20 Best Laptop For Cricut Explore Air 2 (2023 Updated)

Buyer Beware: This company deliberately ships defective product to customers. There is absolutely zero possible way that a visibly damaged “non-charging” charge port could get through a “multi-point inspection & full data purge”.

My MacBook Air showed up to my home with damaged charge port that prevented the charge cord to attach to unit properly. Best Buy customer service was contacted within 20 minutes of receiving product, they messaged seller on my behalf explaining my MacBook is defective and that I require a proper working machine.

They also reassured me that BuySpry have 5 more units exactly like mine for sale on their site. I said “Great, just have them exchange my damaged MacBook for a non damaged one!” BuySpry just emailed me: (copied & pasted from their email) “I am sorry to hear that this MacBook Air’s charging port is defective.

Please note that we are unable to facilitate replacements or exchanges at this time. ” Very disappointed and unhappy with purchase!.

Really happy with this. It’s my fourth Macbook, and I love the new colour. I was keen on the blue initially, but the finger prints show on that, so went with this, and its a gorgeous pale gold. Love it.

Workwise I have only used this for Scrivener and the like, so not really tested its capabilities. But it seems to handle my multitude of screens well. Lost a star for the lack of 3 months Apple TV though, as the promotion.

If you have had a previous promotion on Apple TV then you are disqualified. I did contact Apple, who were lovely, but could not help. 3 months Apple TV, as promised, would have been the icing on the cake.

No TV, no icing.

I ordered the 14m-dy1023dx and was a little concerned that Best Buy listed this laptop as an aluminum chassis whereas an HP rep said it was plastic because it had a moulded chassis. Perhaps the HP Rep was commenting on a different Model Number as the reviews here seem to include several model numbers.

It appears it is in fact aluminum as it has the feel of metal. For the price which I purchased on sale for $529 plus tax, it’s really tough to beat this HP Pavilion. It’s a borderline 13″ tablet in physical size which I like since this converts to a tablet.

One thing to note is the amount of Bloatware on this laptop. My laptop was running at 64c at idle. No matter how much I deleted, it ran hot and the bottom chassis felt uncomfortably hot as well. I was able to cool things down a bit by dropping the CPU Max load from 100% to 60%.

It was still rather hot. I decided to start from scratch but thanks to Windows and Intel, we are back to the Windows XP days where you have to load drivers to perform a clean install or you won’t see any internal drives listed.

I performed a clean Windows install and the laptop appears to run a lot cooler to the touch at idle. It’s gotten a little warm downloading updates so I shall see if that’s all that’s needed or if i’ll again have to reduce the Max performance on the CPU.

Performance wise, it appears to run really smooth so no complaints. I plan on using this for business and personal finance so I can’t comment on gaming performance although YT videos look encouraging with the Intel Xe GPU.

The display panel I received has a warm tint to it as if it has a low setting of Night Light enabled. I prefer a cool tint to my display so I may have to get used to this. I may have to fiddle with the color settings in the Intel Xe Control Panel and see if I can apply a little more blue to the profile.

It’s a 250 Nits which is more than acceptable for indoors but not if you plan on using this outside. Overall it’s a good buy. The fit and finish makes this laptop appear to be more expensive than it is especially if you can buy it on sale during Best Buys deals.

It comes with windows 11, which is a major shame as windows 11 is not ready for production. Many software gliches whicc make the laptop hard to use. Not suprising, it also has tones of pre installed crapp.

The CPU and GPU do a good job, the simple games I play work just fine. A downside is the small ssd. A bigger one would make it more usable. Documentation at times is spars, it has a PD port, which by the symbol should be thunderbird, maybe it is havent tested.

Some PD charger will work, which is again hit or miss. Guess the 20V charger are good, but idk. Another limitation is the angle the display can be opened to, which is supringly small Update: A few weeks it turns out that the laptop becomes hard to use, because of many problems.

It often just stops working at all. Only, turning of is fixing the problem. Than windows is untable to sync time, which means the internet does not work anymore. The bluetooth is only working in misteries ways, while it connects the headset it it is imposible to use it.

Regardless of what devices is configured the build in devices are used. Some bluetooth devices can not be connected because the pairing app crashes while paring.

I had this one built from the HP site. It is a HP15 laptop, with 12GB memory, intel 11th gen 15 processor, 512GB memory and I paid up for Nividia graphics. I expected it to be pretty fast for normal computing.

Two problems. First it is not particularly fast. In moving from one website to another, the move is not instant. There is a period where the computer shows circles like it is trying to get enough memory.

finally after a few seconds the circles stop and I see a picture. I have it set for performance mode, so I did not expect any problem going to the public library website or to netflix. The other problem was that although I elected to upgrade to Nividia graphics, when the computer was built they hooked up the intel graphics.

It was a process to go and change the graphics settings, and it is possible I missed some. I would think if you paid up for a feature, it would be installed so you could plug and play. I use this as a workstation and have a hp 14 with 8 gb and a 13 11th gen processor with 256 gb memory and intel graphics that I use as a laptop when I go out, and I find this HP14 is faster since it does not have the annoying lack of connecting circles that I have on my 15.

I thought that I was getting a lot of features for a price just over $500, and I got a lot of features, just not a lot of great performance. It does the job as a work station, I use a USB hub and run a speaker, a large monitor, a camera, a printer, a keyboard, and a mouse with no problems.

I got the base model M2 MBA as I move on from my 2015 i7 MacBook Air and had a bit of storage anxiety, but with ever improving iCloud drive integration I still have plenty of space after installing Office, Xojo, Rapidweaver and several other apps along with docs and photos.

Changes in how other cloud services work in macOS 12. 3+, including OneDrive, also improved how apps are stored. I have 2TB iCloud and 2x 1TB OneDrives and still over 100GB free on my 256GB base MBA.

Anything I need just gets pulled down and anything you don’t need is easily purged and left in the cloud. 10 years ago this would have been a bigger issues but with 5G phones and big tethering plans usually included (like the 40GB/mo tethering I get from T-Mobile), making use of Cloud on the go is seamless.

But you do have the option to get 512+ storage if you are willing to pay the excessive money Apple is asking, but really, casual users just don’t need it anymore. New MBA has a very good keyboard, much better than the old butterfly and a perfect trackpad as always.

The screen, while just the regular ‘liquid retina’ is very bright with excellent contrast that is nearly as good as my Dell XPS 15’s OLED screen. It is quite shocking really. M2 is very good on battery (on day 2 without charging) and very speedy, easily as fast as my previous i7 MacBook Air.

Scaling options in macOS 12 and 13 beta make for plenty of screen space despite the 13. 6″ size. While the 256GB model, using a single NAND is slower than the 512GB dual NAND SSD, you don’t really noticed it unless you have to move a lot of files and you aren’t going to be doing that on a 256GB drive anyway, so don’t let that negativity of 1400MBps vs 3000MBps storage be a distraction.

Again, for casual users, you just don’t hammer the SSD enough to notice any difference. With only 8GB of RAM I don’t know what the longevity will be going forward as macOS gets bigger and bloated garbage electron apps continue their march overrunning native ones, but for now 8GB is plenty for casual use and basic dev work.

