All right everyone, this is my first laptop review so if I miss anything let me know and I’ll do my best to update/fix/add it.
Specs:
1.7GHz Dothan CPU
512MB Kingston RAM (soon to be 1024MB)
60GB 5400 RPM hard drive
15” SXGA+ (1400X1050) LCD
ATi MR9700 w/128MB RAM
Intel 2200BG wireless adapter
DVD/CDRW combo drive
I’ll start off by stating that I’ve been an AMD and Nvidia user for several years now and my first choice for a new laptop was the Mitac 8335. I placed an order for the Battalion SL from IBuyPower. They seem to take their time, and while I was waiting I began reading about the Compel CL56 everyone seemed to be buying, as well as the 1557GL. With the excellent reviews of the Pentium M/ATi combo I decided to cancel my first order and get a 1557. With the two being nearly equal machines I made my decision on overall looks. I just like the look of the 1557GL a little bit more (it was close though). IBuyPower also sells the 1557, and you can get a snazzy paint job for $100.00, but with the previous wait and my impatiens I decided to go with ABS (basically the same price as IBuyPower, without the cool yellow paint job).
Ordering and waiting:
Very easy. I went online on a Thursday afternoon and configured my system. I came in at $1746.00 with free shipping and a free pair of headphones (I guess they know laptop speakers suck). Checking my order status showed that the order had been received, and was being processed. The following day (Friday) showed my laptop in assembly (fast!). Now came the weekend, just had to wait it out no status updates. Monday and my new laptop was being loaded with the software I requested (XP Home, couldn’t get it with out an OS). Tuesday morning and it’s now in shipping prep, oh wait Tuesday afternoon and it’s shipped out FedEx with a estimated delivery of Friday! Knowing that FedEx won’t leave a package at my house (I never filled out the release form), I call ABS and asked them to have it held at the local FedEx center. They put me on hold for a couple of minutes while they set it up with FedEx (I originally called them, but they said the shipper had to request it) and let me know that I could pick it up on Friday. Overall it was a very pleasant and trouble free experience. The people I talked to at ABS were always friendly and helpful.
10 out of 10 – Friendly, helpful and fast.
Shipping/Packaging:
I pick up the laptop from FedEx Friday afternoon. Opening the shipping box revealed the dreaded foam peanuts (I hate those things!), and some well placed gray foam blocks surrounding the laptop box. The laptop was held in its box by the standard foam frame thingies and there was another box with all the manuals and software in there as well. Pretty standard stuff for shipping a laptop, nothing out of the ordinary.
Laptop Box:
8 out of 10 – Good job, nothing exceptional.
First look:
Wow, this laptop looks a lot nicer in person then in the pictures. It’s has a very slim and sleek look and feel to it. The silver/dark grey color scheme looks real nice. The keyboard is translucent blue, but it’s dark enough that it’s not easy to see that’s it translucent unless you really look. It does take away from the overall look at little, but it’s not a deal breaker if you ask me. I think it would have looked better if AOpen had used a dark grey or even a translucent grey one. ABS also includes a name tag on the back of the LCD instead of just leaving a blank spot where it should be like some of the other boutique dealers.
8.5 out of 10 – Looks good, but would look better with a grey/black keyboard.
Around the world:
Ok let’s see what’s hanging out on the sides, top and bottom of this thing. On the right hand side there is one of those laptop lock sockets, and the much talked about fan vent (more on that later). On the rear there’s a power connector, s-video, 15 pin VGA, parallel port, RJ11 (modem), RJ45 (10/100 LAN), mini Firewire, 3 USB 2.0 ports and headphone and microphone jacks. On the left side we find the memory card reader (MS, SD, and MMC – of course I use CF and SM), volume control, 1 PCMCIA slot and IR port. The front hosts the LCD panel latch release and the DVD/CDRW drive. The keyboard area houses the keyboard (of course) touch pad and it’s buttons/scroll pad, built in mic, 5 quick access buttons down the left side, the power button, and the CD player DJ controls along the top. At the bottom of the LCD are LEDs for wireless card, power, sleep mode, hard drive, battery charging, caps lock, and number lock. The wireless, power and sleep lights are also displayed on the back side of the LCD so you can see them with the screen closed. The bottom has access panels for the battery (removable by pushing a latch), hard drive (removing a screw) and memory (removing two screws) CPU and mini PCI access must reside under the keyboard, which I have not removed yet.
