Super bargain! Do not fear the Win 7 install.

Because the notebook was now reduced to 269 at Amazon.com and it has generally improperly received quite a lot of exaggerated negative reviews on the Internet by less experienced buyers, I'd like to submit a positive review.

1. On the one hand there is the hardware of the device noted in the previous one must not lose sight of the current price of 269 or 299:

-> There is a decent AMD Kabini APU, which is very economical (in my case, the A4-5000) and tidy performance for multimedia and office applications provides a pleasantly thin laptop chassis. Blu-ray videos in 1080p (MKV) are of course also no problem for the APU bored more. Of course, this APU will not make new speed records, but the expected (hopefully) no one. 95% of buyers will thus be completely satisfied and can perceive no difference to a stronger CPU. On top of that there's still an enormously strong for this performance class Radeon 8670M graphics card to which is then switched with AMD Enduro dynamically and without any noticeable interruption, when it is needed. Even current games with lower demands on the processing power (and there are quite a few) can be so easy then play smoothly in the native resolution, such as Dota 2 or League of Legends. For zockende students on a tight budget be entirely possible to playfully interesting, as long as you about it is aware that The Witcher 2, etc. certainly will not run, but estimated 90% of all indie games on Steam.

With an additional investment of about 30 you can even buy a 4GB RAM strips (DDR3, 1.600MHz) as the second single-channel memory to and has about 7.5 GB of memory available (512MB gets the APU graphics ), then what is perfectly adequate and future-proof enough. The display is nothing special, just what you'd expect at an affordable notebook, just as the speaker. Even the webcam and microphone is surprisingly good for the price. Even the keyboard and the touchpad are quite okay. The fan of the device is always silent in idle and barely audible under load, in my configuration anyway.

There are on the hardware side only two not so great points, which is the one of the very weak 2600 mAh battery that allows only around 3 hours duration despite energy-efficient APU. This is simply cost savings that comes as no surprise given the price and therefore do not adversely flow into the rating. Also not that great is the fact that only two USB ports are installed, this is actually too little, but I can handle it. These are also two USB 3.0 ports that require when installing the operating system some skill, more on that later.

2. On the other hand the software to pay attention here, the device itself does not have an operating system includes FreeDOS except what it evenly also makes particularly favorable and thus to install itself invites. You can choose from Windows 7, 8 and 8.1. Linux you can of course also very easy to use, but that's normal for home users probably not in question, so I'll let that get away.

For Windows 8 / 8.1:

-> Microsoft tries course be desperate to push Windows 8 where it gets because it is generally strongly rejected by the customers. This means that the manufacturers offer some devices intentionally no Windows 7 drivers more. ASUS has on the accompanying DVD only win 8 drivers in the offer and on the website Win 8 and some Win 8.1 drivers. Windows 8 is a terrible OS so that I have updated directly on Win 8.1, which under Windows 8, of course, everything would have worked moderately driver. Windows 8.1, however, is only a little less terrible and seems to me on the notebook but quite slow and tough before. There is still strong need for optimization and still some minor bugs. The biggest problem, however, is that although there are Win 8.1 drivers for the notebook, but no (working) for the audio chip, not even directly from Realtek. The chip works then, but the built-in microphone can be easily not drive, so you can use Skype or Teamspeak only with external microphone and who wants that, especially in the terminal placement of the jack plug front left.

For Windows 7: (Installation Instructions)

The only real alternative is so Windows 7 for installation but you have to know about something themselves. Since the laptop only has USB 3.0 ports, you can indeed start the Windows Setup from a USB stick, but do not continue, because there is no USB 3.0 driver for the area. (In the fully installed Windows 7, the USB 3.0 ports, of course not a problem.) The only option therefore is therefore to use to install a DVD, so the ISO Student Version simply burn them to a blank disc and install or use a different Win7 DVD , if available. The hard disk has at a previous win 8 / 8.1 installation are fully formatted, otherwise it is reset to MBR GPT, because that Windows 7 can not handle as well.

After installing the driver ASUS DVD you must then insert, where it can the wireless drivers from Atheros, which is also suitable for Win 7, using readily to access the Internet and downloading additional drivers. The LAN driver directly from the Realtek website also works well (software -> 1000MBit -> PCIe). The audio driver from the ASUS DVD works fine with Win 7, and the microphone is so perfect. Even the touchpad driver and the keyboard hotkey software (Keyboard Filters and ASUS ATK for screen brightness, volume control, etc) for the keyboard can be exploited beautifully in the former can be adjusted then also that the touchpad on a connected mouse automatically turns off so you can tap undisturbed because you thereby actually constantly accidentally comes into the touchpad. Webcam drivers are not needed, the function of Windows wonderful.

That leaves the USB 3.0 drivers and graphics card / APU. The first one gets easily directly from AMD, just after AMD Chipset Driver googling and you can use the Catalyst 14.4 driver Southbridge, there are all USB 3.0 filter drivers in it. For the graphics card (s) you simply use the current Catalyst 14.4 Suite for APUs, directly from AMD under "current APU drivers". Afterwards, there is no yellow exclamation mark in any more devices, and the AMD AHCI driver for the SATA ports will be active and the use of an SSD would also not stand in the way of theory.

Conclusion: An extremely effective device for the offered hardware, with a little computer skills runs Windows 7 also wonderful and fast. If anyone has questions, just make in the comments.