Q310 - Impressions, Review and Pictures!

On a general keeping clean note, I use a duster to clean my Q210 and other notebooks for years, and it works great as it`s very gentle.

But i advise to wash it in fabric conditioner to remove the static properties!

 

thats proper strange, when i went in they just phoned up brent and 2 minutes later they reduce the price, no problems. But still, its a good laptop and a fantastic price.

Can you hear your hard drive when you are in a quiet room, it sound like electric shorting.

Using rmclock i successfully undervolted it, so give it a go, it made mine run cooler.

Also can you post the battery life vista says you should get on power saver.

While i think about it, to get rid of all the rubbish just restore windows and you will end up with a clean vista installation with no trials!

 

@Fred
The hard drive is just about audiable, yes.
Vista reckons that power saver will get 4hours and 1min.
And thanks for the advice... I have just uninstalled all the bloat will will keep this in mind for the future

 

It depends if you have the Fujitsu or the Hitachi HDD.

The Hitachi is virtual silent, The Fujitsu is said to have a strange clicking noise?

Regards

John.

 

thanks for answering,

don't forget, that if you want extra battery life, vista aero and the side bar eats your battery life,

also if you havn't sen this post then take a look, http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532 it helped me out loads to improve vista, and if you want to speed up boot times the goto this page http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=166532&page=79 and goto post #789 by ScuderiaConchiglia, i did this and it almost halfed my boot time.




yeh, its just a weird clicking noise but unless your in complete silence i doubt you will be able to hear it at all.

 

Hi.

I just run the DefragBootFiles in post 79 and it reduced my boot time by 10-15 seconds, but i had to remove my external hdd before it would run correctly.

well worth doing!

thanks

John.

 

does anyone know of a good skin/sleeve to fit this notebook? preferably neoprene. Belkin have one for the macbook air which is slimmer than the Q310 by 5mm but it might fit anyway?

 

Hi.

Has anybody tried the webcam it`s very jerky even in good light, what is it 5 frames a second of something?

Regards

John.

 

if you let me know of a program to measure the fps i can test for you, i have only used it once for about 2 seconds just to make sure it was working.

As for the case the xps m1330 is slightly smalle by about 3mm so im going to try the zeroshock III 13in, i will let you know if it fits.

 

Hi.

I downloaded fraps, and i got 5-8 fps 352x288

 

can you create a backup of the recovery disk?

 

Do you mean the recover partition, as you get 2 dvd`s the Vista disk and the driver - software disk.

 

sorry, i meant the actual dvd vista disk.

Will the drives from laptopvideo2go install on this laptop?
What are the advantages of their software?

thanks

 

Hi.

Yes you should be able to copy the Vista Dvd, but it will most likely only work with a Samsung notebook.

I tried the latest drivers from laptopvideo2go 178.13 vista32, but my 3dmark06demo score went down slightly.

All the games i have tried work fine with the stock drivers

John.

 

thanks, i might try cloning the cd tonight, i wont bother with the other drivers then.

Has the q310 capable of intel turbo memory or do you need to buy the card?

thanks again

 

Hi.

There is a compartment on the bottom of the Q210 for turbo memory, but when i opened it, there was no connector only the place where it should be.

Alot of manufactures have not bothered with turbo memory.

But the Q310 might be different, have a look.

Regards

John.

 

Hi
I have noticed a strange scratch has appeared on the screen of my Q310 - Just wondering if anyone else has had this kind of problem (on any glossy screen) and what, if anything, can be done??

 

If a horizontal scratch, is the screen touching something when closed?

John

 

Not at all. Seems to have just materialised, unless it was always there and went unoticed. I have telephones Samsung, who say a tech will ring me tomorrow. No idea what happens next, just have to wait and see... At least they seem a little more keen to help compared to other companies I have had problems with

 

hi John, do you know which model of the laptop comes with the hitachi drive? i'm buying from dabsforwork.ie and they list 2 models for the Q310, the A S S 2 U K with a 320Gb drive and the A S S 0 U K with a 250Gb drive. i can't find any specs anywhere that list the drive manufacturer.
cheers, tim.

 

Hi.

I have a Q210 with the Hitachi, but some Q210 owners have Fujitsus , but Q310 owners i have seen here have Fujitsus

You dont really know till you get it!

The Fujitsus runs a bit faster than the Hitachi, but it`s also more noisey and runs warmer.

Regards

John.

 

I've just reserved a Q310 from John Lewis Brent Cross for £699. Not too shabby considering the model with a slower processer and less HDD is only about £40 less.
I've been using my Asus F3JA for the last 2 years but that has to be retired now as my younger brother decided to destroy my screen.
Is the change in Screen size going to bother me much, going by other users experience of course. I'll be going from 15.4" to 13.3". I've also used a 14.1" dell from time to time.

 

I went from a 19" to a 12" and it took about a week to get use to it.

Regards

John.

 

thanks for the quick reply.

