ASUS R500A-FS71-CB Notebook Intel Core i7 3630QM (2.40GHz) 8GB Memory 1TB HDD Intel HD Graphics 4000 15.6" Windows 8

Pros: Pretty good Stock Memory/Processor, good battery life and rarely ever lags with windows 8

Cons: Hard to learn the key placement on laptops keyboard if you are used to having externals/heavy pc user. But thats just a personal preference

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Niles,

We appreciate your time posting this review and we want to thank you for it. Its good to know that your satisfied with the product. For further assistance please email me at customerloyalty@asus.com and put case # N150145753 in the subject for your reference.

ASUS Customer Loyalty is dedicated in helping you and all other ASUS customers.

Thank you for choosing ASUS.

Regards,
Mark
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: Has a good cpu.

Cons: Touchpad is flaky. Curser jumps all over. Have tried changing drivers and utilities. Nothing on the Asus site helps.

Wireless disconnects constantly. Can't watch videos or play games. Web pages have to reload - slow. I thought wireless N would be fast. Atheros card.

Optical drive useless. Literally takes five minutes to load an .exe file to install software.

I use Asus motherboards to build pcs, so I thought they were great. This motherboard has a terrible bios. Had to flash it back to 2010 to get it to give me the option to boot from the optical drive. It has no tweaks for settings. Can't even find a setting to boot with the numlock on. The Asus utilities are worse than useless.

This was supposed to be refurbished. It was obviously just passed on the the next customer.

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

I apologize if you are having issues with the touchpad being flaky, wieless disconnecting constantly and the optical drive being slow. In order to resolve all the issues and improve system stability and performance, please install all recommended WINDOWS Updates and upgrade to WINDOWS 8.1 before using the system. We recommend using a LAN connection to speed up the update process. In regards to the WIFI device, please verify if the onboard WIFI device is within range to an established wireless router or access point and internet service is working properly. If you need further assistance, please email me at cl-rodel@asus.com and write down service# N140706044 on the subject line.

Thank you for choosing an ASUS product.

Regards,

Rodel
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: It's a laptop

Cons: Touch pad is flaky. Review say it can be modded because it's shorting out, but that would ruin warranty. Curser jumps everywhere. Tried every possible driver. Flashed the bios. Installed/uninstalled utilities.

Wireless cuts out all the time. Gaming is hopeless, videos annoying, and web pages have to be reloaded. Everyone says it's a problem with the Atheros card.

Optical drive literally takes 5 minutes to load anything. Worthless if the program has to access it to run. No good for music.

Can't run music through an amp or speaker from the headphone jack - static is louder than the music is. My cheap Acer was way better than this at music.

Asus used to make great motherboards. Not anymore. This bios had to be flashed to a previous version and a bunch of settings changed before I could boot off of the optical drive. Can't even find a bios setting to start up with the numlock on. No worthwhile settings in bios to tweak anything.

Asus utilities are pretty much worthless. Wish I could get my money back - nothing on this really works well.

Other Thoughts: I wish I had bought a Windows 7 computer like I originally planned. I can't return this because it's refurbished. I will never buy another refurbished computer from Newegg. This wasn't refurbished, it was just passed on to the next person with all of its problems still intact.

I build desktop computers and just replaced motherboards in two laptops, so I've had some experience with computers. If I hadn't spent so much on this, it would be in the trash. If you are a serious computer user, don't waste your money. Only a 30 day replacement with NewEgg - I should have sent it back immediately, but I needed a laptop. Now, I'll have to try to get some results from Asus

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Kaasan,

I apologize if you are experiencing issues with the touchpad, WIFI device and the optical disk drive on the laptop. In order to resolve this issues with the onboard devices, please install all recommended WINDOWS Updates and upgrade to WINDOWS 8.1 before using the system. We recommend using a LAN connection to speed up the update process. All ASUS products undergo intensive quality control testing and inspections, these are isolated cases. If you need further assistance, please email me at cl-rodel@asus.com and write down service# N140708321 on the subject line.

Thank you for choosing an ASUS product.

Regards,

Rodel
ASUS Customer Loyalty

Pros: i7 processor is a beast. I have really put it to the test and it hasn't even broken a sweat! I can render 1080p video much quicker than before while multi-tasking several other applications no sweat! Couldn't be happier with the processor.
Keyboard layout is very comfortable and easy to type on, the trackpad is also very nice and comfortable to use and also seems pretty durable.
2 USB 3.0 sockets is a good feature as well, I have 2 external drives that are both 3.0 (1 is for booting Windows 7 the other is for movies, music etc) and I use them pretty frequently so this was a must for me.
I have heard other complain about the screen res but this has not been an issue for me at all.
Large HDD is nice, it would be nicer if it was 72 rather than 54 but 54 is pretty standard for most laptops anyway and I haven't had any issues with read/write speeds.
Very slim design and stays very cool! I really can't put enough emphasis into how cool this laptop stays, especially around the hand rests. This laptop is on all day long and never gets hot even sitting in my lap.
Price - excellent bang for your buck. If you're ballin' on a budget like me I would definitely recommend this laptop.

Cons: Number 1 drawback and the biggest and only real issue I had with this laptop - Windows 8. Enough said. I'm now running ubuntu and kali on the HD and run Windows 7 from an external on a VM. I'm much happier with this setup, it didn't take me long at all to run out of patience for Windows 8.
Only a couple features I wish it had.
I wish it had a backlit keyboard more than anything.
Also the speakers aren't fantastic. They are decent enough for my purposes and I'm completely satisfied with them but if you are planning on cranking some serious wattage I would look into some externals.
Battery life is so so. I get anywhere from 2 1/2 to 4 hours depending on the display settings

Other Thoughts: Great laptop overall. I bought this laptop for the purposes of school and video editing. Couldn't be happier with the purchase.

Pros: This laptop is hands down a must have! Most definitely can't beat these specs (that are on the high end side) at this price, and believe me I tried!

The bluetooth, HDMI, webcam & mic and the SD card reader are my favorite features.

This is far from a gaming laptop but I have also played a couple of different moderate graphic games on it, and it ran them very well!

Cons: The only down fall that I have found with this laptop is that it does not have a matte screen, so when the sun or a light hits the screen, it reflects. Not like a mirror, but it is annoying!

Other Thoughts: 1TB HDD is kind of small if you like to store all of you movies on your laptop. If this is the case, I recommend upgrading to a bigger hard drive!

Pros: Fast processor, good amount of memory, manageable size and not heavy or cumbersome

Cons: This is my first experience with Windows 8 so there is definitely a learning curve. Also the keyboard is different. There are a lot of symbols and it takes some getting used to.

Other Thoughts: I think this is a great buy for the price.