I am taking 17 credit hours worth of classes in college, I run high school track, and I work 20 hours a week. This laptop has the battery life to last the entire day with heavy use. Since I'm a computer science major, it was very important to get a powerful computer, but on a budget. I landed here because this laptop has a reasonably powerful CPU. However, since it only has a discrete GPU, there will be no gaming on it. This isn't a bad thing though; this laptop isn't marketed towards gamers, it's meant for business and college. The keyboard's LEDs are very nice, however sometimes a bit in-consistent. Really, the worst thing about this computer is that the RAM is split into 2 sticks. One stick is soldered on, while the other 4GB stick is interchangeable. This makes upgrading it awkward because you always want to upgrade RAM with identical sticks. All of this said, it's a great laptop, definitely worth the price!