This 8GB/256GB is perfect for casual users and students. If you are heavy in CS or video editing, then obviously this isn’t the machine for you, but for the 90% that is everyone else, the new base model MBA is great.

I love iOS and iPadOS. I haven’t had an iPad in a few years, so I thought that MacOS would be a great experience to dive into. However, it was not really the seamless experience I expected. I am not sure about the appeal of MacBooks themselves.

They are kind of buggy, and extremely limited in what they can do out of the box unless you buy the multitude of overpriced and overhyped Apple-specific accessories. Yes, it was buggy lol. I was very surprised by this.

When I say buggy, there would be minor issues with the device restarting itself in the middle of browsing. This would happen when I would try to watch a video on it. I’d never be browsing a million sites at once, just the video application (youtube, netflix, hulu, take your pick), and it would crash and reset.

If I tried casting from it, certain screen pixels would become stuck. I have never seen that before. Seems like it happens to MacBook users, but hard pass for me. When it comes to my iPhone, I can stomach it when it is just a phone case, or mobile charger station, or a bluetooth keyboard to enhance productivity.

When it becomes $400 docks or $50 cables to increase productivity and efficiency, specifically to just extend a monitor, that is just insane. It is simpler, if you dish out the $2000 for a MacBook Pro.

But that’s not a price jump worth it to me just so I can use, let alone simply enjoy my MacBook on two displays. Beautiful device, but it just does not live up to it’s price point compared to what you could get for an FHD/QHD gaming PC or laptop, or any number of productivity laptops that are sub the $1,200 price point.

I ended up going with an iPad Pro 11. I will take the touch screen capabilities and better display any day, especially when it is $500 less.

I was skeptical about buying this machine, especially with only 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD. Mind you, this machine is not for everyone, certainly not for creators. For me, a entrepreneur and family man, it is PERFECT.

It has ample processing power for any day to day business task such as MS Office, Web, Email, PDF, etc. If you occasionally need to do more, like PhotoShop, iMovie or GarageBand, there is ample power and memory, but storage can become am issues.

If your daily work flow is heavy creative work, video rendering, or other extended computational tasks, this is not the machine for that. For everything else, it is a solid daily drive that is FAST, light, and pretty.

Screen is great, speakers are adequate (not as good as MacBook Pro) and battery life is phenomenal. The full integration with iPhone and iPad is second to none, particularly iMessage. Overall, a wonderful daily machine for the typical productivity user and family user.

In spite of my nervousness with the initial purchase, I am very pleased.

3 months later after my previous review, I have started to hate this laptop. I have constant connection issues with WiFi and Bluetooth which require a restart. The fan noise Is embarrassing at work, because of one screaming fan that runs no matter what you are doing.

The fan also is constantly changing pitch which gets on my nerves. Even while the laptop is asleep at night, the fan will constantly cycle. The quality of the it is rubbish, things such as the charger and touch pad just feel cheap.

The performance is alright for a laptop but it still struggles with large assemblies in solidworks. I purchased this laptop for under 500 of its current price and I still wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

Great value for money laptop. Like how it sits to allow more air flow. Very pleased with this purchase. Great service from Harvey Norman. Thank you.

This laptop was worth every penny I spent on it. It works great on Linux without any driver installation needed, although the fingerprint reader and face recognition (which I don’t use anyways) did not work.

Those work fine on windows and are fairly accurate. Performance is very fast and the laptop is relatively quiet, but can get fairly hot when playing games or editing video. The keyboard feels nice to type on, the trackpad feels good and responds well, and the screen is clear and vivid.

I would’ve preferred a matte screen (anti reflective) personally, but it’s not a deal-breaker. The touch capability is a neat gimmick but I almost never use it, as I instead interact with the machine using a keyboard and trackpad or mouse.

The port selection is good as well, as the laptop supports charging with the USB-C port (you will need a 65+ watt brick though), which is great for me as it means less cables to carry. The laptop is also easily upgradable, with a repair video easily found on YouTube.

I upgraded my laptop to 16GB of RAM within about 10 minutes, and it worked perfectly. Build quality is surprisingly aluminium on most of the computer (apart from the bottom of the computer which is plastic), which i was not expecting.

Most laptops in this price range are made out of plastic with aluminium only being used on the back of the screen lid. NOTE: Please make sure to buy and install an extra 8GB stick of RAM! Using the single RAM stick will reduce graphics performance by about 30 percent.

I personally bought a Crucial 8GB DDR4 SODIMM module, and it works great in this machine. All in all, it’s a great computer with great performance for the price I paid for it. I definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for a new laptop to run either Windows or Linux on.

When I began laptop shopping a few months ago, I knew exactly what I needed. I have a fairly powerful home desktop, with lots of storage, so for a laptop my primary concerns were fast processing, crisp visuals, and long battery life.

For this I was fully prepared to pay 4 figures. This laptop stood out to me as having all of the specifications that I sought, at a fraction of the price that I expected to pay, so it didn’t take long for me to make the decision to buy.

Having owned it for a month now, here’s my breakdown: The Good: The picture is just as crisp as my desktop monitors, if not more so. The included webcam, as well, offers a shockingly clear picture for Zoom calls and the like.

The keyboard is responsive and pleasant to type on. And, most important, this sucker is *fast*. I’m sure that will diminish with time somewhat, but it exceeded my expectations for processor speed. I’m very impressed.

The Bad: The laptop runs pretty hot. I use a lap desk with heat vents and even so, I can still sometimes feel the heat coming off of it. This isn’t an issue on its own, as it isn’t a concerning level of heat, but I suspect it’s a symptom of a bigger problem – battery life.

Using this for schoolwork (Google Docs / Sheets) or watching YouTube, I would say I get about 4 hours before it shuts off. That’s enough for my purposes, I’m rarely away from an outlet for more than 4 hours, but it’s well under the advertised 9.

25 hours which I find frustrating. Overall, I’m very pleased, and I would recommend this product for anyone in the market.

When I first opened the package, I was pleasantly delighted. The laptop is well-protected and wrapped. It hasn’t been scratched in any way. There isn’t a single hairline scratch anywhere on the computer, and the screen is in perfect shape.

It’s not an aftermarket charger; it’s a genuine Apple charger. The computer appears to be brand new. There are no dings, dents, or blemishes on it. I’m amazed at how good this laptop is, it was a 2017 model rather than a 2015.

It was simple to set up. I would recommend this buyer to anyone who does not want to pay thousands of dollars on a brand new laptop when they have this choice. especially for the price. It appears to be fresh new.

It starts up immediately, charges rapidly, and runs like a charm. I couldn’t be more pleased!.

I love my MacBook Air. I purchased it for school because I was getting tired of carrying my previous heavy backpack around with me all day when I have to walk miles throughout the day to get to all of my classes.

It’s light, fast, and meets all my needs. I’ve had the same one for almost four years now. I will say I have noticed it’s a bit slower than when it was new, but I think I could resolve this by reducing how much storage I’m using.

