Samsung R20 notebook (14" widescreen)

512MB is adequate, but no more, for XP, but (assuming that the RAM is 2 x 256MB) replacing one with a 1GB module (can be found for <£20 at play.com and a bit more at ebuyer) then XP will be happy and you have the upgrade route of replacing the other 256MB module in the future. 1GB is barely enough for Vista so you would still be needing to think of upgrading RAM.

Similarly, 80GB HDD is enough for now but barely enough if you want to set up a dual boot system. However, upgrading the HDD is also a relatively simple task and you can use a USB-SATA 2.5" enclosure + software such as Acronis MigrateEasy (the trial works for a month) to clone your existing HDD onto a new one. Changing the HDD is very easy. A 160GB HDD is now down to ~£50 and you will have the original HDD for backups.

Unless you have a copy of XP already to hand, buying an XP version of the R20 is easiest route for now, knowing that you can upgrade when the need arises and money permits.

John

 

Hi John,

Thank you very much for all the advice given regarding R20. I have decided to go ahead with an XP ready system as i can staright away(as soon as i receive R20) start use my other XP based software packages that i use now for my work and study.

Finally, i have placed an order with cclonline.com for T2350 1.86GHz, 512MB ram and 80 Gb Harddisk with windows XPP for £477(including delivery-NxtDay). I was finalized with two shops(cclonline-£477 & DigiUK - £482). But finally my instinct told me to go with cclonline. Once i get the R20,then i will order a 1GB RAM from play.com or 7shop.com as you have suggested.

Now,fingers crossed waiting for my R20 to arrive. Will update you once i receive that.

Thanks and Regards
Chandra
UK

 

Another reason to choose cclonline is, their website says for samsung products they give 2years warranty. please see the link below.

http://www.cclonline.com/help-warranty.asp

But i am not sure whether that is valid to R20 notebooks as well.

I have to wait untill they send me the info package.

Regards

Chandra

 

I've got the R20F004/SUK which comes with 2x 512MB RAM. If i upgrade this to 2x 1GB RAM, will it speed up the start-up and shut down of the computer? or just the general running of the computer when I am working on it?

 

More RAM is unlikely to speed up the start-up and shut down significantly. The main gain is when you are running several applications at the same time and the need to move data between the physical RAM and the virtual memory (swapfile on hard disk) is reduced. The symptom of this happening is a delay and burst of HDD activity when you switch from one open application to another.

The best way to avoid the start-up delay is to use hibernation. You can then be back to where you left off (with applications open) in about one minute.

John

 

You can get a 1GB DIMM for £17.99 delivered from Play.

 

hi GlasWolf, how are you doing m8?

After reading through 51 pages of this thread i was surprised that no1 has mentioned that the r20 is perfect for ubuntu (fiesty/gutsy) + compiz-fusion (beryl).

vista & XP have crashed/malfunctioned/bosd'd so often for me on the r20.

 

I'm having a problem with my R20 touchpad- well, not the actual touchpad but the left click button. It just doesn't work anymore unless you apply really strong pressure.

Anybody have any similar experiences ?

I bought the laptop in the UK in March but I will be in Sweden for the next couple of years. So I magine that getting it fixed under warranty is going to be painful.

 

I wonder if some dirt has got in underneath it. Maybe you can find a can of compressed air with a little pipe to try to blast any muck out. Sometimes key malfunctions clear themselves after a time.

It's possible that the buttons pull off, but I've never had the need to try.

John

 

Hi everyone especially John,

Finally i got my R20 on Saturday. It came on Friday morning but as i was not at home(i didin't know when it is going to come-exactly),citylink dropped a card and called them on saturday and wen and collectde it(some 12 miles drive - oneway

Now, my opinion about R20. Mine is a T2350,1.86GHz, 512MB(1x512) 667MHz RAM with 80Gb HDD and a XPP for £482 (total) from cclonline.com.

The look: Not the sexiest laptop in the world,but it very beautiful for a budget laptop. As few of you expressed in the forum and some other review sites, the laptop inner(when u open the lid) is not bad lloking or bad design. I like it very much both outside and inside look. Especially i like the spaceshuttle fuel tank like battery,that is really sexy.

