I love Apple Tablets & Phones (as well as my iPod Nano for running!) but I absolutely hate the macbooks. Glossy screens, complicated commands, foreign keys, microsoft office 2011, and so on keep me tied to the PC. So I went for this laptop TWO YEARS ago since I didn't want to spend a ton (got this for $600 two years ago) and wanted a big screen, comfortable keyboard, solid battery, and a matte screen. Plus the laptop looks really nice. This laptop was pretty good when I got it but I just recently (after two years of owning it) upgraded the hard drive to SSD (Samsung Evo edition) and the computer rocks! It was really easy to clone the drive and then swap it out. Plus since installing the SSD my computer fan runs much less frequently and the computer stays pretty quiet. Now my computer boots up quickly and programs (like iTunes) load up almost instantaneously. Before this upgrade the computer took a couple minutes to boot up and even longer to load up heavy programs like iTunes and Excel. I also added another 4gb ram stick to give myself 8gb of ram. So if you can get this computer cheap it's a very worthwhile work computer that allows for some fun too - just swap out the hard drive. I'm also going to try swapping out the wifi card for dual band but I'm not sure if I'll run into white list issues or not. I'll update this review when I do.
Update:
I updated the wifi card with a dual band and I must say I truly love how much it's been improved and how simple it was.
http://www.amazon.com/Intel-7260-HMWG-R-Wireless-AC-Bluetooth-Mounting/dp/B00MY9S692?ie=UTF8&psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
I simply downloaded the drivers, disabled my current wifi settings, and then under network and settings double clicked on this wifi card. It allowed me to reconnect to my wifi and replaced the new card into the default settings. This computer flies!
In total I paid $600 for laptop, $25 for a new Wi-Fi Card, $40 for the Extra Ram, and $150 for a 500 gb SSD. Plus $20 to Apricorn for the Cloning Software and cable. (Note the cd didn't work for Apricorn, so I just googled and then downloaded the program for free from their website).
That means I spent about $800 total and I now have an awesome ultrabook computer. It is a little heavy but that is because of the CD drive. Otherwise this computer is phenomenal. I'd rather spend $800 for a PC ultrabook with a 15.6" matte screen, comfy keyboard, solid trackpad then spend way more on a Dell or Mac!
Seriously this computer is awesome! There are videos to that explain how to replace the Harddrive and Wi-Fi card. It literally took 10 minutes to physically replace them (Longer to download programs, update drivers, and clone the drive). If you have questions please don't hesitate to ask in the comments section!
Update: April 2020
Owned this laptop for over 6 years now. Still going strong. Battery is still good and the hard drive, ram, and wifi improvements have kept this computer running very well. The screen is the only thing that is now really dated but I can live with it. Why can't computer manufactures make laptops like this again? So many features now but how many are really being used? Clunky trackpads, overheating issues, inability to upgrade parts, and so on... I'll take a computer like this Probook any day!
| Standing screen display size | 15.6 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 1366 x 768 |
| Processor | 2.5 GHz core_i5 |
| RAM | 4 GB DDR3 |
| Memory Speed | 2.5 GHz |
| Hard Drive | 500 GB HDD |
| Graphics Coprocessor | Intel HD Graphics 4000 |
| Chipset Brand | Intel |
| Card Description | Integrated |
| Wireless Type | 802.11bgn |
