Samsung Series 5 Ultra Reviews
CloudTags: Samsung , Series 5 , Ultra laptop , samsung laptop , samsung batteries , Samsung nc10 batteries
What's an Ultrabook? As we explained here, it's basically an extremely slim laptop with good battery life and the ability to resume quickly from sleep. That was the case last year, when
Ultrabooks were mostly 13.3-inch models that easily met these requirements. Then CES happened and suddenly, there are 14- and even 15-inch models that don't seem that different from a regular
thin-and-light laptop. After all, some of them come with integrated optical drives, hard disk drives and even discrete graphics.
One of these new, larger Ultrabooks, the Samsung Series 5 Ultra (14-inch), will be going on sale in
Singapore next week and we managed to catch some hands-on time at its product launch.
Upside
An integrated optical drive, Radeon HD 7550M discrete graphics and full-sized ports are all present on the Series 5 Ultra. You're unlikely to find them on current Ultrabooks. Of course, Samsung just happens to be the first manufacturer to launch an Ultrabook with such features--Lenovo upcoming T430u Ultrabook has Nvidia discrete graphics, too. While these features give extra functionality and more graphical horsepower, they also require more power and add to the weight.We did notice that the Series 5 Ultra allows easy access to the HDD and memory via a removable panel at the bottom of the laptop. All you need is a screwdriver and you'll be able to add more memory--there's a single DIMM slot already filled with a 2GB module for this purpose. This is on top of the non-removable 4GB memory typically found on Ultrabooks, which explains why this laptop ends up with 6GB of memory out of the box. This is good news for those who like to upgrade their laptops when they start getting pokey with age.
The keyboard is comfortable to type on, and thanks to the laptop's thicker chassis, feels more solid with greater key travel than thinner Ultrabooks. The touchpad is bigger than most laptops and while it's not exactly a clickpad (it has two distinct buttons), the generous area is conducive for multitouch gestures. We especially liked the smooth, two-finger scrolling.
One of our pet laptop grouses is the lack of a matte display option, especially for models released in Asia. HP's Pavilion dm4, which only offers a glossy version here, is a recent example. Hence, we were quite pleased to find that the Series 5 Ultra has an anti-reflective screen. As a bonus, the display is rated at 300nit, which would make it one of the brighter laptop screens we have seen. On the other hand, its 1,366 x 768-pixel resolution isn't the best in a market with 13.3-inch, 1,600 x 900-pixel displays.
Downside
At 1.84kg (with the hybrid HDD), this Samsung laptop weighs almost the same as the HP dm4. Yes, it's slimmer than most mainstream 14-inch laptops, but due to the presence of moving parts such as the optical drive and hybrid HDD, it doesn't feel as solid and rigid as Ultrabooks without those features.Like some of the company's recent laptops, the Series 5 Ultra comes with a 16GB SSD cache (ExpressCache) together with a 1TB HDD. While the SSD cache will significantly improve system responsiveness and bootup times, the HDD is still a 5,400rpm version that will be a bottleneck if you're working with larger files. Although we can understand the power-saving reasoning for the slower HDD, it's a compromise that may not be for everyone.
Samsung claims that the Series 5 Ultra delivers up to 6.4 hours of battery life. That may sound impressive, but in our experience, laptops rarely meet their advertised numbers. Besides, if we're comparing theoretical uptime claims, the Series 5 Ultra loses out to the 9.5 hours claimed by the HP Folio 13 (which is our Ultrabook endurance champ at 407 minutes or 6.8 hours).
Outlook
The Samsung Series 5 Ultra will start shipping in Singapore by the second week of February. Only the configuration mentioned here will be available at launch for S$1,588. It should launch in most
parts of Asia by March. Compared with mainstream 14-inch laptops that are in the S$1,000 to S$1,300 price range, the Series 5 Ultra seems to be on the high side.
Finally, to answer our question on whether the Series 5 Ultra deserves its Ultrabook moniker--it just squeaks in, especially with its 20.9mm thickness. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call
it a premium notebook.
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