Samsung R70 (15.4" widescreen)

DigiUK is now listing the R70. ***** In Stock*****

£699.99

The 1 x 1GB configuration is good. Purchasers can easily upgrade without throwing anything away. For anyone wanting a 2GB model, this one that bought a couple of weeks ago has dropped a bit more in price and is now around £80 including delivery.

John

 

I went to the shop today and saw the R70. I have to say my first impression was pretty bad. Quality wise it is comparable to the Asus A8Jp and no where close to what I am used to from Samsung (I have a Samsung P35 and a good friend of mine has a X60pro). The Screen is ok but nothing special. I noticed that The screen lid was pretty thick. Thicker then most other laptops that size. But over all the size is not bad.
I ran 3dMark 2006 in native resolution of 1280x800 and got 3110. They told me they had updated the drivers yesterday. I had no way of checking at which frequancy the GPU was running sorry.

 

Should be the GS...wow.. a jump from 2110marks to 3110.. quite cool.. GTs scores about 4000 in that setting.

I also have to say that the matte inside finish looks really not nice.. thou it matches the laptop but i would have like it to be glossy as well.. i dun mind wiping oftenly.. Have you seen any other interesting things oso? Like other santa rosas.

 

Thanks for your impressions! I think i´ll go for the X65 now....

 

The R70 is designed to be a lower cost machine than the X65 (assuming the X65 is essentially a refresh of the X60) and is aimed at where most of the demand will be.

Much of the cost difference is because of the materials used for the construction, not the components. If you can afford the extra money then the X65 will be a stronger and slightly lighter computer.

The build of the R70 (and the other models in the R series) need to be compared with other computers in the same price range. Samsung (or any other manufacturer) is unlikely to give us top end build quality for a budget price, but I do hope Samsung are, within the manufacturing cost constraint, giving well above average quality for a particular price point.

John

 

Is there any reason why the draft-n version is unavailable in the U.K.? Also it seems to be missing Turbo Memory. Are these features likely to be added in the near future and what sort of price premium can be expected for their inclusion?

 

I'm not sure why the draft-n is not included. Maybe it costs a little extra and I think Samsung were targetting a price with the first UK version of the R70. The new standard will only provide improvements if the rest of your network is compatible and able to transfer data at the necessary rate. I think draft-n also improves range but this isn't an issue for most people. Already I can see two or three other wireless systems from my own home.

As for turbo memory, read this review by Anandtech. Also read the rest of that review while you are there.

John

 

Anandtech should really take down that review. Many other magazins/sites got the same laptop and they are all saying that they cant test the TM because there is an error in the bios and prevents TM from working....

About the Draft N. I think alot of budget laptops will not use the new draft N wifi chip. Intel requires an Intel wifi chip so that the laptop can use the Centrino Duo logo but they dont say which one. So if they use the old one they still get the logo and save money.

 

That may be true. However, given that Samsung still haven't got the PowerPlay working on my X60 plus 6 months after I bought it, I wouldn't have too much faith in them getting the Turbo Memory working. The innovation and progress culture in Samsung seems to have the undesirable side effect that they don't stop and fix the things which aren't working properly.

John

 

Just placed my order with Dabs for the R70. Will report back with my views once I've taken delivery and fired it up. If I remember I'll try and run some of the 3DMark tests referred to earlier in the post. Am also planning to expand the memory to 2GB but waiting to get my hands on the notebook itself before I order that.

 

Thanks for this info. It will be good to get more feedback from R70 owners.

One area which interests me is the battery life. I hope that Samsung / Nvidia have worked out how to throttle back the GPU's power consumption when running off battery.

John

 

Has anyone actually upgraded to 2gb? I was told by bloke in shop that you can add a 2nd 1gb but wanted to check if he knew his stuff as he seemed to do a lot of reading the display label..

 

It is possible to upgrade to 2GB by adding a 2nd stick of 1GB. 4GB or (2x2GB) would be max but then you need to replace the original 1GB stick. Was that your question?

 

The specifications here say the installed RAM is 1 x 1GB, which means that upgrading to 2GB doesn't involve taking any existing RAM out (which would be necessary if the RAM was 2 x 512MB as in many other models). I suspect this is what the bloke in the shop was trying to check.

