Samsung Q35 Review

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by John Ratsey, England

Overview and Introduction

Samsung Q35 ultraportable (view large image)

The Samsung NP-Q35 just about fits into the ultra-portable category, coming in at under 1.9kg (4lb 2.5oz) including the optical drive. Apart from the battery protruding at the back, this notebook is the size of a sheet of A4 paper. The Q35 was announced in March 2006 as the successor to the Q30 with the only refresh since then being a CPU upgrade to the Core 2 Duo series. There are two current versions of the Q35: The silver one with the T7200 CPU and 120GB HDD, and the red one with the T5600 and 100GB HDD, which is less expensive. (At the time of writing this review, one site is listing another version of the silver Q35 with the T5200 CPU and Vista, so this may be yet another version). If you must have a notebook with a built-in microphone then the Q35 is not for you: Unusually, the Q35 does not have one.

The burgundy red colour is very distinctive but is dark enough to not be out of place on a business computer. However, the finish is very glossy (it can almost serve as a mirror) and it remains to be seen how it will look after some travel and heavy use.

Top view of the Q35 – red mirror finish! (view large image)

Reasons for Buying

My 15.4” Samsung X60plus (see review here) is excellent for normal use. However, its size and limited battery life (nearer 2 hours than 3) make it less convenient for short trips and meetings. So I was starting to consider whether to buy a smaller notebook for such occasions (and could also serve as back-up for longer trips). However, I didn’t want to spend too much on a computer that may not be heavily used. So cost and battery life were priorities in my deliberations. I considered a number of computers including the Toshiba U200 (uncertain battery life, no Bluetooth and very small touchpad); Fujitsu -Siemens Si 1520 (uncertain battery life and no dedicated page up and page down keys as far as I could determine); Dell XPS M1210 (relatively expensive in UK, but potentially has a good battery life with the big battery); HP nc2400 (seemingly very light but also quite expensive in UK) and the Samsung Q35 (more than I wanted to pay but reviews suggested good battery life).

When Comet took £200 off their price for the red Q35 so that it (at £799.99) became more than £100 cheaper than other sources, I decided it was time to buy one and stop thinking of the other options. For me, one advantage of the Q35 is that much of the hardware and software is similar to the larger X60, which facilitates swapping between the two computers.

What’s in the Box?

My Q35 was delivered in a blue plastic bag containing a plain brown box marked NP-Q35T008/SUK. Inside this was a more colourful box, which holds the computer.

The box contents comprised:

• The computer, in a plastic bag and held between two plastic foam spacers
• The PSU, mains cable and battery
• A system recovery CD for Windows XP Professional
• An AVStation Now Restore CD
• A System Software Media DVD
• A modem cable with RJ11 plugs at each end
• An Installation Guide leaflet
• A multi-language book for Firstware Recover Pro
• Samsung Warranty Information
• AVStation Now recovery manual
• Windows XP Professional Start Here booklet

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The box contents before and after unpacking.

A user guide is provided as a PDF file, with a link on the desktop (strangely, this file contains both the English and Thai versions of the guide).

There is a sticker on both the outside of the box and the underside of the computer advising that some applications may not be compatible with Vista (it is unclear whether this means the applications supplied with the Q35 or software applications in general).

Specification of Q35 as Reviewed:

• Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 1.83GHz
• Intel 945GM chipset with 667MHz FSB
• 1.25GB PC4200 533MHz DDR2 RAM (256MB on board and 1GB Samsung RAM in the single slot)
• 100GB 5400RPM SATA HD (Hitachi HTS541010G9AT00 = Travelstar 5K100 series)
• 12.1-inch “SuperClear” glossy WXGA screen (1280 x 800)
• Intel 945GM series integrated GPU ( using 128MB RAM)
• Fixed 8X DVD multi-writer (Toshiba-Samsung TS-L532D)
• Broadcom 440x 10/100
• Intel Pro 3945 wireless abg
• SENS LT56ADW V92 modem
• Broadcom 2045 Bluetooth 2.0+ EDR
• AD1996A high definition audio with SRS enhanced speakers
• Widescreen format Synaptics touchpad
• Ports: 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x 4 pin Firewire, 100Mb/s network (RJ45), modem (RJ11), VGA, microphone, headphone / SPDIF, 1 x PC card slot type 1 or 2
• 6 in 1 media card slot (Memory stick / Pro, SD, MMC, high speed MMC, Xd card)
• 6 cell battery (11.1V, 4800mAH, 53.28WHr)
• 60W PSU with 2-pin connector and mains / power leads each 1.8m (6ft) long
• Dimensions: Advertised 299 x 214 x 27.4 – 35.8mm (1” x 1” x 0.94 – 1.30”, actual 298 x 231 x 31 – 39mm (14.2” x 10.4” x 1.06 – 1.54” (including battery and feet)
• Weight: Advertised 1.89kg (4.17lbs), actual 1.883kg (4.15lbs) (according to my digital kitchen scales)
• Actual weight with PSU and power cables: 2.33kg (5.14lbs)
• Windows XP Pro SP2
• 1 year collect and return warranty
• Samsung software collection (see below)

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The significant deviation from the published specification is in the dimensions. I can understand Samsung not including the feet in their measurements (although the feet at the front are nearly long enough to be called legs) because they make little difference to the volume, but overlooking the battery sticking out of the back is inexcusable (perhaps somewhere there is a 3 cell battery which fits flush, but it is not an option in the UK). At least they got the weight correct including the supplied 6 cell battery, which is more than some manufacturers can achieve. Samsung’s own UK website lists two different values for the battery capacity (57.72 and 53.28Whr). Unfortunately, my Q35 has the lower capacity battery.

Design and Build

This Q35’s colour scheme is black and silver on the inside, with a dark (burgundy?) red cover (display back). There is a black bezel surrounding the display, black in the hinge area and black on the underside of the chassis. On the inside there is a strong family resemblance to the larger X60 except that the keyboard is a different colour. I had expected the display back to be metal alloy, but it is slightly flexible and I suspect that it is some form of plastic. It is possible to push hard on the back and get ripples on the display, but it provides reasonable protection against damage. The display has no latch to hold it closed. There is no magnetic catch and I deduce there are springs in the hinges. This arrangement is quite effective in keeping the computer closed because two hands are needed to open the display. There is negligible wobble in the hinges.

15.4” Samsung X60plus on the left, 12.1” Samsung Q35 on the right (view large image)

The bottom of the computer is stepped, with protruding feet (about 7mm at the front and 5mm high at the back). These feet provide good airflow under the computer. They will also stop the computer from sliding sideways when used as a genuine laptop. In spite of the feet, the middle of the Q35’s underside almost touches the table (hence the need for the long feet). The two protruding points are the edge of the optical drive and the fan housing. Samsung could have slimmed the bottom slightly by using one of the low profile optical drives (but these are more expensive) and a thinner fan (which would be noisier to achieve the required airflow). Overall, the front of the computer is lower than the back, which adds to comfort in use while the thinner front part of the chassis makes it easier to hold the computer by one of the front corners. There is no creaking or flex when the computer is held in this manner.

The Q35’s underside (view large image)

The bottom of the Q35 has three removable covers. These, and the various screws, are clearly labelled. One cover is for the single RAM slot. The second cover is for the hard disk drive (which sits tightly between some rubber pads), while the third cover is over the mini-PCI slot. This compartment also contains what appears to be a small lithium battery. The battery has a charge status indicator using 5 LEDs. Both the base of the computer and the removable covers are plastic, but they fit over a metal chassis. There are also several air vents on the underside as can be seen in the photos. These are in the area of the CPU. The underside of the battery contains a shallow groove that conveniently forms a finger-grip when carrying the computer. The loudspeakers are in the base of the computer near the back. Two screws hold the optical drive in place. A modular bay battery would be a useful option.

