Performance: Overall this laptop's performance was very good. Tasks like email, word processing and web browsing will be accomplished quickly and you can even accomplish some tougher tasks like photo editing and mid-range gaming near top speed. It was among the fastest with writing, creating spreadsheets, video chat and other productivity tasks. It was among the fastest for mainstream gaming, viewing and editing photos and editing music, and among the fastest with productivity and Web-based tasks such as word processing, Web browsing, casual gaming and video chat.
Portability: This laptop is a good choice for traveling. At 15.25 hours, battery life was superb, and long enough to get you through a workday with battery life to spare. At 2.8 pounds, this is lightweight for a laptop this size.
Ergonomics: Some of the laptop features, such as its keyboard, touchpad, and labeling, were well-designed, and were comfortable or convenient to use. The keyboard has large keys and was comfortably sized. Its low contrast letters were difficult to read, although the backlighting can be useful in dark rooms.
Display: The display quality was very good overall. Colors were accurately reproduced, realistic, and natural looking. The laptops display was brighter than most, a plus for viewing in bright indoor lighting or outdoors. The display has a wide viewing angle, especially important if more than one person needs to see the screen at a time, say, for a video or presentation. The touchscreen is smooth enough for fast swipes, and fingerprints clean off easily.
Useful features and attributes on this model include: Laptop converts to a touchscreen tablet to be used as either a laptop computer or a tablet. There's a 256GB solid-state hard drive, which uses less power and accesses data more quickly. You can connect common external devices such as hard drives and Blu-ray burners to the Thunderbolt ports for maximum performance.
Downsides: There's no optical drive like a CD or DVD reader, so you'll have to buy an external drive if you need one. There is no memory-card reader, so you'll need to buy an external reader or connect your digital camera directly to this laptop to transfer photos. The battery is not easily removable.