If you want 3GB RAM you could consider this Transcend module (I've got one and it is fine) which is about £80 including postage.

John

 

Slightly OT:

Are there any non Samsung Santa Rosa laptops available in the UK already? I am asking because I find it amazing that the R70 and Q45 is being sold in every MediaMarkt (big electronic store chain) around Germany and Asus, HP, Fujitsu Siemens or other brands are unavailable. I really wonder how Samsung pulled this off. They have been exclusively selling santa rosa and drictx10 for over a week now.

How is it in the UK?

 

Does anyone know if either the x65 or R70 have an express card/54 slot???
the new creative xfi soundcard would be hitting retail very shortly but i have an x60plus and i know it only has a PCMCIA slot...it would be very sad if we samsung users cant bring the new soundcard to our notebooks especially those who make use of their notebooks for work and play(as a media entertainment center)... http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=209&subcategory=669&product=16642

Apparently, there is a compatibility list of notebooks (located in the link)that creative is still working on(updating) as not all notebooks work properly with the sound card? but i reckon that would be rectified in a few months time with firmware and driver updates..

 

I know that the R70 doesnt have express card. It has a PCMCIA Type I&II slot only.

Not sure about the X65. I would put the chances at 50/50.

 

The Quick Guide (Location of Controls) clearly labels the slots as a PC Card slot.

However, from the outside the PC Card and Express Card look exactly the same. I can understand why Samsung did not move to Express Card last year because of the shortage of anything to fit the new format, but this year's new models should have changed (the R20 has Express Card).

John

 

Dabs is currently listing 4 models with the T7100 CPU. Samsung R70 and HP2530 are in stock, two more HPs listed but not in stock (at the time of this post). Also, for the T7300, the HP6710 , but not in stock.

A search of Insight reveals the S ony FZ19VN (1 expected on 26 May), 3 HP models (not in stock) and the R70 (203 in stock). There may be others I have overlooked. Intel has no filter for the Santa Rosa platform.

While Samsung seems to be ahead of the pack, I just hope they haven't pushed out a fully finished product. So Samsung seem to have the stocks, but does anyone know they are available?

John

 

The Spanish version of the R70 has Bluetooth integrated. Are there any internal Bluetooth adapters (miniPCI or something else) available which I can easily build in my R70 to have "built-in Bluetooth"?

By the way - the first (German) test of the R70

http://www.notebookcheck.com/Test-Samsung-R70-Notebook.3627.0.html

 

I wonder if they had updated the driver because wave ran 3dmark06 at 1280x768 and got 3100..

 

Here are the main parts that I find interesting:

Battery runtime:
System Idle min display brightness no wifi: 3h55m
Surfing the net with wifi: 3h05m
DVD playing: 2h06m
Poweruser: 1h24m.

The also say that the fan is quite but always on and that the display brightness is good and even.
I think the benchmakrs need no translation.

edit:**
I think the main differance is that they ran 3dmark06 at 1280x1024 (is that the default?) also at the notebook.de shop they might have done some tweaking. They constently have 2-3 guys playing around testing the laptops. I mean people working there not customers.

It seems that the CPU is the bottleneck on the R70. It gets beat up by all teh 2.0Ghz nappa CPUs.

 

Yupe... the Alienware with the T7600 beat it most of the time...

 

That's a very informative review, although the only parts I can understand are the test results. Over 3 hours on battery when browsing via WLAN is promising.

As for the Bluetooth, there must be a plug-in module. On the R20 a found an empty socket next to the wireless. What I don't know is whether it is also necessary to install a wire and an antenna in the display.

John

 

The r70 on test has the Geforce 8600M GS. The U.K. model appears to have the Nvidia 8400M GS (as detailed by Micro Anvika).

A quick look at Nvidia website reveals some specs for the 8400M GS and 8600M GS.

Bearing in mind that the test model has an extra 1GB installed ram, what sort of performance dip can be expected with the 8400M GS.

Why is the 8600M GS not being made available in the U.K.?

 

The UK version also only has 1GB of ram where as the one in Germany sells with 2GB but the UK version is 150-200€ cheaper.

 

Yep as well as the wireless a.g.n rather than a.b.g and a 160 GB hard drive rather than a 120 GB one.