The Q35’s underside with the covers off (view large image)

Those big feet on the bottom (and a big fan housing) (view large image)

The Keyboard

The layout of the keyboard area is relatively good given the space limitations. Samsung claim that the keyboard has enhanced water resistance. There are 83 keys which have very clear, large white (light blue for the Fn key operations) markings on a black background. Although Samsung say that it is a full-size keyboard, the keys are slightly smaller than on the X60. The travel is adequate - it feels less than on the X60 - and is comfortable to use but is noisier than the X60. There is no significant flex. The front edge of the chassis is slightly rounded so that it does not hurt the wrists. The power button is on the right side close to the back of the keyboard. Next to the power button is a smaller button for launching the AVStation Now software which runs without Windows booting.

The Q35’s keyboard. Note the generous touchpad and the status lights at the front (view large image)

The Fn key is at the bottom left corner of the keyboard and it also doubles up as a Windows menu key. Next to it is an extra wide control key which might go some way to placate those people who believe that control should have the corner seat. Personally, I’m happy with the Fn being in the corner (why can’t notebook manufacturers put an option in the BIOS to change the function of these two keys?). The right shift key is small (on the X60 it is extra-large) so I get some \’s appearing in my typing when I want capital letters. The US keyboard, with one less key, has a large right shift key. On the X60 the | key is next to the left shift key so that move may confuse my fingers. I would have preferred a bigger right shift key and a smaller control key. The Windows key on the Q35 has also moved to the right of the space bar. That won’t confuse me since my brain haven’t yet got used to the availability of the Windows short cut keys.

The page up and page down keys are above the cursor left and right keys. For me the important thing is their presence. Some of the smaller keyboards use the Fn + cursor keys for the page movements that is much less convenient. On the Q35, Fn+PgUp = Home, etc.

There are seven indicator lights are on the front edge of the left palm rest. Not a very clever location since I don’t have a transparent wrist. Two larger LEDs are for mains connected/ battery and computer on, and five smaller LEDs are for num lock, caps lock, shift lock, HDD use and wireless on.

Each of the function keys has an additional function. The more noteworthy of these are:Fn+F7 toggles through the SRS audio modes; Fn+F8 enables / disables the wireless; Fn+F9 disables the touchpad; and Fn+F10 enables the etiquettte mode to reduce fan noise. This appears to change the fan operating rules so that the fan operates over a higher temperature range. Something I found out by accident is that pressing the Esc key during initial boot brings up a boot device menu. This is in addition to F2 for entering the BIOS setup.

The Synaptics touchpad is good and is generously sized with a widescreen aspect ratio (the pad is identical to the one on the larger X60 although the buttons are slightly smaller). The touchpad includes a scroll area on the right side. The space bar is the same width as the touch pad. The hard disk is under the right hard palm rest, but doesn’t create any unwanted warmth. The right palm rest contains various stickers (see the photo). The Q35 has no built-in microphone. I wonder why? It is not as if they take up much space.

The Ports

Overall, the port layout is good, although the total number if ports is limited. A positive comment is that Samsung have avoided squeezing ports so close together that they interfere with each other. Nothing competes for the mouse space (the area on the right side of the computer near the front). The fan exhaust vent is on the right side, but the Q35 doesn’t breath out much heat, even when fully loaded. One USB port is on the right side so it is conveniently accessible for flash disks.

Left Side

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Left side from back to front: Network (RJ45) port, optical drive, PC card slot and Firewire port. The blanked off port at the back is for a TV antenna in the Korean version. This space could have been used for another port (USB or S-video) in the non-Korean version.

Back Side

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Back from left to right: Power socket, battery, USB port and security slot.

Right Side

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Right side from back to front: Modem (RJ11) port, VGA port, USB port, fan exhaust. There are no ports near the front. See those long legs!

Front Side

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The front has the 6-in-1 memory card slot and the headphone and microphone ports. It would have been useful to have symbols painted on the palm rest above the audio ports to make them easier to identify than the marks on the plastic next to the ports. The Q35 does not have a port for the docking station. There is a “memory stick” label on the palm rest over the memory card slot.

The Display

The display is 1280 x 800 (WXGA) “high brightness and glare” “superbright” glossy display with “Samsung exclusive digital imagery enhancement”. The device ID is SEC4141 which I believe means Samsung. It is very bright on the default maximum default brightness setting to the extent that colours are a bit washed out. On battery, the minimum brightness is readable and a brightness of 3/8 is quite usable.

