ASUS Q550LF equivalent withOUT optical drive?!!?

I just tried talking to an Asus online chat rep and they were useless.

I bought my first Asus at Best Buy and I believe it's their "exclusive" model of Q550LF-BBI: Asus 15.6" TouchScreen Laptop 8GB Memory 1TB Hard Drive Q550LF-BBI7T07 - Best Buy

I would love this model but withOUT an optical drive. I'm just trying to figure out if one exists..?!

The specs that are important to me in this laptop are:

Intel Core i7 Processor
Touch Screen
Screen resolution 1920 x 1080
8 GB RAM (would be willing to downgrade since I can always upgrade myself)

If there's another Asus model out there with the same specs and withOUT an optical drive, I'd be ok with varying hard drive space.

Does anybody have or know if there's an equivalent without an optical drive?

Thanks!

 

You can always take out the optical drive and put a hard drive in there instead, you will need a caddy to mount the drive but they're pretty easy to find.
Double check on that though, since its BB only we haven't been able to do it to know for sure, but most models can.

 

Oh maybe I should have specified that I wanted a notebook without an optical cause I think mine currently (with one) is too thick. heh sorry! Any other recommendations? Thanks!

 

This is about as thin as they come until you move into the Zenbooks. In the 15.6" Asus has not release a model that has a Haswell CPU yet though. There are the 13.3" UX301 http://forum.notebookreview.com/asu...infinity-ux301la-just-announced-computex.html and UX 302 http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus/734016-asus-ux302.html models to check out, unless thats too small for you

 

Boo. Best Buy had another Asus (this one: NeweggBusiness - Refurbished: ASUS Q501LA-BBI5T03 Intel Core i5 4200U (1.60GHz) 6GB Memory 750GB HDD 15.6" Touchscreen Notebook Windows 8 64-Bit)

Which basically had all the things I wanted EXCEPT it has Intel i5 and not i7. It's thin and the exact size I'm looking for. But because of the processor, I opted for the Q550LF (with the optical drive). But carrying it around a couple times it's just too thick... I REALLY wanted to get an Asus but I might have to go for the Lenovo U530.

I really appreciate all your help and input! Thanks so much!

 

The Lenovo is nice, personally I think you would miss the display of the Asus (Q501 or Q550). At least for a little while.

 

It would appear BB just released a newer model with 8.1 . I think it would still be 1080x1920 but the specs don't specify resolution.


ASUS Q550LF-BSI7T21 - Best Buy