ASUS Laptop N80 Series N80Vn-X5 Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 (2.40 GHz) 4 GB Memory 320 GB HDD NVIDIA GeForce 9650M GT 14.1" Windows Vista Home Premium

Pros: Runs the recent game Dead Space at max settings very well. I have noticed no slowdown and it is easy to forget I am on a laptop. I have had no problems with the performance of this computer at all. All of the extras save money and space you would have spent on accessories and add-on cards (lots of USB ports, eSATA port, flash card reader, HDMI out, etc) Relatively small size makes it practical to carry around. Battery life is more than adequate. I forgot to plug in and played the original Half-Life for about an hour and a half and still had about 40% remaining. The ExpressGate feature is great for getting online quickly or if you have main OS has gone TU. I thought it was gimmicky at first but it does come in handy and has a LOT smaller footprint that Vista which adds to power savings and battery life for web surfing.

Cons: The case is plastic with a metal foil plating that will peel up if you are not careful. My wife has the N80Vn-A1 version and has a pencil eraser sized hole in the finish where it came off with the sticker. That is a common thing with this type of finish and not a real defect just a "gotcha." The reflective screen finish obviously picks up a LOT of glare but the LED backlight can overpower just about anything short of the sun directly over your shoulder. ExpressGate is Linux but can't access Linux partitions. That may be fixed in future versions.

Overall Review: My first step was to re-install Vista on a smaller partition to make room for Ubuntu Linux so I did not use the stock install. WINDOWS: I started by wiping the drive. This freed up ~10GB used by the restore partition. The recovery DVDs do not create partitions but they need an NTFS partition set up before they will run. If you do a hard drive swap/upgrade you will need to create a partition with a USB enclosure or bootable partition creating software. I skipped the step where it asked for the Asus driver CD, rebooted and installed the drivers by hand from the ASUS website. This eliminated all of the bloat from the factory install. LINUX: Next I installed the latest Ubuntu release. Wifi worked with no extra tweaking. You will get NO sound without adding the following line to the /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base file: options snd-hda-intel enable=1 model=g50v position_fix=0 The nVidia graphics card works flawlessly. I have not tried the webcam under Ubuntu so I am not

Pros: You can't beat this deal or these specs for the price in the laptop genre. This computer includes a 1 year accidental damage warranty, covering spills, fires, drops etc. Newegg fails to mention it in their specs. It comes in the package, you have to submit it to ASUS. Also know that this laptop is in fact Windows Vista 64 bit, it's very fast, and I've had no problems with it so far. (The other douscher who wrote the 1st review). Secondly, shame on newegg for raising the price and then saying it's discounted, but like all businesses, it happens. I payed $989 for this laptop. Still the price is worth it. This notebook is incredibly light, portable, discrete, and has amazing specs to be this light and compact. However it still has a solid build that's well put together. I can play COD4/5 or Age of Conan on medium/high settings without a fuss. Therefore, this laptop is amazing. Overall the laptop is awesome for both office, gaming, & fantastic specs for a lightweight lap

Cons: Vista frequently has updates that I choose to ignore, and still has its downs and limitations for all you vista whiners. The keyboard takes some getting used to, you have to push down slightly harder to get the keys to work, however I've come to like it, that way its not so sensitive. Nothing much to comment on for cons thus far.

Overall Review: The login has fingerprint, password, and facial recognition software to login, of course you don't have to have any of these, but they are definitely awesome features. I ordered late Monday and got it on Thursday afternoon w/ standard 3day shipping. That's great. ASUS has great customer support available 24/7 on the phone and customer support online during business hours. You can't beat the accidental damage warranty along with these awesome specs of 2.4 ghz dual core, vista 64 bit, 9650m GT Geforce 1GB graphics, 4GB of DDR2, great picture, security features, and simply the fastest/lightest laptop I've ever owned, a massive upgrade for me.

Pros: Seems to be very well built (with basically no defect or problem complaints in forums I frequent). Nvidia's official notebook drivers work flawlessly (I won't touch ATi hardware in a notebook until they provide at least the same level of support). CPU is plenty fast. Game performance seems solid at worst. Asus provides reinstall discs so it's possible to get basically a clean install of Vista without much effort. Cooling system seems to be AMAZING. As reported by CPUID's hardware monitor, I can't get the CPU over 50c even running the SMP Folding at home client for hours on end (and I've been Folding since I got it). I can even Fold on the GPU without issue (running both parts at 100% gets the CPU to slightly over 50c...maybe hovers between that and 54c max). This actually runs everything at 100% cooler than many laptops run at IDLE. It's not silent, but it's quieter than my relatively quiet desktop PC it's replacing. WIFI seems to work flawlessly too-though mostly I use Ethe

Cons: -Keyboard isn't great, though I've gotten better at using it. (At work I plug in an external monitor with an HDMI to DVI cable, and external mouse and keyboard.) It's no worse than average by notebook standards though I don't think. -I'd love if it had a Blu Ray drive (I may experiment with installing an after market drive, as the optical drive (and hard drive) are easy to swap. -I'd love a Geforce 9700GTS or better in here, but obviously I knew what it had going in (and what it does have is solid at worst). -I've run into a decent number of program incompatibilities because it ships with 64 instead of 32-bit Vista (as do most systems now). The DVD authoring program they included actually doesn't seem to work, and there were a handful more programs I had to find replacements for. No issues with the OS once I figured out what does and doesn't work (most programs do, but...) And contrary to what people seem to claim about Vista it's fast for me.

