Samsung R60 Plus Pentium Dual Core T2310 1.46 GHz - 15.4" TFT

Author's product rating:   

Speed	Very fast
Look & Feel	Excellent
Comfort & Portability	Excellent
Robustness & Durability	Good
Value For Money	Satisfactory

Advantages:	Speed and Looks
Disadvantages:	Price

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I recently purchased the Samsung R60 laptop from laptops direct for £329.99 excluding postage and packaging. I chose this laptop because of the processor speed and the size of the screen. I think that this laptop meets the compromise between price and quality extremely well.

Samsung are better known in the fields of mobile phones and televisions. My last phone was a Samsung D600 and I was very pleased with it because of its durability and features. I thought that Samsung would be a good choice because of the style of laptop that they produce and also their excellent company image.

I spent quite a long period of time online browsing through the websites of the leading retailers, Currys, PC World ETC. I ended up searching on Google for laptop and chose the link, www.laptopsdirect.com, At first I was wary of this website as I didn't trust it because it's prices seemed too low, but after speaking to a very capable sales representative I was re-assured that they were a genuine company. I chose this company and I am pleased with my choice, especially because they were so cheap. The service that I received was excellent and I would definitely use this company again if I buy another laptop. I chose the next day delivery option for £14.99, and it arrived at 2PM the next day. There was also a 3-4 day service offered for £9.99 but I'm very impatient so I paid the extra £5.

I had found this laptop at Currys and PC World with 2GB Ram for £399 but Laptops direct quoted me £284.99 Inc postage and packaging. I chose the 1GB Ram version because it was much cheaper and it was all that I wanted. I later found the laptop for £10 less on ebuyer.com but I am not sure if I would've been willing to take the risk of this retailer. Included in the price with laptops direct was a 24/7 helpline number valid for one week which thankfully I haven't had to use but it nice to know that it is there in case something goes wrong.

One of the reasons that I chose this laptop is because of the speed of the processor; I knew that this would be the main feature that I would use so I wanted it to be fast. I chose this laptop because it has a 1.8 GHz processor and 758GB Ram despite being advertised with a GB. I also chose this laptop because it has an Intel Celeron processor and the Intel is a well known model. This contributes to make it a very fast laptop and very useful for gaming and the internet. For the purpose of this review, it takes 13 seconds to turn on and about 10 seconds to become useable. I have tried such games as Football Manager 2007 and this works perfectly. On the Vista Ratings, it is 3.3, due to the graphics. The other ratings are: Processor=4.1, RAM=3.9, Graphics=3.3, Gaming Graphics=3.5 and the disc transfer rate is 5.2.

I think that graphics are very important in a laptop, this has an ATI Radon Express 1250 graphics card, giving it a windows score of 3.3. The laptop copes well with low performing games, but may struggle with more demanding games that have been brought out recently, when buying games for this laptop make sure that it requires a base score lower than 3. I have tried a few more demanding games and it has coped...just. For internet gaming, this computer should cope very well and will satisfy most online programs. Despite this, the laptop plays DVD's brilliantly and is better than my Sony 17" television, see other review.

The Sound is crisp and clear on this iPod; it can be controlled by the keyboard using the function key. It has a headphone input socket which is very useful if you need to be quiet. For watching DVD's and playing games, this laptop has a sound to suit everyone's needs, it has a speaker output so you can put speakers in if you need to raise the volume, you can.

There are 3 USB inputs on this laptop which is by far enough. I think that this is plenty, one for Bluetooth, my iPod touch, see other review and one for a mouse if you wish. There is a microphone input; this is useful for voice commands, and for MSN. You can also plug the laptop into a television or computer screen if you want to use it as a DVD player. It has a line in socket for using the internet.

The laptop has a DVD Super multi-layer in the side and this can be used as a DVD/CD writer. When copying music to iTunes it reaches speeds of up to 19x.For watching DVD's it has excellent quality and never jumps. It is also of high enough quality for gaming and reaches 5.2 on the Vista scale.

The Hard drive is 120GB; this is a lot even by today's standards for a laptop and is more than enough for the home and business user. It is partitioned at first between the C and D drives, but this is easy to remove.

This is an incredibly stylish laptop and has a black gloss finish on the lid which doubles up as a mirror, the problem with this is that it attracts finger-prints really badly and that is why Samsung included a screen wipe, they really did do some rigorous product testing. The laptop pad is really well designed and the different colour lights on the front are also quite stylish.

