought this computer for my computerized sewing projects. I bought a new one since I'm skeptical about refurbished. It's a great computer overall. The issues I DO have about it is that first of all, I did not know that it came with MacAfee already installed. I downloaded our usual Norton program & that's when I found it had MacAfee. The MacAfee totally messed up my computer from the get-go. It kept making it do squirrely things like never ending popups about how my computer has a virus & needs to download this or that program & every time I tried to x out the popup it'd immediately start more popups to some strange websites hosted by McAfee. It did this despite the fact I blocked all popups and would do it no matter what webpage I went to. The more I tried to x out, the more popups happened. I was only visiting my usual websites like Facebook, checking email, etc. it kept saying that the website was a virus infected and fake website that I needed to download some program from McAfee and kept shooting me over to a website I didn't click on. This went on for several days. I happened to remember that my husband had the same issue with his laptop when McAfee was on his & he uninstalled McAfee on his & had no further issues so I uninstalled it on my new computer and have not had any issue like that since. So if you get a computer & it seems to have the same squirrely issues, try uninstalling McAfee & install Norton instead. McAfee may just be the issue like it was for us. On this computer, the plug-in for the power cord is on the side which surprised me. I prefer it to be on the back but again, just a slight annoyance for me. The keys are separated which is not necessarily a problem per se but I find that I have to type more slowly & press more firmly to get it to type correctly, otherwise I get typos all the time...although on any other computer with the usual keyboard, I can type normal speed. Also, it's completely different programming than previous computers we have purchased. I'm used to Windows XP, ME & prior programs. This one, so far, is hard to figure out where all the accessories are. There are no games already downloaded...the "games" app on here is for X-Box only. I have to play for free online or pay for a downloaded game or buy a game & install the cd for it; this computer didn't even come with simple, usual games like Solitaire. The instruction manual is downloaded in an app instead of in paper form & it took 3 days to find it on here. It's wasn't marked "owner's manual" on the desktop and I didn't see anything in the paper startup instructions either. There is no Paint program that I can find on here or an Accessories menu or a Favorites menu to where I can save a favorite website link, that I can find although it does seem to have a Music Maker app but I have yet to click on it. It took several days to find the calculator on here. There were also many, many "apps" already on here that were totally irrelevant to me so I deleted them. I'm not a tech savvy person so I expected a more simple computer programming or a more user friendly one which this one, in my opinion, is not very user friendly in the desktop part of it because I feel like I should be already schooled in laptop wizardry to figure out what all these already downloaded apps mean & what they're for and where to find stuff automatically. I'm old school, I need to be told where to find stuff. Some apps are obvious but others are just symbols without explanation. It is, however, VERY fast on the internet. I do not plan to use it for more than checking email, using social media & for my sewing projects so, hopefully, it will remain fast. It WAS a total surprise to find it DOES have what most laptops don't...a 10 key to the side as well as having the usual numbers along the top so I don't have struggle with using the numbers at the top now which I had to use on my husband's laptop because his is older & has only numbers at the top and was difficult for me to use. Having the 10-key does, however, make the keyboard off-set from the center so keep that in mind because it took me a few days to get used to the off-set feel of it when trying to type. It does have a smooth touch pad for the mouse which is what I prefer...don't like that new textured pad that some have now. It does not, however, have right/left click buttons for click & drag. You can tap, "click & drag" on the touch pad but I'm not very mechanically inclined to figure out how to do the click & drag without buttons. There are instructions on how to do it in the user's manual but again, I'm not very tech smart on things like that. I need buttons so I just use my wireless mouse & it's fine with me. This laptop is also quite large compared to what I thought it would be. Nice screen size & brightness. The lid tilts back almost flat which surprised me. It has GREAT speaker output, excellent sound output and quality. Another thing I like is that it does NOT get "hot". It stays cool so it doesn't burn your legs nor heat damages whatever it sits on so that's a HUGE plus, no need for a laptop 'cooler' unit for it to sit on, it doesn't need it. It has nice memory storage as well. The battery life seemed to be good at first. At first, the battery life lasted a couple of days but now, if I have it unplugged all day, the battery does seem to run down now after a few hours but that's ok for my needs. It does have a dvd drive so that's also what I was needing in a laptop to use my embroidery cds. Overall, it's a great laptop. It has everything I need in a laptop. Just a few inconveniences which, to me are minor such as wishing that I could save my fave websites to a favorites menu & had a paint program on here and clicker buttons for the mouse 'touch pad' on the laptop. It does have apps on here to link directly to popular websites like Twitter, Facebook, etc. so that's really handy to have so I don't have to bother typing in the web address. Overall, I'd recommend this laptop. It is pretty affordable for what you get & other than the aforementioned issues, I, so far, like it well enough. I think anyone can use this computer & be happy with it, just keep in mind the technical hiccups I had. A more tech savvy person may know more & can utilize all what this computer offers. I'm just not tech smart enough at this point so as long as it works for what I need it for, I have no complaints.