The Key borad is very good ergonomically. All the connection ports are convenient and user friendly. The tracpad, i found it better controllable but a bit more friction(infact that's what makes it more controllable) compared to my Dell Inspiron 6000. But i like it except it may cause a bit of handstrain for longer working hours due to the comparatively more effort required to move the cursor.

Screen is beautiful and non reflectice,i like it. I don't find the problem of change in battery brightness when switched from main to battery as annoying, as i can easily change the display brightnes by Fn+ Uparrow. Simlarly it is not annoying,when the display goes off after a period of inactivity,as a touch of mouse pad brings it back to life.

Samsung update plus asked me to update a ATI radeaon xpress 1250 drver update,i did it, but didn't find any difference after the update. Infact,one more thing i noticed is the animation speed is much quicker in my Dell inspiron 600 than R20. I am not put off by this, but don't know what the ATI xpress 1250 doing or boasted as a selling point. But i need to do some other experiment to evaluate that.

One good thing is the RAM is 1x 512 MB, so another slot is free,so that i can buy a 1GB and make it as 1.5 GB without scrapping any existing RAM. But will the dual core performance can be obtained with 512MB on one slot and 1GB on another slot? I read somewhere the RAM sizes need to be similar also to be from the same manufacturer to make use of the dual core feature(dual / mulitiple threading),Is that true?

I yet to explore the software features laike AV Premium etc..

The most asked question about the battery life, It gives me ~ 2hrs -2 hrs 10mins with wireless on and with web browsing and audio playing (on power DVD - from the hard disk). I yet to get the average value,so let me comment about that later.

Regardsing the performance, i yet to gruell my R20 with my simulations, so will update you regarding the speed multi tasking etc shortly.

Overall this is a verygood laptop and beautiful laptop for the money paid.

Thanks everyone in this forum for their help.

Chandra
UK

 

Thanks for your feedback.

I think you will find that the graphics speed up when you add some more RAM because not only the RAM allocation to the GPU will be increased but there is greater memory bandwidth (the GPU can use some memory in each module at the same time).

Have a read of this thread regarding the dual channel RAM (it includes some results I measured on the R20). Having different sized modules does not make any significant difference to the memory bandwidth (speed) but two modules is much better than one.

John

 

Hi John,

Thanks for your suggestions. I plan to order a 1GB RAM from play.com. Could tell me the following will be compatible with R20 please?

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/32748...5300-DDR2-667MHz-200-Pin-SO-Dimm/Product.html

This will make my RAM size as 512MB+1GB.

Thanks

Chandra

 

That Kingston RAM looks fine: DDR2-667 SODIMM.

If it doesn't work at the first attempt (the computer won't start) (i) make sure you have pushed the module into the slot far enough then (ii) swap the two modules between the slots. For one of my many experiments with R20 RAM combinations it was fussy about which module was in which slot.

John

 

Thanks John

Chandra

 

New WLAN driver available for Windows XP - the installer messes with your registry to replace Microsoft's default msgina.dll. I don't know what this is supposed to be good for, but it disables the welcome screen and fast user switching. Google for "msgina.dll athgina.dll" for more info...

Fix - don't know if/how this will affect the driver/ACU.


Addendum: Everything seems to work fine as far as my 802.11g WPA2 network is concerned. ACU autostart disabled, Atheros service (acs.exe) stopped and set to manual, "Wireless intermediate driver" unbound from network connections, GINA registry setting reset to default, Windows' wireless network management enabled because I don't like unnecessary extra stuff

 

please HELP!!!!

i wanted to buy my first laptop, R20 or ACER AS4710?


TNX................

 

Assuming the specs of the Acer AS4710 are these, the key difference lies in the chipset and integrated GPU. The R20 has the ATI 1250M chipset / integrated graphics while the Acer has the older and slower Intel 950M graphics (which are barely up to Vista'a graphics needs).

I can't see the weight for the Acer but I would expect the R20 to be lighter.

John

 

Fancy meeting you here! Well I did mention the Ubuntu thing in passing. Has anyone tried 5.10 yet?

