the thing I like the most about this laptop is that the vent is situated at the end left and it doesn't take the air from the bottom like most of the PCs. Basically it's always cold at the bottom and which is more important: the battery is always cold, helping a lot to the battery life!!!
Thanks for the review. I just picked up one of these from Best Buy on sale for $260 since they are selling their stock before Windows 8 comes out. Pretty good deal.
Happy Birthday tecboy209! You have an awesome grandma buying you a laptop. This will do fine for high school because it will probably have the same performance as the computers in your high school. So whatever they can do, you can do. Just be careful with it because the entire laptop is made of plastic so take care of it. Thanks for watching!
Same here (but I do have a powerful desktop, though). At 329 I was a bit interested, but today it's at 299, so I bought it. Will be using for school primarily: document, powerpt, and pdf viewing mostly, and of course youtube.
It would be cool. I've been using my MacBook pro when flying rc model and I wouldn't mind taking a cheaper laptop with me :) Your videos are great btw!
I have been running CS6 on it. I am no expert in those programs but I do very basic stuff like import RAW images and adjust settings using the auto features. I know it;s pretty lame but again, I am not even armature level in PS skills. All I know is that it loads up fine and large RAW images load up fine. 7D 20mb RAW images. Not my camera btw. I use the cheap T3 camera. Thanks for watching!
Mine did not make any noise other than the fan if that is what you mean. I would say take it back and get another one if you can. You don't want that noise to build and become a big problem later. It should not cost anything for an exchange. Thanks for watching!
You might save some battery life with an SSD and more RAM. The SSD because there is no motor spinning and that takes more power than an SSD. More ram means less writes to the page file or virtual memory on the hard drive. ONe would have to be really consistent in their usage to be able to gauge the baterry life after the upgrades.
Nice video. Probly thanks to tablets, this laptop and (most budget laptops) are getting cheaper and cheaper :) At 299 (black one only), this is a steal. Also, after 10-15min, the splendid display (Ctrl+C: either gamma correction or soft option) is great for viewing e-books or white webpages.
It has an intel hd 3000 graphics and you can do a search as to how well it does for a specific game you want to play. I tried it out on Minecraft and it got about 22 fps with everything on fancy but the rendering distance was NOT far. With it far it is about 19 fps. Thanks for watching!
Is the software all stock from the store or did you replace the OS with another? You should try going to the Best Buy store and seeing if it works on the demo units they have, if they still have them. If you can, return it for an exchange.
The spacebar has been fine along with the rest of the keyboard. The only part that is sort of sticking is the trackpad. It is not as responsive as I would like. It works fine when tracking my finger but tap to select is not so great. I use a mouse anyways so it's no big deal to me. Thanks for watching!
That is coming soon. I have done it and it is super difficult to do. There is only one RAM slot with a 4GB stick in it now. So you would have to buy a single module 8GB stick to upgrade it.
Nice review, I´m seriously looking forward to get this laptop but many reviews warn about the space bar sometimes working and in the worst case not responding at all. Have you had any of these issues?
@MinecraftMafia544 It's purely to do with the system.specification. Just because it's labelled a "Gaming Laptop" does not mean it is. It is not as simple as with a "Gaming Console". Intel brand their HD brand of intergrated graphic chip sets as "Ideal For Gaming", but they are not. Morrowind is just poorly coded, and won't run on anything very well other than a PC from the time it was released.
Yes but it also depends on the photo you are editing. Larger files will use more RAM and it is very difficult to upgrade on this system. Also, I don't know how to use Photoshop enough to know what is smooth. Thanks for watching!
Yes it is! I have used CS 6 Photoshop, Light Room 4, and Adobe Premier 6. It works great. I will be making another video on the programs I use and the games it can run. Thanks for watching!
It does not come with it. No laptop comes with it for free. You have to purchase it and install it. There might be a trial version on many laptops but they never really come with it for free.
Why would you pay $400 for this laptop? I paid $330 for it and the regular price is $350. Your $1200 laptop probably really only cost $1000 in the store. You paid too much my friend. Thanks for watching!
Hey man great video. Could you just real quick compare the laptop you broke down with this Asus laptop at Best Buy sku: 2672542. I think it's the same laptop but it's an updated version. I'm not to familiar with all the computer jargon that you used in your video. Thanks!