Why are you buying this? What do you want your laptop to do? I will speak to my expectations. I wanted something for casual use, mostly web browsing. Chromebooks would fit this bill nicely as well but with this laptop you get a full-fledged operating system that's not focused on Cloud computing. I figure this is ASUS's entry to compete with the Chromebook market. You get a 500GB Hard Drive and 4GBs of RAM. This RAM is not expandable but 4GBs is enough for a lot of things. It's not a laptop for extensive movie editing or Photoshop but yes it could be done, albeit a lot slower. It will be great for email, surfing the internet and running various programs. I was pleasantly surprised that it played 720p and 1080p videos on Youtube very well. The screen looks great and the touchpad was very responsive. Looking at the bottom of the laptop there are no compartments to get access to the hard drive or ram, nor is there a detachable battery, it's all enclosed. The wireless connected fine and no issues with disconnecting. I haven't installed any games on it but I imagine it would run some less graphic intensive games OK, but it's definitely not made for gaming. I have to say I get tired of people ragging on Windows 8, I installed the free Classic Shell program and it gave me a normal Start Button on the traditional Desktop that we all are used to. You don't even have to use the 'Tile's' desktop. (make sure you configure it to bypass the Tile Desktop..easy) So now you basically have a XP or Windows 7 environment. Battery life is a couple of hours at least and varies depending how you are using it. I hooked it up to my 47in TV and it displayed the web and YouTube very well. Long story short, it's a very good value for the price, now 229.99. Documentation wise, it says charge for 3hrs before first use and then press the Power Button, but really, that's all you need to do. Speakers? What laptop gives really good sound? Use external speakers or earbuds. As I have a powerful desktop computer for the heavy stuff this really fits the bill for casual, on the go use. Hope you found this helpful.

I primarily purchased the computer for my home office. I'm surfing web, storing recipies, typing letters to the teachers for school, emails, home budget and school projects. It's perfect!

I'm going to be completely honest, I did not expect much out of this computer and since I am coming from a high spec'd Retina MacBook Pro 15" I honestly expected to be borderline miserable with the functionality and speed of this computer, however, I was pleasantly surprised to find that this laptop isn't bad at all. At only $250 for a fully licensed Windows laptop it's even cheaper than the scaled down Chromebooks. I needed a cheap computer to surf the internet, type up documents, and occasionally listen to music and this thing does them all quite well. It doesn't freeze up or lag and the "chicklet" styled keyboard has a familiar MacBook feel to it with great feedback. Probably the most surprising is that the trackpad is actually very impressive considering the trackpads on several much higher spec'd and priced laptops weren't responsive and had a horrible feedback to them. The screen is actually very vivid and bright and you get very little washout from varying viewing angles. The speed on this laptop is actually quite remarkable considering it's a very low end Intel based processor. Don't get me wrong you aren't going to win any speed tests with this computer but you aren't going to end up throwing the computer against the wall for taking 5 minutes to boot up either. I was able to download several applications and updates in a timely manner without any issues of it freezing up from doing too much at once. The trackpad supports multi-gestures (two finger scrolling, etc) and is very smooth and precise. The speakers are crisp and clear and have a good tone to them for what they are and the laptop is actually quite light for being a 15.6". The only negatives (if you can even call it that) i can really say about it are that the casing is very cheap feeling and smudges easily which is surprising considering it is matte black with a textured finish. I honestly don't mind these small issues as it really is a cheap laptop so i expect it to be cheaply constructed. With that said though there is very little flex on the palm rest area and the screen is very secure with the hinges seeming pretty durable. I've been averaging approx 4.5 hours on each battery charge with the screen on max brightness while surfing the web, listening to music, and typing up papers with the occasional download or two. With technology moving at a very fast pace what's current now ends up being outdated in a few years and with this if you get two years of use out of it i would say i got my money's worth and at only $250 i could go buy 4 of these for the price of one base model MacBook or mid-high end PC. Do yourself a favor, if you are looking for a cheap or economical laptop for school, home, or light business use check this laptop out, you will be surprised that you can get a well rounded decent laptop while saving a lot of money at the same time.

I wanted to wait a month or so before reviewing - just in case! This ASUS hasn't disappointed. I use it for 3D engineering, 3D graphics and animation, music production (recording and editing) and video production. I was profoundly surprised with how well it handled my 3D CAD and animation applications. There are NO latency issues when recording digital audio. The 2 USB ports are a bit limiting, especially for my purposes. But I usually wind up getting a couple of hubs anyway. The construction is typical for a $200 laptop - just be careful when transporting. A nice laptop bag will do the trick. I bought this as a temporary replacement for my tower workstation. I am so happy with it, I haven't gotten another workstation yet.