Wootalyzer's Pricing Post! - The price of today's woot item is saved here for future reference
------------------------------------------------------------
Asus 14" Core i7 Laptop
$599.99 + $5 Standard Shipping
Condition: Refurbished

*DISCLAIMER* Wootalyzer! is in no way affiliated with Woot!, and this post may not always be here!

8GB DDR3 (expandable to 8GB) huh?

I thought of the food max theme.. I haven't been there in over 10 years.
Take it to the max!

I knew someone would respond to someone commenting on that, I just didn't expect it to be the 2nd post.

So...is this a good buy?

Anyone own this thing? How is the graphics performance? Battery life?

Seems like a lot of computer for the money...

$749 New at best buy reviews 3.9/5.0

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus---14%26%2334%3B-Laptop---8GB-Memory---750GB-Hard-Drive---Aluminum-Gray-Hairline/5587561.p?id=1218667451379&skuId=5587561

farley999 wrote:$749 New at best buy reviews 3.9/5.0

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus---14%26%2334%3B-Laptop---8GB-Memory---750GB-Hard-Drive---Aluminum-Gray-Hairline/5587561.p?id=1218667451379&skuId=5587561

You beat me to posting that link!

Reading through the reviews it looks like people are happy with performance and battery life. The only thing that pulls down the stars is people complaining about the keyboard and touchpad.

It looks like any touchpad issues can be fixed with an update according to several of the reviewers.

This looks like a beast of a machine packed into a 14 inch, nice looking body. I am sorely tempted!

It has always kinda puzzled me, why do they have some USB 2.0 and some USB 3.0? Why don't they just make them all 3.0 if 3.0 is backward compatible with 2.0?

sullydog101 wrote:You beat me to posting that link!

Reading through the reviews it looks like people are happy with performance and battery life. The only thing that pulls down the stars is people complaining about the keyboard and touchpad.

It looks like any touchpad issues can be fixed with an update according to several of the reviewers.

This looks like a beast of a machine packed into a 14 inch, nice looking body. I am sorely tempted!

From Fryes:
The ASUS U47A-BGR4 is plenty fast. Screen quality is great and it was easy to set up. Price of $799.99 from Best Buy. It has a 2nd Gen Intel Core i7-2640M processor, 8GB DDR3 memory, 750GB 5400rpm hard drive, Intel HD Graphics 3000, Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit OS seems much more stable than Vista. The ASUS U47A-BGR4 other has a 14-inch LED-backlit HD open-cell display (1366 x 768), 2 USB 3.0 ports, 1 USB 2.0 port, VGA, HDMI, Built-in 0.3MP webcam, 3-in-1 media reader, Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive, 802.11b/g/n WLAN, Bluetooth, measures just 1.2" thin and weight 4.4 lbs. For the money ASUS U47A-BGR4 is the best value in a laptop anywhere. You can’t go wrong with this one. ASUS Laptop Computer

I can say that after numerous failed Dell laptops, I am nothing but pleased with my ASUS. This is a great laptop for $500, but if you have the money I would head over to tigerdirect or newegg and check out what they have (I purchased myine from one of those sites). I say this beacuse for very little more cash, you can get features like dedicated nvidia graphics and a multi-touch touchpad. My ASUS laptop also came with a 3 year warranty, 1 year of accidental warranty (including spills), and a 60 day guarantee on the screen.

So... for ~ $150 extra dollars you get 275 more days worth of warranty.
Or roughly nine more months of warranty.
For the math challenged
Refurbished = 90 day warranty
New = 1 year warranty (365 days)
So 365-90 days= 275

Choices, choices, choices...

outer78 wrote:It has always kinda puzzled me, why do they have some USB 2.0 and some USB 3.0? Why don't they just make them all 3.0 if 3.0 is backward compatible with 2.0?

Its more expensive.
Also:
Gosh dangit woot, every time you list a good computer deal that I would bite on, I always check the screen resolution and its always 720p. While some consider that decent resolution, any laptop screen (in my opinion) over 13inches needs to have at least 1440x900 or better (I prefer better, but beggars can't be too picky).

