ASUS N550J 15.6-Inch Laptop (Intel Core i7-4700HQ 2.4GHz Processor, 1TB Hard Drive, 8GB RAM, Windows 8.1 64-bit) Silver Grey

Before finally buying this laptop, I actually spent quite some time doing research of this and other models from several brands. Ultimately, I decided on this one because of two main reasons:- It has an amazing price-value ratio that was further increased when I grabbed it for only $880. That's why I bought it even though I knew the new model (N550JX) would be available soon (it was released a week later).- It has an Nvidia GTX 850m dedicated graphics card. Even though the 860m was my ideal choice, I couldn't find a laptop with it that made the right compromises and didn't have the tacky design companies insist on putting on their gaming machines. In comparison, this laptop has a serious, discrete and beautiful design.There were things I liked from the start, others not so much. I bought this laptop despite of mainly these two things:- I wanted to avoid a touchscreen if possible. I'm not a fan of the glossy finish and the extra weight. I would've preferred it if the cost of including a touchscreen could've been aimed at other things, like a better GPU or HDD.- The HDD is an odd choice. It is too slow. I think less space but more speed would've been better. I'm not even talking SSDs. 750GB 7200 rpm would've been a sweet spot, I believe.I read dozens of reviews before buying this laptop. So I thought the least I could do was write one myself, now that I've had three weeks to use it and form an opinion. I'll make a conventional list of comments for easy reading. If you want the short version, though, I can say that I'm very satisfied with this laptop. It's not perfect, but it comes close. It has fulfilled all of my expectations and I've had no problems with it up to this point. The list:- The screen is beautiful as pretty much everyone has said already. The colors are nice and the viewing angles are what you would expect from an IPS panel. Though it gets bright, comfortable outdoor use is very hard because of the glossy finish. That's expected, though, so you must know what you're getting into! Additionally, I've encountered a weird issue where sometimes the colors will be completely blown out, but it goes away pretty fast. The screen is a winner.- The touchscreen was a surprise, since it works very decently. That doesn’t mean I want it, though. I still don’t, but it’s also easy to see that it works as advertised. So there’s that to note.- The keyboard is fantastic, very comfortable. I'm not an expert on the subject, but I can say that the keys do have a satisfying click to them. I really like it. I've read a lot of complaints about the difficulty of reading the keys with the white back-light, and those comments do have a valid point. While it gets weird sometimes (specially when the screen has a lot of white), there will never be a time when you will not be able to read them at all. Worst case scenario, turn-off the light and you're good to go. This is hardly necessary anyway, though.- The touchpad surprised me. It is actually very decent, though never on the same level as a Macbook's. It does get weird sometimes, but at least it's not of those horrible ones Windows machines apparently can’t escape from. I insist: it is not the best out there, but the surprise won me over, so it's a pro.- The machine is beautiful. You've seen the pictures. It's prettier in person, though. It's thin and actually not *that* heavy. Certainly one of the best looking ones on this price range, and that includes Macbooks.- The only part of this laptop that is unquestionable bad is the sound. It is pretty bad. I won’t accept the “all laptops sound bad” argument, because my old 2009 Dell still sound much better than this as other models do on this same price range. This is supposed to be a premium machine, so for me it is unacceptable. The external bass does help, but it doesn’t fix it. This is the one thing Asus needs to change.- Battery’s not great, either. It’s very inconsistent to begin with. But overall, it just doesn’t last that much. Two hours of video playback probably, a little more surfing the web. Gaming probably an hour. But as I said, it’s inconsistent. This is not a problem to me because I don’t care much for battery life, since for me this will mostly be sitting on a desktop. The one thing I do find objectively bad is the fact that the battery is non-removable. It won’t last me much, since I’m charging the laptop 80% of the time.- Though I must admit I've encountered a few strange episodes, CPU performance is mostly great. The HDD is probably at fault on a lot of those weird times.