Pros: Sleek form factor, light weight

Great gaming performance for the price. Plays all games in at least medium detail settings, very fluid in low details.

Keyboard is excellent, misses no keystrokes and is easy to use

Speakers are very good, clean crisp mids, decent volume, misses out on the lows and the highs. Added Dolby effects are pleasing.

Great battery life. About 4 hours of internet/work use, 2 hours of gaming with just the APU, 45 mins of gaming with the added graphics card.

Easy access to memory, hard drive and wifi upgrade.

Stays cool enough for your lap during internet/work use, gaming with just the APU.

The display tilts back very far and the hinges are nice and strong.

Cons: The display betrays its competitiveness in the thin and light segment with narrow viewing angles and low res.

Touchpad is a pain. The buttons are integrated into the pad, so button clicks have to be precise or you'll move the cursor while you click.

Only three USB ports.

Gets uncomfortably warm for the lap when gaming with the dedicated GPU.

5400 RPM hard drive is sluggish blah blah blah

Bloatware blah blah blah

No optical drive, who cares.

Other Thoughts: Students get a thumbs up. Long battery life and light weight with a terrific keyboard is all you need for at least three hour-long classes away from the plug. The price makes is a no-brainer.

Casual Gamers can rest assured they'll get their money's worth if this notebook is all you can afford. You'll need to shell out at least $150 more to get a noticeable bump in performance. Or you could get this notebook and upgrade it with an SSD.

Competitive Gamers should look the other way, unless you want an accompanying mobile solution to your desktop, but only for "funsies."

Desktop Replacement seekers won't find enough power out of the AMD A8 APU for power browsing or productivity software like video editing or 3D modeling. Also, a lack of ports and low-res screen should be the final nails in the coffin.

The Average Home User will love this notebook. It's lightweight, stays cool when browsing or using office software, and looks great. It's also cheap and can play the family's favorite games.