The laptop is really easy to use, it has a finger pad for cursor movement but you can use a USB mouse if you prefer. I think that the keyboard is really nice because it makes the letters appear to be in 3D when they aren't. The laptop screen is easy to open and close using a simple catch mechanism. One of the most useful things about this laptop is the scroll button on the mouse pad; this means that you can simply drag the page up and down. You can also adjust the volume using the function key and this is really good because it saves a lot of time. The power on button is nice and large and is easy to turn on and off. The lights on the front of the laptop tell you if it is working, turned on/off, how charged the battery is and many more things, this is very useful. It comes with a plastic screen cover which you can leave on but I took mine off because it looks nicer. The instructions for this laptop are available online but I think that it is easier to have them in the box along with a quick start.

It is quite a large laptop and is very durable, but I'm not going to drop it to find out just how durable it is. I think that the biggest danger with this laptop is that the CD drive is too close to the floor, this means that it could get snapped off, but they did make it so that it only opens mechanically about an inch, you must pull it the rest of the way. I also think that it would be very easy to scratch the lid on this laptop; this would ruin its image because this is the most visible part when at rest. The hinges on the lid look quite sturdy and would be quite difficult to snap. The battery is also very well secured in place and looks like it would be difficult to get out, this has advantages and disadvantages, because it means that is the battery breaks it is hard to get to. The battery itself will last quite a long time but it varies on which power plan you are on. If you use high performance you will get approximately an hour and a half, if using balanced about 2 hours, and if using power saver about 2 ¾ hours. If you don't like these power plans you can make your own using windows Vista.

It comes in a large; well packed Samsung box with a convenient handle on the top, Laptops direct also covered it in blue plastic to put their labels on. In the box is the following: The laptop, the charger, the battery, the screen cloth, system restore CD, warranty, and quick start information. The advantage of the battery in this is that it arrives fully charged so you can start straight away. The instructions aren't in the box but are available on line. The quick start is about 4 pages long but has loads of different languages in so is very confusing at times.

The operating system on this laptop is Windows Vista Premium. This is one of the best operating systems yet, and is second only to Vista Ultimate and Business. I wouldn't recommend Vista basic because it is incredibly frustrating to use and isn't as good as XP. Vista Premium is definitely better than XP; it has new games such as Ink Ball, Chess and Mah-jong Titans. But no internet games or spades. Premium also has games explorer, this shows you how suited to each game your computer is and gives them a Vista rating.

The laptop comes with a variety of software, I have just discovered the AV station, and this is accessed by a button by the keyboard and controls all of the multimedia (Movies, Music and Photos). There is a trial of Microsoft Office but I don't know what to do when the trial runs out, but I'm sure I will think of something. It also has McAfee security centre, it has anti-virus software that is very useful incorporated. It also includes all of the Windows programs that come with any new computer.

When you first turn on the laptop you have to answer a series of very boring questions choose passwords ETC. You must also choose your settings that you wish to use on the laptop. Then the laptop resets and updates itself several times and eventually, 15 minutes later, you get to use your laptop. From here onwards it is the same as all other computers.

The games on Premium are really good, for adults you have chess, solitaire and Mah-jong. And for younger users you have Purble place where children (and adults, it's quite addictive) can learn about cake making and play pairs. There is also a game called ink ball which may seem easy at first gets difficult after a while.

The main advantage of this laptop has to be the speed and specification of it; it's really fast and is an excellent all round performer. I also like the capability to connect to a projector wirelessly, and also having an inbuilt wireless adapter. I think that another merit of this laptop is the look and style of it; I really like the gloss black finish on the lid and the silver letters of SAMSUNG.

Despite all of this there are definite disadvantages to this laptop. I think that another CD drive would be very useful, there is plenty of room on the front of the laptop and this would allow the copying of CD's and DVD's. I think that the ports should be spaced out more sensibly; you can only get two USB devices at a time because otherwise it becomes too crowded and some devices fail to work. But I don't think that any of these problems are that major.
There are many laptops like this on the market, there is a Compaq in Curry's with similar specification at the same price, but it just didn't have the same style of this laptop. The R20, the model down from the R60 is also a sensible choice but the specification isn't quite there. I think that there are so many competitors, that the market is now overcrowded and it is a difficult choice to make. It comes down to price, and personal preference.

I am really pleased with this laptop and think that it was an excellent choice. I think that it has a great specification and it also looks great, at a very competitive price. My only problem is that you should spend a great deal of time looking around at different deals, don't just buy one because it has next day delivery, also, go into a shop and look at them it gives you an idea of how big the laptops are.

Any Questions please don't hesitate to ask

Thanks for reading this review and I hope it helped you make a purchasing decision.

Rhys