- GPU performance is great. Though it is a generation old already and the lowest one from the GTX mobile line, the 850m is actually a godsend for me. This is because I come from a 2009 laptop with integrated graphics and I like to game frequently. I haven't been able to test the most recent titles, but I tried three games and have been very satisfied with the results. Dragon Age: Origins (2009) runs easily at max settings with a stable 60fps. High anti-aliasing might drop you to 40fps on heavy scenes, but I leave it at 2x and never get a drop. Second is Battlefield 3 (2011), which runs at medium settings (textures on ultra) for a 60fps that will never drop (AA off). I've played a little with the settings and was able to improve some of the them without affecting performance. Finally, Skyrim (2011) with high settings (textures ultra) and no AA will get you 60fps, no questions asked. If you turn on AA, you will probably drop to 50fps on heavy scenes, but that's still a decent result. All of those titles ran at a 1080p resolution, to be clear! So yeah, pretty decent overall.- While the machine does get hot when gaming, the heat never reaches my hand’s resting place, so I barely notice. The part that heats the most is the section above the keyboard, which you will rarely be touching. When doing normal tasks, it will barely get hot.Those are the main points of the laptop I wanted to note. Now on to another subject.I’m aware of two very ugly defects a lot of people have encountered on their machines. One is the screen dying, the other one the audio jack not working properly or completely coming off. I was very scared that that happened to me too, but fortunately that hasn’t happened *yet*. The screen seems fine, as does the audio-jack. If anything changes, I’ll be sure to post an update. Additionally, I’m open to questions and comments. I hope I was of any help!Update: June 02 2015Couple of new things I've noticed:- So I encountered a dead pixel on my screen. Only I don't know if it's actually "dead". It appeared a couple of days ago, then went away. Yesterday, I saw it flickering a bit. But there's no trace of it failing anymore. I suspect the pixel will eventually fail, though. Honestly, I'm sure most people would not even notice, it's the smallest thing, but I do notice anyway. I'm very upset by this, but a little hopeful it won't happen anymore. Unlikely, though.- I noticed that my trackpad is a little uneven. The right side is slightly more elevated than the left side. The lower right corner even stands above the laptop body a little. It doesn't really affect it, but it's clearly a manufacturing mistake anyway. It does bother me a little, but I can live with it.- I think the laptop has a huge design mistake. The eject button from the DVD drive is in an awkward position that will make you press it accidentally A LOT of times. Every time you pick up the laptop and grab it by the sides (the most normal way of doing it), you will press it. There's almost no avoiding it. So you kinda have to grab the laptop in a awkward way every time you want to move it. It's annoying.- Overall, though, I still haven't changed my mind about the machine. Happy and satisfied with it. The only real deal breaker would be the dead pixel. Here's hoping it doesn't fail me again, at least for a while.

After reading many, many reviews of this laptop and looking hours for alternatives, I finally decided to buy it. I do not regret it, however you should be aware of a few things:- Really great offer, you wont find any better build quality and hardware for this price. You would have to pay at least 4-500 USD more.- Build quality is fancy and great.- Display is very good. It is not outstanding though, but a really good display. Some people complained about "blurry" not clear fonts. This is true, but it is not caused by the display but by the windows scaling feature. Just turn it off and you will have clear, precise fonts.- As many people stated before me, you really should consider changing the hdd to an SSD. It makes a huge difference in speed, boot up time, etc. You could just order the model that costs 300 USD more and comes equiped with an SDD and 8 GB more RAM, but I really recommend you to buy the RAM and SSD seperatedly and change it yourself, as it is cheaper. It is really easy and done within 5-10 minutes. I still had an SSD from my previous laptop I am using now, but I bought the following things to upgrade the Laptop:- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CQ35HBQ- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004Y8SGXW (with this, you can get rid of the DVD Rom, but put the 1 TB HDD that comes with the laptop as a second harddisk)- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00111K6WE/ (as the laptop comes with TORX Screws)- The touchscreen is really good. I didn't think I would use it at all, but as it is working extremely well, I use it here and then to scroll, zoom, etc.- During normal daily work, the laptop is very quiet, the fan very rarely turns on and if it does, you wouldnt hear it unless you really focus on its noise.- Trackpad: As you might have read in other reviews, it is just an average to poor trackpad and a bit flimsy. So if you plan to use it daily, you might reconsider buying this laptop. I personally would get frustrated if I had to work 8 hours a day using the touchpad, especially when you have to do left and right clicks, as the cursor often jumps around when doing so. But as I am using a mouse, the touchpad is good enough for me. It is doing OK for occasional use. Asus also offers SmartGestures like zoming, two finger scrolling, three finger gestures, etc.