Samsung X60 Studentbook Review (pics, specs)

It's now more than a monthsince my Samsung X60 arrived. It'sa nice little demonI tell you. Ipurchased it from http://www.studentbook.de, since it was a very competitive offer (at that time) Iwent ahead and ordered it with the following specs:

• Processor:Intel Core Duo (T2300/ 1,66 GHz) 2 MB Cache 667 MHz FSB
• OS:Microsoft Windows XP Home
• RAM:1.024 MB PC2-4200 (1 x 1.024)
• HDD:100 GB SATA 5.400 RPM (doubts here)
• Display:15.4" WSXGA+ (1680x1050) Glare TFT
• Graphics card:ATI X1600 256 MB
• Optical Drive:Ultra Slim DVD-Super-Multi Dual Layer burner
• Communication:Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g, 100/1000 Ethernet, 56K V.92 Modem, Bluetooth 2.0
• Extras:Remote control in the Express Card slot
• Case:Silver Magnesium-alloy case
• Battery:approx. 3 Hours
• Service:24 Months On-Site for the whole Europe.
• Weight:approx. 2480 gramms
• Price: £1135 together with shipping.

I had to wait for more than a month for the notebook to arrive after ordering, since it was in a very high demand, and the company had to back order it. However, I still think it was worth the wait. The main reason I decided to buy this book wasits features to weight ratio. I was willing to pay more for a lighter notebook and still be able to play some games, so I chose the X60 over the Acer Aspire5672 and the ASUS A6JM (which you can get also for a very good student price here: http://www.campuspoint.de/shop/pi516690660.htm?categoryId=15). Two months after my decision, I still don't think there is alaptop beating the X60 in the above mentioned qualities.

A lot has already been written about the X60, so I am not going to rewritewhat's written. I will focus more on my own usage-impressions.

Samsung X60 (view large image)

The laptop arrived in a coal-black box, with a shining picture of the silver machine. And indeed, after tearing the box apart, the content was a dazzling view too. The first touch said it was a really LIGHT notebook. Unfortunately this impression lasted only until I realized the battery is missing. After attaching the battery it was more or less the expected weight, around 2.5kg. The battery is at the back, so if you're going to lift the laptop grabbing it in the front it will make it appear heavier that it actually is, but believe me, it is still very convenient to carry it around. Having used it only for a month I can't tell too much about the quality of the magnesium case, but seems to be quite resistant to my operating environment.

Display:

There are no dead pixels on the display, however, there are some interesting artifacts which are visible on a black background when viewed from the side. See the picture below.

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The resolution is 1600x1050 and I am actually running it on this resolution despite having less than perfect eyes.It's self-surprisingthat I don't want to lower the resolution. When lowering the resolution the textis still crisp andclear and I don't think this is just ClearType's merit.Adjusting resolutionwas something I was always afraid of doing on LCDs, based on my former experiences. However, this display can take just ANY resolution you fancy.

Regarding the brightness, I am using it mostly indoors, where it is conveniently bright or dim - as I want it. In direct sunlight it is usable, but not bright at all, colors are hardly visible. The brightness setting is not remembered across restarts, unless one uses the Battery Manager - more on this later. There is no major light leakage or uneven backlighting.

Keyboard:

This is something I am not happy with. First of all, it has got the German markings on it, but this is the least annoying thing. Annoyance #1: The PageUp/Down/Home/End/Del/Insert keys are just very unsuitably placed, see the picture below.

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I can't navigate using these buttons without having to check every time before I use them-- such atime waster. The Fn/Ctrl keys are swapped:

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And there is no option in the BIOS to correct this. Keyboard combinations like CTRL/SHIFT-X are a real headache with my established and proven finger-layout. The left SHIFT key is also very short, on the other hand the right one is oversized in my opinion. Although these are annoying, as time passes, I will surely get used to the layout. There is something however, that time won't solve: sensitivity. Annoyance "Principal" is the keyboard sensitivity in general, but most notably the SPACE BAR. If I am to touch it on its right side, I hear the 'click', however, there is no effect. I ended up several times writing words together without spaces - evenwhen typing thisreview. Somehow it really needs the hard touch I am not used to.

