4.0 out of 5 stars Good, fast, feels robust. Set up bit of a pain.
Straight out of the box this feels like a good robust laptop. The keyboard has a nice crisp feel but the layout takes a little while to get used to after other laptops – not bad, just different.

Bought for church song lyric projection and music playback using dedicated apps as well as Powerpoint, Youtube, Spotify, so good graphics capability and speed was a high priority in our choice of model. This seems to meet that need very well.

Setting it up is a bit of a pain but this is more down to Microsoft Windows 11 than the manufacturer, in particular that I wanted to use the same login credentials for multiple (non admin) users as on its predecessor and not use One Drive or a Microsoft account and pin to login. Once over that hurdle it works well and is pretty quick.
I would like to uninstall the Asus “Armoury Crate” app which appears to have no value for non-gamers but keeps popping up wanting to install updates but so far have not worked out how to do so – the option is not available via control panel.

The continually colour changing backlight on the keyboard is quite annoying. I would prefer one, non changing, colour but so far have not found how to change that so have dimmed it down to off completely.

Other reviewers have said the fans are a bit noisy but we have not found this to be the case with our type of usage -projecting videos , song lyrics and playing music.

The built in loud speakers are not very loud at all and the sound is a bit lacking in depth through them. However the sound quality via the combined headphone/audio out/mic socket is very good with a high gain and minimal noise when connected to our p.a. system.

I consider the lack of vga socket (as is the case with almost all laptops these days) a downside as hdmi sockets can be prone to becoming loose and unreliable with frequent plugging and unplugging. Having both types of socket would be preferable to give resilience in the event of a failure. That said the socket on this laptop does seem a nice tight and secure fit so we will have to see how it holds up.

All in all pleased with our purchase.

5.0 out of 5 stars Value for money
Picked up the i5 model for about £650, plays Fallout 4 with over a hundred mods – so doing what I want from it. Great value for money and much more portable than a desktop, which is handy for a student as we have to move digs a lot. Negs: gets hot and you’ll want to order another RAM card when you buy – fitting is simply slotting in the back, only takes a minute watch a youtube; battery not great; more USB would be nice. Overall, great budget laptop, minor faults, easily the best you can buy in this budget range (and worth more if you compare similar stats from other more expensive laptops).

1.0 out of 5 stars Laptop didn’t work!
Please don’t buy this as laptop! The laptop would not even turn on so I sent it back (other people have had the same issue with this same laptop) Amazon have clearly lost the item (blamed UPS at first so I opened an investigation with them) customer services have been no help and still no refund !!!!! This was a birthday present for my son! I have to wait 40 days for my refund so my son has gone with a present as I can’t afford another £800 to buy one so I have no choice but to wait for refund but Amazon don’t care enough to find out where the item even is although tracking is saying they have it! Still no refund had to contact financial ombudsman

4.0 out of 5 stars Solid build and great price
To summarize: an excelent laptop with few minor flaws, definitely worth a buy for this price. Best to use external keyboard and headset while gaming.

When it arrived, i was immediately impressed with construction, this thing is sturdy and very well built. Performance-wise it runs like a butter, runs games on high and medium graphics without issues, achieves 144 fps with no bother. Screen has really good colors. It comes with few pre-installed softwares, namely armoury that’s a fancy version of resource monitor which is pretty handy. Performance is an A+ in my book.

Now, im sure you want to see the negatives when considering buying this laptop:

First: the fans do get a little loud while playing, for me not an issue since i use headphones, but its definitely noticeable. Also, if you use mouse with your right hand like me, the ventilation blows the hot air directly on it if your hand is too close to the laptops right side.

Second(and last): the keyboard keys need to be pressed hard. Not an issue with writing, but while gaming you need to keep tight tension on keys else it starts jittering between pressed and not pressed state. Not ideal for racing games/shooters if you are used to mechanical keyboards where the key detection is done in much better manner.

5.0 out of 5 stars Very quiet, quick and powerful
Love this laptop. It’s pretty much silent running office type applications, fans do kick in for use such as gaming but they are still pretty quiet.

The built in software is great for customising how you want it to run. So you can customise power usage if you are just on battery etc.

It’s light. Loads quickly and the keyboard lights look good. You can turn them off though or choose the colours if you wish.