New Samsung Q330, Q430 and Q530 notebooks

I'm installing a linux distro for a dual boot (probably Ubuntu or Linux Mint) as soon as I get the laptop. Regarding hardware compatibility, I think the installation process will be a lot easier due to the q430 defaulting to the dedicated nvidia card. I've read in a few forums that there were problems with laptops that had the capability to switch between an integrated and dedicated gpu. In any case, we won't know 'til someone tries an installation so I'll get to installing a linux distro as soon as I can. I'll keep you posted on this one.

 

Anyone know if you can custom build the Q430? I need an internal bluetooth card. (don't want to buy a separate bluetooth dongle)

 

You may want to contact Portable One who offer some customised Samsung notebooks. However, I suspect the answer will be that it is a factory option. it is also possible that they may know if Samsung USA have any plans to import another, bluetooth-enabled, version of the Q430 in the near future.

John

 

Why did best buy raise the price 30 bucks on on this laptop???

 

I would assume that stock was shifting faster than expected. It's called market forces.

John

 

Which models have a matte screen ?

 

I suspect that you need to look at the P series to find any matte screens. Judge for yourself from the photos here.

John

 

price is back down to 799

 

I checked this laptop out at BB yesterday, and was pleasantly surprised. I'm in the market for a lighter weight, solidly constructed laptop right now. I had originally gone into BB to take a look at the new Toshiba R705, though this one caught my eye. Compared to the 3.2lbs of the Toshiba, this is obviously a bit porkier, but the Samsung does have a dedicated video card and the faster processor.

At this point, since they are the same price, I'm trying to decide if Toshiba being 2lbs lighter is worth the trade-off of an i5 vs i3, and a dedicated video card.

 

I have a quick question. I recently bought the Samsung q430-11 and noticed that my laptop has 2 hard disk drives (C and D). The C drive is 99.9 GB and the D drive is 350 GB. Is this the case in all q430-11 laptops? Or did everyone's originally start out with just a ~500 GB C: drive? I don't remember separating partitions during the initial setup, so I just want to make sure that someone using my laptop didn't accidentally create the D drive partition on my laptop...

 

Samsung normally configure the HDD with two partitions. The system backup files go on D: and I recommend that you also store your files on D:. One reason for this is that recovering one of the backups usually replaces everything on C:

John

 

Any reviews yet?

 

The Q330 has been looked at by a few sites, but none in the same depth as would happen on this site: PC Pro T3 Pocket-lint.

There are some comments on the Q430 SAMSUNG - Q430-11 customer reviews - product reviews - read top consumer ratings.

John

 

Q330 review from TrustedReviews:
Samsung Q330 review - Laptop reviews - TrustedReviews

 

German review of the Q530!

http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/notebook-review-samsung-q530-star-nkrt-1184/1

No Optimus...lol, sorry but that's a total faux-pas! Also some problems with the chassis not being too sturdy.
Ethernet max. 100 MBit/s is also rather poor.

For that price the device is ok, but nothing more.

So, i guess the Q330 with the Nvidia 310m won't be much better, especially because it costs more than the 15'' version...
The price is too high if Samsung wants to compete this late with devices like the Asus U30jc

 

And the test of the Q330:

http://www.notebookjournal.de/tests/notebook-review-samsung-q330-silver-nkrt-1189

Finger-print magnet on the outside and a terrible screen (as it's obviously standard in this category) on the inside alongside with a lower-clocked 310M.

p.s.: Why is it possible to put a matte screen with 250cd/m² and a contrast of 1:1000 into a 250€ netbook but not into a 900€ notebook???

 

Just got q330 i3 640gig 4g ram in Australia 950 AUD, about 500 pounds. Good laptop so far. Nice and light , good stylish look and chicklet keyboard. For the price hard to pass up. Has i3 duo core with ok battery life. For good battery life lenovo edge 13" has su7300 for similar price. Compared to sony better value for money with same quality.

Seems like Samsung are onto a good thing at a reasonable price.

 

Hi everyone, does anyone know whether the Q330 has (or can get) the 6 cell 5900Mah battery? I only see the 6 cell 4400Mah battery in the Q330 specs.

 

Bought the Q430-11 this past weekend at Best Buy. Had researched for over a year before deciding on this one... fell in love with the build-quality; had never owned a Samsng before.