Touchpad:

I've been using a mouse starting with day 1 with this notebook, but a quick test did not reveal any problems with the touchpad. The buttons are conveniently stiff, but not too stiff. The Synaptics drivers can be installed, but it is working pretty well even without them. The sensitivity of the touchpad can not be set without using the Synaptics driver suite, therefore most of the time I keep the touchpad disabled completely. Thing is, I've found myself moving the cursor unintentionally with my hands just too often. This setting is however not remembered between restarts.

Ports:

The X60 has a whole regiment of ports, unfortunately there are only 3 USB ports (two on the back) - this is a bit of a disadvantage. If one is used for the mouse, and one for the webcam, there is only one remaining on the right side. This is a bit annoying, but then again, it's not that difficult to live with it.

There is no DVI port, however, it is present in the port replicator which is where you really need it. I don't expect to use a notebook with an external LCD panel without a port replicator. For ocassional connects the VGA is satisfactory. In your "office" however, where your notebook will be the most of the time, it is indeed convenient to just push your notebook into the dock and have all the devices connected.

On the left-hand side you'll find the VGA connector, ExpressCard slot, phone line, a firewire port and the audio connectors: Mic-in, Headphone-out and SPDIF. It is important to note that SPDIF is actually combined with the headphone-out's 3.5 jack connector. This was the first time I came across such a solution, but I like it as it saves space! The ExpressCard slot is the home of the slim remote control. This is an other handy tool. You can start and manipulate your favourite media player (but mostly only AVS) from your bed

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There is an Infrared port right in the front, next to the card reader. Don't expect FIR data transfers though, it behaves like a HID (Human Interface Device) compliant USB device. It receives the signals of the bundled remote and behaves sort of a keyboard. This also means that it's very unlikely that you'll succeed hooking WinLIRC on it. However, if you make it work, don't forget to post the "How To" in the NotebookReview.com forums.

(view large image)

In addition we have an S-video out, a gigabit Ethernet connector, a hole for the Kensington lock and the AC power plug on the backside. The right side of the notebook is completely occupied by the DVD combo, leaving a little place only for a single USB port and the WiFi switch.

View of AC (view large image)

Back side ports (view large image)

Right side view (view large image)

Speakers & Sound:

The speakers really disappointed me. Not that I was expecting BOSE or Harmann Kardon, but even my former HP NC6000 had better sound. And if not better, than at least by a couple of dBs louder. The speakers situated on both ends of the black strip above the keyboard are just beepers. The internal soundcard is of very high quality though. Connecting my KOSS headphones, the music is truly inspiring. No hiss, no ambient noise, just pure sound, though rather plain. Fortunately, if the regular bass just would not do, there is always SRS!!! This makes lower frequencies indeed trembling. The built-in stereo mic does a really good jobwith Skype, especially with the "Voice" settings. There is absolutely no need for a mic on the headset.

Heat & Noise:

The heat output is also on the left hand side, which is good! The wristpad does not get warm even when gaming (also good). The new BIOS 08XA allows for completely fanless operation - you can't hear you notebook running. The HDD is also nice andquiet. You can leave the laptop running during the night next to your bed for some P2P and it won't disturb your sleep.

Software:

The preinstalled operating system was German. Although I speak German, I just can't stand anything on the computer that is not English (I am ofHungarian nationality), so the first thing was to reinstall the OS with Windows XP Pro. Not sure if I really needed 'Pro', but since I had it, it was the obvious choice. The installation was straightforward, all the drivers were supplied on a DVD, and apart from that, you can download them from http://www.samsungpc.com. Samsung bundles a couple of utilities, though I did not find all of them useful. The most important (for me) were the following:

MagicKB - ensures the additional keys on the keyboard work and adds a simplistic OSD

DisplayManager - Is meant to replace the simplistic OSD of MagicKB with a nicely alpha-blended graphic. I especially like this!

Samsung Battery Manager - I have this installed, but to be honest, I am not using it. At this point (version 2.0.1.7), the "Custom" profile does not allow you to define different settings based on the battery status - this is disappointing. Only the predefined profile have this capability, but than again: max brightness is just too much for AC and the minimum LCD brightness is just not enough for a pleasant view when on DC. The auto-dim feature is neat though.

