Asus K50IJ-BNC5: $699 Mid-Range Next Class Notebook w/Six Hours of Battery Life

Best Buy has the Asus K50IJ-BNC5 Intel Pentium powered notebook available for the back to school season for $699.99. The Asus notebook is a Best Buy exclusive and is part of Best Buy’s Next Class Notebooks.

The Asus K50IJ-BNC5 features an Intel Pentium processor, a 15.6-inch LED-backlit display, 4GB of DDR2 RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and a battery that last up to 6 hours on a single charge. These features combine to form a portable notebook that should be sufficient for most college students. Asus also included a dedicated numeric keypad, which should increase students’ productivity in Excel and other related applications.

This mid-range notebook mixes a few premium features with specs that are usually found on budget notebooks. The LED-backlit display, built-in webcam with facial recognition, and Infusion scratch-resistant finish provide this notebook with a premium look and feel. However, with an old processor, integrated graphics card, and DDR2 RAM which are normally found on budget notebooks, the Asus K50IJ-BNC5 is a little underpowered for its class.

That being said, this notebook is still suitable for most students. It should handle Microsoft Office documents, web surfing, and light photo editing just fine. And the 500GB hard drive should provide more than enough space for music, photos, and video. However, more intensive photo editing, as well as modern games, may prove to be a little too much for this notebook.

On the plus side, the Asus K50IJ-BNC5 is in Best Buy’s Next Class series of notebooks. This means that it comes preloaded with full version of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2010, 12 months of Webroot AntiVirus with Spy Sweeper 2010, and comes with a backlit keyboard for late night studying. Additionally, its 6 hour battery life provides enough juice for nearly a full day of classes.

If you are looking for a notebook with a little more oomph, you may want to consider the Dell Inspiron I15R-1803MRB. This notebook costs the same as the Asus K50IJ-BNC5 and has the same size display, but substitutes the Pentium processor for a more powerful Intel Core i3 processor, as well as faster RAM, and WiMAX 4G data capability.

Asus K50IJ-BNC5 From Best Buy Detailed Specs:

Brand Asus
Model K50IJ-BNC5
Operating system Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit
Processor / Graphics 2.3GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core

Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M

Memory 4 GB DDR2 RAM
Hard drive 500 GB HDD 5400 rpm
Display / Resolution 15.6-inch HD 1366×768 High-definition LED-backlit
Removable Storage Double-layer DVD±RW/CD-RW
Wireless Support Wireless-B+G+N
Input Devices Full-size keyboard with Number pad, touchpad
Power 6-cell battery
Memory card reader Multiformat media reader
Ports Headphone/speaker/line-out jack, Microphone-in jack, DC-in jack for AC adapter, Ethernet, 4 USB 2.0
Audio Internal speakers
Weight 5.8 lbs.
Dimension 15 in x 1.4 in x 10 in
Webcam 1.3-megapixel
Warranty 1-Yr Parts and Labor

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