New Samsung R60plus (15.4")

I have just spotted some UK retailers listing a Samsung R60 plus for just over £500.

I attach the R60 plus specs and quick tour taken from the User Guide. It has the ATI 1250M chipset so it has much in common with the R40 plus. I'm a little mystified why Samsung are introducing this. Any suggestions?

John

 

oh yeah, it's on the samsung driver download page too, shame there are still no Vista drivers anywhere in sight for either this or the X60

I've noticed two of my local computer shops have sold all their stock of samsung laptops and don't have any sign of getting any more in.

I'd love to get my money back and get rid of this Samsung notebook now, I've had enough of this driver situation. The company I bought it from has gone bust though so I guess I'll just have to put up with it and hope something happens...

 

You are sidetracking here from the R60 plus, but the failure to publish any Vista drivers for the X60 plus (or get PowerPlay working) suggests that Samsung's priorities lie elsewhere. I need to find a new home for my X60 plus. The Zepto 6024W has taken over (although that has got some bugs as well, but at least there are people in Zepto who are trying to fix them).

The bottom line with Samsung is don't assume anything until it actually arrives. The X60plus says "Vista capable" and you have confirmed that it will run Vista, but without all functionality.

John

 

sidetracking, yes I guess so! but basically why would anyone buy an R60 for the same reasons?!

 

So, since only Vista drivers have been published by Samsung for the R60 plus, then people should be cautious about assuming it will run XP. However, the R60 plus does look like R40 plus hardware inside a new body to match the current family style, and R40 plus XP drivers are available.

John

 

Are we talking about this machine ? :
http://notebook.samsung.de/article.asp?artid=02599562-DB1D-4901-969A-C1A8C4F7ED4A

Samsung R60 Aura T5250 Deeloy (NP-R60FY0)
Core 2 Duo T5250 2x 1.50GHz • 2048MB (2x 1024MB) • 160GB • DVD+/-RW DL • ATI Radeon Express X1250 max.128MB shared memory • USB 2.0/Modem/LAN/WLAN 802.11bg • 6in1 Card Reader (SD/MMC/HighSpeed MMC/MS/MS Pro/xD) • 15.4" WXGA TFT (1280x800) • Windows Vista Home Premium • Li-Ionen-Akku (6 Zellen) • 2.70kg • 24 Monate Herstellergarantie
http://www.heise.de/preisvergleich/a272983.html

799€ aren´t too bad for such a notebook. I´ll think this price is a good argument for its existence.

 

Yes, that looks to be the same.

I would expect the R60 to have similar pricing to the R20. It provides good value for people who are not needing either the best battery life or a dedicated GPU.

John

 

The R60+ is now listed at DigiUK and is a little cheaper than the R20. It has a good spec for the price with the new Intel 2450 CPU (2GHz but only 2MB cache) and most likely can be overclocked using ClockGen. The RAM is only 1GB, but one slot is free. The ATI 1250M graphics is similar in performance to the Intel X3100. The 6 cell battery will give it more running time compared with the R20.

John

 

Would anyone recommend buying the R60+?

I am hoping to get the HP DV6330ea, however it is looking less likely I will get it as I ordered it nearly a month ago and it has been out of stock since. I paid £459 for the HP and wouldn't like to spend that much more on a laptop.

The R60+ is available for £479 on Digi UK

The processor looks good and I would upgrade the RAM to 2gb and probably buy another battery.

What do people think of the laptop?

 

The R60+ looks like a slightly larger version of the R20 with the R20's internal hardware and the current Samsung family styling.

I would expect it to share the R20's build quality which I felt was good for the budget end of the market (see link below for my R20 review). One advantage of the R60+ is that it has a 6 cell battery so it will have better battery time than the R20 with a 4 cell battery, although the bigger size and weight make it less portable. Depending on how much you value portability, the R20 may be worth considering. The displays on both models have the same resolution so the bigger screen doesn't give more information, just bigger pixels.

John

PS: Or would this HP dv6231ea at Staples fit your needs?

 

I emailed the Digi UK staff regarding the availability of the R60+ and I have been informed that they will be in stock during the 1st week of September. So as soon as I get my refund from HP I will be placing my order for the laptop.

 

DigiUK now show the R60+ as in stock. However, they might run out, depending on demand.

John

 

Hi

Im from spain and im interested in r60, but i need xp. ive just visited samsung web and there are only vista drivers.

what do you know about the possibility of installing xp?

thanks for your answers

 

As far as I can work out, the R60+ shares almost all its hardware with the R20, for which there are XP drivers. An exception is the Marvell LAN, but you can get the R70 XP driver for this component.

Similarly, I would expect the Samsung XP software for some of the other models with similar hardware to work on the R60+. The sensible approach for easiest development and support is to maximise on the standardisation between different models.

John

 

Hi new on here. I wanted to know if you could tell me if this laptop http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-1905.aspx is worth getting and is it core 2 duo or just core duo and what is the FSB, is it 533 or 800?

 

According to Intel, the T5450 is Core 2 Duo, 1.66GHz, 667MHz FSB. The potential benefit of this CPU is the 64-bit support, should you be planning to upgrade to 64-bit Windows.

