ASUS Laptop VivoBook V551LB-DB71T Intel Core i7 4500U (1.80 GHz) 8 GB Memory 1 TB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GT 740M 15.6" Touchscreen Windows 8 64-Bit [Discontinued By Manufacturer]

Now this is my first windows 8.1 computer, and my first Asus as well. Yes, it is made of aluminum-like plastic. But I can hardly consider that a complaint. For a computer its size, its pretty light, and feels sturdy enough. This laptop is fast, holds charge pretty well, and is visually appealing. Read the specs, it packs a wallop of features. I use it for business purposes, and recreation while traveling.I rarely use the built in speakers, but no one should expect good bass (which is the common problem) from speakers this size. I have a Creative D100 to use as portable speakers.The one real complaint I can summon is that doesn't have the best screen resolution. Its not bad either, but I'm used to better. That could be a problem if you are into photography editing. It also should have been antiglare, but then again I think that wouldn't feel nice on a touchscreen.Oh, and I could do without the Asus bloatware though. None of it is useful to me.I was going to give it 4/5 because of that, but the DVD drive is a very rare feature in computers this size.I needed a portable computer with an SD card, slot, camera, bluetooth, and DVD Drive. This baby has all I asked for. Nice looks. Light. feature packed and out performs most. I definitely love this laptop.

I've had this computer for almost 4 month. It would be a really good computer, but Windows 8 makes it impossible to work with. Every app that comes installed works around a single Microsoft password, and if you have an account with other mail like gmail, it would be a hugh pain. I had to stop working with skype, because it used my messenger account and not the one that I actually use. So had to uninstalled it and install other version.For some reason the touchpad is incompatible with Win8 too, so the cursor disappears and I have to restart the notebook to make it appear again.The computer feels solid, it is not light, but for the size it is not a notebook to be carrying around.Touchscreen works fine but it is not really necessary. My baby girl enjoys it because then she has access to the computer too.UPDATED 12/29/2014I am so sorry I bought this computer, this was my first and last Asus. I have tried so many tricks to fix the touchpad without success. I had to buy a mouse and carry it around. I feel so cheated.The sound card is awful, maximum volume is really low. I had a Lenovo that cost half of what I paid for this computer with a great audio system. If I ever try to watch a movie using the HDMI connection to my TV, I only get image, no sound. I switched to a Dell and had no trouble with the cable and could watch the movie.And performance is horrible. Every time I am working on a word document it freezes and I have to wait until it recovers. What kind of computer freezes with Word???DO NOT BUY this computer, you will save a lot of trouble.

So far, a very fast and nice laptop.I have one major, huge complaint though: the display is TERRIBLE. And I mean terrible. Its very dull and the colors are just straight up ugly. I'm seriously considering buying a monitor to use this laptop. Taking this laptop outside is literally the worst. The maximum brightness is ridiculously low. I guess I can't use this thing outdoors? My old 2010 Macbook Pro had 10x more crisper display than this. Even my old iPhone 4s was more pleasant to look at.EDIT: The Wi-Fi on this laptop is terrible! I keep making comparisons to my old 2010 Macbook but seriously, the Macbook has more reliable, stable and faster connection to my wifi than this Asus.

