Lenovo 320-15 - 15.6" HD - AMD A12-9720P - 8GB Memory - 1TB Hard Drive - Gray

I'd been looking for a half way decent laptop for under $500 that I could use in my hotel room while I travel for work. I ordered a Western Digital 512GB SSD from Newegg the same day I ordered this laptop and upgaded the main hard drive with this and did a clean install of Windows 10 then downloaded and installed the drivers for this unit from the Lenovo website. I'd read reviews mentioning the factory install of Windows wasn't the greatest and had issues so I chose to upgrade main drive and start fresh right off the bat. Since I had no need for an optical drive, I bought a hard drive caddy for the optical bay so the factory 1TB hard drive is now a storage drive. My next upgrade will be to add more RAM but as it is now this is a great laptop so far.After traveling with this laptop for a little over a month it has been a great machine. It's not very heavy and it doesn't take up too much space in my backpack. The build quality seems pretty good and the keyboard is decent. I use it for web browsing, listening to music, and the occasional gaming. So far it runs SWTOR on medium-high. the Bioshock series on high, and Left4Dead2 on high without an issue. I haven't had the chance to try much past that but for what I do play it works perfect, especially when combined with a Logitech M510 wireless mouse.Pros:Good performance, especially after SSD upgradeEasy to upgrade - the bottom of the laptop is a single piece so once that's off everything is accessibleLightweight for its size - It's no Macbook Air but compared to my old Asus UL50 this thing is much lighter and makes it great for travelSpeakers - They won't blow you away but I've heard worseTouchpad - Responsive and solid. The single piece design that manufacturers are going to is hit and miss. Some are terrible, others are great. This one seems to be pretty good so far. It's not so sensitive that the cursor jumps while typing too which is great.Bluetooth - I use my Bluetooth headphones or speaker in my hotel room so the fewer cords on the desk the betterCons:Screen - My biggest gripe is the screen and its limited viewing angle but that seems to be the norm with these units.Internal battery - Not a deal breaker for me but as the unit ages and the battery starts to go, it is built-in so the laptop would have to be disassembled to replace it.Speaker location - I've got mixed feelings about this. They're on the bottom-front of the laptop which keeps the clutter down on the palmrest area, but if the unit is used on the users lap they become muffled. They sound better when the laptop is on a hard surface such as a table or desk which is nice when I'm not using my Bluetooth headphones or speaker on it.

This laptop is a very powerful machine and a great value for all of the hardware features.Pros:powerful quad core amd 2.7 GHZ 2017 CPU with turbo boost up to 3.6 GHZ8 Gig DDR4 ram, expandable to 16 gig ddr4 ram1 TB hard driveUSB Type-C (future proof your household)2 USB 3.01 HDMIWebcamDVD-RW DriveBluetoothAC wifi (future proof your household)Thin and sturdy constructionRadeon R7 GPUCons:I have read that some folks expected a brighter screenBattery lasts a couple of hours of regular useI researched all of the specifications of this laptop, and I just was not able to get these awesome hardware specs without spending over $500. I was looking for at least a quad-core cpu, and at least 4 gigs of DDR4 ram. Usually laptops with 8 gigs of DDR4 ram are well over $500. Many budget laptops today still have DDR3 ram, and usually have 4 gigs of DDR3 ram. We might as well future proof our experience with USB Type-C, and AC wifi so our purchase isn't outdated for a couple of years at least. The 1 Terra-byte hard drive is more than enough space for a lifetime, but is also what is holding this laptop back. I went ahead and purchased an external HDD enclosure, and a Samsung evo 850 500 GB solid state hard drive. I transferred my data to the Samsung SSD, installed the SSD into the laptop, and reused the 1 terra-byte HDD which came in the laptop as an external 1 TB drive. This laptop completely starts and is all ready to be used in aproximately 2-3 seconds after pressing the ON button with the solid state drive. With the solid state drive, this machine is really comparable to other laptops which cost $800 and above. I have had my laptop only for about a month, and I love it so far! I am a student, and I primarily use my laptop for research and homework at school, but I also play some games on it too. I immediately purchased a soft neoprene case for this laptop, and put the laptop in the neoprene case, which goes into my padded backpack laptop pocket to protect my investment. This laptop is so powerful with awesome hardware that I thought about purchasing 2 of them because it's a steal. I'll report back in the future if I run into any issues, but I am extremely happy with my future proof and powerful laptop at this price!