 

It seems that Samsung are trying to get the R70 established in UK on the basis of pricing rather than performance. We saw the same with the R20 which was launched in UK with the T2250 and in Germany with the T7200 (if my memory is correct). Had the R20 come in at £100 more, there would have been much less interest. However, the cost difference between 120GB and 160GB is only about £10. However, I suspect that they did some calculations of how to come in at the £700 price level.

Regarding the relative performance of the 8400M GS and 8600M GS, this article by Anandtech gives some useful details but doesn't make a direct comparison of performance. To start with, the 8600 has a 50% faster clock speed and twice the memory bus width, so I would roughly expect it to be 50% faster. There may be more discussion of the differences in the graphics forum.

I would expect more versions of the R70 to appear in UK within the next 2 or 3 months. I recently counted 6 different versions of the R20.

John

 

I hope there are also coming more versions of the R70 to Austria (Germany).

I miss the Webcam and Bluetooth in "our" version.

 

Thanks for the replies guys..it seems that the R70 is intended for the "looks department" but can also perform the nitty gritties of today's multimedia notebooks. i am swaying towards the x65 model as it seems to be sammy's all round notebook.

 

Yep, Thanks

 

Hi everyone,

I'm completely new here, but following this one with interest, as this laptop seems like a great deal for the price, and I'm looking for a laptop for the first time, that will allow me to play games (CoH, BF2142 for example).

I'm getting confused by the actual specs of the laptop I should get, between the UK and European versions, so can anyone explain what is happening here:
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/3360954/-/Product.html?searchstring=r70&searchsource=0#

I'm guessing they have the specs wrong. However they are based in Jersey (ooh tax) and do some odd things sometimes. I'm hoping they have the correct specs, as having the 8600 GS over 8400 would be rather nice.

Thanks all,
Andrew

 

Interesting....

It's the same price point so it should be the same model, but Play don't give the model number.

I see two possibilities:

(a) Play have got it wrong; or

(b) Play have looked in a box and got it right and everyone else has got it wrong because Samsung gave out the wrong specs.

There is a least one precedent for this: My X60 plus came with the X1700 GPU and 120GB HDD, but was listed as X1600 GPU and 100GB HDD.

Has anyone received the UK NP-R70A001/SUK? Please check the actual hardware specifications and report what is there. The Computer Overview report of Sisoftware Sandra is one way to get the information (then you can go on to run some benchmarks).

John

 

Well I phoned them, and they tell me that their manufaturers put up the details and they don't know anymore.

They do say that they get some stuff from europe sometimes so it could be a european version.

I think it's most likely that play have got it wrong, I can order it from them and find out (if the website is wrong I can get a full refund, but it will be a pain and still cost to return), so my question to you guys is this:
Can I get anything better for the money in terms of gaming and work (i.e would I still be happy with it if it's the 8400)?

 

I see two questions:

1. Is the 8400 good enough to play your games adequately? I don't know the answer to that, but you might well be able to get the answer in the graphics forum. Obviously, the 8600 would be better for gaming.

2. What are other suitable computers in this price range? I don't know if you specifically mean Samsung or any brands. The current answer for Samsung is nothing because the next one up is the X11 with a GFG 7400. I would therefore suggest you go to the What Notebook Should I Buy Forum and fill in the FAQs. If you want Santa Rosa, say so. If you dislike certain brands, say so. If you would be willing to take an older model with a 7600 or faster GPU, say so.

One purpose of the FAQs is to encourage potential purchasers to think carefully about their requirements. How urgent is your purchase? You might decide to wait to see a month or two to see what else shows up in the R70 range. There seem to be plenty of the initial model of the R70 still in stock which could either mean that a lot came in or there is a lot of people like yourself: Interested, but want a faster GPU.

John

 

Laptops Direct have added a new model of the R70 - NP-R70A003/SUK. Specs differ slightly in that this one is listed as having a 160GB hard drive but no webcam.

Edit:
Just wondering if there is any chance that they have got the GPU specs wrong and it might come with the 8600 rather than the 8400......

 

Well, I went and checked the test R70 we just got delivered to try and figure out what the actual chip is... (Its a NP-R70A001/SUK btw)

Not easy to find it seems.

I checked Device Manager on it itself, displays as a Nvidia NB8M-GS, and when I checked the part list in the service section of Samsungpc it lists it on the PDF part list as a NB8P-GS.

