ASUS VivoBook F510UA Thin and Lightweight 15.6” FHD WideView NanoEdge Laptop, Intel Core i5-7200U 2.5GHz, 8GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB HDD, USB Type-C, Fingerprint Reader, Windows 10 – F510UA-AH50

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For the price I paid, this laptop cant be beat. I applied for an Amazon Store Card while purchasing, which gave me a $40 instant credit, further knocking down the price. This laptop is small and thin for a 15.6" screen (fits in my 14" laptop sleeve), very light (only 3.7 lbs), and fast (8th gen i5 and 8 GB RAM). As others have said, the only downside is the slow 5400 RPM 1 TB hard drive. As far as that goes, I have a trick to get around it if youre planning to install an SSD. Alternatively, I also have advice if youre planning to stick with the included hard drive. Here it goes. If youre planning to upgrade to an SSD drive and already have the SSD drive in hand, then do this to avoid the slow hard drive headaches: 1. Boot up the new laptop for the 1st time. 2. While activating Windows, DO NOT connect to your WiFi. 3. After Windows fully starts up, install disk cloning software (Macrium Reflect, Acronis, etc.) from a USB flash drive. You cant download the disk cloning software because you are not connected to WiFi. 4. Shut down the laptop, open it up, and install your SSD drive. 5. Turn on the laptop again. Use the disk cloning software to clone the hard drive onto your SSD drive. 6. Turn off the laptop. At this point you have a choice. You can either boot into the BIOS to set your new SSD drive as the default boot drive while keeping the old hard drive installed, or you can just remove the old hard drive to force the laptop to boot off the new SSD. 7. Turn on the laptop and admire how awesomely fast it starts up from the lightning quick SSD! :-) 8. Now you can finally connect to your WiFi network and let Windows download and install all its updates and security patches. The reason I recommend doing this is because you dont want to let Windows try to download and install hundreds of MBs of updates and patches while running off the dog slow 1 TB hard drive. That would take a very long, long time. And the slow hard drive will be at 100% disk utilization for hours or days while its trying to download and install all these Windows updates. As other people have said, the laptop will seem to freeze and be unresponsive during this time. But by upgrading to an SSD drive BEFORE letting the laptop download and install Windows updates, the fast SSD will make this process go A LOT FASTER. And my tip for those people who dont plan to install an SSD drive and just keep using the included 1 TB hard drive: 1. After booting up the laptop for the 1st time, activate Windows, and connect to your WiFi. 2. Then leave the laptop on for a day or two and dont try to use it. Why? Because people have said it can take up to 2 days for the laptop to download and install all the Windows updates. Trying to use it during this time, with the hard drive utilization pegged at 100%, would be a exercise in frustration. 3. Then finally, after all the Windows updates have been downloaded and installed, reboot the laptop and use it as you wish. The laptop should be fairly speedy now after the initial slowness from the updates. Enjoy!

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For $499 the laptop is a bargain, but you should only buy if you you plan to add an SSD in the near future. Otherwise you cannot actually enjoy the strengths of this machine. So given the $499 price tag Pros: +Light device with small footprint, far more portable than the usual 15.6 laptops +Very good IPS matte FHD panel, zero reflections, almost zero light bleed, average brightness. You cannot find such display in laptops up to $750 +The colour is a beautiful grey and not purple as reviewed by other users +Excellent specs with proper upgradeability, ( free m2 slot , memory can be increased compared to models with soldered modules) +fingerprint sensor is accurate Cons -No computer is 2017 should be shipped with an HDD. This HDD makes the machine really slow, Until the first round of boots/restarts and updates is competed you will think that you have bought a entry level celeron. The disk works full load and cannot cope, (it is fine for very basic tasks but you did not buy an 8250u for basic tasks). -Keyboard is not that good, i fell that there is uneven uniformity in the button press and travel, and definitely some flex, -power button next to delete button ? So you end up switch off while typing, (same button arrangement in many small form factor laptops. -Caps lock without a led notification, not so clever, Now the ssd part, I got a Crucial mx300 m.2 ssd it comes with m2 crews and free acronis clone software Installation needs patience and some proper tools. 1.carefully remove all screws including the 2x under the rear rubber pads 2. get a PLASTIC prying tool or a thin guitar pick and carefully lift the cover starting from an edge near one of the corners, do not use screwdriver or knife, you will damage the plastic, 3. with the help of your plastic tool unclip one be one all the platic clips, 4.remove cover and install the m2 ssd (face down for crucial) no extra force to snap in 5. get back the cover and do all the screws (3 different types of screws) 6 power the device pressing constantly F2 to enter bios, see that your ssd has been identified, 7 download the cloning software, acronis, macrium or other. Clone the disks (automated step by step process) 8 enter bios (F2 and power) and select m2 as first boot device 9 no trouble with windows licence, you can wipe the HDD via "disk managmenet 10 completely delete all the partitions of old HDD use Diskpart applications for the command line, now you have a proper FAST machine with an extra 1TB storage drive, it is 5x faster in nominal terms but it feels 50x times faster in reality.

