Would you recommend this laptop for a college student? I'm a psych major and I intend on strictly using this for research and writing papers.
1016355
It is pretty good. I am using mine right now and it has worked for me. I hate windows 8 though. Took a lot to get use to.
1016356
There is no reason not to get this computer, well, Win8 isn't as smooth as Win7, but really ASUS didn't do that. Ok, so, The i5 S56CA, it has an Optical Drive, big plus in the Ultrabook category. It has a top of the line WiFi card. Some people freak out about the 'chiclet' style keyboard, then they use it a bit and realize they like it. Honestly, the only thing I would change, will change, is the HDD to a SDD. At this price point you are getting a lot, a fast drive is not one of those things. They put the 5400 rpm spinner in to save battery life, an SSD costs more than this HDD but will save even more battery since there are no moving parts in a SSD. Yada, yada, You won't go wrong, unless you are a gamer, in which case the HD4000 will not stand up to the rigors of today's games and their intensive graphics. Writing papers and doing research? I don't see anything keeping you from that.
1016357
Go for it I love it because light,easy to use.Only challenge is Windows 8 boring!!
1016358
I specifically bought this laptop for college. I didn't think I would like Windows 8 but after some time and playing with it, I found I liked it a lot. It has a considerably long battery life off of a charger which I also like very much. Overall, yes. I would recommend this laptop.
1281930
I personally would not consider this ideal for writing for extended periods of time. People don't realize this, but this lap desk is actually relatively heavy, sometimes to the point where my 13" MBP is on it and it's all on my lap and feels like its just crushing my legs- maybe I'm just sensitive..At any rate, if you plan on like writing your daily notes on it, then it would be okay for that. But if you're looking for a long term solid option, I would look around at other options first.
428926
Edward,You're very welcome. I ordered it straightly from Amazon one week and a half ago when it was $949. General impression about it - I love it! It is super fast. My previous laptop was based on Core 2 Duo (2 GB RAM) and the difference in speed is very noticeable.
1920043
Since I only purchased this unit I cannot compare it to the 3 series. In fact I can't even find a 3 series on Samsung's site. Samsung currently lists laptop Series 2 through 9 but there is no 3. Interesting. Many manufacturer sites have filter and comparison tables that will help you decide which system is right for you based on a number of factors like: your intended use (office, home, gaming, etc.), weight, hard drive size, etc. I would say ignore most of the flashy feature claims and try to get a system that has a 7200 RPM hard drive (or solid state but expensive) and at least a 3 year warranty. The reason for this is that the hard drive is typically the slowest part of the computer and might be the limiting factor in performance and the 3 year warranty is just because I don't feel like you should have to pay for hardware repairs the first 3 years. Major hardware problems after three years could mean it is time to replace the machine. If you are buying for a student (maybe for college) I would recommend a 5 year warranty with accidental damage protection. In this way you are assured that they SHOULD make it through college without needing to buy another computer when they drive of for the big game with it on top of their car :) A little long winded I know but this is what I do for a living. I hope this helps. Regards, Michael
313108
It's awesome for research and note taking, I was able to access and download PDf articles from my online college library and annotate them very easily. However I could not unlock copyrighted school text books using this tablet. I bet a windows tablet could fix this issue, I haven't taken any classes online with this tablet. I've read some reviews from college students and teachers who love this tablet for their work. If you like to draw nothing in this price range comes anywhere close, it is the best.