The main thing that was kind of disappointing at the time is that there’s no disk drive (cd or dvd). I used to enjoy making mixed CDs. At this point I use Spotify and don’t really need that feature. If you just need a laptop for school any MacBook is a great choice IMO.

Even buying one of these used would be superior to a newer non Mac laptop.

I ordered this MacBook Air in black for my nephew who is in high school as a Christmas present. I’ve been using macs for over 25 yrs now. I am typing this on a MacBook Pro that is over 10 yrs old. (never spent a dime on any repairs) I have a newer MB Air I use for travel that I got here back in 2017, an ipad w/keybd 2019 I still have not used, both still looks and works like new.

You just cannot destroy these suckers they are so good!! Back in 2007 I even spilled a little acetone (doing my nails, I advise against that to anyone) on my Mac 17in at the time it was 3 -4yrs old. I guess some droplets got on the board.

It caused the battery to pop out on the underside and I could not get it back, it kinda bubbled up. I propped it up. I thought I ruined it. it worked fine for many years after (I lovingly call it my FrankinMac) until I got the 2010 MacBook I am typing on now.

I still used my FrankinMac for a few yrs after that in my garage gym for videos/movies while working out. I bet it is still in my new house garage waiting for someone to fired it up. These Mac are expensive at first glance.

or more expensive than others, but that is bc you will still be using them one, two decades later. To me that makes this a very inexpensive computer. My very happy nephew will be able to use his MacBook Air thru the remaining of his highs school years, college and probably beyond that.

I also appreciate the payment plans you can choose on top of the nice price. It’s a nobrainer.

I bought this new years Eve. My first time having a MacBook. I’m not loving it so far. My safari worked for first couple days then it stopped working completely, it won’t open and no one has responded to the reporting submitted.

It’s the 13Jan Safari still won’t open. I can’t get to the macOS recovery screen because it won’t let me put my password in. For some reason the keyboard in recovery screen only inputs some keystrokes so I can’t put my password in therefore can’t get to the recovery screen to be able to reinstallmacOS and Safari.

So not impressed with MacBook Air. I find Apple very limited versus Android/windows. I don’t like that you can’t delete Safari to be able to reinstallmacOS or other apps. The color in videos is so dark and my brightness is all the way up.

I seem to be able to do more with my iPad Pro. I expected more from a laptop especially for the expensive price. I prefer Androd and windows for user friendly capability. MacBook is not user-friendly.

I would not buy again. I like my tablet much better for ease of use What I do like is the look and it is light weight, it starts up quickly.

This is my third MacBook. Each one has had improvements – thinner, lighter, quicker. However, I have had some problems with this one. First it is annoying that there are only two USB C ports (only one if the power cable is in use).

Second, as everything I linked to the previous MacBook used a type A USB plug I had to buy new leads and adapters. Third, the previous model had an SD slot. I used that for permanent storage. This model has no slot which meant extra cost to ensure adequate hard drive space.

Fourth, the feel of the keyboard is very different and I am still not at ease with it after 3 months. Some reviews I read seemed to think it better. Fifth, the problems really came when I downloaded the latest OS – 11.

0. 1, Big Sur. The search facility on Mail refused to work. (This is a major problem noted on the Apple Support Communities. I found a fix which worked for me but not for others. ) At the same time a serious problem came with Photos.

This took much time to solve with Apple Support – best part of a day. On the positive side the switch from the old MacBook worked well using Time Machine to restore everything I had installed and stored.

It is a good Apple machine, essentially, and the support is excellent, even though it would have been nicer not to need it. No problems with anything other than that noted above and even with hindsight I would still have bought it.

This is my 3rd Macbook, and I was replacing my beloved 2015 12″ Macbook which had run out of memory. I’ve had it a week or so now, and here are my thoughts. I’m so pleased I have the new M1 Macbook Air rather than the slightly cheaper March 2020 version.

Its fanless design means that I can do Zoom and MS Teams in peace and quiet, without my laptop overheating. This is a huge plus as we all have so many online meetings today, and having to contend with a noisy fan and hot laptop is not good.

The M1 is also very quick and I like the new keyboard. The only drawback is that it is a quite a bit heavier than my 2015 MacBook, which was a slight 0. 92 kg, is 40% heavier at 1. 29kg. This extra weight is immediately noticeable.

On the other hand, the battery lasts so much longer that I don’t need to take a battery pack with me when I commute or travel as I can easily get through a whole day without needing to recharge it. (Let’s hope that continues.

) It is also better having a larger screen and keyboard, so the disadvantage of a larger and heavier laptop is offset by its benefits. In short, this a beautiful machine.

Lightning Fast! So much better / faster than my 2013 iMac. I know new computers are always faster and slow with age, but this thing is awesome. It’s handled everything I’ve thrown at it with ease. I’m not a gamer, but I do use it for video editing and general use.

The battery life is amazing as well, and lasts so much longer than any laptop I’ve ever had. I love the fact that it does not need a fan, so you don’t have to worry about restricting airflow when setting on a pillow or other soft surface.

My only complaint would be the lack of ports. It only has 2 USB-C ports, so if you’re using and adapter dongle, now you’re down to only one; and you have to charge through those ports as well. It’s usually not an issue, but in certain circumstances it can be a problem.

Hi, I ordered a Macbook Air 2018; I have just used it a few days ago and the space bar is randomly double spacing. I already tried changing the key repeat settings. And it did not work, I did some research and I will try cleaning the keyboard using an air duster.

I cant return the product since I am traveling abroad; that is the main reason I purchased this computer in the first place. I am only writing because it was very frustrating trying to work on a book Im currently developing and thought you should know your product had such a major defect.

I bought the air 8 years ago on release date and was completely blown away. It was the perfect laptop. Lightweight, sleek, fast, beautiful, and the battery was amazing; lasting well over 8 hours. Since then, I have tried a few laptops, including the 2017 macbook pro and returned it because of overheating and battery issues and now this 2018 air.

The colour is lovely, it’s sleek and classic. That’s about where it ends. I’ve used it since release date and am utterly underwhelmed. The battery sucks. It SAYS it can last 12+ hours and that’s absolutely not true.

I have already received help from apple care and even with troubleshooting I can only get 5 hours for battery life. That’s turning absolutely every feature off including keyboard lighting, turning the brightness on the screen down and only watching netflix or online shopping.

That’s unacceptable considering the air from 8 years ago lasted well above that regardless of what work was being done on it at the time. The screen seems no better than my old one, and the laptop itself is far less convenient because it no longer has usb ports.

I absolutely detest the new charger design. The old one was flush with the laptop and magnetic so if someone caught the cord, your laptop didn’t go along with it but that’s not the case now. They are stupid for removing 2 features that were key to it’s appeal.

As for hardware, my husband find it lags when he’s doing his work on it. My 8 year old air is still faster. It’s honestly just not worth it. It’s still got the overall aesthetic that keeps people coming back, but it doesn’t wow me at all.

Infact, I am so underwhelmed it’s getting returned.