Get home. Power it on... get a error messahe "checksum bad"...??! Look online...says either bad battery or bad motherboard... call Samsung, tech says bad motherboard....can you say RETURN? Return it and get exact same model (still having visions of laptop love in my head)... ok so first one was a clunker... get the 2nd one home.. first day everything ok. SECOND DAY: chkdsk launched on power up w/message "your drive needs to be checked for consistency"..... (*&!@^! WHAT IS GOING ON? Ok, maybe it was a fluke...continue to use laptop... power down for a mtg... come back... no chkdsk on startup.... then next day....BAMMM! chkdsk runs AGAIN...


It's packed up and it's going back as soon as BB opens in an hour. Not sure what to replace it with though. I am sick over this whole thing.

ETA: Num-lock ...who knew a keyboard without the numberpad has a numlock like that? DUH ok, so I am an idiot there. but the unit went back and I got a Sony instead.

 

Curious,

The typing issues are not an actual problem. Most likely the num lock was on - this turns the right third of the keyboard into the numbers printed in blue. U is 4, O is 6, etc.

 

Has anyone been able to determine if the RAM is expandable to more than 4GB? I've been searching all over the place and can't seem to find any definitive information. Thanks!

 

This is where I checked. I'm planning to upgrade soon---just haven't had the chance yet.

Computer memory upgrades for Samsung Q430-11 Laptop/Notebook from Crucial.com

I've never tried to post a link before, so I don't think that worked. You can just go to the Crucial site and look it up by brand and model number. I CAN NOT speak to the accuracy of the information on the site.

 

Okay, I guess it did work. I hope that helps.

 

Intel's Mobile *M45 and *M55 chipsets support 8GB (the lower power L series may have a lower RAM limit). So unless Samsung have imposed a limit in the BIOS (unusual) then more than 4GB should work.

I think that Crucual's recommendation is based on the chipset.

We seem to be getting a repeat of a few years back when the chipset would support 4GB but manufacturer's published specs only mentioned 2GB because they had not tried 2GB modules for themselves and therefore kept silent about whether they would work.

John

PS: I'm assuming that you have got or plan to install a 64-bit OS in order to use more than 4GB.

 

Thanks guys. I also contact Samsung directly and was told that it is upgradeable to 8GB, so that's good.

 

Hi all

I did a Crucial System Scan and this is the result!

That cant be correct?
16Gb Ram and 4 slots
Or it just as John said, they go after chipset?

Kind Regards
Wille

 

Hello everyone

I don't know if to buy this laptop is the best option, I'm between buying a Sony Vaio CW25 that has the same stuff as the Samsung Q430 here but they have different processors (Vaio i3 330M vs Samsung i5 520M)...
What should I do?

This purchase should last me at least 4 years and I'm afraid that the Samsung would die in the way...

Cheers

 

The only recurrent problem that has caused early death in some Samsung notebooks is the defective nVidia GPU. I have no reason to believe that a Sony CW25 will inherently have a better life expectancy than the Q430.

John

 

Both has nVidia 330M :/ I personally thing that Vaio's are more durable, correct me if I'm wrong please

 

Hi all, just got my Q330. It looks quite nice and it is very quiet.

Does anyone know if there is a place where people have stated which Samsung software does what? There is a lot of hidden bloatware in my computer at the moment.

 

The situation is getting better for hybrid graphics Linux, but nvidia optimus features are still not available like they are in Windows:

https://launchpad.net/~hybrid-graphics-linux

 

can someone please benchmark the g310 on the q330 for me, thanks.

 

Here area a number of benchmarks:

Samsung Q430-11 - A Review of the Samsung Q430-11

 

How are people finding the performance of the Q330 and Q430? I'm considering either of these two or the Asus U35JC as I need a powerful but mobile laptop.

 

The performance is fine with my Q330 which has the i3 core cpu. My graphics is only an Intel though but for my uses (Intel and Office programs and occasional movies), it is more than adequate.

 

Anyone who is planning to use a Samsung laptop with Ubuntu or another Linux distro should consider looking at this site:

SAMSUNG & UBUNTU PLAY VERY NICELY THANKS TO USER EFFORT

Should be helpful.

 

IS the Q430 a matte or glossy screen?

 

Samsung's UK site says

. That's what I would expect: Usually only the P series (the business range) has matte displays.

John

 

I just got the 13" Q330. Everything is good, but unhappy about the battery life . Using Intel graphics card, at half brightness, using the 'samusng optimised' power option, still only get slightly over 2 hours of net surfing.