Overall Review: There's at least some confusion over whether the screen is LED or florescent backlit. The box has a mercury warning, as does a sticker on the bottom of the unit. Those may be just generic warnings though (this general model is sold in some configurations with a florescent backlight). The sticker with the actual specs does explicitly claim it's LED backlit, and it appears to be instant on, has more brightness levels than florescent probably would, and its max brightness is fairly crazy as you'd expect. The screen itself is solid, though not spectacular. The panels used in recent Macbook Pros seem higher quality to me, at least in terms of viewable angles, but this isn't bad by any means (and the resolution isn't too high for the small screen size). Basically I can see areas where Asus cuts costs to get the low price, but at the same time I think this notebook is really well engineered, and didn't skimp in the ways that matter, from the quality components to the great cooling system.

Pros: 14" portable, under 6lbs, decent battery life (3 hrs with normal use at my night classes), great speed and gaming ability. The Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz and the 9650m GT are an excellent combo. Vista 64 and 4gb ram also works perfectly together. Keyboard and trackpad work great. Very nice looking but not too flashy. Loaded with 5 USB ports, HDMI, E-SATA, LED display just for starters.

Cons: Loud mouse buttons, they don't bother me but when others start noticing the clicking then it's louder than it should be.

Overall Review: Great buy for the money. Loaded with features and speed and all for a great price. I've owned 20+ laptops over the years and this is my first Asus - and will not be my last.

Pros: Fantastic specs, great price for set of specs, great list of extras (Express Gate is GREAT). VERY very fast. Much better battery life than I expected (2.5 to 4 hours during lite usage, much better than that on Express Gate).

Cons: There's the Fn / Ctrl mixup, which I adapted to quickly, and was only a problem for the first day. Also, the mouse buttons are FINE. Loud, yes, a little; worth mentioning, definitely not. Real cons: First and foremost, there is substantial interference between the Synaptics touchpad driver and the keyboard. Earlier posters have said that they don't like the keyboard. The keyboard is actually just fine, and types well enough and is very responsive -- until you install the Synaptics driver. Then there is lag and missed keystrokes all over the place. Uninstall the Synaptics driver and the problems vanish, but then there's no Palm Check. No fix for this currently. Realtek sound driver is also problematic; I'm running Vista native plus nVidia HD Audio, and that's working fine. Lastly, haven't gotten fingerprint scanner to work yet under Vista 64, just because I haven't found the utility yet. The "Driver and Utility" on the website seems to just contain the driver, no Utili

Overall Review: These issues are annoying, but since the Sound works fine and I don't need the Fingerprint Scanner (and haven't looked very hard for the Utility anyway except on the website, so that might be an easy fix), the only real problem is the Touchpad. Oh, and did I mention that there's no keyboard shortcut to disable the touchpad - you can do so in the BIOS, but that is a pain if you ever use the touchpad at all. I have a bluetooth mouse I don't want to break out when I'm just checking email, and can't use via ExpressGate, so right now I'm suffering through the lack of PalmCheck, which does make a noticeable difference, although I'm already getting better at avoiding the palm hits. But regardless of the issues, I'd buy this again in a second. It's a fantastic machine, and I'm only going into this much detail about these problems in the hope that it'll help others. For me, the performance and features of this machine at this price makes the choice an easy one.

Pros: This thing is incredible. It is absolutely the perfect mix of power, price, and portability. Great battery life when playing games. (2 hours on low end stuff a la starcraft and rise of nations)

Cons: Gets a little warm (to be expected), speakers are just ok, asus has a lot of neat but not very useful software (face recognition, security manager) installed. No dedicated volume buttons, but if you can hit the fn key its no big. Really all of these should not keep you from buying this laptop. Its great, and i think im in love.

Overall Review: I love the way the ports on this thing are laid out. USB on every side but the front, and even better, nothing on the front that sticks out at you. Also, asus has this great selection tool that controls wifi and bluetooth on and off, actually really neat.

Pros: Its just like a hot knife on a butter, its fast, best value for the money, its awesome!!! 1. Fast processor!!! 2. Video card rocks!!! 3. portability!!! 4. Value for the money!!! 5. Quality!!! 6. Best Warranty, Beat that!!! I used this for computer services, stays in my backpack at all times. Best laptop to do the job!!!

Cons: nothing, except the noisy button

Overall Review: One of Best portable gaming and business laptop for the price and warranty, BUY IT while its hot!!!

Pros: Great hardware specs for the price Great Price Nice look/sleek finish Plenty of usbs Some of the asus software features are neat/fun Nice weight

Cons: Does not come with windows cd (this is normal but it is still a con when compared to the few laptops you can still buy that come with a cd) which sort of sucked because although the asus software can be neat it is still clunky for the computer and I wanted to wipe it clean and work on a bare install. Also, while the screen size is 14" the laptop is still built in the same case frame as the 15.4" version. so you don't get any real size benefits of the 14" laptop, just a smaller screen size. The laptop's battery is 2 hours or so which isn't bad but right now Asus doesn't even make a battery for this model larger than 6 cells, so I don't like not even having the option of upgrading. Resolution (1280 x 800) is a little low.

Overall Review: Great laptop, powerful, can do lots of gaming on high res and specs. If you want t a nice, powerful laptop but not looking for anything too extreme or too expensive, this is a great buy. I gave it 4/5 instead of 5/5 because resolution is a hair low, no option for larger than 6 cell battery, and 15.4" frame with a 14" screen is inconvenient.