Samsung R70 (15.4" widescreen)

I've noticed some shops are selling the Intel Turbo Memory modules, independently. Does it mean if one buys the Samsung R70 one can add it to the laptop? Or could there be technical obstacles and ITM not work?

 

You need a empty mini pci-express slot. Not sure if the R70 has one.

 

Why Turbo Memory(I assume is the flash memory based cache) ?

 

New R70 Model

R70-Aura-T7300 Despina
Kurzbeschreibung
R70

1.275,- EUR*

* inkl. MwSt, zzgl. Versand,
bei Vorlage eines entsprechenden
Nachweises (z.B. Studentenausweis)
Prozessor Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Prozessor T7300 2,0 GHz 4 MB Cache 800 MHz FSB
Betriebssystem Original Windows® Vista Home Premium
Speicher 2.048 MB PC2-5300
(2 x 1.024 MB)
Festplatte 200 GB SATA
5.400 UPM
Display 15,4" WXGA Glare TFT
1.280 x 800
Grafik 256 MB Nvidia GeForce Go 8600M GS
Optisches Laufwerk DVD-Super-Multi Double Layer
Kommunikation WLAN 802.11 a/b/g und n (MIMO)
100/1000 Ethernet
Bluetooth 2.0
Besonderheiten
Protect-o-Edge™-Gehäuse
Software OEM Samsung Recovery Solution II
Microsoft® Office 2007 Testversion 60 Tage
Diamantschwarz
Akku-Laufzeit bis zu 3 Stunden
Service & Support 24 Monate Vor-Ort-Abholservice europaweit
Gewicht ca. 2.700 g
Best.-Nr. NP-R70A003/SEG


http://www.studentbook.de/r70-t7300-despina.html

 

T7300
2GB RAM
Grafik 256 MB Nvidia GeForce Go 8600M GS
200GB 5400rpm HDD
Gigabit Ethernet + abgn wireless

That will get some people excited.

John

 

Bluetooth is included now too.

Come on Samsung U.K. when are you going to get an improved spec R70??

 

Yeah, I was about to post the same configuration from that same site.

But keep in mind that is a student website, so the prices are a little bit reduced (well, the difference between the R70 - 7100 from studentbook.de and other websites is €50,00).

So, I will buy either the R70 7100 or the 7300.

What do you guys think?

The 7300 got a better processor, bluetooth, integrated web cam, 200 Gb of harddrive (instead of 160) but costs € 125,00 more.

Do you guys think is worth or I shoud buy the 7100 for € 1.149,00 ?
Like € 125,00 I could buy an external hard drive of 500Gb, so that would be good. I am planning to buy a Intuos wacom tablet, so I could use this money for that. There are lots of things I could do with that € 125,00.

But for the other side, that 7300 gets my attention. hehe

So, what's more worthy, the €125,00 in other stuff or in the laptop?

Best regards,
Bruno.

 

My X60 plus has a T7200 and my Q35 has the T5600. I can't see the difference in performance in normal use. The more expensive CPU is around 10% to 20% faster due to higher clock speed and more cache. However the CPU is only one factor in overall performance and spends much of its time doing very little.

If you have other uses for that € 125,00 and don't need the other features which the T7300 version offers then I would suggest you go for the T7100 version. Do both versions have the same amount of RAM?

John

 

Yeah, both have the same amount (2Gb 667MHZ).

Well, I will be using the laptop for 3d renderings, art in general (that's why I want to buy a Wacom) and a little bit for gaming.

So, only in the renderings I would see the difference because render is basically a processor task with millions of calculations to do. For others things I would proabbly not notice any difference.

And there is bluetooth, that I don't think I will use that much, maybe next to "never use it" hehe. Webcam is quite nice to have it, but again is not something really important.

Well, I will think about it.
Thanks for the reply.

Best regards,
Bruno.

 

You are correct. The renderings would take a bit longer with the slower CPU, but they tend to be very quick with current CPUs and you may need a stop watch to measure the difference. 3D graphics in games involves rendering many images per second. Rendering one view is an easy task in comparison.

John

 

Yeah, you are right. The difference would be probably be very little. I believe that I will be focusing more on still renderings, so more easy to do. Animations is something mroe complex and require a better engine.

Yeah, maybe this €125,00 would be better investing in the Wacom tablet so I can get a better one.

Thanks again,
best regards.

 

There's something puzzling me... I understand that probably the R70 was built with only one mini pci-express slot and the news that the near future versions will have HDD make it all very logic that this was not something included in the laptop design and that Intel Turbo Memory maybe has never been something to be included according to their plans, however I find it strange differences I have found between the Spanish and the German models... the latter have Wireless N and Gigabyte LAN, while the former not... I don't understand why. Is the cost so different that would justify going for the lower option? Another thing I have been wondering about is that I was under the impression that all Santa Rosa came with Gigabyte Lan.