 

Hi everyone ,my first post .
After reading all the positive reviews on this Laptop i have decided to go for it.
I have just ordered one from Ebuyer the R20F003/SUK for £399 .
I am a novice at this so would i need to upgrade the memory , i will be using it mainly for WEB browsing & watching DVDs.
Thanks

Shaun

 

That's a very good deal on the R20 at ebuyer. A 1.86GHz dual core CPU, 1GB RAM and Vista Home premium for £400. Well spotted.

John

 

Another pound off a Kingston 1GB memory module, now £16.98 at dvd.co.uk. You can even get an extra 30p or so back via Quidco.

 

Can you help John ,how do i go about getting my broadband working i am on NTL
or Virgin as its known know.My Laptop is coming on Tuesday. at the moment i am running my Toshiba F20 off my router.
What free downloads do you recommend to install ,thanks for any of your expert advice
Shaun

 

I can't see any problem with connecting to NTL. You say you have got a router. Just plug in the network cable or get the wireless running (you have have to manually configure the connection if you have enabled any form of security).

And for free Windows software, visit this thread. I've just checked: firefox is at the top of the list and I recommend that you add the Flashblock and Adblock Plus extensions. There's also a search add-in specifically for this site. I'm sure it is somewhere in that thread, but Open Office is also worth trying. I used Eudora for my email.

There's also Clockgen if you want to try overclocking but first I would suggest RMclock and see how low you can go with the voltage. If your CPU is stable at normal fully speed at a much reduced voltage (eg 1.05V) then it is more likely to overclock well.

John

 

don't you mean 7.10? i can not wait to try it out, from what i have read so far it should run sweet on the r20.

we need to take this talk over to the ubuntu forum http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=3493775

some testing needs to be done.

 

Thanks John ,lots to be going on with .

Shaun

 

I cannot load Feature Tool on the notebook.
I get as far has 'Loading Hitachi Feature Tool..."
Then nothing happens.

I've checked the bootable disc on another PC - and it works fine.
Tried burning another disc, just to be sure, but it made no diffrence.
??

 

What's the model number of the HDD in your R20? If it is Hitachi then I can't explain why Feature Tool won't run.

John

 

It's Hitachi - according to device manager.


??

 

First check whether another CD, such as the Windows restore CD, will boot OK (it won't change anything until you let it do so, so quit before then). If that won't boot then something is getting in the way.

Then, I suggest, you pass the problem (either won't boot any CD or won't run feature tool) to Samsung support through their email system. I can't think of the solution.

John

 

Can someone please explain to me why Vista is 32 bit on the R20 when it has a 64 bit graphics chip (?) ?

 

Briefly, what goes on inside the GPU has nothing to do with whether the operating system is 32 or 64 bit (which is controlled by CPU capability and then driver and software compatibility). GPUs need as much bus width as possible to facilitate the fast processing of graphics information.

John

 

Sorry for being so thick but how do you get rid of Mcfee i have downloaded
AVAST so i dont need Mcfee ,does it matter if you havre 2 anti virus progs running at the same time ,also is there a way to make the screen brighter when you are in battery mode ,i press the arrows but it make no difference.
Only had it a day so i am learning ,by the way can you delete OFFICE 2007
Wthout installing it first.
Thank you for any help i am a new guy when it comes to computers.
Shaun

 

1. Control Panel > Programs and Features then right click on McAfee and select uninstall.

2. Fn+ Cursor Up / Down should change the display brightness for both mains and battery operation. If not, I suggest you download and install the latest versions of Display Manager and Battery Manager.

John

 

Thanks ,once again John

 

Need advice again, what is the best option 2 seperate 1 gig or 1 x 2 gig +512.
I have been told that its best to have them both the same .

Thanks

Shaun

 

Read the dual channel RAM guide. If I remember correctly, I put some results for the R20 there. You will see that there is not a significant memory bandwidth difference between the two combinations of RAM.

Personally I would go to the 2.5GB for two reasons: (i) A 2GB module will be much more useful to carry over to your next computer and (ii) Vista will use all the RAM it can find to cache files which it thinks you may need (so 3GB is better than 2.5GB). The best price I know of in our part of the world for 2GB is this Transcend module, which I have tested in the R20.

John

 

Both were listed in the control panel software section and I could lauch the respective uninstallers from there, but neither uninstalled cleanly in my case.