Right hand side:
Back:
Left hand side:
Front:
Bottom:
Bottom with everything open:
9 out of 10 – No PS2 port for a keyboard, and I really would like to have a CF and SM reader as well, but now I’m being picky.
Build quility:
Seems pretty good. The casing is a combination of dark grey and silver plastic. The LCD latch is metal, but the latch release button is plastic. The latch is positioned in the middle of the screen. With the screen open you can flex both the LCD panel and lower casing a little by grabbing oppisite corrners and twisting, not something I do on a normal basis. The screen on mine doesn't come in contact with the keyboard when closed. I know some have reported this, but on mine I can see light between the screen and the keyboard when it's closed by looking throught the side.
8 out of 10 - Some flex of the case/LCD panel, but nothing extreem.
Screen:
First and foremost, no dead pixels!
It does suffer from a limited viewing range from top to bottom that forces you to adjust the angle of the LCD panel if you make a change to you sitting/viewing position. Personally I’ve not had a laptop or LCD monitor that didn’t do this to some degree, and I would say the panel in the 1557 may be affected by it little bit more, but it compares well with the LCD panel in my Dell 8100 (15” 1600X1200), which I’ve always liked. Side to side viewing angles are very good, so people sitting next to you on the train will see if you’re watching a DVD porn. The screen is bright, the colors look good, and contrast is OK. I haven’t seen any ghosting or trails in any of the games I’ve played so far (Halo, Far Cry, UT2k4, UT2k3, Red Faction, and of course Solitaire). There is also zero light leakage around the edge of the screen. All in all I’m satisfied with how it looks and performs.
Running Far Cry:
UT 2k4:
7.5 out of 10 – Good screen, there are better LCDs but their also more $$$$.
Keyboard:
Feels OK. The control key is in the right place, but you have to use the function key to access the Home and End keys, I’m not to happy with that. It has a bit of flex in the middle third of the keyboard. The key stroke seems a little short to me. At first I was afraid I wouldn’t like it, but the more I use it the more comfortable I am with it. It doesn’t compare to the IBM ThinkPad keyboards but what does? I do like it better then my Dell’s. Oh yea, the multiple key issue doesn't seem to be a prblem anymore, I haven't had any issues in any of the games I've been playing (Halo, Far Cry, UT2k4).
Keyboard:
Keyboard removed:
7 out of 10 – Not bad, but I don’t like the Home and End key access
Quick access buttons:
There are five round buttons running down the left side of the keyboard that allow shortcut access to your programs. The top one is reserved for the turning the wireless card on and off. The next two are preset to open Outlook Express and Internet Explorer (but can be changed) and the last two launch the launch manager so you can change them. You can easily set all of them except the first one (maybe through a registry key is your desperate?) to open any program you want through the launch manger that is included.
10 out of 10 – Hey they do their job and are easy to configure.
Touchpad:
Very nice. The pad responds well, and tapping and scrolling work as expected. The buttons have a nice solid feel to them they do click a little loudly, but I like that. The scroll pad works well, and when you configure your mouse wheel that configuration applies to the up and down action of the scroll pad as well. I haven’t figured out how to adjust the left and right scrolling yet, if you even can.
10 out of 10 – Nothing to complain about here.
Sound:
Absolutely awesome, best sound I’ve ever heard from a 1/8” piece of tin. These things are small, and they sound like it. I’ve never had a laptop that I would say had good sound and this one won’t break the streak. The sound is adequate for the noises windows makes, but for movies, music, or games you’re better off with headphones. ABS knows this too apparently because they include a free pair of Plantronics headphones. They aren’t top of the line by any means, but they are about 100 time’s better then he built in speakers.
Speakers:
4 out of 10 – Laptop speakers are supposed to suck I guess.
Noise:
This laptop is very quiet. I can only hear the fan if the room is totally silent. If I’m watching TV or listening to a CD then I can’t hear it come on. The hard drive is silent, but remember I only have the 5400 RMP drive not the 7200 RPM model. The CD can be heard when being accessed, but it still not what I would call loud.
