Asus - 15.6" Touch-Screen Laptop - Intel Core i5 - 8GB Memory - 750GB Hard Drive - Black

I have this new and after a week using it, I have a key (-) loose from the keyboard. I called ASUS customer service and asking me a lot of stupid questions, that key I have never used until today I will wait for customer service to get it fixed, maybe I'll take out the star and put a huge "0"

After looking to replace my HP Pavilion dv6-3010us that had started smoking last month (yikes), I finally decided on the Toshba e45t-B4204. However, I got to Best Buy to purchase it and this one caught my eye, and the sales guy as well as a few others recommended the Asus. Naturally, I panicked and took way too long to decide and eventually went with the Asus based on the bigger screen and brand reliability as well as the rep's recommendation. I may bring it back and get the Toshiba, but so far so good. Anyway, here are my thoughts on it. Design While the brushed metal (and the reflective bezel similar to that of the iPhone 5) looks nice design wise, it is very cold to the touch and collects fingerprints very easily, and they are hard to wipe away. The silvery-white colored keyboard is a nice contrast from the black metal body and makes them easy to see and discern. The ASUS insignia on the lid lights up when the display is on - not too bright, not too dim - just a nice little touch. The bottom of the unit is a solid piece of rubbery-plastic with two small speaker grilles on the sides with ten screws and some grip feet here and there. It is a little cold to the touch - when sitting on your lap with minimal clothing, perhaps - but it is much more preferable compared to the cold plastic on the bottom of my old HP. The unit does not get too hot when using it, either - a plus for some, but for me, I like my laptop to provide me with a little heat, but it beats getting burns from my old HP. The lid opens and closes very solidly and goes to sleep almost immediately after the lid touches the base. The large single-hinge design is hopefully more reliable than the dual-hinge that broke multiple times on my HP. Display Since the screen is a touchscreen, the lid is all-glass - resulting in a screen that isn't recessed. Very nice look if you ask me. While the touchscreen is very responsive and nice to use, the display is somewhat dim and reflective. It may not bother you if you are indoors or not around bright backlighting very often, but you may notice it. Not a huge deal for me, but it could be a tad brighter. This is my first full-HD laptop, and I have to say, it's very nice, but for some applications you have to disable display scaling manually under the application properties to see them clearly. Not a big deal. Colors are great and details are very crisp. Keyboard The keyboard has some astounding pros and some disappointing cons. I really enjoy the silky texture to the keys - it makes typing a breeze. The backlight has three settings accessible from the function keys. The power button is actually on the keyboard - something that I personally like. However, the right arrow key is detached from the arrows and a part of the number pad - it's spaced out differently - an some people may hit that instead of the zero. Not a big deal, but the spacing bothers me. Another thing that probably only bothers me is the position of the spacebar - I hit the space key with my right thumb, and I often find myself hitting the extreme right edge of it. It's a little too far to the left. The alt key, in turn, is too far left and Alt+Click is somewhat uncomfortable, but I'll get used to it. My biggest gripe about the keyboard is the function keys. You have to hold fn to use the functions such as volume, brighness, or media controls. Usually, you can switch that behavior (so that you have to hold fn to get F4, F11, etc) in the BIOS settings, but I didn't see anything. This really bothers me, and it might be enough to return the unit. I also find the positions and use of some of these keys inconvenient - keys such as sleep, display off, and touchpad off aren't really necessary, and with those removed, they could move media controls from the arrow keys to the top row and switch the fn behavior. ...I'll stop ranting now. Touchpad Very nice, spacious touchpad. It took me a while to find the ASUS Smart Gesture settings, but once I did, I was dissapointed to find that it had very limited options - I miss the 'Momentum' and scroll along the right side features from my HP, but I can deal with the change. It is very easy to use multitouch gestures such as two-finger scrolling (you can even have your fingers together, unlike my old laptop) and the Windows 8 gestures. You can click anywhere, but it does get harder as you near the top of the touchpad. Ports and Connectivity All the USB ports on this thing (3) are USB 3.0! I don't see why manufacturers are making units with USB 2.0 ports still - the USB 3.0 equivalents provide backwards compatability. It seems like a no-brainer to me. On the left side you'll find a Kensington security slot, USB port, SD/media card reader, and a combo headphone and mic port (3.5mm), and along the right side you'll find where your power adapter plugs in, an Ethernet port, HDMI, and two more USB ports (one that supports charging while asleep). The power cord has a rather short cord and is very narrow and rather than a plug, there is a brick that plugs into the wall. However, the L-shaped plug-in for the computer is very nice and it won't be ripped to the side like a T-plug. No CD/DVD drive is built in, but Best Buy knocked a little bit off the price of an external one for me. It even came with some software that I could use. Along the front near the touchpad are lights for power, charge, and hard disk. I don't like having them on the front, but it'll be fine. Extras The speakers are not that good. They sound kind of muffled and they aren't that bassy while the treble and mid tones suffer. The Realtek Audio manager is too frilly and doesn't offer the right options for its users to set. The "HD" webcam is nothing special for a laptop these days, but it is a step up from my HP. The Insides While at first I was disappointed by the processor speed, it seems to be doing just fine - it's much snappier than my old computer. The 750GB hard drive should be more than enough for now - my old laptop had 320GB and it was nearing capacity. The 8GB of RAM is non-upgradable, which does not affect me, but may be a problem for others. My model came with Windows 8.1, but not the 8.1 Update. Not a big deal, just had to update myself. The unit operates very quietly and the fan pushes its air out through some vents in the hinge. Overall Experience With a few complaints about the physical layout of the machine, I'll see how I end up liking it and how much of an inconvenience some things are, but ultimately, it's a fairly well-designed model that you'll like.

