Samsung Q320 : 13.4" 16:9 notebook

Thanks La Head, i think that someone was me.

Nice short, to the point review.
Were there any other baddies?
Seemed a tad too positive, which isnt a bad thing at all.
But yea, any other problems? I should be concerned with?

Hows the weight? speakers? webcam?

Thanks.

 

One of the main issue is that the T3400 is a 65nm part (merom) where as the P8700 is a newer 45nm peryn CPU. Either way the T3400 will consume more power chunk out more heat.

But as John said, if you are looking for a performance boost the cost isn't really justified unless you find a good deal.

 

sketchyd:

i gotta say, after 2.5 weeks of using it...i really can't fault it for anything much. it's sturdy as hell, vs my old toshiba u300 and vaio fs series. for that build quality at this price...i dunno what to say other than it's a win. i was originally considering the sony Z series, but given the build quality of this machine, i would have to say this machine really gives no reason for the more expensive sony other than the bragging rights and lighter weight. i suppose at 2.2kg, this isn't the lightest machine around, but for the specs, i suppose that's a reasonable compromise? after searching around for a perfect machine for a college student at an affordable price...i would say the q320 is much better than the alternatives out there.

if you remain uncertain of this machine, go take a look at the dv3 from HP too, similar specs, but after trying that machine too for myself and in the end returning it...i would say...samsung made a much better quality machine.

 

Alright, thanks La Head.

I think im gonna go with the samsung then.
Im convinced its a good buy.
And with your recommendation being a HPdv3, i dont want that.
I dislike all HPs, after trying them out at bestbuy... the trackpads are too sticky.
:<

 

hi LA Head,

how do you know battery wear is @ 3%? I wonder what that actually means in practice...

 

You got to know that the battery wear itself the moment it is made. So thats quite a way before you even turned on the notebook.

 

Yeah it wont be that big of a deal. You will see after a while that it will take longer and longer to wear.

 

I just placed my order for the Q320, its coming in a week. Sometime between next monday - thursday.

Its my first laptop, so im pretty excited.

 

lemme know how it goes for u sketchyd! did u get the white or black?

 

I wanted white, but the place i bought it from, only offered black.

Im in california, was there a place i couldve gotten white?

 

Hm, i dont think i've seen white here in north America wither.

Congrats on the purchase

 

sketchyd,

where have you ordered your Q320 ?

Thanks.

 

ryback,

I ordered mine through bestbuy.
They didnt have an instore pickup for this model, but it was available online.
I just got a confirmation email this morning, that it has been shipped out, its gonna take a week though, since i chose the cheapest delivery.

 

I am not lucky, no other retailers with concrete store sell it in California.
Store pick up not avaiable à Best Buy. Some days ago i send a message to BB customer service about store pickup choice, no answer at this time.
I will have to take the Dell Studio 14z instead.
Samsung seems to be a better deal.

 

Portable One don't list the Q320 but it might be worth asking them.

While they are primarily mail order, you can make an appointment to visit them.

John

 

Went to the store and fingered the laptop a bit. I found the keyboard slightly less snappy then most others, but probable acceptable. The touchpad was nice, but the buttons where slightly recessed into the chassis, which made them a bit hard to depress. There was a little bit of resistance, but not much. Considering a Dell 14z instead, but I have to try it first, since it uses an ALPS touchpad, which usually isn't as responsive and high-resoluted as synaptics ones.

 

ryback,

why cant you just order it online like me?

 

sketchyd,

i can't because il will be in California only from 08/31/09 to 09/18/09 for holidays. I will be 3 days in SF then i leave for Monterrey, LA, LV, SF.
I live in France the rest of time.
That's why store pick up was the solution for me. But it is not possible.

 

Ryback,

No relatives in california?
Thinking you can order now, and just pick it up when you get here.

 

I do not have any relatives in California. The laptop will be for my girlfried, she will take the Dell Studio 14z.

 

Its supposed to come in today!

Excited!

 

omg its absolutely beautiful!

 

that was exactly what i felt too when i brought mine home from the shop. did i lie about anything sketchyd? it truly is a nice machine eh?

 

@La Head, nope!
I got it today, so I cant really say anything about performance and shtuff, but physically, i am in love with it.

Should I make backup recover discs as soon as possible?
And is it ok to still make backup discs, even if i already installed some programs?

