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Top Customer Reviews
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A Decent Computer Chock-full of Spamware.
By
Michael J. Duda
on
December 23, 2014
Verified Purchase
This is a pretty fast computer and I got it for a decent price. Overall I am happy with it. Why give it 2 stars? Because it ships with over 100 pieces of spamware, adware, and spyware pre-installed on it. It took me nearly 5 hours to clean it up enough to get the computer to run fast. The cleanup required installation of additional software and was difficult enough that I would not expect an average user to be able to do it. Much of the cleanup was intentionally obfuscated and designed to trick you into downloading additional spyware.
Be warned. If you use this computer out of the box without cleaning it up you are giving away your personal info to God knows who in God knows where. It is a shame that an otherwise decent computer is crippled out of the box in this fashion. If you are not familiar with removing extensive and invasive software then I would not purchase this. I certainly will not purchase another Lenovo product after this.
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There is NO BETTER VALUE in laptops....Period!! I stake my 20 hours of research on it! ACER killed it with this one!
By
Honest
on
December 10, 2016
Style: Laptop Only
Verified Purchase
Let me paint a picture:My background is in purchasing, I am a research nerd. I used to spend in excess of 50 million a year for the largest retailer of its kind in my industry, I am obsessive when comparing details and am even more obsessed with getting every last ounce of value for my money. I am not the most tech savvy person you will ever meet, but I believe I am above average, and I also believe I am a realistic person with regards to my expectations. This is a fantastic laptop for the majority of people, I do not intend to do heavy gaming or run heavy/complex programs. This laptop is like the F-150 of laptops (sorry Chevy fans) , yes some people need an F-250 or even F-350 for towing/hauling, but for most people an F-150 is all they will ever need.
With that said, I spent about 20 working hours comparing over 400 laptops (nerd) from all major brands, and looked at over 300 deals(super nerd) offered on laptops by all major retailers on both black friday and cyber monday. I chose this laptop for $329 on cyber monday, and although it was only $20 off, versus others that were $200 or more off, this was still the most computer for the money.
Here is why to buy this laptop:
1) Newest Kaby Lake generation 7 Intel processor, low 15 watt usage and great speed for the price. Runs quiet and cool.
2) DDR4 ram, again the latest and greatest, also happens to be the cheapest ram available. Ram prices have an inverse relationship to normal consumer priced goods. Most things cost more when new, but because PC components become obsolete so quickly, when ram is first introduced this is the product being currently manufactured, which in turn means supply can easily exceed demand, which means lower prices. Once ram is no longer being actively manufactured the supply dries up and prices increase. Also ram can EASILY be added to this laptop, takes less than 5 minutes and costs exactly $24.99 for the best available, here is the link to the 4GB stick I added: https://www.amazon.com/Ballistix-16GBx2-PC4-19200-SODIMM-260-Pin/dp/B01DGOF6GE?th=1
***Additional note about ram, I chose to purchase an additional stick of 4gb rather than a 8gb or 16gb. There is a phenomenon known as "dual channel" with regards to ram, the concept is that if you have 2 like sticks of ram (they need to match in a few tech specs), in the exact same size, ie: 2 sticks of 4gb of ram, your pc will be able to access both sticks of ram at the same time. If you have 2 mismatched sticks, like a 4gb and an 8gb, then the pc will access only 1 at a time. Therefore after talking to a computer genius friend of mine and doing about an hours research on this specific application, my best guess is that the extra money on the 8gb stick of ram would be a waste, two 4gb sticks of dual channel ram will out perform a 4gb and 8gb stick together for most applications. Also please note that for 99% of users 8gb of ram total is plenty. My personal opinion of adding more than 8gb of ram to this specific laptop would be like putting the most expensive Z rated tires on your honda accord, yes the tires might be rated for 200mph, but will you ever utilize it? If you do want to have more than 8gb of ram total, I would recommend purchasing 2 identical sticks of 8gb or 16gb ram to utilize dual channel.
3) Full 1080 HD LED back lit (vs LCD) Screen, pretty much unheard of for this price. LED backlit biggest advantage is it uses less energy, thus better battery life. Also has a matte finish screen, I prefer the look of a glossy screen (good for a desktop in a controlled lighting environment), but because laptops travel with you to different places, you often times have reflection problems with a glossy screen.
