SONY VAIO E Series SVE1712BCXB Notebook Intel Core i5 3210M(2.50GHz) 17.3" Full HD 6GB Memory DDR3 1600 500GB HDD CD/DVD Player/Burner AMD Radeon HD 7550M

Pros: Great laptop no doubt fast good resolution backlit keyboard many things I love about the design, and hardware not the Os(windows8 :/)

Cons: well windos 8 sucks for pc/laptops really only good for tablets prob will switch back to windows 7 64bit. Also after a month of having the computer it said "restart the computer because of disk errors" I I only downloaded silverlight for netflix, flash player and the computer will not let me reset it I have to send it back in to get a new hard drive.... :/

Pros: the unchangeable features such as the display, keyboard and graphics card give this laptop a lot of bang for the buck.

Cons: really benefits from a hard drive upgrade. have not done this yet however it seems to be the only thing keeping this pc from top notch performance.

Other Thoughts: with some simple and cheap upgrades this laptop is about as good as you can get for under $1000 on the current market.

Pros: Instead of the advertised 7550M mine came with a 7650M, not too shabby!

Cons: none so far...

Other Thoughts: I'm excited to try out some games on this laptop, it should have the chops to run many of my Steam games.

Pros: 1080p screen for relatively cheap
Less bulky than expected

Cons: DVD drive seems really loud when it spins up, but I rarely use it anyway

Other Thoughts: Great price for a 17" 1080p laptop. I updated from a Dell Studio 15.6" laptop and this Sony is thinner and barely any wider (about an inch). Sure, the Radeon 7550 isn't a great gaming performer, but at least it doesn't pull from the 6 gigs of system ram. This is a good choice for anyone who needs the high resolution for design or CAD work.

The negative ratings because of Windows 8 and Sony's preinstalled software are ridiculous... you will get the same on other laptops.

Pros: screen (10/10) - my old laptop had a 1366x780 screen and this 1920x1080 screen just puts it to shame. the viewing angle is the widest I've yet to see on a laptop. The image is sharp and bright.
keyboard (10/10) - I typically hate laptop keyboards but this one is correctly laid out and doesn't have a million FN keys that you'll never, ever use. The lack of media keys is a big plus.

Cons: hard drive (0/10): I've tried two known working SSD drives (one A-DATA and one OCZ) and the BIOS does not detect them, this sucks big time! I may return it for this reason.
The drive cage holds my SSD drives at an angle because they are slightly bigger than the included drive so they are not able to make contact with the SATA port. These SSD drives I tested are 2.5" drives and work on my other laptops just fine! 3/5 eggs just for this nonsense.

RAM (5/10): One other minor complaint is that the included ram comes in 1x4GB and 1x2GB so multi-channel memory is limited to 4GB or none at all. The modules weren't even the same brand so one is likely running slow to match the other. Needless to day I replaced the memory with 2x4GB modules.

Other Thoughts: Use (10/10): I installed Linux on it when i got it and it took surprisingly little configuration to get everything working. I can play counter-strike source (on Steam for Linux) just fine with just a little lag on low settings, so I'm happy.

Pros: from description to delivery, great. any computer skill level manageable.

Cons: 0

Pros: 1080p screen, big enough screen to enjoy it. Good CPU, nice keyboard, vaio support, battery standby life is great (close now, open a day later even on low battery), Ergonomically nice compared to Toshibas, Wifi signals are pretty decent-to-good.

Cons: I caught it hot a few times (maybe from being in backpack). Spilled some tea on computer and after that I noticed that the screen has air bubble spots on it as well as the bevel sides. Windows 8 touchpad has this annoying thing called "Gestures" that are extreeeemly annoying - some areas on the touch screen open up APPS when just trying to move the mouse - completely takes over the screen. Gestures are hard to turn off: registry fix or tampering with touchpad settings to minimize the surface area they work on. The touchscreen is a pain in the *** because it doesn't have buttons - just areas of the screen and coupled with gestures is something... you'll have to work on.

Other Thoughts: Would buy this product again but disappointed that the screen has air bubbles after just one spill. Wish I could carve this touchpad out with a dull knife and port it into Office Space right on the printer machine. - Haven't worked with Sony yet. GOOD PRICE, GOOD BUY WITH CAVEATS!

Pros: 1080p resolution, decent amount of memory, decent storage space, back-lit keyboard, <$700

Cons: bunch of unnecessary included software to remove

Other Thoughts: Win8 -- some love it, some hate it. I live in "desktop mode".
Touchpad -- you can adjust the "right-click region"; by default it's just the lower right corner. I changed it to be the whole right half of the touchpad.

Pros: Go to any computer store, and you'll find 99% of the laptops at 1366x768. It's 2013, we can do better. This laptop packs 1080p resolution with a very reasonable price. I would have expected to pay $2K or more for a laptop with an outstanding resolution. Plenty of USB ports are available, and it has an HDMI port in addition to standard VGA.

Cons: The first day I used it, the Windows key broke off, sadly. It goes back on, but won't re-secure. The touchpad is the newer 0-button style which takes getting used to. I would have preferred the classic 2 external button-style touchpad. Windows 8 takes getting used to, but not Sony's fault.

Other Thoughts: I miss my Thinkpad, but time moves on. This is the best value for money by far for a laptop with actual real estate for the screen.

Pros: cheap chinese

Cons: Comes with Win8, no Sony support for any other operating system, and they refuse to offer any such support. So if you dont't like a cell-phone interface instead of a computer interface, this isn't for you. The web-cam is a joke and the 6GB memory comes from two modules, so it doesn't provide the dual-channel memory claimed. That, combined with the disk drive speed (>20ms access from HDTune) makes this thing VERY slow. Sony should stay with televisions, they really don't understand or plan to support computers that users need.