---------------------------------------------------------

Physically, it is a beautiful machine!
What shocked me the most were 2 things.

One, i wasnt too excited bout the keyboard look, as it isnt really "trendy" with the new chiclet styles u see everywhere.
HOWEVER!
Wow, these keys feel great! and actually look really nice.

Two, which surprised me the most actually, was the lid. I was expecting to see something on par with the "fairly cheap look and feel of the dell xps13/16 lid, but wow this lid trumps the dells!" The lid looks really nice despite it using the "every laptop these days is glossy black style."

I am honestly floored by how good this machine looks and feels, and this is not an exxaggeration by any means, i can wholeheartedly say that i love the look and feel of this machine and it is absolutely stunning.

As for any cons, which dont really bother me as much, but did indeed surprise me negatively were.

One, the screen frame. the screen bezel has too much negative space on top, seems like the screen wasnt positioned directly in the center. Could be an illusion, but still feels like wasted space for higher vertical resolution.

Two, is a bit thicker than the pictures make it look. And a tad heavier than what i expected it to weigh like, but again its not backbreaking, and actually feels great in my hands, so i dont really mind.

Three, the stickers arent aligned! As someone who is a bit paranoid bout graphics lining up correctly, it bothers me a bit that the stickers are not probably aligned to anything.

Ill do a review soon, am i allowed to make a new thread for a review? or do i need to post it in this thread?

Heres a quick video of the Samsung Q320.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03BgCZbSnZE

 

hi all... I picked up my Q320 P7530 2GhZ, 500GB disc, 4GB RAM (AS04UK) version over the weekend.. .some insights after a week with it...

1. Battery: seems a little shorter than I'd hoped allthough it's difficult to say until you use in normal daily use... I set it to power saver mode and switched off the screen saver/dimming options so that it was on continuously@ 40% brightness. Then via wi-fi I streamed music off the web continuously for 1hr:45mins then switched to streaming BBC TV for another 1:35 whilst also doing some simultaneous facebook etc before the battery went dead.
So basically 3hrs 20mins of continuous streaming audio/video...
So I think it'd be good for up to 4 hours with normal browsing via wi-fi etc and possibly more without wi-fi on..

It is a little thick when you see it on the table but in use it's no big deal. It certaily looks well made though and tough...

The keyboard is fine as is the trackpad and there's very little to complain about.

During the test it got mildly warm but a lot cooler than my lenovo T61 and not a problem at all. It's also super quiet - you can't hear the fan really.

Boots up quickly - no probs with Vista SP2.

Issues:
1. I can't work out how to switch the Bluetooth off which is pain.
2. the shiny screen is very shiny. In fact when you switch on the camera you clearly see yourself via the camera on screen but (depending on light conditions in the rool) you can also clearly see yourself looking at the screen - spooky!. I guess its no worse than Macbooks or any other shiny screen tho.. it's just that the whole screen area is shiny - as there are no borders to it.

so on balance I'd give it 8/10 and hope Samsung brings out a 12 cell battery to increase the battery life which some mags think is on the books..

 

I have the 2.53ghz version.

I have been doing basic tasks like installing programs, opening programs, and shutting off and turning on.

And i have to say im a tad disappointed at the speed of this machine.
Its either that this laptop is performing slower than i had expected it to or that my desktop pc was a lot faster than i originally imagined.

 

If you want you machine to go really fast, buy an Intel SSD drive for it, as I'm planning to. Anand @ anandtech.com calls it the most substantial and noticeable upgrade you can make to a computer. The random read times is about a hundred times faster the the fastest spinning hard drive.

If I decide on the samsung, I will also try to exchange the optical drive with a second hard drive, since i never use discs.

Btw, does anyone know what the power supply dimensions are?

 

Vista should speed up with use as it learns your habits.

Also, the bundled McAfee AV package is a bit of a resource hog.

John

 

The power supply is tiny and lightweight!
Its the cords that make it alot bigger than it is.

4.125in x 1.125in x 1.75in

 

Can the hard drive easily be swapped? I plan on purchasing this notebook, but I want to use my own 7200rpm hard drive.

 

Congrats on the purchase man, also it was a great vid

Have you done any gaming benchmarks yet?

 

I dont know, i didnt attempt it at all.
I havent swapped or configured any of the default hardware, using it as is.
However, there are unscrewable panels on the bottom of the machine, 2 seperate panels.