This laptop is the perfect combination of features/value for me. I wanted a solid, back-lit, keyboard and dedicated number pad. I do a lot of financial analysis and report writing. I absolutely love the display resolution. Video and even static pictures look fantastic. The multi-finger touchpad is very good. I'm not a gamer so I didn't need an i7. But I love having 8 GB RAM. I'm getting used to Windows 8.1 but the touchscreen has been very responsive. Cons: It's a little heavier than I wanted. The keys on the number pad are a little cramped. The only thing I really don't like is the short power cord. The speakers seem decent but I usually use headphones so I can't fairly judge them. I've only had it about a month. I hope I continue to be impressed. This is my first ASUS. Overall an excellent value!

You know, it only takes one lame aspect to totally ruin the experience of a computer. It doesn't matter how great the screen resolution is, or how fast the processor is, if the mousepad misfires constantly or keys are stroked accidentally because of a lousy keyboard design, it basically makes you want to throw your brand new computer out the window. That's how I feel about this computer. I type fast - like 60 WPM, so when I am typing can you imagine how annoying it is to find the computer has decided to switch from Word to my calculator or whatever else is open in the background because of some unknown combination of keystrokes or motions of my hands near the built in mousepad. I cannot recreate the problem if I intentionally try to do so, so I don't actually know what causes it. To get back I have to swipe from the left side of the screen until I get back to the program I was in. The keyboard does not have satisfactory feel to the keys. They seemed ok when just playing in the store, but when typing for real at speed, the keys are oddly spaced and don't have enough of a "click" to them to let you know that you actually made a full connection. I find I have to frequently backup and press a key again because it didn't get the signal the first time around. Other than this problem, the computer is pretty good. The screen is beautiful, there's plenty of HD space, the processor is fast, the Windows 8.1 interface is nice, although it takes some getting used to. Be warned that it does NOT have a built in CD or DVD player - if you want to install your old software from CDs or DVDs you will need to connect an external CD / DVD player. It would have been nice if the sales guy told me that before I got it but I went out and bought an external USB $50 CD/ DVD player and it works fine. But, you can take all the good points and put them in a bucket because the problem with it switching programs unexpectedly, the terrible keyboard and mousepad performance makes this computer one to avoid. I really hate to say this, but I would NOT recommend this particular computer to anyone because of the problems I have described.

Love my new laptop. The associate at Best Buy actually said that Asus was #2 pick (Mac being #1) in computers for quality and getting your money's worth so I went with Asus since it was more in my budget. It was easy to set up when I got home..literally plug and play. The only downsides are: *the battery life SUCKS! I'll be at 90% charge, unplug it for about a hour and then all of a sudden it dies...half the time without a warning saying 10% battery left etc. * For some reason, my space key needs to be tapped pretty hard for me make a space..maybe it's just my laptop but if I just hit it lightly like normal ppl do when they type, it won't make a space...that's kind of annoying lol Other than those two things, I'm a happy customer!