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This is an excellent product once you add a solid state drive. I would recommend this one: Crucial MX300 275GB SATA M.2 (2280) Internal Solid State Drive - CT275MX300SSD4 Some tips: ~When you go to add it, make sure you remove all twelve screws on the backside. There are two underneath the screen side feet. There is one screw that is significantly longer than the others. There are two exceptionally small screws, remember where they go. ~Use a guitar pick or thin putty knife to disengage each of the clips holding the case together. You want to use some force but not too much force (where youd break the clips). Do not use anything metal. ~To disengage the clips I would recommend moving left to right. ~The Crucial hard drive comes with a link to download a licensed version of Acronis True Image, which lets you clone the spinning drive to the SSD. It should also change your bios to boot to the SSD. ~Format the spinning drive after your cloning is successful.

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I got this laptop an it took me a little to figure out the layout and disassembly of the back cover. Be careful with the rubber bumpers there are 2 screws underneath. The M.2 slot is SATA 3 (Cheap Bastards) not NVMe. Be careful how you insert the SSD drive. The 6 pin is on the right side of the slot. The screws on the back are different sizes so mark them where they belong. For a clean install, start the laptop with the original OS and let it register to Microsoft. Once is register as digital license wiped and install the new Fall creators OS. Dont use any sharp metal to pray the back cover it will break. I use a Crucial SSD and is working excellent. I put the link. Please dont mine mi spelling I dont give a human @ss. I put some pics for all you to check the location and installation of the SSD. Enjoy Crucial MX300 275GB M.2 (2280) Internal Solid State Drive - CT275MX300SSD4

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PROS Latest 8th generation Core i5 CPU Room for capacity increase: Empty RAM and M.2 SATA SSD slots Good touchpad CONS Below medium build quality Keyboard has flex No backlight at keyboard Key presses are too stiff to press. May not be healthy for fingers USB ports are too hard to plug and unplug Comes with HDD and this makes this laptop very slow About 4 hours of battery Maintenance and opening case is too hard REVIEW This laptop should be sold with SSD. HDD makes this laptop very slow. In contrast of that, this laptops CPU is very powerful. You need to add or replace SSD to this laptop if you want to get real potential of this laptop. You need to open the case to add RAM or SSD. But Asus engineers designed the case and laptop not to be opened by users. There are several traps inside and outside of laptop. If you fall these traps you can easily damage your laptop. This laptop has several places to upgrade. You can upgrade RAM, add M.2 SATA SSD or replace HDD with 7mm SATA SSD. This is good. Because there are a lot of laptops that has no room for expansion. But this laptop has expansion opportunities. On the other hand, it is not an easy task to open and replace HDD. There are several hidden screws at the cover and inside of laptop. If you dont find hidden screws and push or pull hard, you can easily damage your laptop. I dont understand this kind of design. If you dont want people to upgrade their laptop why do you add empty slots. If you want people to upgrade their laptop why do you hide some screws and make traps to users to easily break their laptops. I made a video about how to open case, hidden screws and replace HDD with SSD. I uploaded it to youtube. Keyboard is not good. There is no backlight and keys are too stiff. I believe it is not healthy to use this keyboard for a long time. I installed Linux as soon as I received this laptop and this was a terrible mistake. I cant boot Windows 10 again after installing Ubuntu linux. You should make a backup Windows or make a recovery USB before installing linux to this laptop. I have to download Windows 10 from Microsoft website and make a clean install. I connected to wifi and update all drivers, everything works again including fingerprint with Windows 10. I installed Ubuntu Linux 17.10 and 16.04. Linux is mostly compatible with this laptop except fingerprint reader. I get about 4 hours of battery runtime with linux. I havent tested yet with Windows. After replacing HDD with SSD, battery runtime incresed to about 5 hours with linux. This laptop identifies itself as X510UA instead of F510UA. When I register my laptop with its serial number to Asus website, Asus website shows this laptop as X510UA. There is no page for Asus Vivobook F510UA laptop in Asus website but there is a page for Asus Vivobook X510UA. If you would like to get driver or product information you may refer to X510UA pages. I made a performance test with video editing softare. My previous laptop had core i5 3317U CPU + 8 GB RAM + 240 GB SSD. Video converting process took 50 minutes with previous laptop. Video converting process with same video file took only 25 minutes with Asus Vivobook F510UA. I replaced HDD with 240 GB 7mm SATA SSD. I can enjoy the real potential of this laptop. I advise anyone install M.2 SSD or replace HDD with SSD. But if you are not familiar with opening laptop cases, dont do it by yourself. You may damage your laptop. I made 2 videos and I uploaded it to youtube. You may search it at youtube to find and watch it: 1) Unboxing and first impressions 2) How to install 7mm SATA SSD