Viewing angles are typical for displays of this type. The horizontal viewing angle range is good and the vertical range moderate. For text work the vertical angle can be adjusted to minimise any reflections without serious impact on quality. Colour images are best viewed at 90°. They become darker when the top of the screen is pushed back and lighter if it is pulled forward.

There is pronounced light bleed along the bottom of the screen visible at the boot-up stage but it is not obvious during normal use. I have yet to see any defective pixels (but it took over a month for me to notice one on the WSXGA+ display on my X60plus).

Light bleed at the bottom of the Q35’s display (view large image)

DVD playback - the camera sees some variation in brightness (view large image)

My old eyes complained about the small text with the display on the default settings. I have increased the DPI setting to 113% (108DPI) and now they are happy.

Audio Quality

The loudspeakers mounted underneath the computer give surprisingly good volume when the computer is on a firm surface. The Q35 has high definition audio which combined with SRS provide relatively good audio quality for a small computer. However, the X60’s audio system has a little more bass. The Fn+F7 key combination makes it easy to step through the SRS audio options (Wow XT (for music), Trusurround (for DVDs) and off).

Processor and Performance

This model of the Q35 came with the Intel Core 2 Duo T5600 CPU (1.83GHz) and 1.25GB of DDR2-533 RAM (1 x 256MB fixed on the motherboard and 1GB in the single slot). I hope that the smaller cache on this CPU will result in lower power consumption than I see for the T7200 in my X60plus, while maintaining good performance. The RAM upgrade potential is zero unless a 2GB module (currently prohibitively expensive) will work in the single slot.

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CPU-Z reports for Q35 CPU and memory

Software

This Q35 came with Windows XP Pro SP2. The Windows installation is over 6 months old and Windows Update found over 50 updates to install. Samsung has made available Vista upgrades for some of its notebooks. I have applied for the Vista Business upgrade at the cost of £14.57 (of which £13.05 is for handling and shipping). This gives me the option of being able to try Vista at reasonable cost and, if I don’t like it, reverting back to XP.

The software supplied with the Q35 has been listed above. “Bloatware” is limited compared with some brands. A few comments on the less common software are given below:

AV Station Premium / AV Station Now: Samsung’s own multi-media suite but it is not as versatile as dedicated software. AV Station Now boots up without Windows but doesn’t, for DVD playing, seem to offer significant reduction in power consumption.

CyberLink DVD Solution: suite contains several components (I had to reinstall to get more than PowerDVD to appear):

• PowerDVD V6
• CyberLink Instant Burn
• CyberLink Power2Go
• CyberLink LabelPrint
• CyberLink MediaShow
• CyberLink PowerDirector
• CyberLink PowerProducer

FirstWare Recover Pro: This creates system restore points on a hidden partition on the hard disk.

The Samsung software package contains several simple utilities but nothing outstanding. The absence of proper burning software is a deficiency, but I already have Nero.

Benchmarks for Samsung Q35 (Core Duo T5600)

SuperPi

SuperPi is often used as a test for raw CPU performance. The T5600 in the Q35 needed 1 minute 16 seconds to complete the calculation to 2 million digits. This is about 22% longer than for the T7200, so the cache size must contribute to the T7200’s performance as well as the faster clock speed. Perhaps the 533MHz RAM in the Q35 causes a slight reduction in performance.

The table below compares Q35’s SuperPi score with some other notebooks

Notebook	Time
Samsung Q35 (1.83GHz T5600 with 533MHz memory speed)	1m 16s
Samsung X60plus (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 with 667MHz memory speed)	1m 02s
Dell Inspiron e1505 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 16s
Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (2.0GHz Core Duo)	1m 18s
Fujitsu A6010 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo T5500, with 667MHz memory speed)	1m 22s
Asus F3Jc (1.73GHz Intel T2250)	1m 28s
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Due (T2300) with 533MHz memory speed)	1m 29s
IBM ThinkPad T43 (1.86 GHz Pentium M)	1m 45s

SiSoftware Sandra from http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/ is another software package which contains benchmarking modules and includes a database of test results.

The results graphs for the CPU tests are given below. These results suggest that the T5600 is less than 10% slower than the T7200.

