Asus X551MA-RCLN03 15.6 inch Laptop Review

15.6" Black Asus X551MA-RCLN03
via Amazon

Black Asus X551MA-RCLN03 is a lightweight 15.6 inch budget notebook with a Celeron N2815 processor, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB hard drive, Windows 8.1 operating system, reasonable sound and graphics and a good selection of connectivity ports. It seems to offer decent value for dollar overall but let's see what it's all about in a little more detail.

Intel Celeron N2815 processor (1MB L2 cache) operates at 1.86GHz speed and can go up to 2.13GHz when required by programs you're running on it. 4GB DDR3 SDRAM is plenty of system memory for a computer at this level and should enable you to work on several browsers and software at the same time.

Hard drive is a 500 GB Serial ATA at the standard 5400 rpm rotating speed and offers good amount of storage for your images, music and videos as well as quick read and write times. Operating system is the 64-bit Windows 8.1- the latest Windows OS with its easy to personalize tiles. Asus X551MA provides a basic yet reliable platform for your daily net surfing, word processing, song and video playing and similar tasks.

It has a 15.6 inch HD screen with 1366 x 768 pixel resolution and Intel HD graphics for clear pictures with nice vivid colours for you to enjoy all your visual media- videos, photos, games in impressive lucidity. Sound is also pretty good, thanks to its built-in stereo speakers, Asus' Sonic Master and Audio Wizard. It has an adequately clear and nice 1.0MP webcam and a built-in microphone for live web conferences or Skype chats.

Stylish black textured finish ASUS X551MA weighs about 4.7 pounds and is 1.2 inch thick, which makes it quite light and fairly slim, combined with a 15 inch screen you have a portable and compact laptop that should fit in your bag easily. It has a comfortable chiclet-style keyboard with a 10-key numeric keypad for fast data entry and its lithium ion battery gives you around 3 hours of battery life but will depend on power management settings and the apps on the product and the battery is replaceable.

Connectivity options are.. 802.11bgn wireless LAN, 10/100/1000 Mbps Fast Ethernet LAN - With RJ-45, Multiformat DVD±RW/CD-RW drive with DVD-RAM support, an HDMI port to be able to connect to larger screens, a VGA/mini D-sub 15-pin port to connect to an external monitor, a memory card reader, a digital media reader that supports secure digital format, 1 x USB 3.0 port for fast transfers of all data and 1 x USB 2.0 port.

Conclusion: ASUS X551MA-RCLN03 is a solid, fast and comfy everyday basics type of laptop that is also nice looking and modern. It comes with a DVD drive despite being a fairly compact machine but doesn't have Bluetooth (Bluetooth USB dongle costs about 2 dollars or less so shouldn't be a problem). Some users may have a problem with the Windows 8 OS at first then usually fun to use. The system is also easy to set-up and operate when you first turn it on. For how much you pay, you're not likely to be disappointed with this Asus. It is a good buy overall.

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