Funnily, I have found the same type of choice with LG E500 (being released very soon in Portugal), as with the Spanish Samsung R70. No giga lan, no wireless N. These are not important factors for me in terms of choice, but I do wonder about why these differences.

 

John, do you own an R70 and have you tried using the 2GB Transcend stick from the website you provided on an R70? I want to get a laptop (either R70 or the F3Jp) for uni, and just want to make sure I can upgrade. 1GB is not enough for Vista.

http://www.memory-configurator.com/memory/TS256MSQ64V6U.html

I found a similar memory module (if not the same) on Orca laptop memory website but for twice the money, and it specifies it is for R70 laptops.

http://www.orcalogic.co.uk/asp/prodtype.asp?prodtype=31357&ft=m&st=3

 

I don't have the R70 but I do have that Transcend 2GB module. It works on the X65, Q35 and R20 (which I borrowed for review) and I would expect it to work in the R70. I hope that within a week I will be able to test that module in the Q70 which has similar hardware to the R70.

As far as I know, that Transcend module at MemoryC is the cheapest 2GB module in Europe. Possibly the next cheapest is this Kingston module at ebuyer.

John

 

Another R70 model - NP-R70T001/SUK - comes with 2 GB ram and Windows XP Pro. Seems a bit pricey though!

 

That's an interesting find and a wierd selection of specs:

Does the normal R70 come with a webcam? Assuming that it's business users who will be wanting XP Pro, then how many of them will want a web cam? And adding more RAM on this model is a different strategy to the R20, where the XP version comes with 512MB.

I think that messing around with the specs is done deliberately to camoflage the difference in cost between Vista and XP. However, this is further confused because XP Pro is considered to be the equivalent of Vista Business while VHP is the equivalent of XP Home. Vista Home basic is an attempt to keep the bottom end cost even lower. Based on the features listed by Microsoft, Vista Business should be cheaper than VHP, but it isn't.

John

 

There are currently two other U.K. R70 models:

NP-R70A001/SUK
NP-R70A003/SUK

Both of these models have an integrated webcam.

There are currently two German R70 models:
R70-T7100 Devin
R70-T7300 Despina

Overall both of these models are more highly specified than the U.K. models - the Devin doesn't have a webcam but the Despina does.

 

Ipanema77, I found info on Intel's website confirming that the T7100 is 4MB Cache after all. The description in studenbook.de was not wrong , which is good news.

http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/res...obile/processors/core2duo_m/feature/index.htm

 

Ah, good. I can´t remember where i´ve found this information about 2MB, it was something like Wikipedia. The intel page hadn´t been complete at that time.

According to informations from Notebook.de R70 Despina will be officially launched in Germany this week.

 

That information on the Intel reseller page may not be correct.

http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/reseller/asmo-na/eng/products/mobile/processors/core2duo_m/feature/index.htm

and

http://processorfinder.intel.com/List.aspx?ProcFam=2643&sSpec=&OrdCode=

both indicate that the T7100 has 2MB Cache.

 

Hmm, right. Maybe that's why there are websites with different T7100 descriptions on the their notebooks for sale... I've seen it with 4MB in more than one place, but perhaps because Intel themselves are giving the wrong info and therefore computer manufacturers as well.

 

What a mess hehe.

So, after all, does the 7100 has 4MB cache or not?

I don't think so, on notebookcheck.net you can see that there is a almost 10% difference from the 7100 to the 7300.

But let me know what you think.

I was thinking of buying the Despina, but if both has 4MB then I will go to the 7100.

Just a quick answer from the guys from studentbook.de (I was asking about the time of sending, but the answer fits here)

Samsung told us that a new charge of the R70 Devin will arrive not before June, 19th. From Wednesday on we can deliver the new R70 Despina, which is much stronger than the R70 Devin cause of the T7300 processor with 4 MB Cache. Compared with the Devin it will only cost 130 Euro more.

Best
Bruno.

 

And here's another Intel page which shows that the T7100 has only 2MB cache.

Intel probably confused themselves because, for consistency, the T7100 should have been numbered as the T5700.

John

 

I think it has 2MB.

Bruno

 

Samsung UK has finally added the R70 to its website.

We have to wait and see whether all the versions and features mentioned in the description and specs actually show up. eg 1680 x 1050 display.

John

 

Ordered me the r70 from play.com yesterday: http://www.play.com/Product.aspx?r=PCSH&title=3360954

Hopefully its only got 1 x 1gb stick in it, then £25 for another 1gb stick from Crucial. Anyone tried using Vistas ReadyBoost on their machines? Wondering if £15 on a 2gb or £30 on a 4gb USB stick is worth it.

Will run the ol 3dmarks06 on it when it arrives, should play games in low res well enough for me.

 

I've tried ReadyBoost on my Q35 using SD cards. The boost to normal performance is not overwhelming. Vista has various pre-load tricks that it learns with time. What I did see was a significant improvement in DVD playback time when running on battery. The DVD drive ran intermittently and I deduce that Vista was using the ReadyBoost drive as a cache.

