Did I Make A Good Choice With This New LAPTOP Purchase?

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mark_wpduet

mark_wpduet

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 29, 2008
Messages
2,649
Location
Lexington KY
My computer knowledge is not bad, but is limited when it comes to certain things. Like Intel core I7, I5, I3, and the generations. For example, I don't know what the difference is between a 2nd gen core I7 vs a 4th gen core I7.

At any rate, my current laptop is 3 years old and has a celeron processor with 4 gigs of memory and windows 8.1. It's OK for what I do. I do some video editing and it can be slow, so I usually use my desktop..

anyway, this is the one I ended up buying. It seems to have good stats, but to make myself feel better, I wanted to post what I got so that anyone who reads this can assure me this is a good laptop. LOL

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ASUS-N550JX...721108?hash=item43ea5c3854:g:p0EAAOSwFNZW1FTQ
 
I know barely enough to be dangerous.

I'm not familiar with the brand, but if it's fast enough for gaming, it should be pretty fast for video editing too.

 

 
 
I'm a big fan of Asus products, and that looks like a winner.  Currently running an Asus mother board in my main computer, just upgraded my router to an Asus Rt-AC87U and am pretty impressed with it.  Asus did run afoul of the Gvt. with some of their routers and did get their hands slapped recently, but  not an issue for me.
 
.
IBM doesn't make PC's anymore for anyone. The division was sold off many years ago and is now called Lenovo....and I don't believe they make computers for anyone else.
 
my opinion....stay away from ASUS.....I have had two, and learned my lesson the hard way.....current one is a Q550, was supposed the be the biggest and best they made....most expensive, and most costly!

I mainly bought them for their larger size and separate number pad.....

durability, mediocre at best....their forever in service....and count your blessings if you get past 2 years with before it fries....

I bought the kids laptops from Walmart of all places, for around 300.00, and their still running strong with never needing service, and have outlasted these two I have.....

my advice, just be cautious....and buy an extended warranty, your going to need it....that's if parts are available a year from now...
 
I've had two Asus products, an Eee box and a mini laptop. The Eee box died after less than three years and the mini laptop has been performing way worse than one might expect. No more Asus products for me, but I know some people who indeed love them.

@ vacerator:

I've seen you posting inaccurate information several times now, please check your sources before posting. Thanks
 
Louis,

I beg to differ. Perhaps the Asus brand are not the same in your country?
A computer expert told me they are IBM.
It sounds like yours was more like our Acer brand here.
They are also priced higher than most from HP, etc.
 
Regarding IBM, they sold out their share of the PC business to Lenovo back in '05 and haven't been in the business since.

In fact, IBM has been slowly switching their corporate users to Macintosh computers to cut down on operating costs and IT support starting last year.
 
 
I used an Asus motherboard in a desktop I built in 1997.  It ran without fail 24/7 for 16 years (except for shutdowns during extended power outages or a couple hurricane threats).  One hard drive (a WD I think) failed a few years in but nothing else.  It's sitting 6 ft away in my living room, likely would boot right up.  Only reason it was retired is for updating from WinNT 4.0.

http://https//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asus
 
I've read all the main

brands are pretty decent, except Acer. Currently my desktop and laptop are Lenovo. Never had problems. Before was Dell with no problems. Before that it was gateway and HP, no problems. I was more focusing on stats than brand as far as my stats knowledge goes, as long as it was one of these brands. The only laptop I've ever seen die was a Dell, but it was OLD and very used. From my experience, computers are very reliable.
I hope I didn't make a mistake with this brand. I've never had anything ASUS. I remember when I bought this current Lenovo laptop and desktop I was afraid because I had never had Lenovo before, but they have proven to be reliable for me LOL
 
Mark,

I suspect that you did fine and your choice will give you good service. The biggest concern I have with any computer company is having them continue to provide service and drivers after the purchase.

Asus has been in the computer Biz a long time and I have used a few of their motherboards over the years and they always did fine. I have no first hand experience with their computers but at least they are an established company.

I liked how your reliability link put Apple's in the top 3 spots. Even though I bashed Apple for ~30 years, I have come to the conclusion that my Mac Book Pro is easily the finest computer I have ever owned. Even if I wanted a Windows machine, I'd buy a Mac Pro and swap the drive and run Win on it (I dual boot Win 7 and Mac OS on mine currently). They list Dell high up too and in general I have had good luck with Dell's too.