9 out of 10 – Minus 1 for the DVD/CDWR drive, not loud but louder then the fan and hard drive
Heat:
There has been some discussion about this laptop with respect to heat in the keyboard area. I can say that the laptop does not get hot in the keyboard/palm rest area at all, not even warn. Even under heavy gamming the palm rest remains cool. The bottom of the laptop will get warm under heavy use, but not hot enough to become uncomfortable on my lap. Compared to my Dell, this thing is like and ice cube, the Dell will give you a third degree burn if left in your lap for two minutes (it has to be the hottest running PIII 1GHz in the world). Now the much talked about fan vent. Warm air does come out when the fan is running. When gamming warm air does blow onto my hand/wrist and after a couple hours does begin to bother me, not painful just bothersome. If you keep your hand about 5 or so inches away you probably won’t even feel it, and I’m starting to do that and it helps.
7 out of 10 – the lap factor is high, but the fan vent will bother some people
Battery life:
Wow. I mean WOW! I’ve been on the battery now for 3 hours and the meter sill shows 38% remaining. These Pentium M’s really squeeze the every electron out of a battery while still giving great performance. I’m impressed, my 8100 get about 45 minutes out of a battery while just Internet surfing. I’d say that getting 4.5 to 5 hours out of the battery while using Word, Outlook, or IE is no problem (I even had Music Match streaming MP3’s over the wireless).
10 out of 10 – No negatives.
Included/Installed software:
ABS doesn’t offer this laptop without an OS, so I chose XP Home with SP1a as I already have a corporate license for XP Pro. I was going to rebuild it right away, as I do run an AD domain at home, but so far I haven’t felt the need. The first time I need to rebuild I will put Pro on there, but for now I’m not missing the features that the Home version lacks. ABS creates two partitions on the hard drive, a 3 gig partition which holds what looks like a Drive Image backup file, and the rest of the space is used as the primary partition (about 53 gig in this case). The inclusion of a backup image is nice, but I think I would rather have a bootable CD based restore image and have all the HD space allocated to the primary partition. They do install service pack 1a, but it doesn’t appear that they install any other OS patches, as the first time I ran Windows Update I had to download and install 17 critical updates. They also include a CD of Norton AV, but that also wasn’t installed. I don’t know why they missed those two things, but you can bet the backup image is missing them as well. Also included is a CD for restoreing the OS, it’s not a MS XP CD, so it may just be the CD you need to boot with to restore the backup image on the hard drive. They also include a copy of Nero Express (not installed), Power DVD XP (installed), and the Intel Pro/Wireless driver and Network Connection Software Version 8.0.0 (installed)
6 out of 10 – Should have come with at least the critical patches and virus scanner installed, and why not install Nero while they're at it?
Benchmarks:
I ran all benchmarks with Bench Em All at the default settings for 1024X768. The only exception was Aqua Mark, Bench Em All doesn’t support Aqua Mark for some reason, so it was run with it’s default settings. I ran the benchmarks with the laptop running the drivers ABS put on it (ATi driver version 6.14.0010.6430). I used ATi tool to over clock the card for the second set.
Stock clock settings (391/202)
ABS Installed driver – 6.14.0010.6430
DirectX 9.0b
3DMark2001 – 10312
3DMarek03 – 2947
Far Cry – 23.13fps
UT 2k3 – 146.37 flyby, 72.08 botmatch
UT 2k4 – 86.29 fps botmatch (dm-rankin: 108.12 fps, as-convoy: 56.19 fps, br-colossus: 94.56 fps)
Halo – 26.18 fps
AquaMark03 – 23,357, GFX: 2,717, CPU 8,302
PCMark 2004 - PCMark: 3495, CPU: 3491, Memory: 2637, Graphics: 1835, HDD: 2399
Overclocked settings (450/230)
ABS Installed driver – 6.14.0010.6430
DirectX 9.0b
3DMark2001 – 11480
3DMarek03 – 3355
Far Cry – 25.17 fps
UT 2k3 – 167.59 flyby, 77.11 botmatch
UT 2k4 – 92.48 fps botmatch (dm-rankin: 122.41 fps, as-convoy: 53.16 fps, br-colossus: 101.88 fps)
Halo – 29.43 fps
AquaMark03 – 26,482 GFX: 3,155, CPU 8,241
Conclusion:
All in all I’m happy with the laptop. It looks good, performs well and has great battery life. It gives me just what I was looking for, a system that I can use for just about anything and when I need to I can just pick it up and go. The people at ABS have been friendly and helpful so far, but I haven’t had a need to use there tech or customer support for a problem, so I can’t comment on that experience. Hopefully all this will be helpful to somebody out there, and if anyone has any questions about anything just let me know, I’ll do my best to answer them. I'll add some more pictures tonight after I get home.