Laptop shopping nowadays comes down to making sure the system you are buying has the components and configuration that will best suit how the laptop will be used. For example, more cores in the CPU means more applications can run simultaneously (and switching between them is more seamless), more memory means components can talk to each other more efficiently (this also helps with gaming), and dedicated graphics (instead of integrated graphics) means all the calculation-intense graphics are handled by a dedicated processing unit (GPU) and dedicated RAM (instead of sharing with the system’s main CPU and RAM).

Then there are all the other considerations like ports, screen size and resolution, battery life, weight, keyboard and track pad, etc. Clearly, a system for gaming may not be good for general office computing and vice-versa.

However, there is no exception that a good or great gaming laptop must have a dedicated GPU, and that GPU should also be equipped with a good amount of dedicated RAM for the GPU. Skimp too much on this one feature for a gaming system and you’re certain to be disappointed.

So where does the Acer Nitro 5 stand? The Nitro 5 is marketed as a gaming laptop, but offers more performance than just gaming. A 12th gen Intel i5 CPU (12 cores and 3. 1 GHz speed) powers the system.

With this number of cores, a lot of applications can run well simultaneously. Next is the 16GB of onboard memory, which makes those processes work efficiently and helps boost frame rates for gaming. Finally, there is the dedicated Nvidia GeForce RTX 3050 Ti graphics card with 4GB of dedicated RAM, which delivers great performance for moderate gaming, ample performance for advanced gaming, and great performance for video editing.

Couple this with the 512 GB SSD, (4) USB ports (1 of which is USB-C / Thunderbolt and 1 of which offers power-off charging), an HDMI out, a headphone jack, and an ethernet jack, and this is one value-packed laptop.

Gaming performance, whether it’s a desktop or laptop, will differ based on the game and the system you’re playing it on. In order to enjoy some of the most stunning graphics with the highest frame rates and without stutter—well, you may need to sink some major bucks into the dedicated GPU.

The Nitro 5 has a very impressive price / performance balanced GPU in the RTX 3050 Ti, so you can play just about every game out there, but perhaps not at the highest resolution and highest frame rates.

However, I did not run across a game I couldn’t play at least at moderate resolution and very acceptable frame rates, without stutter (most of the games I’m playing are racing games). Some of the racing games have dynamic resolution scaling, which helps, too.

Besides gaming, I also tried this laptop with general office computing and video editing / processing for the heck of it. Video editing / processing uses the GPU in many similar ways as gaming, but gaming does tax the GPU much more at higher graphics settings, especially in some of the newer games.

For video processing, I evaluated two other laptops in comparison to the Nitro 5 for mp4 to mkv video conversion using Handbrake and a one-hour 1080p video. This comparison showcases how different laptop configurations affects performance and why choosing the right specs makes a big difference.

Laptop 1 is a 10th gen i7 (4 cores) with 16GB memory and integrated graphics. This laptop averaged 33 frames per second (FPS) during the conversion and the process took nearly one hour. Laptop 2 is a Ryzen 5500U (6 cores) with 8GB memory and a dedicated Nvidia GeForce MX450 graphics card (a low-end dedicated GPU).

This laptop averaged 70 FPS during the conversion and took about 25 minutes—a marked improvement over laptop 1. The Nitro 5 completed the task in 10 minutes at an average of 133 FPS. Wow, what a difference! General computing applications like Microsoft Office ran very smoothly, and even calculation-intense applications like Minitab and Tableau were very responsive.

The fans are mostly whisper quiet with general computing, but do get a bit noisier when the GPU is working hard. Within the NitroSense app (which can be quickly launched with a dedicated hotkey on the keyboard), I took the fans up to the maximum 7500 RPM and it was quite loud, but also understood the fans will rarely run at this speed.

The screen offers Full HD and a 144Hz refresh rate, which was appreciated while gaming. Nothing stinks more than having a great GPU paired with a really poor screen. While the screen is acceptably bright and crisp, it does not offer the exceptional brightness and crispness of an OLED or QLED screen.

However, at this price point, you’re not going to get everything. The screen is fine. I did appreciate the customization of the keyboard lighting within NitroSense (many colors to choose from), but that customization only takes effect once Windows is fully up and running.

The default red keyboard lighting (which is also part of the boot sequence) makes me feel like I’m piloting a Klingon Bird of Prey. Cool for looks, but a bit annoying on the eyes. There are four “zones” on the keyboard, and each can be their own color, if you like.

The keyboard does have good feel, and for gamers, important keys have a distinct outline for easy and quick identification. The trackpad is an ample size and works well. The camera, although only 720p, is adequate for video conferencing.

The audio is definitely nice for a laptop—crisp, rich, and with decent bass. It compliments well for gaming. The Nitro 5 is bulky and quite heavy, and the power supply is large. In addition, the laptop looks a bit retro with its larger screen bezel.

The laptop ships with a SATA hard drive expansion cable and fasteners. This is likely because the stock 512GB SSD will not hold as many games as some might like (this is the biggest limiter to this laptop), and there is a free expansion bay for a SATA drive.

The memory slots (2) can each hold up to 16GB, but the laptop comes with (2) 8GB bars, so the memory can be expanded but you’ll need to replace both memory bars. Lastly, with general computing, battery life was just about 4 hours.

With graphics processing and moderate gaming, that life dropped to just over 2 hours, so portability is not the greatest. For general computing the laptop runs nice and cool, but when the GPU is being taxed for gaming and video processing, the laptop can get a bit hot to be sitting on your lap.

Overall, I think the Nitro 5 offers a really good option for gamers on a budget. In addition, the laptop is more than decent as a general office use laptop. The large number of cores in the CPU, ample memory, and value-packed dedicated graphics card allow this flexibility.

The biggest limitation is the hard drive size, but there is room for expansion (and the cables / fasteners are included).

For an affordable laptop that really packs a punch, look no further than the Acer Nitro 5. Whether it’s for work or for play, the Nitro 5 stands out as your go-to machine to keep you productive and entertained.

Aside from the red corners, the black shell isn’t much to look at, but the overall build is nice and sturdy. It has a glossy finish, so unfortunately I already see lots of fingerprints gathering throughout the top lid.

On the underside, four rubber grips give the machine a slight lift, to the benefit of the unit’s dual fans. It’s not the most portable of laptops, so be prepared to set up shop somewhere whenever you use it.

Battery life is average, as gaming for long periods of time with optimal settings will really bleed it dry very quickly. The keys have a soft, rubber feel to them, and some of the button positions need some familiarization, but overall it’s a great layout that utilizes its space very well.

Performance is top notch. With 16GB of RAM out of the box, the Nitro 5 can handle almost anything you throw at it. The processor itself isn’t the most powerful, but multitasking between gaming, streaming, and working is seamless.

Most games should run very smoothly with the GeForce RTX 3050 Ti, and on this full HD screen, they look bright and beautiful as well. One thing I think worth noting is the utilization of NitroSense on this machine, allowing you to monitor and adjust your CPU temperatures, fan speeds, and power, as well as letting you customize your keyboard lighting effects among other things.

