Aside from that I'm enjoying my laptop a lot. It freezes up for short periods of time on occasion if I leave it on for too long, but that's mostly my fault and it never lasts long and works perfectly besides that. But the infernal screeching is driving me up the wall. I live in an apartment complex and it's massively inappropriate to house anything making this much noise on a regular basis and not using my computer isn't really an option for me. Has anyone else had this problem? Can someone tell me how to fix it?

Buy it.

Feel free to read the tips and notes at the bottom of this review just in case. Now, on to the rest...

This is, without a doubt, the best value laptop you can buy today. Let me break down some of the components:

Display
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The display is beautiful. This model comes with a few different presets you can choose from, I'm a fan of the "vivid" setting since I'm a sucker for vibrance and color. Every game I've played or movie I've watched looks stunning. The viewing angles are quite amazing as well.

Touchscreen
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I didn't think I'd use it to be honest. I felt like it would be one of those cheap, semi-responsive, fury-inducing gimmicks that I've seen all too much in other touchscreen models. Well, it's not, in fact it's amazing. It's incredibly responsive and smooth to the touch. I use it often to scroll through long webpages with my thumb or I use the swipe "back" gesture to traverse through my history, which is very handy.

Trackpad
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The trackpad itself it good, not great. That's not to say it is bad by any means. The trackpad feels fine but it's the clicking I have an issue with. You can only really tap mid-left for left click and mid-right for right click. If you try pressing down on the far left or right of the trackpad, you will notice it feels stiff and unresponsive. I've turned off mostly all the gestures as I'm not a fan, but overall the trackpad does it's job. Best thing about any trackpads is if you don't like it, you can just use a mouse. Still slightly annoying but at least the option is there.

Keyboard
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The keyboard is usually my make-or-break component since it's obviously the most used. I previously owned a Sager I ordered online and instantly hated it when I began to type on it because of it's raised, paper-thin plastic with deep grooves in the center of each key. It wasn't for me. These keys are solid and responsive, though there is a little give and bend when you push towards the center of the board, it's not the greatest laptop keyboard of all time, but it is certainly not a detriment to the overall quality.

GPU
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This particular aspect of the laptop is usually very important to me because I do enjoy gaming on my laptop. After several hours of comparing benchmarks with other similar laptops, I'm more than happy with the performance that the GTX850M is capable of. Everything that I've played on this laptop runs beautifully. I can run most modern games on ultra settings with a passable framerate, but for the sake a playability I usually tone it down to medium or high. If this is your main concern and this review is still somewhat relevant, don't let this stop you. It's a fantastic GPU.

Hard Drive
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Not much to say here, the HDD that the laptop comes with isn't great. Actually, it's god awful. It's so bad that I don't even want to type it's RPM. I'd consider it a bit bottleneck considering how fast the rest of the machine is. I replaced this laptop's HDD with a Samsung EVO 256GB SSD and it's blown me away just how much quicker it is. If you're going to buy this laptop, I'd HIGHLY recommend picking up a SSD for it.

Speakers
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Good sound, not amazing. The speaker placement is sort of confusing to me, I'd say the speakers are probably one of the most unfavorable things about the laptop. The audio ports can be quite tight at times as well. If you plan on playing music with this often, then you'll need to find the right surface to put it on to give it decent sound. I don't really use the subwoofer module much as it's not that impressive... but I suppose it's there if you'd like to use it.

Battery Life
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The battery life is actually pretty good, it's something to respect in a market where most laptops die fairly quick while doing menial tasks. Again, it's not a selling point of the laptop, but it's not something that should not bother you by any means.

Overall
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So, this laptop is incredible for the price. You get solid components across the board (build quality, battery, display, graphics, etc.) except for the hard drive (ASUS what were you thinking?). This laptop doesn't have features that are top-notch (maybe besides the display, but even then 1440p would have been nice), but the point is that this laptop does mostly everything right. Simply, you get a very high quality laptop that will last you quite a while. I'm very happy with this laptop and I really think it's worth every penny. Plus it's nice to play Hearthstone with the touch screen, which is fun little bonus.

Miscellaneous Notes & Tips
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1.) If you're going to replace anything in this laptop, YOU NEED A TORX T5 SCREWDRIVER. Not a T6, not a T5 2/9s, a T5. I went mad trying to find one in my area and had to wait a few days to replace the hard drive in this laptop.

2.) If you're going to install Windows 8 on an SSD, you need a Windows 8.1 ISO that you can boot from. The key is bundled with the machine so you won't need to put it in when installing.

3.) If you replace the SDD, then replace it with were the original hard drive is. DO NOT put it where the optical drive is. I mean, you could, but you would be wasting a lot of the speed benefits of the SSD and then at that point... what's the point of even having an SSD? Keep this in mind.

4.) I replaced the optical drive with the original hard drive that the laptop came with. It's slow, sure, but it's just fine for storing media on it. Run your OS on the SSD if possible and keep all your games, movies, documents, etc. on this spare drive. The bezel on the optical drive can be taken off and snapped into the side of the laptop so there isn't a gaping hole where the optical drive used to be. I recommend taking out the optical drive and putting it in a slim enclosure so you have a portable USB optical drive if you ever need to use it.

Will update in the future.

Thanks!

I wanted to give myself at least 6 months with this computer before reviewing it, and I have just passed that mark. There are a number of things that I like about this computer. First, it is fast for my needs. I do some gaming, but it is not regular, nor are my games needy in terms of requiring the full processing power of the computer. I mostly use the internet and Office programs. In my everyday tasks, I have never had a lag issue and I move seamlessly from one application/program to another. The touchscreen is flawless and also helps in switching between applications. While it seems silly at first, the power cord is sufficiently long enough. Finally, and quite importantly, I have never had an overheating issue.

Now, there are unfortunately many things that I am disappointed with. First, the computer is already breaking. The headphone jack is very unresponsive and cuts out frequently, there are a number of dead pixels in the screen, and the hinge is super flimsy, creaking and making snapping sounds with every movement. This is a big issue for me, and I know it is just a matter of time before I need to send it in. The keyboard is not very responsive, which leads to many typos. The CD tray is in a horrible spot. It is always coming open, even if I do not hit the button. Finally, the speakers are in a bad location and the laptop must be placed on a hard surface to be able to appreciate the decent quality sound that the speakers produce.

The laptop does what I need it to do, despite a number of hardware issues. When all is said and done, however, I am not very impressed with the computer considering I paid just over $1,000.

To recap, here is a list of pros and cons:
Pros:
-Pretty quick for my needs
-Great for multitasking
-Excellent display quality
-Decent sound
-Long power cord
-No overheating

Cons:
-The headphone port is already broken
-The display already has multiple dead pixels
-The CD tray is horribly-placed. I open it nearly every time I put it in my bag, and it even sometimes open when I set it on the table.
-The speaker placement is terrible. In order to get decent sound, the laptop MUST be placed on a hard surface, as the speakers are in the front at an angle toward the user.
-The hinge is very weak, and creaks with any movement.
-The keyboard is not very responsive.