ASUS X83Vp-A1 Versatile Entertainment Laptop

Cheapest ASUS X83Vp-A1 14.1-Inch Black Versatile Entertainment Laptop (Windows 7 Home Premium) Excellent Surprisingly, this thing actually lives up to ASUS's claimed 8 second boot time. The web cam based log in feature is fairly reliable and also records images of anyone who has a failed log in attempt.
It needs decent lighting to get the image right and I don't know if it can handle things like glasses or hats, but you can always log in manually. Unlike many other out of the box computers, this one has relatively little junk software pre-installed. And most of the pre-installed software is something useful, like Trend Antivirus software, Adobe's .pdf reader, and the video based log in software.

The wifi card seems to work fine and is holding a good connection to an access point that was very flaky on my old laptop. I had to download about 600mb worth of updates for Windows, but all of the ASUS software and drivers were up to date.

In terms of performance, this unit is a great value for the money. Programs load off the drive quickly and World of Warcraft runs at ~80 frames per second with most video options maxed out. My unit shipped with the ATI 4670 chip instead of the advertised 4665, which was an unexpected slight upgrade.

The system is very quite at the default settings and battery life is in the 2.5-3 hour range when wifi is active. The hard drive is also very quite and were it not for the light, I'd have no idea it was active.

ASUS's included 1 year drop/spill/accident coverage and 2 years parts and labor warranty also make this system a cut above the rest. Be sure you register with ASUS to be covered under the accidental damage coverage, though.

The top row of buttons for functions like disabling the wifi, changing power modes, etc have labels that are virtually impossible to see. They're somehow etched or embedded into a chrome strip above the function keys, but there is next to no contrast between the the label and the chrome bar. The laptop's slick finish also makes it an absolute finger print magnet. But, in my opinion, neither of these two issues were worth deducting a star from the rating.

Over all, this is a great laptop if you want something fast and well rounded and ASUS's included 1 year accident and 2 years standard warranty are icing on the cake.