Yes it will but it will work a lot better if you upgrade the RAM to an 8GB stick. I have another video on how to do that. Having all those programs open at the same time will slow the system down. It won't crash or break anything. CS5 uses a lot of RAM. Thanks for watching!
I have been trying but failing. After I upgrade the hard drive and RAM (video coming soon) I am going to try other methods to getting a hackintosh working on here. Stay tuned and thanks for watching!
I am an on location photographer based in Chicago. I cart all my gear around without a vehicle so I am always looking for the most portable gear. What do you think about using this with Photoshop and Lightroom? It meets the requirements, but would it be smart to get something else a bit better?
Sorry but I can't get rid of them. Going to throw the RAM in another machine at work and the hard drive into an external enclosure. But not your ordinary enclosure, I am going to put it inside a NES game cartridge. Stay tuned!
Hey there, I've been looking around alot for a new laptop,and I often come back to this one alot. I'm a student and I have a custom tower for heavy duty gaming/encoding but I need to move on from my 2001 dell latitude d620. Can you tell me a little more into gaming? How does it work on TF2, and I know this is pushing it but, can you tell me how you think it would run PSO2? Theres a benchmark tool if that helps. Thanks for your time!
do you have a problem with the spacebar because a lot of reviews said that you had to hit it very hard in the middle or it wont respond... do you find this to be the case?
I suggest looking on TH-cam, what games run on intel hd 3000 graphics. That is what the laptop has in it. You can see people running games with this GPU and see for yourself what it can do. Thanks for watching!
I'm looking at this as an in between upgrade (whenever I can get that i7 ultrabook $) from my dinosaur Dell Inspiron e1705 .. Question is, do you think this would run PS CS5 well? I currently run CS5 Extended on my e1705 and it does the job but can get laggy in higher resolution work spaces. I should also note that my hdd is most likely on it's last leg, this laptop is loud heh.
I wasn't able to either, I couldn't get it to boot any bootable USB's of OS X. Ubuntu runs fine though.. It's a shame, I really wanted to put OS X on this thing. It's a good laptop regardless.
the thing I like the most about this laptop is that the vent is situated at the end left and it doesn't take the air from the bottom like most of the PCs. Basically it's always cold at the bottom and which is more important: the battery is always cold, helping a lot to the battery life!!!
Got this laptop for $250 on Black Friday at Best Buy. Plan to upgrade with the help of your other video about this laptop. Thanks.
Thanks for the review. I just picked up one of these from Best Buy on sale for $260 since they are selling their stock before Windows 8 comes out. Pretty good deal.
Works great. Thanks for watching!
This is a great choice. Thanks for watching!
Great vid, this seems like the perfect laptop for my daughter who is about to start college.
Thanks for the share!
i checked out your video and i think i'm ready to put some RAM in mine. thanks for the in-depth video
True, I have the external DVD drive if I need it. I also use a thumb drive to reinstall the OS if I need to. Thanks for watching!
YES! Thanks for watching!
I agree. Thanks for watching!
Not sure but I hope to try it though. Thanks for watching!
You know I am going to try haha! Thanks for watching!
Dang that is a great deal. I wish I waited for that price. Thanks for watching!
Nice. Thanks for watching!
Happy Birthday tecboy209! You have an awesome grandma buying you a laptop. This will do fine for high school because it will probably have the same performance as the computers in your high school. So whatever they can do, you can do. Just be careful with it because the entire laptop is made of plastic so take care of it. Thanks for watching!
Yes. Thanks for watching!
Yeah I am going to benchmark it but I don't expect anything great haha. Thanks for watching!
Yes it will run on it. Thanks for watching!
Same here (but I do have a powerful desktop, though).
At 329 I was a bit interested, but today it's at 299, so I bought it.
Will be using for school primarily: document, powerpt, and pdf viewing mostly, and of course youtube.
Yes. With the fancy settings about 18fps. Lower settings, about 23fps. It's playable.
It would be cool. I've been using my MacBook pro when flying rc model and I wouldn't mind taking a cheaper laptop with me :) Your videos are great btw!
No Bluetooth. I think the ASUS website is saying that it could have BT. This is the X401A. Thanks for watching!
I have been running CS6 on it. I am no expert in those programs but I do very basic stuff like import RAW images and adjust settings using the auto features. I know it;s pretty lame but again, I am not even armature level in PS skills. All I know is that it loads up fine and large RAW images load up fine. 7D 20mb RAW images. Not my camera btw. I use the cheap T3 camera. Thanks for watching!