The first one, closest to the front of the machine, near the palm rest.
Has a total of 3 screws.
It is marked as HDD and Mini Card.
Its not marked by a sticker or anything cheap looking.
Its directly "engraved" into the plastic.

The second panel, much smaller than the first.
Says memory on it, and it has 2 screws.

I only play racing games.
But i have tried running race driver grid on low settings so far, and it works.
I havent tried higher settings.

Ill try to post up more specific details later this weekend.

 

Medium will probably work, but more or less it will be at lower Res.

Interested in hearing the details you have

 

i'm currently playing company of heroes on low settings but native resolution @ 1366X768 and it runs 100 fine as on my desktop rig. awesome card for such a small computer. i think it's faster than a 9300GS on the sony right? can anyone verify?

 

Alright, that's all I need to know. Thanks! Picking one up tomorrow. T3400, 3GB ram.

It's basically a 9300GM on steroids as far as I know.

 

T3400?
Is that the 2.0ghz model?

If you get it through bestbuy, it comes with a P8700 i think. 2.53ghz.

 

I'm not from the USA .

 

I just saw this laptop at futureshop for 1299 (P8700 cpu). I don't really play games, so I was originally looking at the toshiba satellite pro u400 for $999 (Both laptops in Canada). Wondering if I should just go for the toshiba instead. Seems like the main diff between the two are the gpu, cpu, and battery life are better in the samsung. Plus it has hdmi.

For 300 bucks more, probably seems like the samsung is a better deal, unless I can find it somewhere else cheaper.

 

Oh, I see.

Price was one of the factors for me when purchasing my laptop.
I wanted an under 1k machine but still with fairly good specs.
The samsung from bestbuy, (which i feel is US only now) was able to give me just that.
So i went with it for 929.99 with the p8700.

But if it was 1299, im not sure if i would have gotten it.
Not that its a bad computer, dont have the money for it.

Have you tried lookin at the xps13?
I originally didnt get it cuz the lid was too ugly for me to look at.
But i hear that dell is now making a white one, and from the pics, it looks pretty slick.

Again, this might be US only.
But i think the retail model is 899 with p8600/Nvidia 9400m

 

So I've purchased this notebook. It's great so far, except one thing: it's too quiet! I can hear the fan, but it's never really loud, even when I stress the CPU (and get it to 80°C) . Is there any way to configure the fan settings?

Also, I'd like to know what the default programs installed by Samsung are. I immediately took out the hard drive and used my own HDD to install W7, so I don't really know what Samsung installs by default, and I feel like maybe I'm missing out on a few options.

Edit: Never mind, I should read the manual.

 

Yeah, I would also like a laptop for less than $1000 but saw this one with the P8xxx cpu which would give out less heat overall. If I could get the samsung for 899 I would go for it, I'll have to look around..

I have checked out the Dell XPS13's but I don't really like them that much. Plus they start off at $1099 in Canada.

 

Oh the 899$ retail model i was talking bout at the end, was for the dell xps13.

The Samsung Q320 retails for 929.99$.

 

I thought people liked quiet?

Theres not much Samsung specific programs.
Even the webcam program isnt from samsung, but cyberlink.
Under the Samsung folder, there are about 5 different maintenance related programs. Not on the laptop right now so cant tell you right now, and just in case you cant find it in the manual.
Ill upload the exact programs later tonight.

I plan to do an indepth review on this laptop within a week or so.

 

FN-keys sometimes are a pain in W7. They sometimes do not work for no reason. Only way to fix it is to reboot the notebook plugged in (on battery won't work). Weird?

 

I would also like to add that this is the first notebook I've ever used that has absolutely ZERO static noise on the audio port!

 

Does this notebook supports 8GB ram i.e. 2 x 4GB DIMM ?

 

No idea, dont have manual with me.
And bestbuy doesnt say anything.

Maybe another owner can answer your question.
or tell me how i can check for that.

 

Is it possible to switch change the bilingual keyboard that I get here in Canada with a normal one? Bilingual sucks so horribly, it's almost a deal breaker.

 

I asked the guy at Bestbuy and he refers me to Samsung website that doesn't mention maximum supported ram size . I want to be able to go 8GB ram when the ram becomes affordable. This is the only thing holding me from buying this great notebook. Thanks for your reply.

 

Keyboards are interchangeable, provided you can source the part you want.

John