My goal was to try out a laptop that could handle a heavy, if not basic media load of music/movie/audiobook downloads and streaming, frequent basic software testing (solely on the consumer side - i.e. single environment, no coding, just trying out and self-testing an array of products ranging from networking tools to billing software for a small business) while also running all things MS Office related without a hitch. So far I'm very pleased with my decision. Not only does the 8GB RAM allow me to multi task on a web browsing/music streaming/document editing level but I've also been able to host numerous media servers for my home network and have yet to really even see this thing break a sweat. It's just a quality machine. The keyboard is also hands down the smoothest and most quiet I've ever used. Had 2 Toshiba Satellite's and an early model Acer Chromebook as my devices prior to this Asus so the bar wasn't exactly set to the stars as far as UE is concerned, but this keyboard and overall layout would stand tall next to anything on the market right now and not come up short in any area of note. Worth noting as well is that the backlit LED on the keys is visually pleasing and provides more than ample light for even the darkest of situations, and my hands are never left feeling out of place. That being said, if I had to nick a point off somewhere as a spot for future design improvements I'd have to say that there isn't much in the way of surface definition between the trackpad and the bottom row of the keyboard so from time to time I notice that my palm has inadvertently hit the space bar and caused a minor typo. Minor issue at best though. Would absolutely recommend this to anyone looking for a quality laptop for a good price.

A little background: I have built several desktops, programmed throughout school, and am generally very tech savvy. Now on to the review. I have owned this laptop for just over a week, after suffering a 2nd hard drive failure to my 4.5 year old macbook pro I decided to upgrade rather than replace the hdd. This laptop had all the specs I was looking for: 4th Gen Core i5 processor 8 gigs of ram big hard drive windows 8.1 1920x1080p resolution. So far after a week of solid use I am really enjoying this machine. It is very quick, as expected, and the battery life seems quite good. I didn't intend on purchasing a laptop with a touch screen however Best Buy doesn't offer many option in store that don't come with that functionality. Having the touch screen is a nice feature though. I am surprised by how much I actually use it. Now on to the only not-so-good thing about this machine and that is the keyboard. To start, the spacebar doesn't seem to register unless you give it a solid press. I'm a rather quick typer and sometimes I don't get the space that I called for. This could be more a familiarity problem than anything actually hardware related. This second problem with the keyboard is more of where I am actually a little disappointed. As is pretty standard with keyboards these days, the "hot" keys like volume up/down, brightness, keyboard led, are located on top of the F1-F12 keys. What I don't like is that I have to press the function key in the lower left corner of the keyboard to utilize these keys. IE: Funtion+F12 raises the volume. This particular keypress combination is just about impossible to accomplish with one hand. After contacting ASUS support, there tech representative said that there is no way to switch this functionality around so I could just press the raise volume key alone to raise the volume and use function+f12 to use f12. This rather annoys me, however; this minor inconvenience is by no means a deal breaker. This is a powerful machine for a very good price. I trusted ASUS as a computer parts manufacturer in past desktops I have assembled and I believe this machine to be of equal quality. I hope this review helps someone trying to make a choice of which laptop is right for you in a world flooded with options. If you're looking for a mid-range computer with solid specs and quality hardware from a reputable brand, than I fully recommend this product. If anything changes I will update this review accordingly.

I was hesitant about the fact that this is indeed a dual-core i5, versus an i7 or quad-core i5. This model is solid, feels nice and not cheap. It has a nice weight to it. This model is ideal for what I'm primarily getting it for (which is school, creative writing, etc) but I was also hoping for something that can handle some gaming. This responds well to my notebook uses, Word, Excel, etc and also smoothly runs IE. Believe it or not, it actually handles gaming well enough also. I play a variety of games through Steam, and am an ESO player. The graphics automatically set themselves to low when gaming for smoother play, but it still looks good. That's another reason I bought this model, it's sharp and easy on the eyes. Audio/Video is bright, clear and crisp. The only issues I've had, are it occasionally freezing for no certain reason. At one point I was using Spotify and not running other applications and it froze, blaring the same part of the song repetitively and I had to force shutdown. Other than that, I don't really have any complaints about this model. It's responsive, smooth, has beautiful graphics, and even handles mild gaming. Would've been nice with a quad-core or i7, and more RAM though.