*****A note: After several months with this laptop, I am happy with it, and the current price ($845) is just a bit higher than acceptable, but is perfect if bought used. HOWEVER! There is a new version of this laptop with a better graphics card and MUCH better CPU: the N550JK-DS71T for $1100 ($1000 used.) It has a touchscreen, but STILL NO BACKLIGHT! When will they learn?? Anyway, for that same price, the Levono 59425944 laptop has the same $1100 price tag, with the same specs (sans touch screen,) BUT with a solid state cache, and most importantly, a BACKLIT KEYBOARD!! The speed of an SSD, and the usefulness of a backlit keyboard are two vital things that I've been missing from my old hulk of a gaming laptop. In my honest opinion, the Levono is the best deal of the three right now, with this laptop being good as a "budget" priced PC. I've found that, over the months of owning this laptop, the touchscreen has been useful (I love the picture passwords,) but not critical to the function of the computer itself. I take back what I say below about the touchscreen being essential to the "Windows 8 experience." The original review and updates are as follows:********This is more or less a first impressions review. I've put it through its paces, and I feel I can accurately review its performance. The review may change if the laptop falls to pieces over the next few months. ***EDIT AT THE BOTTOM, NEW INFO***I'm perfectly happy with this laptop, and if the price I had paid for it ($750 used including a gift card) been the standard price, or $50 more, I would give it 5 stars. Unfortunately, for close to $1000 new, it is lacking a lot of features for a laptop of its price. Its hard drive is slow (which i'll fix with a hybrid drive,) the keyboard is not backlit (which should be a standard feature in my opinion,) and the wireless card is not dual-band (and I KNOW you can get those cheap. I bought an intel card WITH bluetooth AND dual band wifi for $25 for a friend, here on amazon.)But on the other hand, the performance and touchscreen almost make up for it. It games great (for reference: plays Bioshock Infinite on medium or high depending on if your want 60 FPS or not,) and is otherwise speedy at everyday tasks.A note for the gamers: I had trouble playing games initially (games defaulting to VERY low settings,) and I found out that the computer also has integrated Intel graphics in the CPU as well as the Nvidia GPU. The Nvidia control panel defaults to the intel graphics (good for most things that aren't video games,) and is supposed to switch automatically to the Nvidia chip when it needs it, but it never does. You have to open the control panel, go to 3D settings, and either set up a rule for every game/program you have, or do what I did, and set the default to the "High performance NVIDIA Processor." This will probably take a toll on your battery life, but so far, my battery still lasts at least 4 hours when I'm not playing games. I also recommend going to the Nvidia website and installing the GeForce Experience program immediately. It does a good job of changing settings for games to get the most out of them, and in my case, fixed the driver updater, which was broken on my computer.Along with that, I find the touchscreen functions vital to the Windows 8 experience. being able to swipe the edge of the screen to swap between active apps/windows is very useful, along with the multi-touch functions of the touchpad (mainly the 3-finger swipe down to minimize all windows.)So all in all, this laptop is AMAZING for the price I bought it, but they are using the touchscreen as a marketing gimmick to jack up the price. If you want this laptop but you don't feel like wasting your money, BUY IT USED from one of the Amazon Warehouse resellers. I bought a "used-very good" one, and it arrived in all but brand new condition. I bought one that had "all original accessories" and came in the original box, but the accessories were a user manual and a hand-sized microfiber cloth, so you could probably get away with one of the repackaged ones with just the AC adapter, which would bring the price below $800.Oh, and ONE LAST THING: This thing puts out an incredibly small amount of heat! My last laptop was a gaming one from about 4 years ago, and was on about the same performance level as this laptop. This laptop gets "mildly warm" when I play games, as apposed to my old one, which PHYSICALLY HURT you when you put your hand over the exit vent (as in, you can't hold your hand there for more than a few seconds or else you start cooking your fingers.) It puts out an insanely small amount of heat in my opinion, and has hardly risen above the ambient room temperature until I load up a game (which you will definitely need a cooling pad for.)***EDIT***I see now that the price has gone down to $750 new, and now I think the price is acceptable. Some things have been fixed, and some new problem have arisen. I'm fairly sure the issue with graphics switching has been fixed, which is good, but I'm having a time with the touchpad. It is at the same time too sensitive and not sensitive enough, usually with the 2-finger scrolling. sometimes I have to move my fingers around for a while before it registers that they are there, and sometimes it registers my scrolling as pinch-zoom halfway through and the page size goes all over the place. That doesn't happen TOO often though, so I can overlook it.Also, invest in a screen protector. Not really to protect the screen, but because the protector feels a better to use than the flat glass, and the glare filter helps a lot. I bought this one, and it does well:  PcProfessional Screen Protector for Asus 15.6" Vivobook/ X550CA/ N56VZ/ G55VW/ N550JV/ K53U/ X501A/ K55 Matte Finishing Anti Glare Anti Scratch filter radiation+ high quality microfiber cloth ***TWICE THE EDIT, TWICE THE FUN!***I finally got around to buying a hybrid drive, and loading times for many things have improved significantly. Because I have the laptop loaded down with so many running programs (I usually run between 3 and 4GB of RAM usage at idle,) shutting down, restarting, and even waking the thing up was taking about 10x longer than it did when I first got it. Several programs I use frequently also start much faster, which is exactly what I was hoping for. After 10 hours (I have a lot of stuff on there,) I got my files copied to the new SSHD, and LET ME EXPLAIN TO YOU SOMETHING ABOUT WINDOWS 8 BIOS's: they do NOT LIKE to boot from things that aren't windows 8.I cloned (1:1 exact copy, so I can replace the old hard drive and the computer will immediately work like nothing happened,) my old hard drive to the new one, which means I had to boot the computer from a CD or USB drive running cloning software (since you can't clone Windows while you're using it,) and I had to jump through hoops to get my USB stick to even show up in the BIOS: First you have to disable Secureboot, and a few other UEFI features, THEN you have to save, reboot, open the BIOS AGAIN, and enable legacy BIOS features. THEN you can boot from other media. AND DON'T FORGET TO CHANGE BACK AFTERWARDS! Or else Windows 8 won't boot!I also bought a 64GB SSD to move windows onto, so the computer boots even faster, and I like how easy it was to install it. I just popped it in, and it showed up in the Disk Management utility. After reinstalling Windows 8.1 onto the SSD, the computer boots MUCH faster, and the touchpad issue I mentioned above has gone away. I've had the SSD for about a month now, and the problem hasn't come back, so I can only assume it's fixed.So in conclusion: Laptop still works great, runs like new after SSHD+SSD upgrade, I want to have some *ahem* words with whoever wrote the UEFI/BIOS.