I've been trying out a lot of laptops lately, I've honestly been fairly disappointed with quite a few of the laptops I've purchased and very impressed with only a few. Typically I feel you get what you pay for, but my recent purchases have proven otherwise. Design: I think this laptop is designed very well, it seems like a solid laptop that can withstand some serious use. The case is made of a metal material which seems that it would hold up to a little bit of abuse. Graphics: I don't play anything graphically intensive, but it keeps up with Hulu and anything else I've throw at it. The resolution isn't the most impressive I've seen, but it's by no means lacking. Performance: The laptop itself has kept up with everything I've thrown at it and the processor rates up there with comparable models and even some more expensive units. Comfort: This is one of the best things about this laptop, Asus has added a rubber wrist rest that is absolutely amazing and impressive. Now for the bad stuff: Overall, I like the laptop, although I've had a few issues that detract from my opinion of it. 1. Keyboard - The keyboard isn't as responsive as I would like. I type very fast and a lot of times it will miss keys, whereas other models such as the Samsung I will reference later has a very responsive keyboard. 2. Mouse - The mouse is a little awkward. The pad itself isn't overly useful, the buttons require a little extra force to push, etc... I've played with the settings increasing the sensitivity in hopes of improving the use and ultimately have been disappointed. In the past I've been a fan of Synaptics and was disappointed that Samsung chose to use Elan instead, but now after purchasing both laptops I've determine that the Elan is a much better touchpad with the appropriate drives installed. 3. Home / End / Page Up / Page Down Buttons - Well, this is a sort of weird one, but they have re-ordered these buttons. I'm used to Home and End being next to each other and instead they've put them in a different order. Home / Page Up / Page Down / End. Although this isn't a huge deal, when you change between multiple laptops it is very annoying. A little about myself. I use my laptops for personal use, a lot of surfing the internet, spending time on forums, a little tuning of vehicles, and some misc entertainment. I do have a separate laptop I use for work, but these aren't extensively used for my day job. I have extensive IT experience including owning my own company before the economy fell supporting home automation, custom networking support, etc... Overall, this is a great laptop if you don't like the Samsung i mention below, but for $100 price tag over the Samsung model I feel it's a better deal. The i5 processor doesn't perform any better then the i3 the Samsung is loaded with. That said, this is my #2 choice out of the laptops I've tried including some models that sell for twice what this laptop does. Of the laptops Best Buy carries, I've recently purchased and tried the following laptops. My purchases were in an attempt to find a laptop I could live with and was greatly disappointed to the point I had to return a few of them. My intention was to find 3 good laptops to keep and may end up with 3 of the same model honestly. I'll list these in order of what I would recommend. 1. Samsung i3 ~$529 2. Asus Platinum ~$6xx 3. Dell 15r ~$700 4. Samsung Series 7 Chronos - $999 I own and have owned many laptops in the past including the following brands in no particular order. Dell Samsung Sony IBM Lenova Dell Business Computers (Lattitude) Asus HP