I got a new laptop earlier this year and I was eyeing this exact one. I was going to wipe out windows and put linux on it(as is tradition with me) but I ended up settling for an Asus once again. It seems like you can get a lot more bang for the buck with Asus in Europe. Can't say it has been an entirely smooth ride for one or two reasons(running a patched kernel driver for the screen backlight) but after reading your comment, I am glad I made that call.