Asus - Stylish Laptop with Intel® Centrino® Processor Technology - Blue/Black

This is a good laptop for the price. I had originally bought a Dell Studio but the huge battery on it made it ridiculous, and it felt cheap. I returned it and got this one and saved some money, but actually gained a lot. This notebook offers 5 USB ports, 5! That is the most I have ever had on a notebook. The majority of the ports are located on the back which is great. It has some really cool face recognition software bundled. It doesn't have a bunch of bloatware installed. The case looks nice but it looks like an older design, the hinge makes it sit higher than most 14" laptops and the palm rest is also much bigger. This can be good or bad, just a matter of personal preference. My biggest criteria for a computer was having firewire, hdmi and e sata ports, which most laptops at this price range just cant offer, not to mention the dedicated graphics card!! While its not going to play crisis on max settings is is surely better than any integrated graphics. The only thing that really just bugs me with this notebook is the way the buttons below the touch pad sound when you click them. They are the loudest sounding ones I have ever heard (dell has the best in my opinion). The trackpad is large and is responsive. There is a bluetooth indicator and button, but no bluetooth to be found, must be a best-buy thing to get the price down, which I can live with. The quick launch buttons above the keyboard are not labeled good at all, you have to shine a flash light at it to see what does what. Not a big deal though. ASUS has won me over so far, lets just see how this thing holds out for a few years and then I will write another review.

I was looking for a cheap laptop for playing older games specifically World of Warcraft, Half-life 1 & 2 and also for basic computer stuff (excel, word etc.). The main problem with cheaper laptops is finding something on a budget that has a graphics card. Most low end laptops have intergrated graphic solutions that won't handle most games including the older games I mentioned above. My wife has a laptop with intel intergrated MX4500 graphics card and it struggles to play WoW on the lowest settings. While I was able to find other laptops that were cheaper that included a dedicated graphics card (Dell for example) I opted to buy this one from Best Buy for the ease of the sale. I orginally purchased the laptop fom Dell but was met with resistance and a month later my order was still "In Production". Needelss to say I was upset and canceled that order. For referecnce, this computer plays WoW with all the expansions (The Lich King, The Burning Cursades) just fine with little to no lag with the settings almost set to max. For the price and for what I needed it has preformed well. Are there cheaper computers out there with similar or even better specs? Yes, if you shop around but you may have to wait for them to arrive. If you can wait and are patient I would suggest shopping around online but if you cannot wait or are simply sick of looking, I would suggest this computer. ASUS is a decemt brand and overall I am satisfied with my purchase.

I love this laptop still, this is now about a month after buying it. I have few complaints, and I am incredibly happy with the gaming experiance it has given me. However, there has been one major setback that is really getting under my skin. Typing on this computer is becoming impossible!! It feels as if the keyboard is losing sensitivity or something. I have a fairly fast typing speed and the keyboard is no longer recognizing my fast touches of certain keys. Having to go back several times per sentance to correct the errors is a waste of my valuable time. I am thinking of taking it back to Best Buy to get one of the Geek Squad to take a look at it. Other than that... Graphics are amazing, the computer has a fast loading time and a great price tag... However it feels to me as if the keyboard may be slowly breaking. THAT will not make me very pleased.

I have had over 10 different Laptops in my life and this is by far my favorite. It has a solid build, 5 USB ports, an E-Sata Port, DTV CATV antenna, huge trackpad, LightScribe, Facial Recognition and at Best Buy it comes with 1 year of LoJack and 1 year of Trend Micro. The 250GB Hard Drive is still plenty of room. 4GB's of Ram is Great. It's PC-6400. Centrino technology is great. Wireless A,B,G,N wonderful. It is however disappointing that there is no bluetooth. It only costs about $20 dollars built in and it is still not included even in the gaming series laptop by ASUS. I actually returned my ASUS G50V for this, because it was just to much more of a desktop in a laptop case. The battery life on this laptop ranges from about 2-4 hours depending on setings and usage ( usually about 3 hours), I would recommend this machine to anyone looking for a nice all around laptop. There is enough power in here for basic games and the machince is really quiet. The design is a much needed improvement over the ugly Khaki. Oh, it is also helpful having all of the connections primarily in the rear of the laptop. That is convenient. For those interested, the Windows Experience Index is a 3.4. This is a result of the Desktop Graphics for Windows Aero. The Gaming graphics are a 4.6, the primary hard disk is 5.3, the memory is a 4.9 and so is the processor.

I was going to wait until I bought the Sims3 to write a review of this laptop, but have since changed my mind. Initially the keyboard was terrible, it barely responds to being touched. It's loud and not lit at all. The touch pad mouse also was not sensitive to my hands (or my brothers), but oddly enough it worked great for other people. The clicking buttons are loud too. I noticed when on battery mode the graphics would get messed up easily in a specific area. Also, after nearly a month my computer crashed but google told me it was a common Microsoft vista error and had nothing to do with the actual laptop. The problem was easy to fix and once re-installing and losing all my saved work, the keyboard and touch pad were miraculously super sensitive and great to use. And my trial Norton's anti-virus finally showed up to run. But it did not last long, my keyboard and touch pad once again suck. Nothing on the laptop is well lit which makes it hard to use if the lighting is poor. I would have returned it if it weren't for being past the 14 day limit to be honest. I feel I paid WAY too much for the laptop. The best thing about it is the battery life. I can easily get 3-4 hours of actual use on battery mode. I also enjoy that after a month my adapter does not get incredibly hot. Neither does the laptop. The quality of the camera is pretty bad, but I didn't even know it came with one until I got it home so that was a nice surprise. Also the speakers on the bottom are problematic if you use it for music or movies because they are very quiet, but otherwise they're not too bad for the occasional sound byte. The gloss on the laptop is also VERY sensitive to fingerprints and grease, it looks like I eat french fries on the daily. The outer coating damages easily. I already have scrapes on it even though I transport it very carefully. I don't mind because it's the outer shell but it does look a little rough already. The dvd driver is a little loose feeling but my BF says its because of the amazing laser writer so I can deal with that. It's also very loud on start up but again, I can deal. Over all, I would have returned the laptop because I don't think it is worth 650. For 500, I would consider it fantastic though. Everyone should use their recovery disk upon purchasing though, it made my start up run much quicker.