The SD card is convenient since you can leave it in the slot all the time and performance is similar to a USB stick in the same price range. The Sandisk Extreme III is good value. The SDHC cards should also work (in the R70 with Vista - I assume it is the same hardware as my Q35) and have similar speed. However, wider support for SDHC is limited.

However, I suggest you hold off ReadyBoost to begin with and keep that as a future upgrade.

John

 

Ah yes, theres a built in card reader, in that case Ill just use one of my many spare 2gb SD Cards.

 

I don't recall previously seeing this Korean review of the R70. Here is the first part.

And here is the scond part.

There's some good photos and illustrations although the translation is a little interesting in places.

John

 

I'd be willing to do an in depth review for you guys.. but the mods/admin haven't responded to my request...

 

I see that Samsung have now posted XP drivers and software for the R70.

These will be of interest not only to R70 owners but owners of many other recent Samsung notebooks, since much of the hardware is common.

John

 

The samsung R70 has an unoccupied PCI-E slot on the bottom next to the ram slots, so you can actually add turbo memory or other pci-e devices to it in the future if you want.

 

hey minxhshin, send me a PM, I haven't received any emails regarding an R70 review. Maybe it's getting caught in my spam filter and I'm not seeing it.

 

Great news for Samsung R70 owners then. Thanks for the info.

 

That's strange, this laptop includes bluetooth drivers, bluetooth software, and there is a sticker that says BLUETOOTH 2.0 + EDR, but I can't connect to any bluetooth devices or even find the hardware in my device manager. Anyone know what the deal is with this?

 

On another note, Good news for you guys I dunno if it's old or new. But I saw an R70 at the local samsung store here in Korea and it had a 1680x1050 resolution... it looked really nice.

 

1680 x 1050 is included in the general R70 specifications. What we don't know if whether any of the Samsung European offices will configure a version with that resolution. They might be worried about taking sales away from the (more profitable?) X65, but they should be targeting taking sales away from other brands. It would also be good to have a 1440 x 900 version. There's not a lot of choice of notebooks with higher resolution displays below the £1000 mark and Samsung doesn't feature in the list.

John

 

Got it last night, and decided that rather than spend hours removing all the pre-installed crap (Theres a heafty chunk) I would just format and stick XP on it. (Ty for the links John) Also gained another 10 gb HDD space back by removing the "Recovery Partition".
Will see if I can borrow a mates Vista DVD so I can dual boot, hopefully the key that came with it will work with any ol copy of Vista.

Its a nice looking bit of kit, very shiny, though very dusty after being sat on my desk for a few hours
It played the one game I tried on it OK (Quick test of Auto Assault on Vista before formatting)

Ordered another Gig of ram for it, Vista was using 60-70% of the 1gb most of the time. Now all I need is a bag

 

Samsung didn't include a bag coupon for yours? I had a coupon for a free bag.. but this is asia. Probably different for europe.

 

Didnt see a bag coupon, but didnt pay much attention to any of those bits of paper in the box
Will have to have a look for one

 

I've never seen Samsung UK giving away any freebies, so I don't think you overlooked anything.

John

 

This is new to me ! Model name by chance hadn´t been R71 instead of R70 ?

 

It's still R70. NT-R70A/W182 to be exact. However, this model was outfitted with an 8400M gs, not 8600M gs. That's strange cause you'd expect the better vid card to support the higher resolution. I dug around on the samsung website but they have drivers for the R71, so.....

 

Here is R70 2GHz 1680x1050 256MB 8600

http://pc.danawa.com/price_right.ht...60&cate2=869&cate3=10580&cate4=0&pcode=497683

 

If anyone cares, with a fresh install of XP I got 3112 in 3d mark 05. And with a fresh install of Vista I got 3147.
Not had any issues with games, except my hand getting warm due to my mouse being next to the fan vent
Good quality bit of kit, though theres no latch to keep the sceen locked which might get annoying after a few years wear
Get my extra 1gb RAM stick today hopefully, so can run Vista by deafult instead of XP.

All in all, Im a very happy bunny (Without the ears of course).

 

Do you have a 8400m gs or a 860m gs?

 

This laptop is quite nice, I was impressed with the reviews I've read so far.

Only downside seems to be the display apparently , which isn't all that bad based on the numbers.

 

Don't suppose anyone had seen a European (UK) WSXGA version yet?

 

I don't recall previously seeing the R70 hardware speces at SamsungPC.

These specs give an idea of what hardware options are available for a country office to specify.

It's interesting to see that they did the battery life tests with Bluetooth switched off - I had found that BT hit the battery life when i tested my Q35.

John

 

Another U.K. R70 model NP-R70A004/SUK. R70 Centrino Duo T7100 1GB 120GB VHP - doesn't seem different from other models - perhaps it has a different tft?