Sent from my non iphone 5.

time to use my 30% squaretrade warranty

So, is it just me or does this show a dual core in the title but it is a quad core??? Since when was an i7 ever a dual core??? Anyways, not bad for 600... I would wait for black friday when all of these will be 400$

Nevermind, guess there was a dual core i7 at some point...

I've got the I5 version of this and I've been pretty pleased with it. I agree on the touchpad being sensitive but this can be adjusted.

Another thing that some may find issue with is that the speakers aren't terribly loud so it is not ideal for, say, watching a movie with friends on the laptop. That said, it has pretty good performance overall and I very much like the battery life.

The battery has a full rubber strip on the bottom which I really appreciate because it keeps the laptop from slipping when I have it on a smooth, tilted surface.


Also, the chasis is shiiiny. :D

Nice. Wish you could opt to cut the price for a smaller HD so you could pull it and slap in an ssd. Tempting...

Literally just got this at bestbuy 1.5 months ago, kind of kicking myself now because of the $150 price difference. In all honesty I've been totally satisfied with my purchase. I use my machine for everything from word processing, online classroom access, web browsing, and email to Remote Desktop access, adobe master suite cs6, streaming video, & light gaming (terarria & AOE). I've never had any issues with performance. It does get a little warm when multitasking several programs at once but a cheap cooling pad negates that issue. Echoing what others have mentioned the touchpad and keyboard are not the best. My advice, get a wireless mouse and if you're a fast typist be sure to proofread and check for missed keystrokes. This is by no means a "gaming" laptop but from my experience can handle most games (eg; Starcraft) on low graphics. I've even begun to use mine as my primary work computer by installing our point-of-sales system on it and running my reports and paperwork from this machine. It's light, thin, and an overall great value. If you go in to the purchase aware of (and ok with) the issues concerning the touchpad and keyboard I can't see any reason you would be disappointed.

In for one! Can anybody direct me to the best/cheapest place to purchase a WiDi tv adapter?

Beware!

I got the Asus refurb Woot from last week: http://www.woot.com/offers/asus-15-6-dual-core-laptop yesterday and the keyboard doesn't work.
I tried using the on-screen keyboard workaround to log in, update Windows drivers, et al, and got the keyboard to barely work for a short time (for maybe an hour or two), but then a few hours later upon reboot, and multiple tries since then, not at all.
I'll have to call in for return authorization tomorrow.

Beware of Asus refurbs!!!

It might not be a bad system, but I'd consider $600 a bit much for a refurbished 14" notebook with integrated Intel graphics. It would make for a more well-rounded system if they gave it dedicated graphics hardware from AMD or Nvidia, even if it meant trading in a slightly lower-end processor and less RAM. Such systems can be found new at Newegg for not all that much more than this. I suppose if one doesn't need much 3D performance it might not be bad, though even some general-purpose applications are beginning to implement processing on the GPU.

I had one of the other U47A models and it had a backlit keyboard, does yours/this one have one as well?

rswearingin0320 wrote:Literally just got this at bestbuy 1.5 months ago, kind of kicking myself now because of the $150 price difference. In all honesty I've been totally satisfied with my purchase. I use my machine for everything from word processing, online classroom access, web browsing, and email to Remote Desktop access, adobe master suite cs6, streaming video, & light gaming (terarria & AOE). I've never had any issues with performance. It does get a little warm when multitasking several programs at once but a cheap cooling pad negates that issue. Echoing what others have mentioned the touchpad and keyboard are not the best. My advice, get a wireless mouse and if you're a fast typist be sure to proofread and check for missed keystrokes. This is by no means a "gaming" laptop but from my experience can handle most games (eg; Starcraft) on low graphics. I've even begun to use mine as my primary work computer by installing our point-of-sales system on it and running my reports and paperwork from this machine. It's light, thin, and an overall great value. If you go in to the purchase aware of (and ok with) the issues concerning the touchpad and keyboard I can't see any reason you would be disappointed.

Davidm122 wrote:It might not be a bad system, but I'd consider $600 a bit much for a refurbished 14" notebook with integrated Intel graphics. It would make for a more well-rounded system if they gave it dedicated graphics hardware from AMD or Nvidia, even if it meant trading in a slightly lower-end processor and less RAM. Such systems can be found new at Newegg for not all that much more than this. I suppose if one doesn't need much 3D performance it might not be bad, though even some general-purpose applications are beginning to implement processing on the GPU.