I love Asus computers, and I love this one. It's a beautiful computer with great graphics quality and it's fast. The only problems I have with it are that the speakers are on the bottom of the computer so the sound quality leaves something to be desired...why anyone would do that is beyond me. If the speakers were where they should be it would be perfect. I am also having problems with the disc insert. Today I was making a cd and it wouldn't eject my CD whether I hit the eject button or went through the computer to eject it. I finally got it to eject after I rebooted the computer. It also, for some reason, takes a really long time to "resume windows." It doesn't freeze or anything, but it does take awhile to start up [this is only if you have not shut it down first. The actual time it takes to reboot the computer is faster than when it stops hibernating.] Other than those few flaws I am satisfied with my Asus. I'll be taking it to Best Buy tonight to see if I can fix the disc and start up problems, though.

This was my first laptop purchase. Researched several machines in this price range, HP and Toshiba. Decided to go with the ASUS because it had more features, including better graphics card, bluetooth. The BB sales clerk was very helpful and knowlegable. I primarily use this laptop for homework, email and web-browsing. I've had it a few weeks now and overall I am very pleased with it. And yes you get over the fingerprint thing very quickly. I keep it in a case when it's not in use to protect it. It was easy to set up and I have no problems with my wireless connection. It's light weight enough to carry back and forth and the screen size is great. My only complaint is my battery doesn't last very long. I don't get a good hour & 1/2 before I have to plug it in. Maybe I need to tweak my settings to get better battery life. Other than that...i'm glad I went with this laptop. I will definitely consider ASUS when I upgrade.

After much research and then playing with notebooks at BestBuy, I went out and bought the X83vb-x2 4 gb 512 mb Nvidia dedicated graphics card with a 14.1 screen and a 250 gb hdd. Here are my first impressions of this PC: 1. The first thing I noticed right off was the screen is not the best and you really need to be right in front of it to view it. This is actually not a bad thing in secure environments where you don't want someone viewing your screen. 2. The vga out port does not have screw connectors so if you use an external monitor, it won't be that secure. I think the cheap price dictated that Asus make some manufacturing tradeoffs. 3. The touch pad is a little more clicky than some but not a bad problem. 4. The keyboard is sturdy but is really glossy and hard to see in low light. A backlight would be cool here. 5. The PC's lights above the keyboard are not marked very well so you have to squint. The manual does detail what is what though. 6. I like the hdmi, eSata, 2 USB ports and ethernet ports on the rear of the notebook. There are additional USB ports on the side as well as the firewire port, headphone, microphone, secure memory module port, and an express port. 7. Oddly enough there is no volume control on the pc. The manual details using keyboard hotkeys for volume. 8. The speakers are nice for a 14.1 notebook. 9. There is a little bloatware on the default install of Windows Vista Home Premium 64. It includes Office 2003 student edition trial, TrendMicro av 12 mo. trial, lowjack 12 mo. trial, Google Desktop, a Best Buy support program which I think was just a chat client so you could get assistance from the Geek Squad guys. 10. There is a 10 gb partition that has the restore options as well as the driver media. I could not find a way to access it from Vista but the manual details how to boot using the F9 key if you need it. I backed up the original drive with True Image and blew it out of there. 11. The initial Windows Experience score was 3.4 due to the graphics low score. I wiped the PC and installed Vista Ultimate 64 and was able to improve the graphics score to 3.5. For what it's worth, here are all the scores on the Vista Ultimate 64 install: Processor 4.9 Memory 4.9 Graphics 3.5 Gaming Graphics 4.7 HDD 5.3 So all in all, this is a nice PC with a quick T6400 processor AND Intel Virtualization technology is built in to the bios (although it is disabled by default.) This will enable you to run VMware 64 bit guest os's. There are confusing tables within the BestBuy PC comparison screens and THIS PC has a 5400 rpm 250 gb ST9250827AS Seagate drive. The Nvidia GeForce 9300M GS has 512mb so it's not the best as the Windows Experience scores indicate. For the price though, this is way more PC than you could get from say Dell, Gateway or even Toshiba. Don't believe me? Go ahead and customize a PC from those manufacturers and see if you can get a a similar PC for this price. I bought mine for 679 and with a couple of gift cards, I was able to get it for about that. One thing to be aware of is that BestBuy likes to 'optimize' some of their systems so if you want to be the first to touch your pc (and why not? You paid a lot for it) make sure the red Asus label is not removed. One last note, the Asus notebook above this model has a better graphics card with 1 gb of dedicated ram and it scores a 5.0 on the Windows Experience scoring BUT it has a nasty brown (looks like a purse - and you might like that) finish and the keyboard keys look even harder to see even in bright light.