- Keyboard: Now this is IMPORTANT to know: Some people reported missing keystrokes. And all of them were RIGHT! If you plan to type a lot on your laptop, this becomes quite annoying. I have tried many solutions and it took me a long time to find one: You have to completely get rid of the Asus preinstalled Windows but have to do a clean install with a none-Asus, original Microsoft Windows 8.1 installation disk Obviously, this does not come with the laptop. You either have to buy one, or find a friend to borrow you one. The good news: As your windows license is stored in your BIOS, Windows will automatically activate and you wont lose your license, even though you are installing "from the scratch". The installation wont even ask for your product key, it will find everything automatically in your Bios. However, it took me some time to find out how to reinstall as with the new GDP / UEFI technology, you have to consider a few details. In order to save yourself hours of investigative work, just read thread number 4 here: http://www.eightforums.com/installation-setup/44415-how-install-windows-8-1-8-1-oem-key.html and use Rufus to create a bootable USB, voila. By the way: You need to press escape when the laptop is booting up in order to get to the boot menu and boot from USB.I havent installed any of the Asus drivers, which apparently cause the missing keystrokes. I will start installing a few and monitor until I find out which one is causing the missing keystrokes. I suspect the ATK package or the touchpad driver being responsible.- Battery life: This is anything but impressive ;) You are getting a desktop replacement laptop. On battery saving settings, you might be able to make it to 3 hours. However, once you start copying files or doing anything else that requires just a bit of processing power, your battery most likely will barely last 2 hours. I haven't tried gaming yet, but I do not expect the battery to last more than an hour.The bad things:- Once a first saw the laptop I thought "Gosh, it is a bit bigger than I expected". (I owed a Dell XPS 15z before, which was much slimmer, but complete cr*p). But I started loving the laptop right away. Its size doesn't bother me, as I usually just transport it from my studio to my living room. If you are on the road a lot, you might consider getting a more portable laptop though.- The HDD harddisk. As stated before, consider purchasing an SSD.- The missing keystrokes, as it requires quite some work to solve this issue. And be aware: You need the Asus ATK Package for features like the keyboard backlight. So if this driver is responsible for the missing keystrokes, you will have to decide between not suffering from missing keystrokes and having / not having keyboard backlight.- A minor detail: The laptop comes with a Asus FaceID Software, which unlocks your Windows really quickly scanning your face. However, this software cant be download from the Asus Website so you will lose it when doing a clean install. You can replace it with the free software KeyLemon though.- Last but not least: Gaming: I am not a frequent Gamer but tried Skyrim and Call of Duty Ghosts and both ran smoothly in high to very high settings. A few reviews reported that the laptop gets very hot in the left corner right below the screen. This is true. I have read that in some occasions the screen started melting because of extreme heat. I cant tell you if this will happen, but it might.Another tip: If you download the drivers directly from the intel website, you get newer drivers than the ones on the Asus Website. Intel Driver Update wont find a the Intel Management Engine and the Intel INF Drivers though, but if you just google them, you can download them from the Intel page and install them. It works great.SUMMARY: If you look for a really fast, well build laptop for a decent price and if you are willing to put some work in doing a clean windows installation, this is the option you want to go for. There is no better laptop for this price on the market!If you look for a long battery life, a portable, rather small laptop, you do not want to buy this one.Regarding the missing keystrokes: If you do not feel you have sufficient computer skills to set up a clean windows, you should consider whether you can live with missing keystrokes. As it only happens like every 80-100 characters, you can live with it, it just bothers quite a bit. You might also try uninstall all the Asus software, maybe this can fix the issue, I did not try that.I rate the laptop 5 stars as for my needs and budget, it has been the perfect option, even though it cost me many hours of works to get the missing keystrokes fixed.I hope you guys can benefit from my review and my experience and can save yourself some time.