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SiSoftware Sandra CPU test results

PCMark05

The table below compares the PCMark05 test results with some other notebooks.

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Samsung Q35 (1.83GHz Core 2 Duo T5600, Intel 945GM)	3,059 PCMarks
Samsung X60plus (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7200, ATI X1700)	4,555 PCMarks
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo T2300, ATI X1400)	3,456 PCMarks
Asus V6J (2.16GHz Core 2 Duo, nVidia GeForce Go 7400)	4,265 PCMarks
Fujitsu Lifebook A6010 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo T5500, Intel GMA 950)	2,994 PC Marks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, nVidia GeForce Go 7400)	4,234 PCMarks
Asus V6J (1.86GHz Core Duo T2400, nVidia Go 7400)	3,646 PCMarks
Lenovo Thinkpad R60 (1.66 Core Duo T2300E , Intel 950)	2,975 PCMarks
Acer Aspire 5102WLMi (Turion 64x2 TL50 1.6GHz, ATI 1100IGP)	2,413 PCMarks

 

3DMark05

The Q35 managed a score of 447 3DMarks for 3DMark05. This seems to be comparable to the result for a fast Pentium M and the old 915GM chipset. No one buys the Intel graphics for their 3D performance. Fortunately, I’m not looking for 3D performance.

Notebook	3DMark05 Score
Samsung Q35 (1.83GHz Core 2 Duo T5600, Intel 945GM)	447 3DMarks
Samsung X60plus (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7200, ATI X1700 256MB)	4,150 3DMarks
Samsung X60 (1.66GHz Core Duo, ATI X1400)	2,264 3DMarks
HP dv6000t (2.16 GHz Intel T7400, nVidia GeForce Go 7400)	2,013 3DMarks
Fujitsu C1320 (2GHz Pentium M, Intel 915GM)	410 3DMarks
IBM Thinkpad T43 (1.86GHz Pentium M, Mobility Radeon X300)	727 3DMarks
HP L2000 (Turion 64 ML37, Mobility Radeon X200)	467 3DMarks

3DMark06

The 3Dmark06 score was a predictably low 106 given the fact this is an ultraportable with integrated graphics. I will leave readers to make comparisons and draw conclusions.

Cinebench

Cinebench is a good rendering benchmark tool based on the powerful 3D software, CINEMA 4D. Its rendering tasks can stress up to sixteen multiprocessors on the same computer. It is a free benchmarking tool, and can be found at http://www.cinebench.com.  The basic CPU test provided the following results. The results for the T5600 in the Q35 are in the same range as other Intel dual core CPUs and demonstrate that the Q35 can handle CPU intensive tasks such as video processing.

 

Cinebench 9.5 Benchmark	Samsung Q35 (1.83GHz Core 2 Duo)	Samsung X60plus (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo)	Sony VAIO C140 (1.66GHz Core 2 Duo)	Lenovo ThinkPad T60 (Core 2 Duo 2.0GHz)
Rendering (Single CPU)	299 CB-CPU	322 CB-CPU	266 CB-CPU	327 CB-CPU
Rendering (Multiple CPU)	528 CB-CPU	582 CB-CPU	487 CB-CPU	592 CB-CPU

Hard Disk Performance

The supplied hard disk is a Hitachi HTS541010G9AT00 (100GB 5400RPM). The performance is above average for the current generation of 5400RPM 2.5” HDDs with a maximum transfer rate of over 40MB/s. HD Tune’s results for this disk are below. The CPU usage is relatively low and the maximum burst transfer rate is little over half the theoretical interface capacity of 150MB/s. I have noticed that this Hitachi HDD is quite noisy (“clattery”, if there is such a word) compared to the Samsung HDD that I put in my X60plus. I will probably use the Hitachi Feature Tool to change the acoustic management settings and trade off some performance for reduced noise.