Enjoy the new Asus, you pulled the trigger, no sense worrying till it gives you a reason to fret at this point. And hopefully it never does!
 
Mark,

Buy a little wireless (Bluetooth if the 'top has it) mouse for the times you need more accuracy pointing. Touchpads always annoyed me. I did LOVE the TrackPoint nipple pointer in the ThinkPad machines, but even that is still not nearly as accurate as a mouse if you are trying to play Minesweeper ;)

The funny thing is once I bought an Apple I fell in LOVE with their touchpads. I now use their touchpad exclusively on both the desktop and laptop. I have yet to use any touchpad on a Windows machine that is half as usable. (Well excepting when I run Windows on my MacPro that is!).

Glad the new toy appears to be hauling the mail for you!
 
Mark,

I have a 3 year old ASUS and it is running great. Just as fast as when I purchased it.  Started out with windows 7 and now it's running windows 10 without any glitches.

 

Enjoy your ASUS. you did just fine.

 
 
Thanks everyone

but can someone help me understand something. The processor in this computer is a Core I7-4720HQ with 2.60 ghz and 16 gig of RAM..

I googled that processor and I came up with a page of ratings of processors. While this one is not rated horribly, a couple of I5 processors are ahead of mine on the list. I was under the impression that anything I7 would be better than I5

shows how much I know. But I'm happy with it.

as far as the touchpad, it's not that bad. But I play this typeracer game online and I have a devil of a time typing there without the me accidentally making the touchpad active while typing. I found this free small program that runs in the taskbar called touchfreeze. It auto disables touchpad while you type. As soon as you're done typing, it is back on.

I adjusted the sensitivity to the touchpad and it's much better. There is a program on here for touchpad accuracy. I had to mess around with that.

I can't get over how much CHEAPER my old laptop is compared to this. This thing is heavier, but that's fine. I might try to the bluetooth mouse but so far I'm ok with it.
 
You did fine....

 

<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I’ve been in IT before it was called IT…</span>

 

<span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was in IT before Windows even existed…</span>

 

<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I was in IT when Floppy drives were larger than 5.25 inches and 330K was considered HUGE!!</span></span>

 

<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have a staff now of 20 somethings who barely know what a DOS prompt is but that’s OK.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>That’s what I’m for.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>LOL!!</span></span>

 

<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The one thing that has never changed is that we buy computers TODAY for what are needs are TODAY.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>Both will change quickly we just hope they stay in SYNC for some reasonable amount of time.</span></span>

 

<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Based on what you’ve said it sounds like you did a fine job.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">  </span>You may have even bought much more computer than you need right now and maybe because of that this one will meet your needs for a very long time.  Good luck to you with your new purchase.</span></span>

 
 
Question:

I noticed something on this new laptop vs my older laptop and desktop. The OS Drive and then it looks like there is a separate drive called D: (data), what is this and why is it separate from the main OS drive? Just wondering? My desktop just has ONE huge drive like the older laptop.

mark_wpduet++3-11-2016-15-22-9.jpg
 
Initially I thought it was a back up of the operating system, many computers install a copy on the D drive to facilitate restoring the computer if something happens.  But looking at your screen shot it appears to be empty.

 

Actually I do this when I set up my computers, and find it useful.  I create a Data drive and put stuff there that is valuable, documents, pictures music whatever I do not want to loose.  Tat way if you ever have to reinstall the operating system it is not all wiped out.  When I used windows a year or two in I would invariably have to reinstall windows because it became too bloated, something did not install correctly or one of a dozen reasons.  Having the stuff that I wanted to save in a separate location was a time saver.
 
Partitioined Drive

<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">It looks like they partitioned it into two drives.  My guess is the OS is on C:, they set up D: to store data and the additional 200 or so GB is probably reserved for recovery files.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">That's actually not a bad set up because you'd only have to back up the D: drive to get all your data files saved and C: (the O/S files that don't change much) could probably be recovered from the Recovery partition if needed.</span>

 

<span style="font-family: verdana,geneva;">I have always set up one folder called DATA and then made separate folders off of that one this way when I need to back up the drive I just back up the DATA folder and sub folders.  Makes backup and restore pretty easy.</span>
 

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