The Nitro 5 runs games well and reliably; it’s really that simple. Overall, the Acer Nitro 5 stands out for its reliability, power, and great performance. Highly recommended for serious and casual gamers alike.

This laptop worked well as advertised, however I didn’t realize that the 3060 actually had roughly 50% better performance than the 3050, so Harvey Norman allowed me to trade this one back in and pay a little extra for the other model which was on special.

Upgraded the RAM on it to 2x8gb, I would recommend doing the same if you plan on getting this as running dual channel memory (two ram sticks) will greatly improve your CPU performance. You will be GPU bottlenecked more often than not using this laptop, so I would recommend learning how to overclock your GPU.

I would also recommend grabbing a fresh installation of Windows to remove Acer’s bloatware and promotional software to save you a bunch of performance. Display has 67% sRGB and is 144hz so if you’re after better visuals, I would connect this to a monitor, most monitors even cheap ones will have at least 90% sRGB, so the colour would look better on another monitor/display if you have one.

Keyboard is nice to use, haven’t tried the webcam yet but I believe it’s a 720p resolution which isn’t bad. The only issue I had with the new laptop I have (which is again, a Nitro 5 just different specs) is the temperature, it got close to 100 degrees Celsius for the CPU and often stayed above 90 whilst gaming (the i5-10300h) however the CPU in this laptop is slightly better.

If you know what you are doing, it would be cheaper to buy a 2nd stick of ram and install it yourself, otherwise staff at Harvey Norman can do it for you, but it will cost a bit more. If you are experienced, I would highly recommend repasting both the CPU and GPU thermal paste with some standard paste, as I saw a reduction in average temperatures by at least 10 degrees for my CPU and GPU temperatures.

If not, I would recommend getting a friend to do it, or see if staff at Harvey Norman will do it although you may want to provide the paste.

If you’re looking for a more specific review on the specs, I’d recommend looking at other reviews. For the past 2 months I’ve been looking for a laptop that I could play some light games on and do schoolwork after my old one began slowing down and randomly restarting.

When I came across this, I was skeptical because of the lack of reviews but I’m so glad I bought this. Lucky for me, there was a July 4th sale happening around the time. Out the box was the laptop, weighing about 5 pounds and the charger which had a 150w power brick.

After setting up windows and reinstalling all my previous apps I was ecstatic. This model came with a GeForce GTX 1650 including 4 gigs of vRam which is good enough for light games like Fortnite and Valorant so don’t expect 144+ fps on high or ultra settings in AAA games.

The 12th Gen Intel core i5 processor is good for handling most tasks and multitasking. It comes with 8 gigs of ram and 512 GB of ssd storage. I’d recommend upgrading the ram to 16 gigs and storage up to 1 TB of storage if you plan of having a big game library.

The 144hz and 15. 6 inch screen provides a smooth and nice experience. I can’t say much on the battery life as I’ve had it plugged in the whole time although you can expect and 1-2 hours of gaming and 6 hours of mixed usage so having your charger near you is ideal.

I’ve seen the temperature reach up to 90 degrees Celsius or 190 degrees Fahrenheit so make sure to not block the airflow and perhaps consider buying a laptop cooler. The fan is noticeably loud (I could hear it across the room) but using headphones should block out most of it.

There is an option for quiet mode (inside the omen gaming hub that’s allows you to see system vitals and whatnot) that does help. The laptop comes with a 720p camera and a microphone built it that can be used for meetings and chats.

The model comes with a MediaTek Wi-Fi 6 mt7921 which is ok but doesn’t provide a faster speeds as described (in my experience). Note: I’ve seen others on the internet have problems with this Wi-Fi card.

The dual speakers give a loud and clear listening experience. The only changes I’d like to see is moving the power button to its on spot instead of near the backspace button and centering the mousepad as it’s a little closer to the left than I’d like.

HP Pavillion Aero, is arguably one of the most efficient laptops in it’s segment. It has 16 GB of RAM, 512 GB SSD and is powered by AMD Ryzen 5600U processor. It comes along with AMD Radeon inbuilt graphics, simiilar to intel xe or uhd grahics that are built on the processor chip itself, therefore not requiring a dedicated slot for graphics card.

The laptop is pretty amazing in it’s sound, as expected from every HP laptop that comes with B&O. A very novel aspect of this laptop is it’s max brightness, reaching upto 400 nits!, belive me that is bright, very bright.

The screen is pretty decent as well. Another aspect is it’s ergonomic hinge. The areas where it needs some work is: the keyboard design. The control button is smaller than alt. the row of keys on the right side doesn’t make any sense.

Also the body is completely plastic, possibly to make it lightweight( it weighs just 970 gms). A very big issue that I have personally noticed is that the cooling for this laptop is no upto the mark.

It tends to get very heated, just after playing Valorant for 10 minutes. The battery life is pretty good though. Charging is also not bad. (it can also be charged by your mobile type c charger !). Overall it is a good laptop, especially for professionals who travel a lot and need a light weight machine for their daily work.

Update: Have been using it for the past 1. 5 months. The one thing that I have noticed is that it’s battery is not that amazing. After a full charge I was only able to use it for 2 or 3 hours at max.

This is a clearance item for a reason. Don’t get me wrong it has good performance, but despite it’s 16 GB RAM, relatively great CPU, and decent storage, this computer is ridiculously small. The small display/screen size causes the recommended scaling to be 150% which consequently makes some apps blurry.

I’ll admit that this is my fault for not properly examining the Dimensions of the computer but it just seems odd to put these kind of specs into such a small chassis. Looks like it was just a classic selling method and I fell for it.

Not to mention, the USB ports have this flab that’ll have you afraid of damaging either the computer or your own USB upon use. The price should dip a bit more if you ask me. It’s the kind of computer you’d buy your 8 year old daughter but with unnecessary higher end specs.

I wouldn’t recommend this, especially if you’re any kind of developer on a budget like I am. Bestbuy has a GREAT variety of laptops to choose from, but this just isn’t one of them.

Bought this laptop less than a week ago & have been putting it to work, running Visual studio at crazy capacity writing complex software and so far it has not let me down at all. Pros: – The build quality is very decent.

– The keyboard is backlit and types very nicely. – The screen looks fantastic and bright. – The AMD Ryzen 7 processor is super fast with no lag at all. – The battery lasts a good 9 to 10 hours whilst watching movies or working on ‘CPU heavy’ projects.

– The stereo microphone sounds great when recording voice clips or in a meeting. Cons: – The camera is not the greatest ever, however, it is really not bad actually. – There are no extra perks in the box like a protective pouch or wireless mouse etc.

Overall very happy with this purchase!.

This laptop comes with: 120Hz 1080p display 1x 8GB DDR4 2933MHz SODIMM RAM Intel Core i5-10500H @ 2. 50GHz NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1650 4GB Pros: Really good price (Though there is an RTX 3050 version that would perform better for a bit extra) Runs well for its price A nice laptop to have and large fan intake and exhaust The Anti-glare display is nice to have and I’ve had no issues with light sources disrupting my gaming A HDMI port for quick connecting to a TV or another display A LAN cable jack is convenient and nice to have for stable gameplay, though you’ll need a port available in the room (but there are options for wall outlet LAN transmission as a separate product) Cons: The CPU doesn’t have enough cooling dedicated to it, and can often reach 90C when the BIOS is set to Cool mode, 95C on Optimized, and 100C on Performance mode, the fans will run at about 4900 RPM and can vibrate the laptop a tiny amount.