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Optical Drive

The X60plus includes the Toshiba-Samsung TS-L532D optical drive that supports DVD-RAM and both +R and –R dual layer. It has burnt a CD without problems but refused to recognise a blank Ritek G05 DVD. However, it seems to be happy with Ritek R03 media

Nero reports the following information about this drive:

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Wireless

The X60 includes the Intel 3945abg wireless chip on a module under the memory slot cover. The signal quality was poor until I had updated to the latest drivers from Intel. Now performance is good but there are intermittent interruptions even when I am close to the router (so these may be router related). There is no hardware wireless switch. Fn+F8 toggles the wireless on and off. There is an option in the BIOS to set whether the wireless starts automatically on bootup, stay off or remember the previous status.

Bluetooth (version 2.0+EDR) is also provided and works well with my Trust bluetooth mouse. Using a Bluetooth mouse means that the two USB ports can be kept free for other connections (however, see the section below about battery life).

Batteryand Power Supply

The power supply deserves a mention because it is an acceptably small 60W (19V, 3.16A) unit with a two pin (“fig 8” mains connector and a thinner mains cable than those provided with 3-pin connectors. Both leads are 1.8m (6ft) long. A Velcro strap is provided for tying up the cables for storage. The smaller PSU and the lighter mains cable mean that the total PSU weight is 0.16kg (0.36lb) lighter the X60’s 90W PSU and cables. The computer power connectors on both PSUs are the same and the 90W PSU will work with the Q35.

The X60’s 90W PSU on the left and the Q35’s 60W PSU on the right (view large image)

The 6 cell battery is rated at 11.1V, 4800mAH, 53.28WHr. As noted previously, the Q35 was originally supplied with a 57.72WHr battery but for some reason the capacity of current batteries has been reduced. The battery has an external gauge with 5 LEDs to give an indication of available power without having to turn the computer on. The battery is fixed securely by two latches. One is spring loaded by the other is not, which facilitates one-handed removal. The manual does not make any claim about the running time but the Samsung UK website claims “up to 7 hours”. However, so far I have been unable to figure out how they could manage such a long running time. 7 hours means an average power draw of less than 8W.

I have used a mains power meter to monitor what is going into the PSU and MobileMeter to monitor the power flow to and from the battery. For several days I have been trying to figure out how to exceed 4 hours on light load and 3/8 display brightness. Occasionally the battery drain dropped below 10W, but the average power drain under continuous light usage with the backlight at 3/8 is around 12 to 14W, which equates to 4 hours running time. Below are plots from MobileMeter. From left to right: Battery recharge at about 30W (it reaches 40W when the computer is off); The computer in idle mode dropping below 10W; Typical power draw when I was working in Word.

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Playing a DVD takes 16 to 20W. I have made three attempts and have been unable to get to the end of “Dances with Wolves” which is a 3 hour DVD, even with the backlight only on 3/8 (very dim for DVD watching). I have tried using Samsung’s AV Station Now Software, which runs without Windows but that still managed only 2hrs 55 minutes of play.

So how did Samsung get their 7 hours? One can only speculate and assume that they used the minimum display brightness and allowed some periods of inactivity. Other reviewers have managed more than 5 hours, but they may have been given the higher capacity battery. The battery capacity difference is equivalent to about half an hour at light load.

I spent several days wondering why my Q35 couldn’t consistently manage below 10W power drain. The wireless didn’t make much difference. A web browser with some flash animations used a little power, even when off line (there should be an option to disable flash when running on battery). Finally, I remembered that I was using a Bluetooth mouse. I disabled Bluetooth and the power consumption visibly dropped and 8W was in sight.

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This Mobilemeter plot shows (i) light use in left two divisions (ii) a power surge when I opened Firefox and enabled the wireless (iii) in the middle a step up in power while Bluetooth was switched on (iv) then Bluetooth off (v) wireless off (but Firefox open). The next step was to uninstall McAfee 2007 and install McAfee 2006. This significantly reduced the spikes in the CPU load.

Left half - power consumption while playing a DVD; right half - power consumption running Word (no wireless or Bluetooth). I don’t think the CPU fan ever started.

However, I still can’t quite reach 5 hours of light running as shown by the graph below. I will have to make more research on background processes which might be using any power unnecessarily. My eyes won’t tolerate the display on minimum brightness.

