Purchase ASUS UL30A-X5 Thin and Light 13.3-Inch Black Laptop - 12 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium)

I rarely buy a computer I'm not able to try out, but Amazon was the only source I could find for this model, which on paper was exactly what I need. After a month of use, I'm thoroughly pleased with my purchase. The chiclet keyboard, performance and overall feel have exceeded my expectations. Bear in mind that I had tried an ACER ultralight and already knew I was willing to give up a built in DVD in exchange for lighter weight. I already had an external LG DVD writer that I used with my netbook, which is now gathering dust. The screen is bright and vivid with outstanding contrast and excellent response. I have adapted to glossy, reflective screens and do not use it where glare would be a problem. Internet TV looks fine but darker DVD movies don't show well. The hardware can handle the video fine but the screen image is often too shadowy (not sure of the technical term for this). There is a built in utility that is designed to optimize the screen settings for different purposes but I have not experimented with it, since I rarely watch DVD's on my laptop. The build quality is good, though there are a couple of spots where the plastic gives a bit, as though the frame pieces did not mesh exactly. If this were an issue for me, I would have spent twice as much and bought a Lenovo. The touchpad has taken some getting used to, and it does respond to accidental thumb strikes when typing. I plan to try out the drivers mentioned in other reviews. I love the semigloss exterior, which does show fingerprint smudges but not as much a my wife's HP. When my co-workers saw it, they were uniformly impressed and compared it to the Mac Air. It's become a cliche, but my overall sense is that everything seems to "just work" -- the power button is right where I would have put it, the keyboard layout seems natural, there is no obvious bottleneck in doing ordinary things, the cool features are understated and don't draw unnecessary attention to themselves, and the balance seems just right when you pick it up with one hand.Get more detail about ASUS UL30A-X5 Thin and Light 13.3-Inch Black Laptop - 12 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Home Premium).