Pros: There are a bevy of 14 inch Haswell-based laptops w/ dedicated gpus similar to the GE40 coming out soon. I'd normally recommend waiting until reviews for those competing models have come out. Having now used this laptop for a few days has convinced me that the GE40 it is the best option. As far as specs are concerned, there is no obvious bottleneck or weak link. The lower-voltage i7 4702mq despite being clocked slightly slower than the i7 4700mq is still plenty fast enough for heavy productivity and is perfectly matched with nvidia's 760m for gaming. The new geforce 760m has double the shader units compared with the previous generation's 660m and the performance increase is substantial. 3dmark11 score is ~P4100-4200. I’ve not run any benchmarks on the 128gb ssd, but the boot times are fast and applications open quickly. Build quality is acceptable. Aside from the lid and hand rests which appear to be brushed aluminum , heavy use of plastic is obvious but not without good reason. This laptop is incredibly light and convenient to handle. @ 4.4lb, it’s significantly lighter than any of the competing 14-inch ‘gaming’ laptops (ex. Alienware’s m14x @ 6.5 lb) DESPITE also having a 90 Whr battery. Both the upcoming Razer blade and Gigabyte’s P34G also weigh ~4.5 lbs, but at severe expense of battery capacity (70 whr and 47 whr respectively). Which brings me onto my next point… The battery life on this laptop whist on integrated graphics is simply remarkable. I can hit 8 hours web-browsing on 50% brightness and almost 10 hours @ 15% brightness. People are impressed with the 12 hour battery life in the new Macbook Air, but that’s with a smaller screen, no dedicated graphics option, and a much weaker dual-core cpu. The idea that a legitimate ‘gaming laptop’ weighs only a 1.4lbs more than the Macbook air and achieves 75% of the its battery life is ridiculous. For a gaming and productivity workhorse, the GE40 is surprisingly portable and persistent.

Cons: The screen is a typical TN panel and so the viewing angles and color reproduction are measurably worse than those which are IPS. I’m personally a fan of the 900p resolution, but some people would rather it have been 1080p. The speakers are weak and limited despite the inclusion of the gimmicky Soundblaster utility software. Also, there is virtually no customization to be had in the BIOS – no way to adjust voltages or fan settings.

Overall Review: Regarding matters of price, the current price for the GE40 is extremely competitive when it comes to specs and features. I think this even bests the $1150 Lenovo y510p deal on this site a few days ago (which didn’t include a real SSD). If one’s in the market for a portable and persistent productivity/gaming laptop