In my very first post on Steemit I mentioned that I had bought a new laptop and was typing that post on the said laptop. This post is about that laptop.

The laptop cost me somewhere around 42k INR which is $660 USD approx. I bought this laptop in the first week of July '17 and it has been working flawlessly ever since I bought it. Before I tell you about this laptop, I'll tell you a bit about myself and why I bought this laptop

A bit about myself...

I am an electronics and telecommunications engineering student. We have a fair bit of programming in our syllabus which is mainly Java, C and C++. We have to use softwares like EdSIM and MATLAB and various emulators. I wanted a laptop which was light-weight, could handle basic tasks and would play some games at decent framerates. There are many laptops outside India that offer decent gaming experience at a budget price. But, due to customs and taxes by the time they reach India their prices increase significantly more than the original price.

Why this laptop?

As mentioned above, I wanted a light-weight laptop that could offer a decent gaming performance and could handle any basic tasks that I threw at it at a budget price and thus began my journey to find the perfect laptop for me. The selection that Indian market offers in terms of laptops in the budget segment is limited. No, I'm not talking about the models, there are plenty of models to choose from, I am talking about the specs. The specs that the laptops in this category offer are similar. From the CPU to the graphics card, everything is almost the same except for the brand name and price. After searching for months on the market for the perfect laptop I stumbled across this laptop. It ticked all the boxes that I cared about and its cons were something that I could live with. So, I finally decided to buy it.

Design

Sexy, ain't it?

Asus R558UQ-DM539D is a laptop made by a Taiwanaese company named Asus. It is a pretty well-known brand in the tech world and I previously owned an Asus phone, which performed really well and cemented the image of the company in my mind. The laptop sports a glossy brown finish with rounded edges. The screen flexes a little but the keyboard is pretty sturdy. The whole laptop is made of plastic. The lid is made of soft touch plastic whereas the keyboard and the bottom part are made well and exude quality. The keyboard does not have a backlight which is a huge disappointment but other than that the typing experience is pretty good. I personally prefer a matte finish, but the glossy finish on this laptop looks premium though it is prone to fingerprints.

I/O Ports

The laptop has plenty of I/O options and does not leave you wanting. It's I/O arsenal is pretty extensive and many ports that it offers are still not offered in other laptops in this segment.

Right hand side view

On the right side, the laptop sports a full-fledged SD card reader, A 3.5mm headphone jack, USB 2.0 port and a DVD writer. Many laptops skip out on stuff such as DVD writers and SD card readers to save cost but it is good to have them because you never know when you might need them.

Left Hand Side View

Where the right side sported the archaic choices of ports, the opposite side has all the new age ports. The laptop has a DC in port for power, a full-fledged ethernet port, Serial VGA port, an HDMI port, a USB 3.0 port, a USB 3.1/Type C port and a Kensington lock. The Type-C port is what sold me about this laptop. I wanted a laptop which was future-proof and having a huge number of port choices was essential for it.

Display

The laptop has a 15.6 inch IPS panel with a FHD resolution (1080p). The screen isn't very colour accurate but it gets the job done. In my opinion, this screen is good for all kinds of people except for content creators. They will need a much better laptop to satisfy their needs. The screen doesn't get very bright. The brightness in the pic is maximum and it is not so good.

The display is just average

The viewing angles are good

More to come..

Since this post has already been stretched far too long I will be posting a Part 2 of this post. It will deal with the keyboard, trackpad, full specifications list and general performance review. I will upload that post as soon as I can. Do upvote, comment and resteem on this post. I would surely like to hear your suggestions and do tell me what you want to see about this laptop in the second part. Till then, farewell.