Just one other question. How competent is the GF 9200M? Obviously I don't want to be doing any serious gaming with it but will it play say half life 2 ok? And maybe sins of a solar empire, I've been considering getting that one.
I probably won't be doing any more gaming on but I figured it's worth finding out how well it might run.

 

Hi.

You can run most of the latest games, at medium setting`s , with mabe AA and Shadows turned off.

Have a look at the review below.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=299785

regards

John.

Edit : I should play half-life 2 orange box without any problems!

 

If they are all the same resolution then you will adjust very quickly. If the bigger display has a higher resolution then you may spend time trying to figure out how to get more information onto the little screen.

John

 

Trusted Reviews has a review of the Q310.

http://www.trustedreviews.com/notebooks/review/2008/10/11/Samsung-Q310--***0UK--13-3in-Notebook/p1

Gets a pretty good write-up but there's no mention of heat or noise.

 

Hi.

link does not work.

Regards

John.

 

Try again: Trusted Reviews Q310.

John

 

Hi.

It`s still not working!

John.

 

It is that over-zealous censor at work. Edit the link to replace the *** with an A, an S and another S.

John

 

Hi.

What is the slot under the left palm rest on the Q310 in the review.

Regards

John.

 

Can you give the link to the relevant photo?

John

 

Hi.

the slot or blank next to the hdmi port



Regards

John.

 

How is it with the amount of dead/stuck pixels with the Q310 screen, anyone had any ?
I'm considering to buy a deadpixel assurance with the Q310.

 

The user guide says it is the HDD compartment cover. See the attached.

John

 

Hi.

On the Q210 the HDD cover is on the bottom of the notebook.

Regards

John.

 

Hi.

At least 4 NBR members have Q310 and none have mentioned any problems with stuck or dead pixels.

regards

John.

 

The Q310 is significantly different to the Q210 and, IMO, much better than its predecessor, the Q70, which was the Q45 chassis in a bigger casing with a bigger screen.

John

 

The hard drive is encased in a sort of case which is a part of the cover.. you slide the cover out and the hard drive is mounted on it.

I'll take a picture for you tomorrow.

 

Just bought one for the GF from the John Lewis in Oxford Street (now matching the £699 from Brents cross for the higher spec model)

I got the Sony Vaio z11vn last week for myself so obviously not quite comparable (but £1000 price diff does explain that!) but generally impressed - no problems with dead pixels and shockingly battery life seems better than my vaio!

Considering vaio can switch to integrated graphics etc, quite surprised by this - only diff. is I reinstalled vista on the q310 and didnt on the vaio - whats the view on how much of a diff this could make?

Just wish the casing wasnt quite so glossy since its a complete dust and smudge magnet... strange that the only non-super-glossy area is the rim around the screen which is one the part that doesnt really get touched!

Anyone discovered a good tightfit sleave for the q310 yet?

 

Well I've ordered this which should arrive tomorrow, or tuesday. I can tell you more on how it fits then.

 

anychance you could run hwmonitor on your laptop and post the graphic card temps please ptolemyiv(no install required) when the computer has been on for 30-40 mins at idle. as you should have same specs as me, so i can see if i have a duff card.

thanks

px i have ordered the zeroshock III 14.1" case for mine so will tell you how it fits when i get it. (apparently the 13.3" version would be a bit tight)

im also getting the Targus CORPORATE TRAVELLER BACKPACK, so im looking to foreward to see if its good.

 

Hi.

look at the thread below.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=307719

Regards

John.

 

Thats the HDD.

I've had mine since Friday now and have had no problems at all with it. The screen is perfect.

Someone above mentioned heat and noise above what was that about? Mine seems silent so far. As for heat I was going to use HWMonitor and post my results in the temperature thread at some point later on today, but it seems ok when i use it at the moment.

 

All the info on the Q310 has been really useful for me. Mine arrived today and is currently charging. It's my first post on this site, just wanted to say thanks!

 

Hi, I'm considering buying the Q310, or possibly the Q210. I believe the Q210 comes with Vista installed but also Win Xp software if you want to downgrade. I wonder if the same is true of the Q310? Also, would anyone know if the keyboards are very different in size? Many thanks indeed.

 

XP software and drivers are available (on the Samsung download site if not supplied) but the XP downgrade only comes with Vista business which you get with the Samsung P series.

John

 

Thanks John. May I also ask how one would go about changing from Vista to XP? Do I get a CD for WIn XP, and simply pop that in - would the computer install Win XP over the pre-installed Vista?
And as for the software on samsung's download site, which I've just had a look at, do I download the drivers and software after XP has isntalled or before?

What is your opinion of doing all this, is it likely to lead to an unstable system by tampering in this way? And would in void the warranty?
Sorry for so many questions, but I've not changed so much on a system before, except for in the past upgrading an OS. THanks! Gibson99

 

Hi.

You dont get an XP disk or drivers you will have to download them.

You install XP and then install the chipset drivers first.

Regards

John.