McAfee left behind entries in Windows' "security center", the Office trial uninstaller stopped with a meaningless error message and left half of the stuff on the system.

I had been planning to (and did) reinstall the OS anyway, but this must be pretty annoying for anyone who doesn't want/can't do that...

 

when i look at the screen it seems to be a bit hazy ,i was expecting to be very clear but it looks as though you are looking at it with a veil pulled across it .
Is this normal ,my Toshiba is very clear & that is 2 years old.
I am a bit dissapointed perhaps i was hoping for more.
As anyone else observed this or is it only mine?
Thanks

Shaun

 

Make sure the screen resolution is set to 1280 x 800. Right click on the desktop, select Personalize and then Display Settings.

I've seen a couple of R20 displays and I think they are good for a budget machine.

John

 

Hi
My R20 is T2350 1.86GHz with 512MB RAM and XPP. I recently ordered a 1GB RAM from 7day shop.com . When fitted the system icon in control panel shows the total RAM size as 1.25GB instead 1.5Gb. Any Guess where it went wrong? Becuase 1.5-1.25 = 256MB is a big loss is not it?

Chandra
UK

 

Thanks for the reply John, i cant put my finger on it but i have been to look at other Notebooks & the screen is clearer than my Samsung even the budget ones, there is a grain on the picture ,not present on any other .
Can you think what could be wrong if it is a fault . I am thinking of sending it back if i cant improve the picture , i would order another one if i could be sure it was a fault.

Thanks

Shaun

 

Hi John.
I have phoned SAMSUNG up the said i may need to update my Driver
i will try this (if i can find out how } when i geyt home from work.

 

There has been a lot of discussion about grainy displays in the Dell forum. I recall Samsung being mentioned. So maybe Samsung ended up with a bunch of grainy displays on their hands which they decided to drop into the R20.

Which model of the the R20 is yours? One of the old model with the T2250 CPU might be a safer bet, assuming they were made several months ago.

John

 

Hi John,

A Small question, I ordered my R20 online from cclonline on 3/10/2007 and received on 08/10/2007. I read from their website that, if a consumer want to return a goods purchased online then they have to do so in 7 days. But now it is almost 10 days for me. But heard from somebody that, it is possible to return goods in UK for the first 28days from the date of order. Is that true? Can you throw some light in that please? My R20 is not faulty but some how i am not satisfied with that like shaun1952 mentioned the screen brightness is not as good as my Dell Inspiron 6000 and the graphics speed is slower than my Dell Desktop and i really don't find any inscrease in performance even after adding 1GB RAM(512GB+1GB). If it is not possible to return then ihave to see how to make my system work faster snd to solve the dull display problem.

Thanks for your advice
Chandra
UK

 

See this page at Which?

So the 7 days applies if you change your mind.

If, however, you consider the goods to be faulty then the 7 days does not apply.

If the display is dim or grainy then the quality is not satisfactory.

The GPU is another issue: Desktop GPUs tend to be better unless they are integrated.

John

 

The model is R20 003 core duo T2350 .
Would doing what Samsung said make any difference ?
If i order another one & its the same i will have the problem of returning that also.

Shaun

 

The T2350 version is reasonably new. The two R20s I have seen had the T2250.

It would be prudent to try the latest driver. There's a small chance that it might fix the problem. Also the latest BIOS (if your R20 already has that BIOS then it means it is quite recent production). If the problem persists then we know that it is a substandard display.

Then one way to return the notebook is to get Samsung support to issue an RMA if you can get them to agree the display is defective. I think it would be difficult to photograph graininess but a photo of an R20 at full brightness alongside an older notebook (also at full brightness) would demonstrate that a display is unacceptably dim - see my R20 review for an example.

John

 

Sorry John ,do i look for an INTEL or an ATI Graphic driver.?
I am not sure how to go about this ,i will ask my son to download it for me in case i make a mess of it
Regards

Shaun

 

The R20 has an ATI chipset and integrated GPU.

The latest ATI graphics driver provided by Samsung for the R20 is here.

John

 

H John
Thank you, i am downloading the file now.
After downloading how do i install it onto the computer.
Is it save to disc ,double click ,install. then restart