Pros: Very solid design, this thing is built like a rock. The little pouch inside is great for holding a small cable for charging, and the port on the back is quite useful as well to protect your shield while it charges. The case is molded to perfectly fit the shield, it fits like a glove.

Cons: The zipper feels a little cheap, though given the rest of the build quality and the price I think it's okay. The case is also a bit bulky but that is to be expected.

Overall Review: If you want to charge the shield while it is inside the case, I'd recommend pulling the cable through the hole, plugging it into the shield, then putting the shield into the case and closing it, otherwise you could damage your micro-USB port.

Pros: Metal construction helps to dissipate heat and feels more solid and durable. Mounts fine in both Linux and Windows, you can even boot to it easily. Pretty fast for USB 2.0 (though I didn't run any benchmarks) Very small form factor

Cons: The little sleeve it came with is quite cheap feeling and I doubt it protects it very well, though it does help out a bit I'm sure. Special USB cable required (though it wouldn't be hard to create something similar, and any alternatives would have probably been worse, so not deducting an egg)

Overall Review: The USB cable it comes with uses either one or two usb ports on your computer/laptop, as it may require more than 500mA of power (the max in the USB spec.). This isn't a problem with the enclosure, but more with the power consumption of mechanical hard drives. If your computer can't power it enough you can always use a wall adapter like the kind used to charge phones.

Pros: - Able to run Crysis on very high with playable fps - Huge LED backlit screen - 3-core Processor - Num-pad on keyboard - Video card supports HDMI out and DX11(which looks amazing) - 4GB of RAM!!! - 500 GB HDD!!! - INSANELY cheap, this is really worth every penny and then some. I bought this before the price dropped to $719(I paid $749 at the time), and I still don't mind paying that price

Cons: -somewhat low battery life(but what do you expect with a 17.3" screen - can run really hot at times(mostly just when gaming) - construction feels a little cheaper than I would like - Hard drive is a little slow, but its a large size and I'll probably replace it soon anyway

Overall Review: I haven't tried installing Linux yet, but once I do I'll update this with any problems I have, though I don't expect any. If you buy it you might want to also think about buying a faster hard drive, as the one in there is a little slow. I'm also thinking of upgrading to 8GB of RAM, though that isn't necessary right now. For the price, this is the BEST laptop out there, laptops with similar specs will often cost hundreds of dollars more, even a similar desktop with a decent monitor will cost far more than this. I'm tempted to buy another just to keep in case my first one breaks.