It’s best to have headphones on while running intensive games. Whereas the GPU has only ever reached 60C running Ark Survival, the Alienware Command Center does have a fan curve application but I found it to be less than ideal and there are better options for managing the cooling.

I’d be fine with the GPU reaching 80C if it means the CPU drops another 10C. I highly recommend turning on performance mode in the BIOS for maximum usage of the hardware even though it reaches higher temperatures.

You’ll only get about 3-4 hours of battery life at best on intensive games, so this definitely isn’t a good portable solution Needs more USB and USB-C, come on, this was made in 2020, at least 1 USB-C port would’ve been nice to have.

As for USB ports, you get 3 (2 on the right side and 1 on the back), which is fine for a mouse, microphone, and external drive Details: Ark Survival Evolved – 30 FPS on low settings, momentarily freezes every few minutes (Though could yield a bit more, it’s also an older game) Valorant – 60-70 FPS, mostly a CPU driven game, but only ever drops to around 40fps and is quite stable Oxygen Not Included – Only around 60FPS but mainly due to the large amount of assets and effects Fortnite – Can do about 30-60FPS depending on the settings, again assets are a big thing due to the RAM size Recommended Improvements: The laptop does support an EXTRA M.

2 2×4 SSD up to a 22x80mm size, which is really nice to have dedicated to games (faster loading speeds) and one for general use. I plan to buy a high speed SSD (or 2) to install so I don’t need an external drive and can load games better.

It definitely needs more RAM (Which is possible), I ran into an issue with Valorant where I could only have Discord and Valorant open before it would give an error saying a lack of memory. I’d recommend a 3200MHz (Needs to be DDR4) 2x8GB SODIMM set (buy both new, don’t mix RAM for best performance) and that would majorly boost the speed of this.

So far I am yet to find a game that can run at 120Hz (other than maybe solitaire or tetris), the 120Hz display is unnecessary, as 60Hz would’ve done just fine for shooter games. Conclusion: Overall this is a nice option if you’re on a budget, though I’d save the extra amount for the RTX3050 version if you need more performance.

Is this a bad laptop? No, it runs well, I haven’t ran into constant problems that make it unbearable. If you’re not into playing new AAA games then this is a nice option. I do recommend resetting the laptop when you first get it to clear out any preinstalled software, and using the Dell SupportAssist application for maintaining your drivers (NVIDIA Geforce Experience handles the GPU drivers).

I like this laptop, I plan to upgrade aspects of it over time, and hope it can stay with me for around 5 years.

I quite like this laptop. It’s thicker than many of the lighter choices sold outside of the ‘gaming’ category, which gives it a nice, sturdy feel, it has admirable cooling and the gray plastic has cheerful little speckles to it, which are almost retro in a classic-console way.

One of the dearest things about it is that Dell thought to give it a ‘calculator’ button, which opens the calculator program instantly, the moment you need to do a bit of math, and that, coupled with the numeric keypad at the side of the full keypad, justifies it being a very sensible and logical choice of laptop for a completely grownup adult, who does business and dignified grownup things such as taxes and legal things on it, and the fact that I also can use it to have a nice game with friends is just an elegant bonus.

The lighted keyboard has a brisk, responsive feel, the screen has a lovely, smooth look with wonderfully crisp graphics and no lag, simply no lag at all, and I can’t tell you when I’ve been more pleased with a gaming laptop.

It does about as well as some of the better gaming towers I’ve built, but doesn’t weigh so heavily in a good padded shoulderbag (get yourself a nice one for it, this one’s worth it,) that you mind taking it over to a friend’s for an old-school LAN party.

One thing I was a little amused by is that it has a classic, round-ended charger, as opposed to the USB-C style popular with the new thinner laptops nowadays, but the designers placed the port thoughtfully at the back, as a gamer would for a LAN party back in the old days so as not to obstruct the Ethernet cable, or as a business user keeping it at a desk would prefer, so as to have the side ports free.

It couldn’t be better done, and one has the impression that actual users had a say in the design. It did upgrade to Windows 11 right out of the box, which was fine, and I did like that there’s a longer battery life than one normally gets for gaming PCs.

You want to adjust your settings, though, as battery life is rather dependent on the setting you choose. I can get a shocking number of hours on a dim screen with a dark theme, but playing my very best game on my very highest settings, not plugged in? I might get a few hours of that at most.

Still, that’s awfully good compared to what I had been using, and given what laptops were like when I began playing computer games (barely useful for ought but the most retro gaming, suitable for business only, out of my budget entirely except as a hand-me-down,) this is decadence writ large for the elder Millennial whose first PC ran Windows 95 and had dial-up.

A Super Nintendo-gray case, NES-orange glow on the keyboard? This feels like it was made with me specifically in mind. I have waited all my life for it and oh, how it delivers! Such a fine thing.

This a very solid laptop, both in function and in construction. The physical structure is very rigid and robust, no flex whatsoever, while being lightweight for it’s size. It has good thermal dissipation, with the palmrest area never getting hot as I’ve seen other gaming laptops in the past do.

The keyboard has good feel, and the presence of a numberpad is a welcome feature, as I use this as a desktop replacement when traveling. The lack of discrete physical mouse buttons (as all modern laptops do) is a major negative for me, particularly if I’m actually trying to play a game on it using the touchpad, as I can’t rest a finger on the button portion of the touchpad without activating the multitouch functionality.

I had noticed (at least in Minecraft) that the touchpad and keyboard seemed to interfere with each other; that may be a software issue, I haven’t tested it with other games to this point. Graphical performance works great, the 120hz screen is almost overkill for regular use, but it does make mouse cursor movement appear extremely smooth.

In terms of software, this device is my first experience using Windows 11, as I’m a Linux user on my desktop, and my prior experience only went up to Windows 7. I can’t say I’m a fan of the UI changes, or the invasive data logging ‘features’ MS has inserted into the OS; thankfully much (but not all) of that can be changed.

As for bundled software, this laptop comes with a free trial of McAfee Antivirus, which I of course did not activate, and plan on removing, as MS’s own antivirus tools are plenty sufficient for competent users who know not to click on links in spam E-mails and/or links with a.

ru suffix. Battery life is reasonable for a high-powered gaming laptop, if you’re just browsing websites you can expect probably 3-4 hours, maybe more depending on how CPU intensive the scripting on the sites you’re visiting are.

Gaming wise, I believe you can expect about 1. 5 hours on average, obviously depending on the software. Port location is good, having the HDMI port and 2 of the 4 USB ports on the back is good for keeping the cable clutter from taking up desk space by the device.

The Ethernet port is on the left side, TBH I think that should have been placed on the back instead of one of the USB ports, and that port placed on the left side, but that’s just my personal preference.