Samsung Network Manager - I found it difficult to use this application and I don't really need it. It may be still a useful application for some - allows to switch networks/proxies and probably Wifi settings, though I had problems with the latter one. I just could not set the Wifi as I wanted using this utility. The built-in Windows Wifi administrator did the job instead.

Firstware Recovery Pro - This created quite a disaster. Personally I would suggest you avoid it by all means. When I had my new OS installed, I wanted to take a snapshot of it using this software, since it was bundled. This app allows you to create a specially designated partition for backup purposes. Myself, being the picky person I am, wanted to use the first partition (normally belonging to AVS NOW - correct me if I am wrong). Firstware did not allow that, instead, it insisted to chop the back of my Data partition [D:]. All right then, take some GB from the back of my drive. The chop was all right, but when I decided to remove THAT partition, because I just was not happy with Firstware. Suddenly my whole D: drive disappeared with all my data on it. I had to get the better of my knowledge and tools to recover the partition and at least some of the more important files I already had there. From that point, i just returned to my proven utility: Acronis TrueImage.

AVS Premium - Installed. A very nice,fullscreen application with a media DB. I like it, but then again, I find it too bulky, plus it is not able to play Quicktime and REALMedia. Unfortunately this is the only application that is able to respond to those 3 special keys on the side (Videoo, Slideshow, Music).

Cyberlink DVD Solution - Installed, but I haven't used it ... yet. The HDD is big enough to keep all my files, and whenever I need a media player, well, nothing can beat MediaPlayerClassic.

Performance:

SuperPi and all the benchmarking applications have been presented by earlier reviewers, so I will omit this part. What really matters to me, is that running ReplayGain in foobar2000 does the job in speeds about 150x realtime, my favourite game (LiveforSpeed) achieves 60-70 fps with 4xAA, 4xAF in 1400x1024, and that the SFZ soundfont player from rgc:audio is able to do 64 polyphony with quality setting of 32 with a 150MB sound font. If you don't know what's SFZ and what's a soundfont, you obviously don't need it, and stop wondering about

But then again, I can't omit the HD benchmark. The processor is always the same in a given laptop, but the included HDD varies very often, so here it goes. The following is taken from SIW:

TypeFixed hard disk media
ModelHTS541010G9SA00
InterfaceIDE ATA
Serial NumberMP2ZM4X0H3W0BR
RevisionMBZOC60D
Size92 GBytes
RemovableNo
LocationSecondary Controller - Master drive
Controller Buffer Size 7538 KBytes
CapabilitiesDMA, LBA, IORDY_Disable, IORDY
PIO Mode Support0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
DMA SW Mode SupportNot Supported
DMA MW Mode Support0 - 1 - 2
UDMA Mode Support0 - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 (ATA/66) - 5 (ATA/100)
Current UDMA mode5 (ATA-100)
Support NCQYes
Support IFPWRMNGTRCVYes
SMART SupportYes

The only doubts I have here, whether it is really working using NCQ. It says the interface is ATA (as opposed to SATA), but NCQ is supported. According to the manufacturer's site, this drive model supports only SATA 1.5GB/s (i.e. SATA1) and as far as I know, SATAII, rev. 2.5 is required for NCQ. So how is it???

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Battery:

A fully charged battery lasts exactly 3 hours for me, with WiFi on, display brightness on minimum and doing 'office' work, browsing, document editing and listening tomusic. The processor utilization is almost always zero with all these processes, so it is another indicator of the performance. Of course with full backlight or 100% CPU the battery hardly hits the 2 hour mark, but considering the powerful GPU, it is justifiable. But not the stamina master after all.

Conclusion:

I am happy with my purchase, despite the shortcomings I have mentioned above. Overall it turned out to be exactly the machine I had expected. It is definitely nota long-battery life ultraportable notebook, but a well blended mixture of a desktop-replacement multimedia PC with that of a portable notebook. They call it studentbook. Feature-wise, it is a student's dream. Everything you can think of. As far as price is concerned, although it's a very competitive price on the market, I still think this is a bit expensive for the average buyer..

