15.6″ ASUS F555UA-EH71 Notebook via Amazon
ASUS F555UA-EH71 is a mid-range 15.6 inch laptop with a Skylake dual core Intel i7-6500U processor at 2.5GHz up to 3.1GHz speed with turbo boost and hyper threading for dual cores to run four threads in parallel, 8GB DDR3L SDRAM at 1600MHz for great multitasking power, 1TB Serial ATA hard drive at 5400rpm speed and the latest Windows 10 64-bit operating system per-installed with its great new features. Screen is a 15.6 inch glossy high definition LED backlit non-touch display at 1366×768 pixel resolution, so it is not a FHD + IPS panel which would add to the cost. You will also find the Broadwell i5-5200U version at 2.2 to 2.7GHz speed (and this looks like the only difference) at a slightly cheaper price on the same Amazon product page.
There is no dedicated graphics card and just an Intel HD 520 with a graphics benchmark score of 820 as of now. Intel HD 520 is good for regular multimedia tasks and some level of gaming (modern games at reduced settings and acceptable frame rates). Webcam is an entry level non-HD VGA with 640×480 pixels so it will do the job for casual video chatting on Skype but is not the best. It comes with a DL DVDRW/CD-RW optical drive, Ethernet LAN with RJ-45 connector, the most advanced type Gigabit dual-band very fast wireless 802.11ac connection + Bluetooth 4.0, 2 x USB 3.0 ports, 1 x USB 2.0 port, an HDMI port, older style VGA port for older style connections and an SD Card slot. It has a comfortable ergonomic design non-backlit chiclet keyboard with a 10-key numeric pad and a good size touchpad. IceCool technology helps keep the unit at a comfy temperature so it won’t get under your palms even after several hours of being on the computer. Asus F555UA-EH71 is made of solid plastic with great build quality (not aluminium) and looks quite nice and modern, weighs 5.1 pounds and measures 10.10 x 15 x 1 inches. 2-cell 37Whr lithium ion battery with OK battery life, so expect around four hours on average (even though it is a power efficient processor, battery is just a two cell).
RAM is upgradable but can be a little hard to do so with a single port and half of it inside the motherboard.The storage is not the best you can have: Good for space if you have a lot of files but at 5400rpm speed it is slower than the 7200rpm ones and definitely than an SSD, and at this price level this is probably expected and you can probably replace it with an SSD if speed is an issue. You will have no problems running your daily modern apps as well as more demanding multimedia and other software and you can multitask efficiently, it is a fast and powerful computer with the latest sixth generation i7 processor with a Passmark benchmark score of 4348 (it is not a top of the range i7 but still plenty of power and the focus is more on power saving). You can certainly do a lot with a Skylake i7 processor and 8GB memory, but the fact that hard drive is a 5400rpm mechanical one and not SSD, screen is not Full HD with IPS panel and the webcam is a VGA rather than a better HD resolution cam.. Well they had to cut costs from something so you can not expect too much at the price level concerned and if you will not be playing the latest games at high settings then you’ll be fine with this smart looking portable mid-range laptop. It is offered with a year of international warranty that includes a year of Accidental Damage Protection.
Click here for a closer look on Amazon