ASUS VivoBook S500CA-US71T Intel Core i7 4GB Memory 500GB HDD+24GB SSD 15.6" Touchscreen Ultrabook Windows 8 64-bit

Pros: Touchscreen works great Fast boot up Battery Life is good, it says 5 hours which is what you'll get. Understanding that, I always keep my power cord close by but I'm not afraid to go without it for awhile.

Cons: Not really any cons as of right now. I figured the lack of DVD drive would be one of them but it hasn't hindered me because most everything can be done using a USB stick these days.

Overall Review: I really needed something that worked for my graduate classes and in the business world. This product has delivered.

Pros: This is a fast machine. Has an i7, 24G SSD is nice, and touchscreen works well. Supports up to 8G RAM. Battery life is great. These speakers are much better than my previous ASUS laptop

Cons: The keyboard has a few keys that are difficult to push ("S" and "C" give me the most troubles). Not major problem, and I will have ASUS fix it if it gets worse.

Overall Review: - To remove the bottom, you'll need to remove 9 screws and carefully apply some force pull it off (easy to snap back on). - 24GB SSD and 4GB RAM seem to be integrated on the mobo - Has a single empty RAM slot (I believe a max 8GB for this mobo, up to 4GB in this slot) - Ubuntu 13.10 works great. The 24GB ssd holds my root partition, then I have /home on the 500GB. - Due to EFI boot issues, I could not get Linux Mint 15 to work well on this machine. I created EFI boot partiton and it would only boot with Ubuntu boot-repair, which then broke most drivers. However, I expect Linux Mint 16 to work (since it's based on Ubuntu 13.10). - HDD is a slim drive! If you replace it with an SSD, be sure to get a drive that is 7mm tall or it will not fit. - I'm going to replace the HDD with an SSD, and replace the wifi adapter with something nicer (with 5GHz support).

Pros: Very quick, quiet and long battery life. Touch screen makes windows 8.1 worth having.

Cons: I do get some lag on the wireless but I am not sure whether it is the ISP or the wireless network card that is causing it.

Pros: Good hardware spec for the price I paid on promo. Works well with Windows 8.0.

Cons: Issue with Bluetooth Device/Driver not working and lost .zip file association and extract capability in file explorer after updating to Windows 8.1.

Pros: Price, processor, quality, good battery life, good keyboard feel.

Cons: None.

Overall Review: For the sale price this is hard to beat. At first I was worried about the 4 gig of ram, and I was going to immediately upgrade to 8 gig. After using the machine for a week it is a very snappy machine that does more then it needs to for my purposes. I am going to postpone any memory upgrade for now till I see if it is really needed. I use it in my business daily and overall its a great machine. I upgraded to windows 8.1 first thing and I really like it. It took a couple of days to get use to it but overall it is a nice operating system. I can recommend this machine to anyone that has typical computer needs. It will do more than most people will ever need.

Pros: Sleek, light, and fast

Cons: >Touchpad broke >Keyboard broke > Finally, Hard Drive failed. I wanted a lightweight, portable laptop for school. Ended up with a laptop attached to a keyboard, mouse, and using a separate hard drive.

Overall Review: Needs more quality control, I've only had this for 2 months.

Pros: Looks sharp, performed fine for the first couple weeks

Cons: Device has horizontal graphic bars (both in windows / bois). Multiple system repairs/diagnostic attempts later issue still happening. Currently won't post.

Overall Review: I purchased this device for my father as a 70th birthday, wanting him to have something nice when visiting family on the road. He used it in earnest late November and started encountering issues. Initially I thought it was just a matter of getting him used to windows 8.1, but upon using the device, realized it is seriously broken. I have attempted on multiple times to repair the issue by running the prompted diagnostics/etc., all to no avail. Device locks up, reboots at will, displays video corruption on the screen in no particular order. A shame since I've used the ASUS p35 Deluxe MB since 2008 and that product has been great.

Pros: SSD/HDD hi-brid: 4 Fast boot and app access although not at par with what's advertised. More like 7-10 sec boot time and about 4 from sleep. Not a complain by any means, just callng out the advertisement. Happy the way it is Track Pad: 4 Very responsive. Sometimes too senstive. Gestures work well. Maybe a personal preference but, would prefer pad to be a bit further to the right to be ergonamically correct for me Form factor: 4 Aluminum casing is a nice touch. Light, slim and sexy although the lid is quite a finger print magnet Processor: 5 Very snappy. Never lags and handles everything I use the laptop for with ease

Cons: Keyboard: 2 Maybe even a 2. Layout is not very comfortable. Dont see myself typing a complete report or project on this. Keys are a bit too close to each other and tactile feedback is mediocre. Number keypad for me is useless. Still hitting the wrong key after a month of use. Pretty solid indication that the KB layout could be improved. Would love to have been able to select Function priority defaults for the Fn keys such as a one key press for volume rather than pressing Fn + F5 or F6 as an example Display: 3 15.6 is perfect for me but LCD could be better. Lower quality than I was expecting. Display qaulity too washed out for my taste. Had to adjust color, contrast, bightness etc to get it to an uncceptable level. Dont have anything to compare but touch screen seems to be very responsive and precise Windows 8.1: 3 Cant fully appreciate the Touch feature. Would rather use track pad and/or external mouse to navigate. Also tablet operation on a laptop isnt very intuitive. Still prefer the traditional Windows we all grew up with Memory: 3 Upgraded to 8GB right off the bat Wi-fi: 3 Standard. No performance gain compared to a 4 yr old laptop it replaced Battery life: 3 4-5 hours on 40% brightness with normal computing and entertainment. Charging time from depleated state to full is about +2 hours

Overall Review: Purposely waited a while to post a review to give it a fair assessment of the product. Have had the ultrabook for over 2 months with regular daily usage. Above are my rating (1-5) for each relevant componenet and thoughts. Note: 1-3 rating in Cons and 4-5 rating as Pros I've had a couple of instances when both virtual and physical keyboards wasnt responsive after waking up from sleep. Had to restart for it to work again. Havent been able to replicate it and not really sure what caused it. Descent Core I7 laptop for the price