4) Battery life, best battery life you can get for anywhere close to 3x the cost of this pc. Please know that 12 hours is in best case scenario, meaning lowest screen brightness, and NOT playing videos or games or other CPU intensive tasks. Based on my first week of use I feel comfortable planning on a solid 7 to 10 hours of normal use. Please note that the battery is not easily removed, as one reviewer put, "let your future self worry about that". ****Note on battery, ACER has a specific process for breaking in your battery. If you do not follow it you WILL limit its potential. If you are too lazy to find the manual online here is my summary of what they say: Charge laptop to full (charge light turns to blue) before you ever turn it on. Then leave the laptop plugged in while the computer updates, it will not update and boot up the first time without being plugged in. As soon as updates are completed unplug the laptop and use the PC until the battery is almost dead. Then charge it to full and immediately unplug and discharge to near empty. Do this cycle a total of 3 times to condition your battery for its best longevity.
5) Back LIT keyboard, there is no other laptop back of $800 that offers a backlit keyboard that I could find. This means the keys light up when one is pushed, you will absolutely love this feature if you have never had it. Also the keys are crisp but very easy to use, I love them.
6) Easily upgrade-able. I will briefly touch on this, because other reviews have done a fine job of addressing it. Basically to turn this PC from great to ridiculously amazing do 2 things. The first is add ram (although mine operated for almost a week very well on the stock 4GB). The second is add a SSD or Solid State Hard Drive. To make a long story short the motherboard for this PC has 2 spots for a hard drive, the SATA and the m.2. The 1TB stock hard drive is installed on the sata slot. That means the m.2 slot is open. You can either purchase a traditional sata SSD and replace the existing hard drive, or purchase a m.2 SSD and have 2 hard drives. The latter is the option I chose, I am placing the operating system and programs on the SSD because it is much quicker, and I will place files (Photos, games, music, movies) on the stock drive. ***If you decide to pull the stock hard drive, you can purchase a usb case for it and turn it into an external hard drive that connects via usb cable.
7) Newest AC wifi technology for fastest speeds
8) All the other tech stuff you want like usb 3, hdmi, CD RW drive, blah blah blah.
9) Fit and finish is excellent. Speakers are also stupid good for this price range.
Reason's to not buy:
1) You need more of a workhorse PC
2) You print money in your basement and don't care about value
3) You don't like Henry Fords philosophy of "you can have any color you like as long as it is black", because this PC only comes in the 1 color.
Conclusion: Sometimes, and much more rarely than you would think, a manufacturer actually listens to customers and gives them everything they want at a great price. This laptop is a unicorn in the fact that it has ALL SOLID FEATURES, with 2 potentially weak spots for some users (ram and hard drive). But these are easily upgraded, and the truth is (regardless of what tech nerds might argue), 4gb of ram, and the included hard drive are more than adequate for the majority of users. The only real question you have to ask yourself is do you have the patience to wait, or will you pony up for 1 day shipping?
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i3 with Windows 10 and 1080p screen review
By
d54
on
August 30, 2015
Verified Purchase
Main takeaway: I'm very pleased with the purchase overall and highly recommend it to anyone who needs a laptop for everyday usage. Remember especially that many people over-buy or get talked into things they don't need. The i3 in this system is more than capable of performing the majority of tasks most users will require of it. Gamers who need a video card capable of running the latest and greatest new releases will need to look elsewhere, but this laptop should be fine for anyone who will be mostly surfing the internet, watching streaming videos, listening to music, writing emails, working with word processing, etc.
Remember that buying it with certain credit cards (American Express, Visa Signature, others?) will automatically double the manufacturer's 12 month warranty.
Pros:
- At $350 shipped, it's essentially a $300 laptop with specs appropriate to the price and a $50 full-HD 1080p screen. Maybe the market is moving to HD at this price point, but I doubt there are many systems out there with these specs/screen at this price. I was considering a Chromebook or the like, but for $100 (or less) I got a fully functional PC with a full HD screen. Wow.
- Battery life after unpacking and charging overnight shows 4.5 hours on the battery saver setting. I suspect 3-4 hours is probably realistic once it's being used.
- The screen looks great with a bit of light bleeding on the bottom edge of mine. It's only noticeable in a dark room while watching a dark movie, so I'm possibly being overly critical. Again, $350, and wow. The viewing angles are okay but I'm sure they'd look horrible if placed next to a $2000 laptop.
- Not a touch screen. That may be in the "con" section for some, but I've got an ultrabook that I never, ever use the touchscreen on. I'm sort of glad this one doesn't have it in order to minimize failures and faults that could potentially be associated with it.