About the 'battery life extender' in all those reviews, I found it in windows but this is only for forcing the battery to charge to 80% max to increase the battery's 'life expectancy'

Was looking for a long battery life laptop, so I was quite disappointed and felt misleaded by the ads.... (which claims 4 - 7??? hours at full brightness).
It comes with a 6-cell 4700mWh (after initial wear), some models come with 5900, but still doesn't expect that much difference.

I also find the battery drain happening mentioned in previous post.

Still need to monitor CPU usage to see if this is draining the battery, hope the battery somehow will last longer under linux

BUT this is the only complain I have, otherwise very happy with built quality, performance, especially the keyboard (superb for typing and with a ctrl key on LEFT bottom corner )

 

Just over 2 hours with the Intel GPU is very disappointing and needs further investigation. There should be potential for tweaking.

I use Firefox with FlashBlock and Adblock Plus to reduce load on the web browser caused by Flash content. Bluetooth, if enabled, also causes battery drain whenever it is searching for other devices. Display brightness also affects the battery drain.

John

 

Just wondering if anyone with the Q330 and the Intel Integrated GPU are getting any gaming to run? I really like the look of the Q330 and Q430 but would like to be able to play things like Red Alert 2, Simcity and Civilisation and I'm wondering if the Q330 would suffice.

 

I got a Q330, I haven't try out any games, this is a good reference for checking its performance on different games:

Intel Graphics Media Accelerator HD - Notebookcheck

 

I have checked out the new Q530 at the store and it seemed otherwise very nice but I did no like the touchpad because it is not smooth enough and it is too small.

I also checked out the HP Pavillon DV6-3050 with i5. The HP and Samsung are nearly the same. I am really torn. The price is practically the same.

What do you think? Should there be differences in reliability or otherwise?

 

Same here, the battery lasted me about 3.20hrs with wifi on and lots of uninstalling, updating, etc. Mine also came with the 4800mah battery or similar, not the 5900mah.... At the store it did say up to 7 hour battery life so surely that I should have gotten the bigger battery? Tempted to query this.

 

I am getting more than 2 hours battery life but definitely not at 7 hours. I have around 4 hours battery doing surfing and turning brightness to 1/3. It is on Samsung Optimized.

To get 7 hours battery and actually doing some work, I think you need to go for the Asus models (e.g. the UL30A and the new ones).

 

2hrs is rubbish, I am getting a bit more than that but I just came off my Asus UL30a to buy this one as I needed more cpu power for video editing.
What size battery did yours come with?

 

Interesting I'm using the Samsung Optimised mode as well but I can only get up to 2.5 hours compare to 4. Does the 4 hours you used include some idle time?
I'm using Win 7 64-bit and Firefox for browsing btw. I got the impression of 5-7 hours from all the reviews, but the maths does not work out unless discharge rate is keep at 10W, which I'm not sure is even possible with an icore system??

yea... if the shop I bought it from had the option for me to upgrade the battery, I definitely would, I don't think the website even sell laptop accessories =P.

Another thing.... I've disabled the discrete graphics card through Device Manager in Win 7, but the battery life is almost the same when the card is enabled?? So I wonder if there is a way to tell if the card is really disabled.... when I try to toggle the option is 'Enable Graphics', so that's how I can tell it's disabled at the moment.

 

See if installing the Adblock Plus and the FlashBlock add-ons help the battery time. Animated Flash content can gobble up the power.

John

 

I have installed the two plugins and the battery time here is some info I got from BatteryBar

Battery capacity is 46W (after 4.5% wear of the 48W battery after 4 full charge/discharge cycle (reasonable?))
After browsing for 23 mins on google news, battery drop by 12%, discharge rate is around 12 - 18W so it looks like I'm getting more than 3 hours of battery time now getting close to the 3.8 claimed by the samsung uk site , thanks!

For Ubuntu users out there, have anyone got 3D acceleration working with the Nvidia 310m card? I keep getting black screen on startup after activating the properiatory driver..... there is a solution posted for Sony VAIO:

[ubuntu] NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M GPU - Ubuntu Forums

I tried installing the latest driver from nvidia 256.xx that supports 310M, it does not work on my Q330 , I have a feeling it is the option in xorg.conf is different for Q330 display.....

 

A few years ago when I had a Q35, I found that having Bluetooth enabled also pushed up the power drain.

You can also look on the Processes page of Task Manager and see what is loading the CPU. Adding a column for CPU time (View > Add Columns) shows the cumulative CPU usage. You should be looking for CPU Usage of around 5% for good battery life.

John