The battery recharge rate is 20 to 30W when the computer is running under light load (depending on what the computer is doing and subject to the maximum 60W output of the PSU) and up to 40W when it is off. But run 2 copies of Prime95 concurrently and the battery recharge rate drops to about 6W it would take many hours (this is the extreme worst condition. Consequently, the recharge time is about 2 hours with the computer off, normally 3 to 4 hours if it running but potentially more than 10 hours if the CPU is heavily loaded.

Heat and Noise

Under normal use the fan on the Q35 doesn’t run much and is very quiet when it is running. The “etiquette mode” will further reduce fan activity at the expense of slightly higher temperatures. There is some warmth around the middle of the keyboard but the palm rests stay cool. The bottom of the computer only gets slightly warm. There is the risk of the cooling airflow being impeded if the computer is placed on something soft. The hard disk is noisier than the fan and the optical drive is also sometimes noisy.

However, give the CPU some serious work to do and it will get hot. The CPU temperature went up to 89°C by running two copies of the Prime95 torture test and the bottom of the computer, particularly around the fan housing, got quite hot. The fan speeds up but never becomes noisy. That’s the extreme worst loading condition. The T5600 in this Q35 was set as 1.25V at 1.83GHz, which helped to explain the heat but evidently the cooling system isn’t as effective as on the larger X60. However, I decided that it was time to look into undervolting and install the RightMark CPU Clock Utility. This revealed that Intel has been somewhat generous with the voltage rating. One of the Prime95’s threw an error at 0.975V 1.83GHz but so far (which involved leaving two P95’s running overnight) 1.0V is looking stable. The side effects were that the CPU temperature is down to 69°C and and the battery recharge rate increased by 11W (ie 11W less being used by the CPU). If only I could unlock that 0.95V minimum voltage. This would be the key to the missing hours of running time.

Warranty and Customer Support

Samsung provides a one year limited international warranty as standard. I haven’t determined what the “limited” really means, but Samsung has fewer global service locations than many other computer manufacturers. Warranty extensions for one or two years can be purchased. The standard warranty is a collect-and-return service.

Conclusions

The Q35 is a well built smaller notebook which, at least in its red form, has a certain amount of style and charisma. It is responsive with good processing power and a large, but quiet fan. If lightly loaded, it can run for about 5 hours off its 6 cell battery.

Needless to say, I am disappointed that I cannot replicate Samsung’s claim about the battery running time, but I always suspected there some optimism. This review became diverted into a research project into power consumption and I hope my observations are of interest and use to others.

I think there is a slot in the market for the green Q35 with the lower power L7400 CPU. This would offer most of the speed benefits of the T5600, when speed is needed, while reducing battery consumption during the less busy periods. Maybe this is what Samsung had in mind when they derived their 7 hours running time.

Pros

• Under 1.9kg for the computer and 2.33kg complete with PSU and power cables.
• Effective and quiet cooling system
• Good audio volume and quality for this size of notebook
• Distinctive style
• Generously sized touchpad
• Powerful CPU but able to run for about 5 hours on the battery at light load
• Lightweight power supply and cables

Cons

• No RAM upgrade potential (unless a 2GB module works in the single slot)
• Very small right shift key (on the UK version) with some other keys in non-standard places
• Only 2 USB ports
• No S-Video port
• No built-in microphone
• Limited 3D graphics capability

 

I'd take the red color over a bland gray any day of the week, that look is great!

Another very thorough Samsung review from John here. Most impressive on the battery benchmarking and efforts made to get the battery life up to where you'd want it to be. As usual you can take the mfrs quoted battery life and assume you'll get about 75% of what they say. I think they load DOS on a machine and crank down brightness and let the C:> prompt sit there until it finally dies and call that expected "optimal" battery life.

This thing weighs just a bit less than the Dell XPS M1210 (4.5lbs) and the build looks a bit similar, including the giant heat vent and large feet. Of course, the XPS M1210 has a dedicated graphics card and is much different because of that but price wise it's close as well.

I think it's inexcusable not to have a built-in mic -- most ultraportables do (the Dell M1210 does, along with a rotating web cam option).

 

I like the LID of that laptop.

Dont like the bleeding of the LCD .