Overall this has been a solid, enjoyable to use device that’s been a great replacement for my previous laptop.

Pros: Wery good touchpad. Good size, perfect sensitivity. Cons: HP EliteBook 735 G6 13. 3″ Laptop – AMD Ryzen 5, 256 GB SSD, Silverhas many things going not right. I had a problem seeing clearly on the screen.

Evan, I set up for big letters it still felt blurred. I had a problem with the internet conection. During the day suddenly it was off the internet without any reason. I lost patience when it happened a tenth time in one day.

It never happened with my previous laptop. The sound was not clear either. Since I am a teacher, I use these 3 functions the most. Therefore I had to return. Now I have HP EliteBook 830 and no problem.

The HP EliteBook G8 is the best HP notebook I think I’ve ever had, and this says a lot because I’ve had a lot of notebooks over the years. It’s fast, responsive and super lightweight. My favorite feature by far is the fact that it can charge via usb-c! Which makes my MacBook charger now universal for both notebooks! The fingerprint ID is a GAMECHANGER! The only thing I wish it had but doesn’t is a touchscreen.

Great for office work and if you’re a student. it’s light, portable with a decent battery of ~3-4 hours (depending on what you’re using it for). I have a Logitech G910 and a Razer Basilisk x Hyperspeed connected to it and find that often my mouse lags.

Wouldn’t recommend this laptop for those wanting a more powerful laptop. Definitely not a gaming laptop or one for video editing, etc. If you are after a laptop that is great at doing normal day to day work, then this is the one for you!.

I started with a Radio Shack Color Computer with 128k memory and a tape recorder, than purchased a Gateway computer because my workplace used them, another Gateway desktop, they went out of busines and switched to a HP desktop which I like, went for a Dell laptop for traveling which was a disappointment and now this HP laptop.

So far so good. I enjoy the rapid startup and am getting used to Windows 11. I have 3 desktops, 2 using Windows 7 (which I still like) and one with Windows 10. Now I have Windows 11 to compare and learn more.

I am in my 70’s and still computing.

This is a good sized light laptop. The keyboard is comfortable to use and the screen size easy to read , or watch videos on. There is an issue with the cursor when using Word. The cursor will move/ jump all over the page and then if you aren’t looking it will write over your work.

I will have to call and ask them to fix it. But it was a good price and does it job. We had it about a month now.

Easy to setup and a pleasure to use. Current laptop with Windows 10 worked great until I spilled coffee on it. It still works, but is a little glitchy. Upgraded to Windows 11 with new machine just in case.

I actually like the 15″ better than the old 17″. Compact, light, and very fast. I highly recommend this computer.

Great middle-field contestant, worth every penny! It’s not light, but it sure looks durable and tough. Attention: it does throttle the cpu if you stress it, but if you want to keep reasonable performance you can use Throttlestop to raise the bar a little bit, while maintaining it within security margins.

The screen is not very bright, so it’s really dim in sunlight, borderline unusable if not in shade. No problems indoors, and viewing angles are more than adequate.

This product was bad. The laptop was in working order and sufficed, but it wasn’t very good. This was my first time buying the product and I found it to just be a frustrating experience to say the least.

The product could have been improved by adding a touch screen and making the laptop less slow and difficult to navigate. The packaging was barely decent and made the experience feel bland. I would not recommend.

Happy with this purchase of the Acer Travelmate Laptop. Quick delivery. Fast smooth laptop, with good charging and long lasting battery. Light in weight. I’m not used to the 11. 6′ screen and can find it tricky with small print (used to a larger screen) So have to enlarge some things.

However, very please with it and it would suit anyone from student to home business etc.

My updated review after using this laptop for about 10 days. I am giving the laptop 3 stars so with my previous 5 stars, total score will be 4 stars. Pros: – Good performance. Games can run ok on high settings.

But Ray Tracing on Cyberpunk reduces the FPS to 20 sometimes. Other games are smooth though and I know Cyberpunk is a heavy game. – Upgradability: One of the main reasons I chose this laptop and not the similar Asus one (apart from the cheaper price) is the upgradability.

The Asus machine does not have any space for an HDD and since I wanted more storage space, I put a 500GB SSD and a 2TB HDD on this machine, while the Asus machine does not have any place for an HDD. – Keyboard is excellent! I love the feeling of using the keyboard.

And RGB lights are very nice especially in the dark. – Comes with Windows 11 preinstalled. – Looks good, especially the back Red plate in the center. – Thermals of the internal components are as expected.

I have tested the machine under load using MSI afterburner and the GPU reached max. 80C at 100% capacity and CPU 90C to 95C max. which I believe are on par with similar products such as Asus TUF gaming laptop (because I watched a video in which a YouTuber had put his Asus’s temperature in different games and all were either the same or higher than mine for the same RTX3060 card).

NOTE: Providing approximately 3″ of height on the back of the laptop (which makes the laptop’s back elevated) to provide enough space for the ventilation grilles underneath (on the back cover) to properly “breath” dropped my GPU’s temperature to about 76C.

This also provides a better feeling while using the keyboard. After some time in WH2 it went up to 78C. – Sound with Headphone is much higher than my previous Asus! It is much louder. Cons: – The Keyboard gets really hot under load especially in the central location.

I recorded about 54°C. – Keyboard and the lid get smudges very easily. The palm rest areas also become greasy very easily. But I don’t think this problem is unique to this model and almost all laptops are like that (?).

– Build quality is not bad, but does not look premium. But I also agree that for this price range this can be expected and not really a negative point. Just mentioning it like a reminder. The machine is all plastic, but the feeling is somewhat moderate.

Not too bad or good. – The built-in gaming center software (NitroSense) looks very cheap and has very few functions. My 2017 Asus laptop had a more professional software!.

Purchased for a steal on black friday. Spec wise its comparable to laptops over 6k. and it pulls its weight pretty decently. However there are a few downsides to consider. Lack of thunderbolt mean displays will be limited to hdmi.

Most displays are hdmi 2. 0 so untill hdmi 2. 1 to dp 1. 4 adapters are out you will be limited in performance monitors. Buy more ram. For some reason they opted do only go with 1x16gb ran stick, do yourself a favour and buy another stick to make use of dual channel performance its a large difference.

Storage at 1tb for this price is lacking. Its nvme storage so its not bad. but would be beneficial to chuck another nvme or 2. 5 drive in for good measure. Thermals have only been ok, ive been finding myself propping the back up to get more airflow and running the fans on max to get the full potential out of this thing.

The gpu has actually been fine, but the cpu has been hitting 90-100 without the fans at full while gaming so maybe invest in a cooler plate. Powerbrick has been getting hotter than im used to. sometimes its actually painful to touch, it does have a warning on it but it is a slight bit concerning.

i can’t vouch much for battery life as i generally have it plugged in. Those things aside, this thing runs everything i thow at it including cyberpunk on full graphics. Its never going to compare to my desktop but it was a great buy on special and great to take away on holiday to get some work and gaming done in the spare time.