Specs:
1.7GHz Dothan CPU
512MB Kingston RAM (soon to be 1024MB)
60GB 5400 RPM hard drive
15” SXGA+ (1400X1050) LCD
ATi MR9700 w/128MB RAM
Intel 2200BG wireless adapter
DVD/CDRW combo drive
I’ll start off by stating that I’ve been an AMD and Nvidia user for several years now and my first choice for a new laptop was the Mitac 8335. I placed an order for the Battalion SL from IBuyPower. They seem to take their time, and while I was waiting I began reading about the Compel CL56 everyone seemed to be buying, as well as the 1557GL. With the excellent reviews of the Pentium M/ATi combo I decided to cancel my first order and get a 1557. With the two being nearly equal machines I made my decision on overall looks. I just like the look of the 1557GL a little bit more (it was close though). IBuyPower also sells the 1557, and you can get a snazzy paint job for $100.00, but with the previous wait and my impatiens I decided to go with ABS (basically the same price as IBuyPower, without the cool yellow paint job).
Ordering and waiting:
Very easy. I went online on a Thursday afternoon and configured my system. I came in at $1746.00 with free shipping and a free pair of headphones (I guess they know laptop speakers suck). Checking my order status showed that the order had been received, and was being processed. The following day (Friday) showed my laptop in assembly (fast!). Now came the weekend, just had to wait it out no status updates. Monday and my new laptop was being loaded with the software I requested (XP Home, couldn’t get it with out an OS). Tuesday morning and it’s now in shipping prep, oh wait Tuesday afternoon and it’s shipped out FedEx with a estimated delivery of Friday! Knowing that FedEx won’t leave a package at my house (I never filled out the release form), I call ABS and asked them to have it held at the local FedEx center. They put me on hold for a couple of minutes while they set it up with FedEx (I originally called them, but they said the shipper had to request it) and let me know that I could pick it up on Friday. Overall it was a very pleasant and trouble free experience. The people I talked to at ABS were always friendly and helpful.
10 out of 10 – Friendly, helpful and fast.
Shipping/Packaging:
I pick up the laptop from FedEx Friday afternoon. Opening the shipping box revealed the dreaded foam peanuts (I hate those things!), and some well placed gray foam blocks surrounding the laptop box. The laptop was held in its box by the standard foam frame thingies and there was another box with all the manuals and software in there as well. Pretty standard stuff for shipping a laptop, nothing out of the ordinary.
Laptop Box:
8 out of 10 – Good job, nothing exceptional.
First look:
Wow, this laptop looks a lot nicer in person then in the pictures. It’s has a very slim and sleek look and feel to it. The silver/dark grey color scheme looks real nice. The keyboard is translucent blue, but it’s dark enough that it’s not easy to see that’s it translucent unless you really look. It does take away from the overall look at little, but it’s not a deal breaker if you ask me. I think it would have looked better if AOpen had used a dark grey or even a translucent grey one. ABS also includes a name tag on the back of the LCD instead of just leaving a blank spot where it should be like some of the other boutique dealers.
8.5 out of 10 – Looks good, but would look better with a grey/black keyboard.
Around the world:
Ok let’s see what’s hanging out on the sides, top and bottom of this thing. On the right hand side there is one of those laptop lock sockets, and the much talked about fan vent (more on that later). On the rear there’s a power connector, s-video, 15 pin VGA, parallel port, RJ11 (modem), RJ45 (10/100 LAN), mini Firewire, 3 USB 2.0 ports and headphone and microphone jacks. On the left side we find the memory card reader (MS, SD, and MMC – of course I use CF and SM), volume control, 1 PCMCIA slot and IR port. The front hosts the LCD panel latch release and the DVD/CDRW drive. The keyboard area houses the keyboard (of course) touch pad and it’s buttons/scroll pad, built in mic, 5 quick access buttons down the left side, the power button, and the CD player DJ controls along the top. At the bottom of the LCD are LEDs for wireless card, power, sleep mode, hard drive, battery charging, caps lock, and number lock. The wireless, power and sleep lights are also displayed on the back side of the LCD so you can see them with the screen closed. The bottom has access panels for the battery (removable by pushing a latch), hard drive (removing a screw) and memory (removing two screws) CPU and mini PCI access must reside under the keyboard, which I have not removed yet.
