Asus X44H take and Fedora 16

I bought the Asus X44H to use as a knock around computer for both work and play.
I installed Fedora 16 and it went very smoothly for the most part. The SD card reader driver needs to be compiled every time there is a kernel update and the iscsi service needs to be disabled to speed up boot time... Otherwise a super easy install.



Let me get what I don't like out of the way:

1- The phone jack is located on the front of the laptop... a very poor location when you have the laptop on your lap.
2- There are only 2 USB ports. A USB 2.0 on the left side and a 3.0 on the right side.
3- This Asus doesn't exactly make use of high-quality materials (expected for the price) but do the trackpad buttons have to rattle every time you tap?
4- The specifications state that there are 2 DDR3 memory slots when in-fact there's only one. This means that if you ever wanted to upgrade to 8GB RAM you will have to go with a much more expensive 8GB single module as opposed to cheaper 2x 4GB ones. Over time prices will come down though...
5- The speakers sound truly tiny... If you intent on listening to music headphones are a must and look at #1
6- Battery life is nothing to write home about.
7- The 5400 RPM 320 GB hard drive is slow. I installed a hybrid Seagate Momentus 500 GB 7200 RPM hard drive and it made a noticeable difference.

Now that the ugly is out of the way here is what I like about this laptop.

1- The 14” form factor works very well for me. I find the compromise between size/weight to be very good if you are on the run most of the time.
2- The 2nd generation Intel Core i3 processor is quite capable and can handle multitasking with aplomb.
3- The integrated Intel graphics are much better than years past and unless you are an avid gamer will do just fine.
4- HDMI out is nice to have.
5- The full size keyboard, though not great, is very nice.
6- Good feature set with DVD burner, USB 3.0, Wi-Fi a/g/n, web-cam, HDMI, easy access to hard drive and single memory slot.
7- The screen appears nice and sharp with fair viewing angles.

At this low price point you can't ask much more than this. The fn functions that I have tested work except for the trackpad disable (fn+f9) you have to disable it from system settings(easy enough).
The one thing I haven't tested yet is the HDMI out.
So if you are thinking of getting a cheap laptop to run Linux on with minimal fuss at $399 (BestBuy) this may work for you