My sentiments exactly. I bought my daughter an Asus a few months ago for just a little bit more new, and with dedicated graphics.

That being said, Asus has proven to be a good quality purchase, and a wonderful product for me! We have two currently in our tech household and both have been great.

outer78 wrote:It has always kinda puzzled me, why do they have some USB 2.0 and some USB 3.0? Why don't they just make them all 3.0 if 3.0 is backward compatible with 2.0?

I suspect the USB 3.0 hardware is currently more expensive, and each controller likely only supports a limited number of ports. Most people probably won't be using more than one or two USB 3.0 ports at a time in the near future anyway. Something like a mouse or keyboard only requires USB 1.1 speeds, and almost all other current devices still use 2.0 or lower. Mostly just some new external storage devices and a handful of video devices make use of USB 3.0 at this time.

Does anyone know if it is possible to swap out the DVD drive for a blu-ray player (or burner)? I see a lot of them available for other ASUS models on ebay.

I realize it won't be full HD on the built-in display...

Thanks!

All the specs looks really good. Note the one weak spec here is screen resolution. To put things in perspective, my 4-year old Mac has a higher screen resolution than this laptop. Also the new Nook HD 7" tablet has a higher screen resolution than this laptop. If you're using this as a desktop replacement with a monitor, than this is not an issue though.

mikeypeavy wrote:While some consider that decent resolution, any laptop screen (in my opinion) over 13inches needs to have at least 1440x900 or better (I prefer better, but beggars can't be too picky.

Yeah, I am on a 15.6" ProBook 4530s with i7-2670QM quad-core processor, 8 GB memory, a lower-mid level amd radeon hd 7470m, an axiom signature III ssd which seems pretty fast but the 1366x768 resolution is something that could be better.

Would this be good for HD video editing? That's what its main function would be.

Does anyone know if it has a backlit keyboard?

colebeck wrote:This is a great laptop for $500,

Yes it is, but at the $600 price it is being sold for it is just OK.

I have to say I have been in the market for a 13.3" or 14" laptop and this is very tempting, BUT with this kind of power why wouldn't they put in a better screen?

As for putting an SSD in, just pull out the optical drive and put a SSD in there. This is a bit thick and heavy to fall into the ultra book category, but remove the optical drive and it would shave some weight, put the SSD in, even just a small one for the OS and you'd have a thick Ultrabook. powerhouse.

Great computer but the right SHIFT key is way too small. I have 1 desktop and 3 DEll notebook PCs and they all have a large SHIFT key so when I use this one I constantly hit the UP key instead and it screws the line above everytime.

JONTIMKO wrote:Would this be good for HD video editing? That's what its main function would be.

8GB RAM might be a little taxed for heavy video editing, but if you weren't doing anything else, I would guess you should be fine. The 750GB HDD and USB 3 should be adequate for loading the media and storage of it. The CPU should be more than capable of handling the viedo editing.

Can anyone comment on if the screen is matte or shiney? I have a Dell Studio now and hate the shiney, hyperglare producing screen

Misspelled "WiFi"in the Specs listing. Unless there's a new technology called "WiDi"

[edit] My bad, I googled and there is. Apologies, Woot.

HTC has currently started production on 1080 5" smartphone screens. How has 1080 not become a standard on laptops 10 inches or greater?

mrmessma wrote:HTC has currently started production on 1080 5" smartphone screens. How has 1080 not become a standard on laptops 10 inches or greater?

Because it's more expensive and most people don't even know what resolution is. They just see a screen. Unless they sit it next to a retina MBP they'd be hard pressed to notice a difference until educated about it.

It sucks, but there are a few options for those with some extra cash and a desire for full HD on smaller screens. The newest ASUS ultrabook has 1080p at 13" I believe.

dirkcga wrote:Does anyone know if it has a backlit keyboard?

yes, keyboard is backlit.

csuffa wrote:Can anyone comment on if the screen is matte or shiney? I have a Dell Studio now and hate the shiney, hyperglare producing screen

the screen is matte, not glossy.