Mine did not make any noise other than the fan if that is what you mean. I would say take it back and get another one if you can. You don't want that noise to build and become a big problem later. It should not cost anything for an exchange. Thanks for watching!
It does have wireless. Thanks for watching!
You might save some battery life with an SSD and more RAM. The SSD because there is no motor spinning and that takes more power than an SSD. More ram means less writes to the page file or virtual memory on the hard drive. ONe would have to be really consistent in their usage to be able to gauge the baterry life after the upgrades.
Damn it, is the battery life really just 3-4 hours? Man, that's not what I'm looking for...
Good idea on the green though, looks pretty sweet.
I am not sure but I think it can since it can play minecraft with all the fancy settings. Thanks for watching!
Saving up my money to hopefully buy myself one as a late birthday present :)
Nice video. Probly thanks to tablets, this laptop and (most budget laptops) are getting cheaper and cheaper :)
At 299 (black one only), this is a steal. Also, after 10-15min, the splendid display (Ctrl+C: either gamma correction or soft option) is great for viewing e-books or white webpages.
It has an intel hd 3000 graphics and you can do a search as to how well it does for a specific game you want to play. I tried it out on Minecraft and it got about 22 fps with everything on fancy but the rendering distance was NOT far. With it far it is about 19 fps. Thanks for watching!
Dang. Great deal!
Is the software all stock from the store or did you replace the OS with another? You should try going to the Best Buy store and seeing if it works on the demo units they have, if they still have them. If you can, return it for an exchange.
The laptop is very quiet and decent performance. I am still testing it. the hing is durable yes. Thanks for watching!
Good luck! Let us know how it goes!
The spacebar has been fine along with the rest of the keyboard. The only part that is sort of sticking is the trackpad. It is not as responsive as I would like. It works fine when tracking my finger but tap to select is not so great. I use a mouse anyways so it's no big deal to me. Thanks for watching!
It would be very tough and you can look at the system requirements for that program to determine if it can run. Thanks for watching!
That is coming soon. I have done it and it is super difficult to do. There is only one RAM slot with a 4GB stick in it now. So you would have to buy a single module 8GB stick to upgrade it.
I was not able to. My hack-fu is not strong. Thanks for watching and sorry for the late reply!
I think the AMD would have better graphics processing. That would help out in casual gaming and watching HD videos.Thanks for watching!
Nice review, I´m seriously looking forward to get this laptop but many reviews warn about the space bar sometimes working and in the worst case not responding at all. Have you had any of these issues?
I will let you know when I test it out with Fraps.
I had both but then I wiped it all out and installed Windows 8. Thanks for watching!
Nexus 7 tablet ftw! Thanks for watching!
Thanks. I stand corrected.
the guy at best buy told me that i couldn't upgrade the RAM because it was soldered to the motherboard...
I would not advise that and I don't think so. I need to take a closer look though.
Good vid, thanks. Did you upgrade the hdd to ssd? And if so, by how much has the battery life extended?
it would be a great choice for that purpose.
Yeah Windows 8 is new. Thanks for watching!
The track pad and keyboard flexes but I am not a heavy typer. I install Ubuntu 12.10 on this and it ran fine. Thanks for watching!
oh cool. Thanks for the info.
I would have liked it to be a little brighter. This green is kind of dull.
Thanks. I have low budget so I'm probably going for the one with the AMD C-60. :D
You would need to install an editing program. It does not come with it.
No you can not game on here. It also depends on what game you are talking about. Web games should be fine and a little bit of minecraft.
Maybe that is a maximum you can set it to? I don't know if it can be allocated that much.
I stand corrected.
No it does not. Thanks for watching!
Comes with Windows 7 Home Premium and no Word of Office Products. Thanks for watching!
Thanks for watching!
My T3 only does 720p. But yeah it also handles 1080p video. Thanks for watching!
I don't know how to hackintosh an AMD CPU. Sorry. Thanks for watching!
GOOD REVIEW
@MinecraftMafia544 It's purely to do with the system.specification. Just because it's labelled a "Gaming Laptop" does not mean it is. It is not as simple as with a "Gaming Console". Intel brand their HD brand of intergrated graphic chip sets as "Ideal For Gaming", but they are not. Morrowind is just poorly coded, and won't run on anything very well other than a PC from the time it was released.
I am passionate about science and technology. I am an IT guy, My other tattoo is a circuit board.Thanks for watching!
