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Pros: Big hard drive, plenty of ram, bright screen, perfect size for lugging around, very low price.
Cons: No Wireless N, Existing memory must be removed to upgrade to 4gb.
Summary: Great little laptop for students and business professionals. Handles office applications, email, and internet with ease. Low price.
For the price of one of those tiny and virtually useless netbooks, you can have a real laptop. With the Athlon 64 processor, 2gb of RAM, dvd drive, and 160gb hard drive, you will have enough power to run all your office applications such as Microsoft Office, Adobe Suites, and Quickbooks.
For normal office and student use, having Windows Vista running on a full power processor Athlon 64 1.60ghz with 2gb of ram is a must. The 160gb hard drive should give you enough room to store all your documents and projects along with your itunes/mp3 library for the next couple of years. At least until it’s time to replace this laptop with the latest and greatest.
The 14″ screen is bright and clear. Whether you are writing your paper, calculating your portfolio, or just watching your favorite dvd, you will enjoy a sharp 1280×800 resolution. There is also an external vga port to hook up the laptop to an external monitor. You can even run in dual screen mode with the laptop showing one window and the external monitor showing Add a wireless keyboard and mouse and you will have a virtual desktop replacement.
You shouldn’t need to upgrade the ram above the 2gb already installed unless you’re working with larger graphic files and heavy duty software like Adobe Photoshop CSx. However, if you find you need to upgrade the ram, then you have to remove the 2gb already installed into the only two available slots and replace them with two 2gb sticks. It’s a relatively easy process that you can do yourself. There is very little you can do with the 2gb you take out. I suppose you could try craigslist or ebay.
The only other thing I think I should address is the lack of wireless N. This is not really a con. Basically, I don’t know of any wireless hotspots that offer wireless N, so the built in wireless g will work everywhere with plenty of speed. At home, wireless g is still faster than most cable/dsl providers can pump through your modem anyway. However, wireless N is theoretically 4x faster and has 4x the range of wireless g. Since wireless g can more than handle even the current fastest internet speeds available, you may not care about wireless N for a long time. However, wireless N does offer a slight advantage in range. This would allow you to roam around your office and/or home without worrying about your signal strength. So if you have a wireless N router at home or in the office, then you might want to consider adding a wireless N USB adapter if (on the rare chance) you’re constantly loosing your wireless connection.
All in all, I would highly recommend this laptop to anyone who is not a heavy graphic designer or gamer. For normal office and student use, it’s more than powerful enough and at under 6 pounds, is a comfortable size and weight to carry around. As of this writing, it’s currently being offered at ValueAuthority.com Laptop Reviews for $379 with free shipping! Why bother with a netbook when you can have a real notebook for the same price?