Newegg appears to have the same laptop for $729, a difference of only $25 when accounting for shipping.
So this Woot deal isn’t a screamer, and honestly, Newegg is a bit more flexible with returns, so as much as I love the specs on this machine, I’m gonna have to pass.
I have this EXACT laptop that I paid a grand for new at Best Buy. Same specs all around. Aside from the touchpad wanting to occasionally increase the size of my zoom on web browsing, (my hand is rubbing it some weird way)it’s a great machine. Once of the best feeling keyboards I’ve ever had, and the touchscreen is a nice addition even though I don’t use it a lot. The screen is pretty reflective, heads up on that. 99% of the time it’s just fine, but I am thinking about getting something to cut the occasional glare. My Alienwares did the same thing, so I’m used to it.
Solid machine, nice and quiet, and you can choose what programs to run the high end card with (to save battery life).
And the metal casing is great! I’ll never go back to plastic, both left hinges broke on my alienwares.
Grade A products will have overall excellent to very good cosmetic condition. Some Grade A units will be cosmetically pristine while others may have light scratches or other minor blemishes. Some Laptops may exhibit some shiny areas around the keyboard (space bar, touchpad and/or touchpad buttons), but the keyboard will be in excellent condition. Cosmetic blemishes will have no impact to the system’s overall functionality or performance.
Cosmetic Grade B
These units will have some cosmetic blemishes that include scratches and/or other surface imperfections. Some Laptops may exhibit shiny keys on the keyboard and/or shiny surfaces around the keyboard. All key characters will be legible. Grade B products are functionally equivalent to Grade A, and will include the same warranty and customer support as Grade A products. Pricing on grade B products will typically be lower than grade A products.
I work for BBY and paid $999 when bought this laptop two months ago. Easily the best purchase I’ve ever made. You can’t forget to mention the Bang & Olufsen audio. While it may not match up to a dedicated speaker role, for portability sake, nothing comes close to its sound quality.
[QUOTE=kr580, post:9, topic:415605]
That’s for a B Grade refurb. They have a better condition version for $780. Not sure what Woot’s conditions are.
I’d grown to expect ‘refurbished’ products meant just a marketing term to allow the sale of new equipment through non-prime vendors, or cracking the box to add a critical update before shipping. I’m now getting equipment that’s actually been used.
I got the i5 version of this from BuyDig and it was definitely (poorly) refurbished. Dent in the cover, no keyboard backlight, non-clicky right-click and the ASUS logo on the cover was half yellow. And apparently they were coming from ASUS directly to BuyDig.
It seems like a decent laptop that can act like a desktop replacement. It even has dedicated video memory, unlike the shared memory of most laptops. Only two things prevent it from being a true desktop replacement. First, the HD is 5400rpm. 7200rpm is preferable for desktops. The tradeoff is heat and energy usage which explains why most laptops use 5400rpm. The lower speed is more than adequate for most applications. I would have also liked the drive to read Blu-Rays (and even write them).
The second flaw, however, is inexplicable. The 4th generation i7-4500U CPU is shockingly slow with a Passmark of only 3873! That score is equal to some 3rd generation i3s. For comparison, I have a $459 17.3" [non-touchscreen] Toshiba with a 3rd Gen i7-3630QM that scores a Passmark 7732. That’s twice the Passmark of this newer processor. For what it’s worth, Woot had the same Toshiba for $499.
I do a lot of video editing so hard drive and CPU speeds make a big difference. But most people should be fine with this slow CPU. I’m just shocked that such an expensive laptop (previous posts say that it was sold for $999) has such a low Passmark score. On the plus side, it increases battery life, which is good for mobile users. But that mobility is hampered by its 6lb weight. This is surprisingly heavy for a 15.4" laptop. My 17.3" Toshiba is only a bit heavier at 6.6 lbs, and it has a lot of metal.
Don’t know about that. The Harmon-Kardon speakers on my $459 Toshiba P875-S7102 sound pretty damn good. It easily fills my room with no distortion and very good bass. And it doesn’t even claim to have a subwoofer like many HPs do. Sound imaging is excellent, especially when you use 3D DSP effects. In fact, I rarely use the huge Bluetooth speakers I bought. Plus it has twice the Passmark score of this Asus at $240 less.
The NewEgg deal is actually cheaper if you live in a state where Woot/Amazon collects sales tax. That includes us NYers. I still don’t quite understand why Woot is compelled to collect sales tax while NewEgg isn’t, when neither has a presence in NY. Seems very unfair to Woot, and it certainly makes a difference to shoppers like me. From what little I understand, Amazon/Woot is voluntarily collecting this tax in anticipation of the day when every online vendor will be doing the same. And that day is just around the corner.
Wow, thanks for that info… i almost wasted my money on this. That score is the same as my first gen i7… wayyy to expensive. Staying away from this cpu.
Bought this a little over a month ago and love it. Good battery life, nice backlit keyboard.Wish the keys on the keyboard were a different color than silver. Makes it hard to see the letters/numbers considering my typing sucks. Listen to Pandora on it and nice sound, the little sub woofer is nice but bothersome to pack along as I travel.
Looks like Newegg have dropped their price in the last few hours to match Woot’s price.
Considering recent returns problems I’ve had with Woot I’ll go with Newegg for sure. It’s nice to see Woot finally offering a laptop with a decent screen though.
I do agree with you on most points. But to be fair (not that I would purchase this)- the I7 achieves the 3873 passmark using a cpu that has a max tdp of 15 watts your I7 has a max tdp of 45 watts- so you might have twice the benchmark, but it’s costing you 3 x the power to achieve it.
This is kind of an odd setup- it seems like they are using a low power I7 to compensate for the increased power (25-30 watts) use coming off of the gt-745m. This will probably do pretty decent gaming (not hardcore) since the G3D mark is 1212. The first thing I would recommend is switching out the HD for an SSD- for about $120 you can find a 240 gb SSD- this will by far have the most impact on performance. The price on this is a bit high, but if you are a gamer and the GT-745m is good enough, it’s 1920x1080, it’s a decent price for a discount gaming rig.
![[Preview 1]](http://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/798c6b12-557a-4f38-8c76-050560a454ea.jpg){kind=link}
