ASUS N56VZ-RB71 Notebook Intel Core i7 3610QM(2.30GHz) 15.6" 8GB Memory 750GB HDD 5400rpm BD Combo NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M

Pros: The laptop specs are great for the price. The actual resolution as mentioned in the other comment is 1920x1080, making for a beautiful HD matte LCD screen. With 2 GTX 650Ms, this laptop can handle nearly anything you throw at it.

Cons: Seems prone to manufacturer defects. Personally just got it back from a repair for a vertical line of frozen blue pixels, and have heard many other mentions of the plastic near & the touchpad itself coming slightly off the laptop.
The touchpad click mechanism is similar to a macbook. The solidity becomes questionable when you click the touchpad near the edges it takes a much harder press than near the center, especially at the top.

Of course it doesn't come with the subwoofer being refurbished, but the egg was knocked off for the dead pixels 2 days after arrival.

Other Thoughts: Overall this is a great laptop and worth the money for the quality, and the customer service you will be getting with it. ASUS was able to repair my laptop free of charge. At most you will be footing the shipping.

Pros: im able to triple boot this machine win7/osx/*nix - rawk the house solid...

added hd caddy - substituted 2 ssd drives+16gb of ram.

I'm used to my old N series dual core so this I7 is a solid step up for me. I dont have any performance issues so far but I haven't thrown a bunch of instrument plugins at it either but I'm confident this proc and ram can handle it. I plan on using this machine for the next 3 years like I did with my old Asus N series dual core.

Cons: Not really a con because I'm really happy with this laptop but its just fair to mention;

This refurb unit as mentioned does not come with the sub woofer which doesn't bother me and my laptop had a slight blemish on the ethernet lip but the ethernet port works fine. no issues it was just cosmetic.

Other Thoughts: Its a versatile machine that has decent hardware for the price. up 2 you what you want to do with it which is why I love asus. This is my 4th machine from them and they all work.

Pros: Runs very cool
Newegg says 1366x768 but mine shipped with 1920x1080 matte screen (beautiful)
Played Civ V for 8 straight hours medium settings DX11 Huge map Marathon pace 12 civs 24 city states and didn't even hiccup.

Cons: I spent many hours of research on N56 models and this particular model so I was aware of things. The touch pad bows up a little above the surface of the laptop. More of a feel than a sight. The subwoofer module did not ship with this refurbished unit. No recovery discs and Asus disababled it's software and shipped with instructions on how to create disc image Via Win7.

Other Thoughts: The reason for my egg knock. I purchased this on Black Friday for $899, less than 24 hours later the price was reduced to $859 but my unit already shipped so I was out of luck. Shame on you Newegg.