Went and checked DXDIAG to be sure, as we still have limited documentation available to us in English, and it definately lists it as a 8400.

See attached image.

 

Can you please please please run some benchmarks. 3dMarks06 would be a good start! I have not seen any good info on the 8400M GS.

 

Running them now actually, gonna clean up some crap first and see how it goes, will post the results later today, assuming we stay quiet...

 

Post them in the gameing section. I am sure alot of people will be interested and you reach a wider audience there.

 

Just an update on the play situation here, they seem to have updated there sight with more correct specs, and it was just an error.

Aparently mine has arrived at home, so I will be checking it out later (.. on the train up to the girlfriends, where I won't be allowed to play with it ). I'm expecting it to be the 8400 GS, which should be sufficient for my needs anyhow, just not as good as the 8600 GS.

 

Here is a comparison list from Notebookcheck.com detailing some benchmarks of mobile graphics cards. The GeForce 8400M GS has achieved a score of 1456 in 3dMark 06.

Also from the same site the review of the R70 is now available in English.

SamDawg: Noticed you are Samsung employee - do you have any idea if an R70 model with the 8600M GS GPU will be made available in the U.K.?

 

I checked with the models listed, and when I first saw the mentioning of a 8600 I was a bit surprised. Our initial presentation didnt talk about anything to do with a 8600 and purely mentioned the 8400, as did the machines we had available including all the service documentation.

The three models which are planned/released just now all indicate a 8400 graphics so at the moment I don't think Samsung are planning to release a 8600, and I would personally be surprised if it did.

As for the 3D mark results, looks okay. Im again experiencing the problems I had with the R20 running 3D mark under Vista, so I reckon I need to bring in my full copy of 3DM2k6 or I might try 2k5 to see.

The tests ran okay considering its a laptop. It ran faster than my X1400 by quite a bit and Brigand noticed his Asus with a X1600 ran similarly, less than 10 FPS for most of the tests.

 

The R70 is available in Germany with the 8600M GS GPU so was hoping it might migrate to a U.K. version.

Laptops direct are now listing two models of the R70 - the newer one has 160GB hard drive. Do you know what specs the third model will have?

 

Thanks for the links. However, the translation of the R70 review includes some interesting words.

I don't recall any problems when I tested the R20, but I used the full download package.

I 1440 x 900 display option would also be a good addition to the range.

John

 

Does anyone know when the hi-res version (1680x1050) will hit the streets? It was mentioned in all the press releases...

Thanks

Alex

 

If you add the 2GB stick that John recommended will you still get dual channel, or am I going to have to get another 1GB stick?

 

You might be interested in this post where I reported the results of memory bandwidth tests of different memory combinations on my X60 plus. The moment CPU-Z sees two RAM modules it reports dual channel, but I am not convinced that real dual channel operation happens. Or, if it does, then something else is constraining the memory bandwidth.

I have not tried running other benchmarking software with the different amounts of memory. I would not expect to see significant differences unless I was running other memory-hungry applications at the same time as doing the benchmarking.

Vista is said to use spare RAM for pre-loading files which it thinks you might need to use. Otherwise the benefit of going above 2GB depends on whether you like to have lots of applications open at the same time.

So it's your choice whether to drop in a 1GB or 2GB module. At present RAM is cheap. I believe it is now down below production cost so prices might start to climb a bit once the present excess inventory has been shifted.

John

 

I don't know and I don't know if Samsung themselves know! The initial specs tend to include a wide range of hardware configurations. The Samsung country offices then choose which configurations they want to sell. If someone gets worried about the R70 with a high-res display taking sales away from the X65 then they might not offer that option. Alternatively, if the marketing people feel that they would sell more R70's if it had a high-res display, while still selling the X65, then they might start listing that option. The actual cost difference of the different displays is now quite small - go to Dell and configure a computer to see these differences.

John

 

Thanks for that John, I must have missed that when i read your other review

I think with prices as they are then I will probably get the 2GB you showed, I do multitask a fair bit, nothing too intensive but I tend to have a lot open at once, also I know that Vista definitely likes to use as much as it can so its probably worth it I guess.

I too am waiting to see if there will be a high res option available, hopefully Samsung give us the option.