Samsung R540 Review Discussion

Most of us don’t want to spend more than a few hundred on a notebook computer -- Samsung’s answer is their $699.99 R540, featuring a 15.6-inch display and dual-core Intel Core i3 processor. We take a look.

Read the full content of this Article: Samsung R540 Review

 

I read this review with interest having owned several Samsung notebooks / netbooks over the years. I was particularly surprised about the build quality both because the Samsung products I have encountered were all quite well put together and also build quality is rarely an issue that comes up in the Samsung forum. However, 5.29 lb is very light for a 15.6" notebook although this machine have).

Volume keys are not completely absent: Fn + left and right arrows are available and many notebooks do something similar. It is also misleading to say that the navigation keys are missing since they are part of the numeric keypad which can be switched on and off with the Num Lock key. I suspect that most users will leave the keypad off unless entering lots of numbers.

I'm also surprised by the reported poor audio quality. Did you experiment with the SRS audio controls (user guide page 78)?

However, I agree that this notebook does not provide value for money at the current pricing. It appears that Samsung offer it to fill a gap in their range. It would be far more interesting to review some of the other Samsung models such as the QX series.

John

 

Thanks for the comment, John.

Regarding the navigation keys -- they are absent in their dedicated form on this notebook and it is quite disappointing. Other manufacturers have not had issues fitting them in their notebooks with full-sized keyboards. If you disable the numpad to access them, that defeats the purpose of having a numpad in this reviewer's opinion.

The audio quality wasn't the worst I have heard, but it is nothing to write home about. I did not experiment with the SRS audio.

And I too was surprised at the poor build quality. The Samsung N120 netbook I tested some time ago had very decent quality. Also, it looks like some of Samsung's thin and light notebooks have good quality as well. It's a shame none of that carried over into the R540.

 

I've used a couple Samsung notebooks, quality was about on par with many other notebooks within the price range. But I do agree with it being overpriced, many notebooks feature i3, 4 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD and a terribad 16:9 screen for 499-599 range.

 

I looked in a computer store today and saw several 15.6" machines with a numeric keypad. Sony, Toshiba and Packard Bell all had the same arrangement as on the R540 while Dell had managed to squeeze in separate half height navigation keys above the numpad (see the photo here). It appears that Samsung are with the majority of manufacturers on the layout.

John

 

Dell has historically been good with keyboard layouts. There's no excuse for Samsung or any other manufacturer for that matter leaving out the document navigation keys. As I noted in this review, those that use them frequently will feel lost without them.