 

spiffy sysytem!! Excellent review too...but, ummm...just what is it you were watching on the DVD when you took the pics? I would swear I saw her in Debbie Does Dallas...or some variation thereof...

I would not doubt that in any way...there otter be a law!!

 

Wow, it's really shiny. Does it attract lots of unsightly fingerprints?

 

That's Julia Roberts, in what I think is the movie Erin Brokovich. But don't quote me on that.

 

Andrew. Spot on! It adds interest to put something recognisible on the display when taking the photos.

And yes, that shiny red cover is attracting finger prints.

John

 

Nice review!

 

Thanks for the review, John. Quite an interesting read for me since I got my own Q35 only a week ago. I have a silver Core 2 Duo T5500 1.66GHz version with 80 GB HDD, which seems to be by far the most common one here in Austria and also in Germany. ( http://geizhals.at/?fs=q35&x=&y=&in= lists sellers for different versions)
I've been very pleased with mine so far but then I have only a five year old Toshiba to compare it with. There's just one thing that worries me a bit: I seem to get ripples on the display quite easily. You say that "it is possible to push hard on the back and get ripples on the display" but with mine, you don't have to push hard. You only need to stroke the back of the display ever so gently to get ripples in one particular spot.

Any other Q35 users out there? What's your experience with ripples on the display?

 

Marble911, thanks for your comments. I have just retested the rippling problem and I need to hold the computer with one hand and push with the other to cause any rippling. I have tried all over and simply stroking the back of the display on my Q35 has no effect. The real issue is whether the display back is sufficiently flexible to create the risk of damage. I think my Q35 is OK in this respect although the display back is not as rigid as the bigger X60.

John

 

John, thanks for the reply. In my case it really is enough to move one finger gently over the back of the display. No pushing, pressing etc. But the display back itself does feel ok. Not the most solid one I've seen but also not as bad as some others I came across in a shop (Fujitsu Siemens in particular). So I hope it won't cause any problems because I'm really fond of my Q35 and I intend to treat it with great care.

 

John,

excellent your review about Samsung Q35, congratulations. Let me introduce myself: my name is Fabio Andrade, I'm from Brazil, and last October I was in London for a business trip and decided to buy a Samsung Q35, a T7200/120 GB/1.25 GB RAM model. As I have read your review, I thought that you for sure could be the person that could give me a solution for a problem regarding my Samsung Q35 video.
Just after two weeks using the computer, eventually I started to have a failure in the video. I don't know exactly why that problem happens, but some time after had turned it on, sometimes (not always) the display starts to fail, and the pictures/screen showed in display start to pass with high speed. In all cases I have to turn the computer off by pressing the power button, and restart it again. By reading some notebooks forums at the internet, I found out an information saying that can be a problem related to display settings (screen resolution). I always use the best resolution available (1280 x 800 pixels), because of the high quality. I have already changed the display settings to lower resolution, but the problem happened again. Also I thought that could be a failure caused by high temperature - but even in a air conditioning room in my house, the problem has returned twice. I have already updated the Intel graphics driver from Intel website, but the problem persists. It doesn't happen all the time (that makes me quite worry), and never occurs during the times when a work with the computer on my bed (never); the problem always happens with the computer put on a table. For sure that is not related to Windows XP SP2, because all the applications work perfectly, even with the video failure. Once, when the failure happened, I made a mpg movie and took some pictures of it. If you have some available time to analyse that problem and help me to solve it, if you prefer I can send to you the video and the pictures by email.
I apprecciate a lot any feedback. Thank you very much.
Best regards.
Fabio Augusto Andrade, Bahia, Brazil

 

do you mind editing your post so you don't quote the whole review again? thank you. I hope you fix the problem with your monitor.

 

What happens if you connect the Q35 to an external monitor? Do you see the same video problems. If the picture on an external monitor is OK then the problem will be the notebook's LCD or connector.

John

 

A postscript:

I am still very happy with my Q35 and want to put in a bigger HDD and try to set up dual boot XP / Vista.

I took the HDD out and discovered that it is PATA and not SATA as listed at the start of this review. The specs on the Samsung website list PATA/SATA, so maybe Samsung uses a mixture.

John