Right hand side:
Back:
Left hand side:
Front:
Bottom:
Bottom with everything open:
9 out of 10 – No PS2 port for a keyboard, and I really would like to have a CF and SM reader as well, but now I’m being picky.
Build quility:
Seems pretty good. The casing is a combination of dark grey and silver plastic. The LCD latch is metal, but the latch release button is plastic. The latch is positioned in the middle of the screen. With the screen open you can flex both the LCD panel and lower casing a little by grabbing oppisite corrners and twisting, not something I do on a normal basis. The screen on mine doesn't come in contact with the keyboard when closed. I know some have reported this, but on mine I can see light between the screen and the keyboard when it's closed by looking throught the side.
8 out of 10 - Some flex of the case/LCD panel, but nothing extreem.
Screen:
First and foremost, no dead pixels!
It does suffer from a limited viewing range from top to bottom that forces you to adjust the angle of the LCD panel if you make a change to you sitting/viewing position. Personally I’ve not had a laptop or LCD monitor that didn’t do this to some degree, and I would say the panel in the 1557 may be affected by it little bit more, but it compares well with the LCD panel in my Dell 8100 (15” 1600X1200), which I’ve always liked. Side to side viewing angles are very good, so people sitting next to you on the train will see if you’re watching a DVD porn. The screen is bright, the colors look good, and contrast is OK. I haven’t seen any ghosting or trails in any of the games I’ve played so far (Halo, Far Cry, UT2k4, UT2k3, Red Faction, and of course Solitaire). There is also zero light leakage around the edge of the screen. All in all I’m satisfied with how it looks and performs.Running Far Cry:
UT 2k4:
7.5 out of 10 – Good screen, there are better LCDs but their also more $$$$.
Keyboard:
Feels OK. The control key is in the right place, but you have to use the function key to access the Home and End keys, I’m not to happy with that. It has a bit of flex in the middle third of the keyboard. The key stroke seems a little short to me. At first I was afraid I wouldn’t like it, but the more I use it the more comfortable I am with it. It doesn’t compare to the IBM ThinkPad keyboards but what does? I do like it better then my Dell’s. Oh yea, the multiple key issue doesn't seem to be a prblem anymore, I haven't had any issues in any of the games I've been playing (Halo, Far Cry, UT2k4).
Keyboard:
Keyboard removed:
7 out of 10 – Not bad, but I don’t like the Home and End key access
Quick access buttons:
There are five round buttons running down the left side of the keyboard that allow shortcut access to your programs. The top one is reserved for the turning the wireless card on and off. The next two are preset to open Outlook Express and Internet Explorer (but can be changed) and the last two launch the launch manager so you can change them. You can easily set all of them except the first one (maybe through a registry key is your desperate?) to open any program you want through the launch manger that is included.
10 out of 10 – Hey they do their job and are easy to configure.
Touchpad:
Very nice. The pad responds well, and tapping and scrolling work as expected. The buttons have a nice solid feel to them they do click a little loudly, but I like that. The scroll pad works well, and when you configure your mouse wheel that configuration applies to the up and down action of the scroll pad as well. I haven’t figured out how to adjust the left and right scrolling yet, if you even can.
10 out of 10 – Nothing to complain about here.
Sound:
Absolutely awesome, best sound I’ve ever heard from a 1/8” piece of tin. These things are small, and they sound like it. I’ve never had a laptop that I would say had good sound and this one won’t break the streak. The sound is adequate for the noises windows makes, but for movies, music, or games you’re better off with headphones. ABS knows this too apparently because they include a free pair of Plantronics headphones. They aren’t top of the line by any means, but they are about 100 time’s better then he built in speakers.
Speakers:
4 out of 10 – Laptop speakers are supposed to suck I guess.
Noise:
This laptop is very quiet. I can only hear the fan if the room is totally silent. If I’m watching TV or listening to a CD then I can’t hear it come on. The hard drive is silent, but remember I only have the 5400 RMP drive not the 7200 RPM model. The CD can be heard when being accessed, but it still not what I would call loud.