- Touchpad - Most importantly, it doesn't appear to interfere with or affect typing. The left and right buttons are incorporated into the design and there is no edge between them. The buttons have a fairly loud click when used, although the touchpad can be used when a bit more silence is desired or required.
- Keyboard feels good even though it doesn't have the tactile feedback I prefer. It's positioned well overall and is responsive.
- Windows 10 will take some adjusting to, but I am fairly impressed with how quickly it boots even with the factory 5400RPM hard drive.
- RAM has a hatch for easy upgrading (see photo), and there's an empty slot available to add another stick. Remove the little circular plug cover to expose a screw, then you can remove the cover. I've attached CPU-Z info and screengrabs of the RAM and SSD upgrades recommended by Crucial using their scanner. I'm not recommending or endorsing them, just offering the data in case anyone needs it or wants to cross reference with other drives/RAM that may fit.
- The lid is plastic and textured very subtly, so no fingerprints.
Cons:
- Bare bones 4GB RAM and 500GB 5400RPM HDD, although I'm certain that's a large part of the reason they can sell at this price.
- HDD is not easy to replace. There is a video on youtube titled "Asus F555L Disassembly for Hard Disk Replacement" that shows how, but it's not as easy as it could be, unfortunately. It appears that the lower cover is structural now, so be careful when you take it apart.
- A bit of flex in the keyboard, but I don't think it's inappropriate for a laptop in this price range.
- No discs for factory restore or option to create them with Asus software that I could find, so be sure to use the Windows backup option as soon as you receive the system. Search for "file history" and Backup and Restore (Windows 7).
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Piece of crap died on me twice. I give up.
By
Rachel O'Sullivan
on
January 22, 2017
Verified Purchase
Lenovo used to be such a reliable brand, but I'm off it for good.
Bought this thing in December 2015; it ran like a dream for this multitasker's needs. Then in February 2016, it gave me a blue screen and "Please insert recovery disk" dialogue. When I took it in to MicroCenter - the only licensed Lenovo provider in my area - they diagnosed it with a bum hard drive. As it was in warranty, it was replaced for free. My only complaints about it were that the keyboard was a little wonky - too may double letters being typed on the keyboard, and the auto-brightness drove me FREAKING CRAZY - but some Googling and I was able to mostly fix both issues.
The speed and multitasking abilities, however, were not the same after the hardware replacement - though the paperwork showed everything replaced was factory-new and no changes (e.g. still had same size hard drive), it was slow and ate up the battery very quickly, whereas when it was brand-new, it seemed to take 2-3 days of 2-3 hours per day of use for the battery to drive. Now, it was maybe 45 minutes before I got a low battery warning.
Then, on January 4th, it died again. Out of warranty, of course. I didn't even want to bother with wasting God knows how much money trying to get this thing fixed out of warranty.
So in the end, I bought a Dell, and am waiting on a computer nerd friend to recover what limited files are on the Lenovo G50's hard drive, as I mistrusted it so much I saved almost everything I needed on a flash drive anyway. My Dell runs better than this thing ever did, even when new.
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This, lightweight, powered well ... I'd reinstall windows
By
Craig Jackson
on
October 9, 2015
Verified Purchase
This laptop is a pretty good deal for the money, delivering enough power to handle day to day routine usage such as email, internet, Netflix, office applications. It's very thin and lightweight. The screen is large, though it is a little angle viewing isn't very good. You have to view the screen directly to see it. One piece of advice...as soon as you receive it go to the Windows install site and create an install USB disk and place a fresh copy of Windows. I don't trust the Lenovo bloat/software. Microsoft finds all of the drivers very nicely with no need to enter a product key. Highly recommend this laptop.
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Pretty clear that Lenovo is unscrupulous especially when you realize ...
By
Trevor
on
February 20, 2015
Verified Purchase
Only one reason why I returned this computer and gave it 1 Star... Superfish! Absolutely appalled that Lenovo would put this intrusive software on their computers. They say it was to enhance the end users experience... then why did they not shout from the roof tops this added feature? Pretty clear that Lenovo is unscrupulous especially when you realize the issue with them and certificates that you thought was only between you and your chosen vendor... I guess Lenovo thought they should have special rights. I returned and bought an ASUS! Take a stand and let them know your privacy is yours and not theirs! So far no problem setting up a return through Amazon!
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