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Best laptop you can get for the price. Any laptops with everything this has will cost between 650-750 dollars and they wont even have all that this laptop has to offer, first Im an IT I work on computers daily so getting an Asus (top 3 consumer laptop brand) at this price with these specs is all you need to know to buy it. This laptop has a 15.6 inch Full HD (1920x1080) display, yet fits in a 14 inch laptop sleeve, that in itself is awesome. The 8th gen core i5-8250u is a blazing fast SoC. Compared to last years core i5-7200u, the 8250u has 4 cores/8 threads instead of 2 cores/4 threads and its overall 56 percent faster. Ill let numbers speak for themselves, on Geekbench 4.2 this laptop scores 4000 on single core, 12,200 on multi core, and over 17,000 on computational using openCL. For those of you that have dont know what Im talking about, Ill make it easy to understand, IT"S FAST! The display is brilliant, has the whitest whites and the blackest blacks, contrast is excellent and the colors are outstanding. This computer will also play all but the newest games on Full HD with ultra settings, this is something that you might find contrary to what some reviews have said about the core-i5-8250u, but it really does game great. The fingerprint scanner is something you rarely find on sub 1,000 dollar laptops and this one works perfectly turn it on, it boots up extremely fast at the login screen just press your finger to the reader which is on the top right of the trackpad and when it tells you hello your logged in. All in all from an ITs prospective this is the best dang laptop your going to find at this price and even above it, did I mention you can even add a second M.2 sata III ssd and it will using an Intel technology will see the HDD and the ssd as 1 drive and move all your most used content to the ssd for fast access and use the HDD for basic storage. I dont see the need to because it already boots dang near as fast as a lot of laptops with ssds but that would speed it up even more. My only single complaint about this computer doesnt bother me much but it will bother regular users of this laptop and thats the fact that you have to take off the entire bottom of the laptop to access the HDD, to add the M.2 sata III ssd, and to add ram, this includes taking off the two back rubber feet to access screws under them. Dont let that get you down though its really not hard and the rubber feet just stick back on.

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Not sure why the guy gave a 1 star when he hasnt even purchased one, but got mine today. It does have an IPS screen, battery life is going strong, and no touch pad issues. For $499, you cant beat it. Its fast for what it is, will pop in a small SSD for the OS at some point possibly, but in no rush as its not given me any lag or issues yet at all. Highly recommend, cant beat the price! **PS the color in the photos is darker than it is in reality due to crappy lighting, so again pay no attention to Bob with his 1 star review on a laptop he doesn’t own. I added another photo with some better lighting. It is a grey laptop, not black **

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Update (after 11 months) Ive lived with this laptop for almost a year after Asus replaced the motherboard last year. Im now 20 days away from the 1-year warranty expiration. Spent the morning crashing and staring at black screens thinking, gad, back we go to Asus. Definitely stay away from this one if you want any kind of performance. I got this model because I had a prior model which served me well for a long time - great little Honda of a computer. This newer model acts like an old car barely able to chug up a typical hill and is not a worthy successor. Last year (after 3 months) Died suddenly, heart attack style, after 3 months and wont power back up. No signs of life. Its on its way to Asus - hoping they can repair but I fear Ill be living with a $500 mistake for a few years. Even on its best days it has noticeable quirks: 1) the delete button is right next to the power button 2) slow start up and performance given - the Intel chip on my 4-year laptop works faster 3) you can hear the screen creak ...in an "Ill be the next thing to break" way

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Pros: Extremely responsive Looks premium Price Good sound quality Cons: Horrible keyboard flex The max screen brightness isnt very bright HDD instead of SSD No backlit keyboard Horrible light bleed from the top edge of the screen No ventilation at bottom of laptop The laptop looks beautiful and the 8th gen Intel core is a performance powerhouse. The performance on this laptop is close to some $1,000+ laptops Ive used. Battery life is about 5 hours of light to moderate use. The sound quality is better than most laptops at this price range. The laptop is a little bigger than I had hoped and heavier than I expected it to feel. To me back-lighting on a keyboard is a make or break so I might return the laptop though (bought It because I could have sworn I read it was backlit when I purchased it). Overall, Its a pretty good looking laptop that falls short of feeling truly premium (backlit keyboard, cheap quality screen, keyboard flex). However, the raw performance and excellent price more than make up for the faults, if you care more about those aspects.

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Definitely a steal at the price i bought this for. Initial impression is that this thing is super light, almost 1/2 the weight of my Asus ux501vw but with the same screen dimensions. Hard drive is slow and definitely needs to be replaced by an SSD. I Bought an M2 gen 3 SSD, but it does not fit, appears that this is NVME. Also, popped off the back cover and added a 16gb stick in the empty slot. My guess is that this can handle 32gb, which makes it such a steal. keyboard feels firm and no flex, screen is nice for the price range. Battery life doesnt seem to be more than 5 hours, but i expected that going in. Battery charger is super tiny and lightweight, which is an additional advantage vs the 1 lb brick that you have to lug around with the ux501vw. Word of warning, the back cover is a PITA to take off, almost breaks the warranty on how difficult it was to remove. Edit: it definitely supports 32gb ram as that is what i installed last night and it is running just fine. also the m2 slot is nvme, i just ordered one as my m2 gen3 ssd did not work due to the connector. if i can figure out how to post pics, i will do that shortly. This is a great deal!

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