9 out of 10 – Minus 1 for the DVD/CDWR drive, not loud but louder then the fan and hard drive
Heat:
There has been some discussion about this laptop with respect to heat in the keyboard area. I can say that the laptop does not get hot in the keyboard/palm rest area at all, not even warn. Even under heavy gamming the palm rest remains cool. The bottom of the laptop will get warm under heavy use, but not hot enough to become uncomfortable on my lap. Compared to my Dell, this thing is like and ice cube, the Dell will give you a third degree burn if left in your lap for two minutes (it has to be the hottest running PIII 1GHz in the world). Now the much talked about fan vent. Warm air does come out when the fan is running. When gamming warm air does blow onto my hand/wrist and after a couple hours does begin to bother me, not painful just bothersome. If you keep your hand about 5 or so inches away you probably won’t even feel it, and I’m starting to do that and it helps.
7 out of 10 – the lap factor is high, but the fan vent will bother some people
Battery life:
Wow. I mean WOW! I’ve been on the battery now for 3 hours and the meter sill shows 38% remaining. These Pentium M’s really squeeze the every electron out of a battery while still giving great performance. I’m impressed, my 8100 get about 45 minutes out of a battery while just Internet surfing. I’d say that getting 4.5 to 5 hours out of the battery while using Word, Outlook, or IE is no problem (I even had Music Match streaming MP3’s over the wireless).
10 out of 10 – No negatives.
Included/Installed software:
ABS doesn’t offer this laptop without an OS, so I chose XP Home with SP1a as I already have a corporate license for XP Pro. I was going to rebuild it right away, as I do run an AD domain at home, but so far I haven’t felt the need. The first time I need to rebuild I will put Pro on there, but for now I’m not missing the features that the Home version lacks. ABS creates two partitions on the hard drive, a 3 gig partition which holds what looks like a Drive Image backup file, and the rest of the space is used as the primary partition (about 53 gig in this case). The inclusion of a backup image is nice, but I think I would rather have a bootable CD based restore image and have all the HD space allocated to the primary partition. They do install service pack 1a, but it doesn’t appear that they install any other OS patches, as the first time I ran Windows Update I had to download and install 17 critical updates. They also include a CD of Norton AV, but that also wasn’t installed. I don’t know why they missed those two things, but you can bet the backup image is missing them as well. Also included is a CD for restoreing the OS, it’s not a MS XP CD, so it may just be the CD you need to boot with to restore the backup image on the hard drive. They also include a copy of Nero Express (not installed), Power DVD XP (installed), and the Intel Pro/Wireless driver and Network Connection Software Version 8.0.0 (installed)
6 out of 10 – Should have come with at least the critical patches and virus scanner installed, and why not install Nero while they're at it?
Benchmarks:
I ran all benchmarks with Bench Em All at the default settings for 1024X768. The only exception was Aqua Mark, Bench Em All doesn’t support Aqua Mark for some reason, so it was run with it’s default settings. I ran the benchmarks with the laptop running the drivers ABS put on it (ATi driver version 6.14.0010.6430). I used ATi tool to over clock the card for the second set.
Stock clock settings (391/202)
ABS Installed driver – 6.14.0010.6430
DirectX 9.0b
3DMark2001 – 10312
3DMarek03 – 2947
Far Cry – 23.13fps
UT 2k3 – 146.37 flyby, 72.08 botmatch
UT 2k4 – 86.29 fps botmatch (dm-rankin: 108.12 fps, as-convoy: 56.19 fps, br-colossus: 94.56 fps)
Halo – 26.18 fps
AquaMark03 – 23,357, GFX: 2,717, CPU 8,302
PCMark 2004 - PCMark: 3495, CPU: 3491, Memory: 2637, Graphics: 1835, HDD: 2399
Overclocked settings (450/230)
ABS Installed driver – 6.14.0010.6430
DirectX 9.0b
3DMark2001 – 11480
3DMarek03 – 3355
Far Cry – 25.17 fps
UT 2k3 – 167.59 flyby, 77.11 botmatch
UT 2k4 – 92.48 fps botmatch (dm-rankin: 122.41 fps, as-convoy: 53.16 fps, br-colossus: 101.88 fps)
Halo – 29.43 fps
AquaMark03 – 26,482 GFX: 3,155, CPU 8,241
Conclusion:
All in all I’m happy with the laptop. It looks good, performs well and has great battery life. It gives me just what I was looking for, a system that I can use for just about anything and when I need to I can just pick it up and go. The people at ABS have been friendly and helpful so far, but I haven’t had a need to use there tech or customer support for a problem, so I can’t comment on that experience. Hopefully all this will be helpful to somebody out there, and if anyone has any questions about anything just let me know, I’ll do my best to answer them. I'll add some more pictures tonight after I get home.
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