In general, R60+ is good value. However, you can do a better deal by buying the R60+ with the T2450 (2GHz Core Duo, 533MHz FSB) elsewhere and upgrading the RAM to 2GB. The significantly higher clock speed of the T2450 will offset the faster FSB and other internal improvements of the T5450 (which costs a lot more because it is from a newer product range). You can get 1GB RAM from play.com for £28.

John

 

Thanks for the info, what about the graphics card, what games would run with it and would football manager run on it smoothly?

 

The R60+ GPU is the ATI 1250M. Graphics performance is among the best for integrated graphics but it's 3D capabilities are limited. If Football Manager is this, then it would run fine. Strategy games do not require significant GPU capability.

For a general impression of the R60+ hardware and performance, read my R20 review (link below) but the R60+ comes with a faster CPU.

John

 

What do think about dell laptops, are they good or is it avoid at all costs.

 

I suggest that you browse the Dell forums and draw your own conclusions.

The Latitude range are the best built (with price to match), the Inspirons are the budget machines and the Vostro range are meant to be in between. The pricing can be attractive if you like one of their standard specifications.

John

 

May I ask a couple of basic questions?

Do all the R60's come with DVD Burners?

And, what's the top spec. model of the R60 - and the top spec. of the R20?


Cheers.

 

AFAIK, all the currently available R60+ have a DVD burner. This may change if Samsung introduce a lower spec version with a Celeron CPU.

R60+ model NP-R60F002/SUK has a 2GHz T2450 CPU, 1GB RAM and 160GB HDD.

Tesco is offering a version of the R60+ with a 1.66GHz T2450 CPU, 2GB RAM and a higher price.

There are various models of the R20. Laptops Direct has a good selection. The most expensive (NP-R20F004/SUK) has a 1.73GHz T5300 CPU which NP-R20F003/SUK has a 1.86GHz T2350CPU.

I would expect the T2450 to have the best speed of all of these but will be helped if the RAM is upgraded to 2GB. If you want a 15.4" notebook then the R60+ is the better choice. The R20 scores on slightly smaller size and better portability although the 4 cell battery limits the running time away from a power socket.

If the speed out of the box is not enough, you can tweak the CPU speed of the R20 using ClockGen and I would expect the same applies to the R60+.

John

 

I see there's an even cheaper version (R60FY01/SUK) of the R60+ on the way. It's got the Intel T2310 CPU.

John

 

That R60+ at DigiUK with the T2450 has disappeared and a cheaper (£411) R60+ (R60FY01/SUK) with the T2310 CPU has appeared in its place.

John

 

Samsung UK's site has a special entry for the Tesco version of the R60+.

It's available in black, white or red.

John

 

Can anybody tell me please what system there is for reinstalling Vista on this laptop? Is there a secret partition, is it possible to format the hard disk and install Vista etc. from an enclosed CD / DVD etc.?

thank you

 

I don't have specific knowledge of the R60+, but Samsung's practice for other notebooks is to provide both a recovery partition and system / drivers + utilities discs. Restoration from the recovery partition is initiated by pressing a Fn key during the BIOS splash screen.

Both of these options may wipe your existing C: drive prior to installation so it is advisable to create a separate partition for user data.

Hope this helps,

John

 

Thank you John!

I generally repartition the hard drive, so that one partition has Windows and programs on and one has all my files, documents etc. It sounds like, if I do that then even if the recovery partition becomes unusable I can still reinstall everything if need be from the enclosed CD?

thanks

 

sorry to be a pain with questions, but this states about the R60+:

I wonder if anybody could confirm - makes using headphones to watch DVDs on trains etc. a bit of an issue if it is the case. Also is the line out for headphones decently loud? On my old Maxdata notebook it's not usable.

ta

 

Hi kingqueen,the repartitioning is a method i use myself.

You can indeed reinstall the o/s from one of the included dvd's, i did this myself & it is the same procedure that you would normally use when installing\reinstalling the o\s. The usual options are all there for formating\creating partitions. etc.

Regarding the headphone\ sound thing, i will check this out tonight.

EDIT, plugging in headphones does cut the internal speakers, the output level is quite hot too.
Hope this helps

 

It most definitely does. Thank you very much.

 

Bought my R60plus from Currys about 6 weeks ago for £399! Now I want a spare battery (preferably the high power version) - any recommended supplier (and I'm having trouble trying to find the correct part number!)

 

Does the battery look like this? It should have one of these numbers on it somewhere: AA-PB2NC6B, AA-PB2NC6B/E, AA-PB4NC6B, AA-PB4NC6B/E

Genuine Samsung batteries tend be have silly pricing (>£100)- see DigiUK. There are people who are selling compatible batteries for around £60. Do a Google with the part number and you will find something like this.

John

 

Does anyonу know the power consumption (in watts??) of these notebooks when running from AC power?
Just curious how much electricity will the laptop "eat" in 24 hours?

 

I don't specifically know for the R60 plus but I would expect the mains power drain under light load to be around 25W (that's what I get for my Zepto 6024W which also has integrated graphics). This power drain may double under maximum CPU + GPU load but you can probably undervolt the CPU enough save around 10W from the maximum power drain.

If the notebook is off but plugged in the the AC adaptor will still use 1W to 3W.

John