Pros: Its an absolute bargain to get a laptop at this price with so many features, The high resolution and large monitor is excellent for getting work done. My best example is while working on a website, the extra real-estate allows me to split the code and a site preview across the screen and has already saved me so much time in swapping back and forth between code and preview as I would have to do on my 1366x768 15" screen I had previously. I haven't even begun to appreciate its other potential yet, but I imagine a lot of my projects will start to take fractions of the amount of time. But resolution and screen size alone isn't enough, it would be worthless if it wasn't for the power behind it. Now this laptop is showing its age, but is still a very capable machine. The I5-540M still very much holds its own against many modern mobile cpus and is what I consider to be a great value in this price range. This laptop also features a fairly powerful dedicated graphics card. This card is a workstation card and does not particularly excel in gaming performance. But in the sub $500 laptop range, the vast majority use onboard graphics, which this card (In most cases as new architectures have been coming out) easily outperforms. This laptop also has dual hard drive support natively, without requiring any type of DVD tray caddy or extension. It also has built in RAID controllers which opens up a whole world of option for either backups and security or stripping for increased performance.

Cons: The CPU is actually a dual core with hyptherthreading, meaning 2 cores, 4 threads. The GPU is a workstation card, not a con if you're running something like AutoCAD, but if you're looking for a gaming machine, the graphics specs might be a little misleading, still good though. It only supports Sata II. I would have liked to have seen Sata III, but as this is an older laptop I should just stick to being surprised it has all the features it does (EX: USB 3.0) It's huge. Like Xbox original Duke controller huge. And because of it's power consumption, the power brick is MASSIVE. Easily the largest laptop power brick I've ever seen. Be prepared to drop a little extra money on a laptop bag with some decent sized pockets if you don't already have one. It likes to run hot. The cooling is actually really decent, and my load temps thus far have only been about 8-14C higher without the fans even going full tilt. However my idle likes to sit around 45-50C, and the laptop is totally okay with that, not wanting to kick up the fans. Im sure you could adjust it and I'll be trying to. I'd feel better around 35C if I could manage it, 50 is pretty hot to just be sitting in your lap doing nothing. The memory is only 1066mhz, I would have at least expected 1333mhz. You cant win them all.

Overall Review: All the cons are mostly just the laptop showing its age, but for being less than $500 its a lot of bang for your buck as I said. Im using it for both work and play, getting great usage out of it in work and decent use out of it with my games. I've used multiple $500+ laptops that didn't run as smooth or have as many features as this. Great buy.

Pros: Still faster than a hard drive, and fairly cheap. Will significantly improve boot times even at gimped speeds.

Cons: Advertised here as 540 MBps Read, 480 MBps Write. Actually 450 MBps read and a depressing 210 MBps write.

Overall Review: Within a 50-60 off and I can let it go, but with under half the write speed advertised, that's unacceptable. Speeds testing on an MSI Z97s Krait board, an MSI GE72 Apache-235 laptop, and an Asus Z97-PRO

Pros: It elevated the laptop a decent amount.

Cons: It says 10-17", and it's 17" sure, if you don't mine your laptop sticking out an inch on either side. This is a 15" laptop cooler and to suggest otherwise is misleading if not a blatant lie. Of the 5 fans it comes with 3 have bad bearings that make rattling/buzzing noises and one of them wont start spinning unless you blow on it really hard to get it going, or shove something extremely thin inside of it and manage to poke it at just the perfect angle to get it in motion. It has 3 modes, either all fans on, center fan only, or corner fans only. But if you have them all on the air movement is so pathetic it becomes absolutely useless. The only way I was able to get this to move enough air to actually make any useful difference was to take it apart and unhook the center fan, remove the one on the top right that doesn't spin without help and replace it with the one of the bottom ones and remove the louder of the two remaining bottom ones leaving me with 2 fans. The rubber on the top and bottom to keep the laptop and cooler from sliding do not light up or fit in to the grooves they are placed in, so expect them to be ribbed off from normal use after about a week. It has 2 USB port in the back and I have no idea why. It mostly runs on one but any attempt to plug a second on in will shoot sparks out. It doesn't matter which one, both sides work alone, and both sides will spark if there's already one plugged in. This thing is useless.

Overall Review: Don't buy this. I wasted my money, don't waste yours.

Pros: None

Cons: 2 of the wheels broke off within a few months of owning it, but I didn't think it mattered. Now after 6 months the main metal brace that the set bolts two is literally ripping itself apart. Cant even sit in it because if you lean in either direction is starts ripping more metal apart and I genuinely fear the hydraulic could break and shoot out at any moment. This chair is claimed rated for 330lbs. I was 240lbs and I have absolutely destroyed it with no more use than about 4-5 hours a night sitting in it.

Overall Review: Don't buy this. Will cost more money than will save.

Pros: This is a great card and a great price. I bought my original card about a year ago to replace my old HD 4830. The card easily runs everything I've thrown at it, (The usuals; BF3, Skyrim, ect.) I've never had a single issue with my original 6850, and my newest, second card installed without any problems. I had no trouble setting up Xfire and everything seems swell. I've also had 2 friends buy this card, one going on 6 months and the other 2 with no issues. That beeing said I feel like this is a great, cheap, reliable video card and well worth the asking price.

Cons: My second card did not come with a Cross fire cable. If I didn't already have one from my first 6850, wich was this same card and same listing, I'd be S.O.L. I'm not sure why they would stop including it when they did previously. I've seen a lot of people complain about the fans, I've never had a problem but I'd be weary of it. It's a 2 slot card but the fan's vent only gets half of one slot. I've never had mine overheat though, just an observation.

Overall Review: I'm eager to run some benchmarks. Never had Crossfire before so I'm fairly excited. I'm running now (2 of this card HIS Radeon HD6850) an Intel i5 760 quad 8 Gigs DDR3 1600 mhz Corsair memory Asus P7P55D-E pro Dual 550 watt ULTRA X-connect PSU 48948320994283403925759239 HDD. (Give or take)

First laptop was DOA. Sent it back and it sat in their building for a week, I had to keep calling for updates because they, despite saying they'd keep me informed, made not a single attempt to contact me once they had the laptop back. Replacement was absolutely caked in dust, cripplingly so, and one of the hard drives was dead In the replacement. Worn out power brick was dead within 24 hours of getting the laptop. Truth be told great laptop, but had I realized I was going to have to replace parts, clean it and rebuild it myself, I could have saved money and just bought a dead one since that's basically what I received. Twice. They offered a refund, but by the second laptop I'm burnt out on packaging, plus I already repaired the thing for them. I'm not sending it back.