Avatar AVIU-145A2 14" Ultrabook Silver

Pros: Everything was exactly what I wanted. I loved it. It ran smooth, and let me do all the things I wanted too. It is a great buy for the actual specs.

Cons: The 500 gb hard drive failed about 3 1/2 months in. I tried to RMA it but Avatar's customer support was nonexistent. I emailed them twice and called more than once. I never got a response.

Other Thoughts: Keep in mind that if you buy this you are taking a chance. Yes it is an amazing deal but if you are unlucky and your hard drive dies on you, you will likely be stuck with it. I wiped mine totally and installed arch linux on the minuscule SSD and just took it as a lesson. Also the touch pad is made by Elantech, and lacks linux drivers.

Pros: Great computer for the money. got it at $550 and a few days later went up by a lot. Great keyboard too and overall very happy for the stuff i need to do. really looks like macbook air

runs very fast

Cons: - did some windows 8 updates and now the computer won't shutdown or sleep. when it does it won't wake up and i need to do a hard boot again

-operating system installed on hardrive instead of ssd for some reason

- computer came with one pixel that is "burnt" it's not exactly burnt but it is green.

Other Thoughts: Does anyone have a link to all the drivers to this and how I can install windows on the ssd drive?

Pros: I don't normally write reviews but because this was an unknown brand to me and I was hesitant to buy because of that I felt I should. This was an excellent purchase. The build quality is very good and I haven't ran into a problem yet. I am currently running Arch Linux on it with no issue (There was a minor issue when trying to install Arch Linux due to the track pad not detecting correctly. Easily solved by unloading the psmouse module).

Cons: Haven't found any so far. I will update my review if the machine begins to have problems.

Other Thoughts: At the time of my buying this Ultrabook it was by far the best value I could find. It has been awesome so don't let the unknown brand scare you off.

Pros: The overall quality of this laptop is excellent! Plenty of power, ram and HDD space. "Downgrade" to W7 and install on the ssd. Format the hdd and install all of the drivers. Very impressed with this thing so far I see another being purchased in the future!

Cons: Touch pad is somewhat fickle but nothing a bit of getting use to can't fix.

Other Thoughts: Get one before apple discovers this little gem and sues avatar for having similar corners or something ludicrous like they usually do.

Pros: -Lightweight
-Easy to Use
-Long Battery Life
-Keyboard has a good feel to it, though it's plastic keys
-Mousepad is good and easy to use.

Cons: - Mini HDMI port, forcing me to buy another wire
- Initial OS Setup is terrible. 32SSD is big enough for the entire OS
- only 2 USB ports, 1 more would have been nice
- High pitched whine can be heard... it's annoying when quiet.
- A bit of PC lag when opening up programs or H/D spinning up.

Other Thoughts: There are minor annoyances and I do think for the price range, there are many different laptops that you can get such as the Sony Vaios, Asus or what not.

I HATE the OS setup, I'm fine with Windows 8 but having the SSD to store cached information is silly... It would have been better to just have the O/S installed on the 32GB SSD as it is more than enough space.
Since I did the reinstall I had to use my own purchased copy of Windows 8 because I don't have a reinstall version of the Single Language Windows 8 it came with...so now I have a pretty defunct windows 8 key as I can't find a downloadable version of that install.

As another user provided some info, I just reinstalled Windows 8 on the SSD. Boots up in 15 and wakes up in 3s.

I don't game with it so I can't help with how that is....
PC is ok in terms of speed, not the fastest as I do experience lag when opening up Itunes or doing something...everything does freeze for a few seconds while it catches up... disappointing in today's world.

I'm NOT processing any video.. just opening Itunes, chrome with a few windows open.

All in All, it's a decent laptop for the price, OS setup made me take away eggs and there are many other comparable laptops out there. Nothing really special except it really resembles a Mac Air but 1.5lbs heavier.

Pros: Update to my original review..

Cons: N/A

Other Thoughts: I purchased a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD.. While opening this machine up, I noticed that there is only ONE memory slot. So if you are an upgrade junkie and have hopes of upping to 16GB.. not gonna happen with this machine.

Also, this machine does not have a hybrid drive.. It is a 500GB regular disk drive, and there is a separate stick of 32GB of SSD.

Pros: The greatest pro was the price. For what you pay you get a lot. the size, form factor, battery life are really good. I am using it every day and do like it. Unfortunately i called support due to what i thought was hardware. the service with them was very prompt and knowladgeable

Cons: Charging cord is 1.5 mm pretty small and i am worried that i will break it. I do have varying issues with bluetooth. at times it does not work. Out of the box the intel ready boost SSD cache was not set up and sleep mode with Rapid start just didn't work. Once i enabled the cache and disabled the Rapid start the system was faster and more reliable.

Other Thoughts: Overall it is a great laptop with a lot of great features. Unfortunately not all the bugs are ironed out. I would recommend this laptops to someone with some knowledge of systems.

Pros: HUGE bang for the buck.. 3rd gen i5, 8gb DDR3, hybrid drive... any well known brand ultrabook with these specs would be double the price, easily.
Close to 5hr battery life
Quality build, solid aluminum frame, nice keyboard, great screen quality

Cons: The touchpad isn't the greatest.. It does some weird things in Windows 8 when brushed the wrong way. It's not very responsive at times as well.

That's really about the only con I have for this to be honest. The unknown brand has me a little uneasy regarding warranty claims and if something ever goes wrong with this machine after it's out of warranty, if it will even be possible to buy replacement parts for this unit. (keyboard keys, battery, ect...)

Other Thoughts: When I bought this machine, it was on sale here for $550.. I bought it without even thinking twice because of the price for the specs of this machine.

The next day, the price went up to $760, and a day later, it went down to $660.

Like I said, this machine is awesome.. It's fast, sleek looking, and a great value. That being said, I would have purchased a known name brand machine for the price it is being sold here now for (close to $700). If you are thinking about buying this ultrabook, wait it out, the price will come back down most likely.

This machine is a blatant Macbook Air rip off.. This can be a pro or con depending on how you feel about that. Either way, it's a great machine and I'm happy with my purchase.

Pros: *Seems like a solid machine in feel and functionality.
*SSD is fast, good hdwe specs

Cons: *Purchased one open box, battery was defective. Charged, but would not run on battery.
*Avatar is a rather small unknown distributor in CA. Called the first day for an RMA, got V-mail. Next day called and got a live person, but RMA never arrived in my e-mail. In the end, returned it N.E.
*Camera is sub par and grainy

Other Thoughts: Prices are jumping around on this product. Wait for a sale before purchasing.

Pros: 8 gig ram?!? I5? The vid card isint bad either, 1gig ram and when overclocked runs decent.

Cons: Track pad leaves a little to be desired. Also kinda silly but if you're going to emulate mac the one thing id copy is the magnetic power plug. Just saying.

Other Thoughts: The activation code for windows is on the bottom of the laptop....