I love this product. AN517-41-R3NX is of the best budget gamer laptop this year in 2021 per several articles and Youtube videos. Pro’s: Boot time less than 3 seconds to see the acer logo. The screen brightness isn’t a turn off more me.

360hz refresh rate a very good mobile AMD processor only second to 5900X upgradeable up to 32GB ram so it can last a very long time. a free Nvme Pcie M. 2 ssd slot a free 2. 5 in ssd sata III drive slot 2 year warranty for the refurbished laptop Great customer service.

I asked if the motherboard supported pcie gen 3. 0/4. 0/5. 0 Their response was it’s pcie gen 4. 0. Had the most recent drivers already installed. I only had to install the graphics driver update because it just came out after the product was shipped.

Cons: Can run hot make sure you buy a very expensive cooler No Display Port No Thunderbolt Port I had to ask for a 2. 5 in ssd sata III drive adapter. They promptly responded and mailed adapter kit to me The Del, Home, Pg Up, Pg Dn, End buttons are akwardly placed.

Takes a while to get used to it.

An excellent laptop that features a fantastic CPU/GPU combination. As with most gaming laptops though, heat is an issue it struggles to deal with. It can be solved though! Pros: + Ryzen 7 4800H is a fantastic processor.

+ GeForce RTX 2060 delivers excellent frame rates, even with the settings cranked up. + Great all around package for the price, when compared with the competition, with ample RAM and an M. 2 SSD with plenty of storage.

+ There’s a 2nd M. 2 slot to further expand storage. + 90Wh battery lasts for several hours when web browsing, watching video etc. Excellent battery life for a gaming laptop! + The laptop feels well made, the metal lid casing is a nice touch.

+ Clear, bright and adjustable RGB keyboard with customisable effects. Can sync with ASUS ROG products lighting effects – such as mouse/headphones. Feels responsive and snappy when typing. + 144Hz screen, with Adaptive Sync – which is an improvement over VSync and really keeps games looking smooth even when framerates go through an erratic phase.

+ Raytracing and DLSS ready (but don’t expect super high frame rates with ray tracing enabled without DLSS enabled too!) + USB-C display port output with G-Sync for external displays Cons: – Once the Ryzen 7 4800H’s boost mode kicks in, temperatures soar, especially when gaming.

The laptop’s cooling system gets very loud. Temperatures of 88c – 90c are reached fairly quickly. **Disabling Ryzen 7 4800H’s boost mode completely fixes this issue! See below. – The laptop’s speakers are pretty average and aren’t as loud as I’d like.

Most game with a headset on though so most won’t mind this much. – The screen’s colours won’t be vibrant enough for some – particularly if video/image editing – but I found it perfectly fine for gaming and media playback.

– Only has 3 USB ports – but this is pretty small con for most people to be honest. **About the laptop’s temperatures. Most laptops run hot under stress – gaming laptops especially. This laptop is no exception BUT when the Ryzen processor’s boost mode is disabled temperatures fall back down to a very safe <80c (this will still sound very hot for a lot of desktop users but this is actually perfectly fine for a laptop).

My temperatures with boost-mode enabled on the CPU were 90 – 96c while gaming. My temperatures with boost-mode off on the CPU are 70 – 77c while gaming. Laptop performance barely drops – with the difference being unnoticeable in games – unless you’re comparing before and after frame rates to spot a drop of 5 – 7 in GPU heavy games and 10 – 15 in CPU heavy games.

It’s still easy to get >60 fps in pretty much all games. The difference in temperatures and noise is very much worth the very slight performance drop. If you use the laptop for video editing, you can always re-enable boost while doing so to help with performance.

You’ll need to look up how to disable boost mode via Windows but it’s pretty easy to do by following guides. In conclusion, the laptop is fantastic and would easily get 5 stars if it wasn’t for the rather poor temperatures when boost isn’t disabled.

Purchased for university studies in Jan 2021 – it is still in next to new/very good condition! Instead of buying a new PC, and I have used it sparingly, I decided to pass it off to my 15 year old kiddo for use in high school starting in a few weeks.

His Chromebook used for junior high school is just too old now. Durability, Longevity, Speed = Important. Great machine!!! I even downloaded and played WOW on it, it did very well. This machine should last throughout his high school years if its taken care of.

Price point is very good as well for what you get.

This is my first gaming laptop but i came from desktop so it was a step down but the portability is worth it. I got the 6 core amd so far. Fast. I got 8gb of ram at 3200mhz and everything ran amazing for 8gb.

But then i add an extra gskill 3200 stick of 16gb for a total of 24gb ram strane i know but its stable. Payed about 55 for the extra stick. Well worth it. Siege runs at 144fps stable on high settings with TAA SOA turned on and LOD to the max.

I guess with a laptop, bios determins ur fans and clock speeds because bios seemed to be unchangeable for the most part. But thats fine. The cpu hits 4ghz under load and the ram is clocked to 3200 without any changes being made.

Fans ramp up and down based on thermals so i will assume the fan curve is tuned just fine. Havent tested thermals yet but i plan on getting a cooling mat anyway. I EDITED THIS FROM 5 STARS TO 2. THIS IS THE SECOND TUF SCREEN THAT HAS DIED OR LOST PIXELS FOR NO REASON.

ITS BEEN LESS THAN A YEAR.

I found the keyboard was changed, which made it difficult to find how to turn it on, since the button is on the other side and mixed in with the function buttons. The touch pad does not have buttons to control right and left click.

You have to touch the part of the keypad where it used to be and hope that you get a response. The touch pad is too sensitive, jumping different screens up when you have no intention for the screens to pop up.

The good thing is that the computer is quick and loads pages fast. It loaded most of my programs automatically, except my games and my Word program. I don’t like Word 365, it does not work the same as the standard Word program, which is how I have done my Office work all along and I don’t want to change.

It is like switching from Windows to Mac, I don’t want to do it. Leave the Word program alone. Fine tune it, but don’t make nonessential changes.

Nice big screen. Versatile, can easily access without loads of passwords, or if you want you can password protect it. for its size it is quite lightweight, battery lasts well, nice big keypad. Used zoom for the first time and found it worked very well, good clear graphics easy to operate in this mode and good clear sound reproduction.

Works with either a wireless or wired printer. Settings menu easily navigated and easy to change setting easily if you want to. Bad bits; haven’t found any yet but I’ll keep looking! I personally think this is good value for money, does what I want very well and good value for money.

I could have paid a lot more for a computer giving me similar features.

I agree with one of the other reviewers that this laptop runs slow. I will start graduate school in the next week, which will be online. The program is in data analytics, so I’m sure there will be softwares I would need to download on this system.

If this system is already running slow, it will only get worse once I start saving my work on it. I guess I’ll gift it to a student, and purchase a faster system. Also, if you’re doing Zoom meetings and would like to use the background feature in Zoom, this is not the laptop for you.

It’s not compatible for the Zoom feature. I didn’t do my due diligence, and researched the type of system for all of my needs. I didn’t think there were laptops being made and sold, that isn’t compatible for basic features and software.