Thanks!
YES!
I don't know but you should see if LoL can run on intel hd 3000 graphics.
I just ordered a white one! Very excited. I just think it is gonna look kinda tacky....
Yes but it also depends on the photo you are editing. Larger files will use more RAM and it is very difficult to upgrade on this system. Also, I don't know how to use Photoshop enough to know what is smooth. Thanks for watching!
Yes it is! I have used CS 6 Photoshop, Light Room 4, and Adobe Premier 6. It works great. I will be making another video on the programs I use and the games it can run. Thanks for watching!
Yes that is more than enough for 10 games. 4GB of RAM is also enough.
Good day! I am really interested in buying this. What games would run smoothly in this laptop? I can't understand the system requirements. LOL :D
Yes!
It does not come with it. No laptop comes with it for free. You have to purchase it and install it. There might be a trial version on many laptops but they never really come with it for free.
Why would you pay $400 for this laptop? I paid $330 for it and the regular price is $350. Your $1200 laptop probably really only cost $1000 in the store. You paid too much my friend. Thanks for watching!
Hey man great video. Could you just real quick compare the laptop you broke down with this Asus laptop at Best Buy sku: 2672542. I think it's the same laptop but it's an updated version. I'm not to familiar with all the computer jargon that you used in your video.
Thanks!
Yes it will but it will work a lot better if you upgrade the RAM to an 8GB stick. I have another video on how to do that. Having all those programs open at the same time will slow the system down. It won't crash or break anything. CS5 uses a lot of RAM. Thanks for watching!
I have been trying but failing. After I upgrade the hard drive and RAM (video coming soon) I am going to try other methods to getting a hackintosh working on here. Stay tuned and thanks for watching!
not at all. Thanks for watching!
Yes! I will also be doing a video on what I use my Nexus tablet for. Stay tuned and thanks for watching!
I am an on location photographer based in Chicago. I cart all my gear around without a vehicle so I am always looking for the most portable gear. What do you think about using this with Photoshop and Lightroom? It meets the requirements, but would it be smart to get something else a bit better?
The 501a has an i3 and nVidia graphics for an extra $50
Combination of poor lighting and a terrible camera. I am still trying to workout a good setup to produce videos. Thanks for watching!
Sorry but I can't get rid of them. Going to throw the RAM in another machine at work and the hard drive into an external enclosure. But not your ordinary enclosure, I am going to put it inside a NES game cartridge. Stay tuned!
I have a few videos on that but I might have to make a new one with just installing windows, drivers and software. Thanks for watching!
Yes. IK am working on making a video soon on how it looks playing MC and TF2. Thanks for watching!
do you think it would be able to handle a Fruity Loops 11 size program? id say FL Studio is about the size of Adobe After Effects, for reference.
Hey there, I've been looking around alot for a new laptop,and I often come back to this one alot. I'm a student and I have a custom tower for heavy duty gaming/encoding but I need to move on from my 2001 dell latitude d620. Can you tell me a little more into gaming? How does it work on TF2, and I know this is pushing it but, can you tell me how you think it would run PSO2? Theres a benchmark tool if that helps. Thanks for your time!
I was able to see 22 on fancy. 25 without fancy
Did you try it on a web page?
Likebif you hook up your camera to your laptop does it come with editing??
do you have a problem with the spacebar because a lot of reviews said that you had to hit it very hard in the middle or it wont respond... do you find this to be the case?
I suggest looking on TH-cam, what games run on intel hd 3000 graphics. That is what the laptop has in it. You can see people running games with this GPU and see for yourself what it can do. Thanks for watching!
I'm looking at this as an in between upgrade (whenever I can get that i7 ultrabook $) from my dinosaur Dell Inspiron e1705 ..
Question is, do you think this would run PS CS5 well?
I currently run CS5 Extended on my e1705 and it does the job but can get laggy in higher resolution work spaces.
I should also note that my hdd is most likely on it's last leg, this laptop is loud heh.
I wasn't able to either, I couldn't get it to boot any bootable USB's of OS X. Ubuntu runs fine though.. It's a shame, I really wanted to put OS X on this thing. It's a good laptop regardless.
Doesn't have word and stuff like that? Or doesn't have Windows 7
I would go crazy
@johnnythegeek1 If i just plan on using that laptop for word processing and downloading music and web access etc ...... How ideal is this for me?