1295406
It completely depends upon identifying your needs and then matching that to the available models. Decide first, based on your personal needs, if you want a cheap laptop in the $250-399 range (good laptops tend to start around $250) that can't do much more than surf the web and word process, or a mid level model in the $400-600 range that can do nearly all a good desktop can do, or a $700+ model that has the most bells and whistles. Once you've made this decision, then consider the following important features: battery life, type of processor, amount of available and upgradable memory, hard drive size. Consider also any features you find important for yourself, for example, quality of speakers, # of ports, Windows 7 or 8 or 8.1, type of keyboard, etc. Try the buying guide at Microsoft.com and/or Best Buy, I found both to be very helpful and educational for me. I'm in the process of deciding which model to buy, and found their buying guides gave a lot of useful info about what each feature is, in plain English, and how to decide which one fits for you. I've decided to go with a mid level laptop, I won't say which brand, but I will say that I feel that the large companies such as HP, Dell and perhaps Lenovo and Toshiba seem to design more solid and long lasting parts. I'm sure you'll find some people happy with other companies, but I'm going to stick with those ones I think are more reliable.
397503
7. This laptop is great. All depend on what you're using it for. There are not a lot of accessories. The processor is amazing, graphics not too great, but you never have to worry about storage.
777899
Yes, this laptop would amply serve the needs of a student! The only "issues" per se, is the lack of the DVD/CD rom, which I really haven't missed, and that the system will sometimes restart (about 2-3 times per month). However, this is a Windows 8 issue, and not the laptop. I rarely power down my laptop so that's why I notice it. For those who shutdown more regularly, you may never have this issue at all. Hopefully Microsoft will fix this soon.
164618
I think it's great for college (if budget provided is enough=]). Juz a personal exp.: i have an uninterrupted sleeping after i used the MediF Pillow, and my thought is much clear (may be due to i have a better sleep XD)
573614
So far it has been a great laptop, I preferred Windows 7 and it was configured with this version. I had a HP laptop and this one seems solid, besides the HP motherboard died after about a year and a key broke. It's fast, I'm not a gamer so if this is your main hobby I have no idea what it will do.
1522880
I'm a med student myself, actually already an MD here in my country, but plan in taking my step 1 this june... anyways, I have to recomend ASUS, the laptop has 5 stars build quality as well as performance! I actually bought the ASUS UL80vt, and fits perfectly to my lifestyle, and just so you know, that 12 hr battery thing is for real!!! you should get the ul80vt instead, its quite faster and better at multitasking than the ul30A-x5 since it has turboboos technology, also the screen is 14.1 and comes with DVD drive, which you may not use as much, but I prefer to have it than not.... BTW, go with the Silver model, it looks nicer!!! happy shopping!, let me know what you went for!
1327455
While this is a lovely laptop for old video games, it is not suitable for student use because the Intel Core Duo Processors (notice the lack of a "2" after "Core") are only 32-bit. All modern consumer computers have 64-bit processors. The minimum for student use would be two 64-bit processors. Anything with only one processor would be painfully slow on the Internet. Anything with 32-bit processors might be unable to run a piece of software that a student might need because that software is 64-bit only. A Thinkpad T400 might be adequate. Make sure you get 64-bit Windows 7.
1752090
It will work well for a college student once they figure out Windows 8...which is full of clutter. Everything auto saves to the cloud so they might want to change that setting if they prefer to keep their info private.
26343
Thank you for that information. Sadly I had to return my MSI U120 as the keyboard was defective. Sam's Club had a Dell mini notebook/netbook for $348 and I just bought it. It's really nice as I already have a Dell Inspirion laptop.
2093633
Oh yeah, the computer is excelent, is a great great selection for home work and for university presentations , or only watch a video :D
2261831
i am not a hard core programmer, and if you are a hardcore programmer and know your stuff, you might as well order all your own hardware and put your own laptop together. But as far as I know from my use of this machine, I would not trust it to do anything that would require a lot of memory or storage. It offers an asus web cloud storage software, but i don't use this. As far as internet browsing and research goes, how serious you make this is up to you, but the computer seems a bit flaky and will just start clicking on things i don't want it to.hope this was helpful.
1199541
I have been researching laptops for a few weeks, with intent to purchase. The Lenovo site groups this model in with gaming. If you can upgrade the ram, it should be a commendable all-purpose/gaming machine.