Hi Everyone. This is my first review on Amazon, although I have been an Amazon customer for some time now. I have purchased items directly from Amazon as well as other sellers on the site but this is the first time that I have undertaken such a large purchase (dollar wise) from the site. In order to provide an understanding of my experience with Amazon, I have split my review under three parts namely: My Background, Product Experience and Amazon Service Experience.
My Background:
I’m not a technology expert, and my understanding of gadgets and gizmos is primarily sourced from the internet (Technology is more of a hobby for me!). Unfortunately, most sellers on Amazon as well as Amazon itself does not deliver most electronic products to my country of residence. I assume this is mostly due to electronic product warranties not covering my location as well as distance from Amazon’s shipping facilities. Anyway, I was scheduled to travel to the US for a two week holiday in mid-September and decided to purchase my laptop from Amazon while I was there.
My previous faithful Dell Latitude laptop had to be prematurely retired after it succumbed to my 4 year old son! Prior to deciding, I spent a couple of months researching laptops on the internet and went through numerous sites and read tons of reviews including those on Amazon. I had decided to go with the Asus N550JV as it pretty much met all of my requirements.
I generally use my laptop for writing up documents, preparing presentations and keeping my media organized and synced with my Apple devices. However, Asus then released the N550JK which is essentially the N550JV but with an NVIDIA GTX850m graphics card. That pretty much sealed the deal for me even though the N550JK was slightly more expensive than its predecessor. Needless to say, I spent numerous late nights going through written and video reviews for the N550JK. I added the laptop to my wish list and planned to place my order to purchase the laptop from Amazon the day I arrived in the US! Unfortunately, due to the laptops popularity (which I strongly feel is well deserved), it went out of stock twice. Luckily, Amazon received a new batch in the second week of my stay and I lost no time in putting through my order.
Product Experience:
Most people (like me) would already have gone through numerous reviews so I won’t bore you with all the nitty gritty details of the N550JK. However, like I’ve mentioned already, this laptop is well deserving of all its accolades. The FHD touchscreen is absolutely beautiful and very responsive to touch commands. Personally, I’m more used to using the trackpad and don’t believe I will be using the touchscreen aggressively; however, the touchscreen is very handy for Windows 8.1. I’ve had no issues with the keyboard so far, with the backlighting best suited for use in completely dark rooms. The overall appearance of the laptop is pleasing as well, with the machine having an aluminum finish expect the bottom which looks like it’s made of some kind of plastic (albeit it’s very rigid plastic hence no complaints).
Audio, which is powered by Bang & Olufsen, is satisfactory with the supplied subwoofer making a difference to the overall sound quality. The laptop is not an audio powerhouse under any circumstances and it doesn’t claim to be one. It provides acceptable sound quality for a laptop and I would say it performs better in that area than other laptops. I purchased the stock edition which came with an i7 4700HQ processor, 8GB of RAM, an optical drive and a 1TB 5400RPM HDD. As is, the laptop is quite zippy and overall performance is pretty good (the quad core processor does it's job).
However, I replaced the HDD with a Samsung EVO 500GB SSD (also purchased from Amazon as part of my overall order) and all I can say is that it is a very worthwhile upgrade. Laptop performance with regards to startup time, program loading time and browser loading time have significantly improved, with machine noise being virtually non-existent. All I needed to replace the HDD with the SSD was a Torx T5 screwdriver, a Youtube video by a fellow DIYer and a lot of bated breath (I was opening up a brand new $1,100 machine after all! ). Please note that I bought the kit version of the SSD which came with the SATA to USB cable. Cloning the HDD with Samsung’s Data Migration software was easy and painless. Although not absolutely necessary, I would highly recommend upgrading the HDD to an SSD, which will make this great machine even better.
Amazon Service Experience:
I was staying at a hotel while in the US and I was a bit unsure whether Amazon would be able deliver the laptop to my hotel. Prior to placing my order, I enquired with Amazon’s customer service on this and they confirmed that they would be able to deliver to my hotel address. Their customer service was very prompt with their response and was quite helpful. I ordered the laptop using 2 day Prime shipping and the laptop arrived in perfect condition within the timeframe. Kudos Amazon and 5 Star rating for your overall service. I look forward to ordering from you again very soon.
I hope my above review will be of assistance to those who are considering purchasing this laptop. Also, I would like to thank the other reviewers who took time to write their reviews for this laptop as it was of great help to me. Thanks
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Outstanding! Best laptop on Amazon in the $979 to $1199 price range.
Black Screen Fix Here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm3bcPV_9TIBest laptop on Amazon in the $979 to $1199 price range. Of course these prices change from time to time. I think the base model with a 1TB mechanical hard drive and 8GB of RAM used to go for $1,099 and the upgraded model with a 256GB SSD and 16GB of RAM went for $1,299 or more. I purchased the model with 1TB hard drive and 8GB RAM for $979. Great price, great machine.First off, I immediately replaced the hard drive with a 256GB Samsung 840 series, I had an extra one. This laptop (or any laptop at all) with a mechanical hard drive is SLOW. Having an SSD is a must. If you don't want to replace it yourself then I suggest buying the more expensive model that has an SSD and more RAM. Replacing it was easy. You need a TORX 5 screw driver, you can find them anywhere, I got one at my local menards. Just take out all the screws on the bottom, then the bottom piece just pops right off. You have access to everything with the bottom cover removed. Just a few more screws with a regular screw driver (a small one).I have nothing huge to add here, just about everything has been said in the other reviews. A few things to note.It is easy to see what the cause of the black screen issue is that a few others have reported. There is a small cable on the inside that goes from the screen to the motherboard. Where is attaches to the motherboard it could come loose and get disconnected. I just pushed down on the end of the connector and made sure it was firmly attached to the motherboard. I guarantee this is the fix for 99% of people reporting issues, it makes sense because they are saying that the screen is cutting out and going black when they move the screen back and forth to certain positions. If the connector came loose then moving the screen back too far would put just enough tension on the cable to cause it to pull away from where it connects to the motherboard thus causing the screen to shut off. The fix is so easy its ridiculous. Yes this should not happen but if it does happen to you just plug that little cable back in. My laptop did not have any problems, the cable was attached well but I made sure to push it in just to make sure, I had the bottom cover off anyway to replace the hard drive with an SSD so I took the opportunity to double check that the cable was firmly attached.Everything else - Keyboard is great, best on any laptop I've ever owned. Audio works perfect, headphone jack works perfect. The included subwoofer speaker is very loud and adds a lot especially if you are watching a movie or listening to music. The screen is the best feature, it is a work of art. I have never laid eyes on a screen so beautiful, the viewing angles are great, the colors don't shift or anything when looking at it from any angle. I love that this laptop includes an optical drive, I still like to watch DVD movies on a laptop.Battery life is average at best. I get about 4 to 5 hours just web surfing and such, much less when gaming (my kids play minecraft on it.)This thing is nearly dead silent. The mechanical hard drive made some noise, but once I switched to an SSD this thing makes no noise at all. If you put your ear right up to it you can hear a tiny bit of fan noise.Final advice - buy this laptop!
