folks who ever is looking at this L-top please stop. go buy something else, this ltop i use for 2 or 3 years now and it's been nothing but trouble. at first the HD died right out of the box. some one wrote above "solid construction- !!!!BS!!!! huge smelly BS. this laptop i flimsy and unstable with its construction to the point that a screws are falling out of it. my screen is wobbling all the time because the screws responsible for holding it tide are out, i put new screws in to fix it and they are gone after very short time. this is third time that they are out. now if it is not enough to scare you away from asus, i have heat problem. for about 3 months now it started to overheat. at the begging it was only slightly warmer then usually but then it become warmer and warmer and now it is so hat that a can not hold my hand there for a longer period of time. the back-lit keyboard is with any adjustment to the amount of light thus it is not very useful. the keys are covered with aluminum and when they get dirty even slightly they block more of the key's light and it is becoming so annoying. you'd say clean it up! ok it is so difficult to clean it up from the dept of that aluminum that i will stop now. i am so disappointed with this junk that i will not buy asus never again. we have 5 or six laptops in my family and this is by far the worst. it is even worst that the 11 years old HP. the HP is still working and it is fast too even though it's processor i old CENTRINO, yes, that's how old it is. i am a windows/hardware tech and i know what a PC needs, but the ASUS is is hopeless.

I'm not sure why people think that MORE RAM = BETTER? lol; the i5 is maxed at 8GB people, invest your money in a SDD SATA III.
But, with that said - this is THE best (laptop) computer I've owned, and I've built many gaudy things. You really can't beat it for the price, and with a little investment it becomes a true beast.
The only big downside is the GPU; with most renderings now it is definitely, as is the i5 / 2.5ghz cpu. Still though, for most people this things - even bare bones factory - will go unnoticed.
This is my work machine that I run HDMI to a Samsung HDTV 36" and VGA (with the screws cut-off to make room -.- ) to a 22" HP LCD.
Never have a problem, especially after upgrading to 2 x 4GB DDR3L's and getting a better paging size.
SSD's the last real investment I'll make, and probably won't even be larger than 240 gb - 480 gb, probably just enough for the system files, with the existing HDD mounted externally.
Great review though, thank for you diligence. Just found this site today and will definitely be returning.

I bought this laptop 3 years ago and haven't had any issues with it. I have since upgraded RAM to 16 GB and also installed a dual band wireless card so I could be able to access 2.5 and 5 GHz access points. I also have upgraded to Windows 10 so I think it is a great laptop and never has there been an issue with it sound loud or anything.

The review claims to be for the Asus "Q500A-BHI7T05" however the "Q500A-BHI7T05" is an i7 laptop. I couldn't say what the correct model is but I'm guessing it would be "Q500A‑BSI5N04 " however most manufacturers don't make it easy to tell these things apart.

Don't purchase this laptop. I had to send it in for power issues twice and ASUS customer service is terrible.

Everything in this article is about 98% accurate. After reading this I agree the top is very soft and I will now be more careful when transporting. I have seen the turbo boost in action and it does what it says. I agree that the side ports can be very annoying, especially when I use a second screen (hdmi), wireless mouse, flashdrive, and the 3.5 jack all at the same time, and I do everyday. The one thing I disagree with is the sound. I haven't heard a peep out of this laptop. very quiet unless you are loading a disc. I did a lot of praying when I bought my first laptop and I don't feel let down at all.   :)