Pros:

• CPU Performance
• Great GPU
• Light
• Build quality
• Remote control
• Stays cool
• High resolution bright display
• Quiet
• Plentiful of ports

Cons:

• Keyboard issues
• Display artifacts
• Some of the bundled utilities have yet to mature
• The BIOS does not remember the settings of the brightness or touchpad status (enabled/disabled)
• Rather poor speakers
• USB connector on the right

 

Great review! The X60 is a really nice notebook. A pity its not readily available in the US.

 

Thanks for the review notabenem! Looks like a nice machine... I'm not going to lie though...those keyboard quirks look pretty darn annoying...

 

looks like he has the graininess problem as found on the s96j

 

graininess? Are you referring to those little gray spots in the black background on the LCD?

and a little update:

This problem has been solved.

 

I don't mean to sound like an *******, but by having so many different people reviewing laptops the reviews themselves are losing credibility. Let me give you an example of what I mean ...

from John Ratsey's review
The X60 has high definition audio and two 2W speakers in the area behind the keyboard. These (combined with SRS) provide by far the best audio quantity and quality of any notebook I have used and contrast strongly with the feeble sound produced by the W3A.


from this review
The speakers really disappointed me. Not that I was expecting BOSE or Harmann Kardon, but even my former HP NC6000 had better sound. And if not better, than at least by a couple of dBs louder. The speakers situated on both ends of the black strip above the keyboard are just beepers.

If there is such a huge difference of opinion in something as simple as laptop speakers, how am I to have any faith in the rest of either review?

I don't know ... what do you guys think?

 

Annoyance #1: The PageUp/Down/Home/End/Del/Insert keys are just very unsuitably placed, see the picture below.

That's a common place for the Home, PgUp, PgDn and End key. The Toshiba Tecra M3 that I am using right now has them at the same place.

Personally I find them much more usable there (as opposed to the top right corner) as I can press them with my right hand's little finger without having to lift my hand from the keyboard. I use Home & End very often, usually combined with CTRL and/or SHIFT ...

 

yes iam refering to the lighter dots as the grainniness or am i misteaking??

yes angelos p i think there is a huge difference in how different people hear sounds . if you are alot busy with music an sounds you will hear all the (small) errors in the sound it produces . and if you on the other hand have never had any thing to do with music you wont hear those things.

 

Nice review

Just did a quick search and in the UK, X60's only go up to X1400

My laptop search continues...

 

Well, if you copy the rest of John Ratsey's review on the sound aspect there it goes on to say:

You have a point Angelos, but I think with these user reviews we have to remember authors will write experiences relative to what they have had in the past. In John's case he states his Asus W3a is worse than the X60 while Matyas tells us in the review here the X60 is not as good as what he has experienced in the past with an HP. Meaning these speakers are probably middle of the road.

 

I think that everyone may have different opinions, specially in a matter that is so subjective as sound quality. It is healthy to learn that people may think different of a a particular feature of a notebook, after all if we all thinked alike then we would have just one brand and model of notebook and everything else. The very fact that opinions may differ is what makes reviews important, at least for me. All the different opinions I read here about notebooks were tantamount in my decision when buying a notebook, and even then I am fully aware that my opinion is slightly different from everyone's else.

 

Well, I guess you are right. As with pretty much everything else, you need to keep what you think is valuable and ignore what you think is not relevant or accurate.

 

I have just been through the review and my immediate reaction related to two of the main issues already discussed, that is the audio and the keyboard layout. With regard to the audio, Fn + F7 steps through the SRS options. I find that the Trusurround setting boosts the bass and makes the sound more pleasant. The keyboard is much the same as on my previous notebook so it caused me no grief. A couple of months ago the b and n keys developed some stiffness, but this has disappeared.

John

 

Great notebook , Samsung is one of my top favorites , they have such innovative designs .

If only they would make new tablets designs , have a bigger selection and sell worldwide and not just in certain markets .

Same for LG and Benq .

 

great notebook. it's actually quite rare to find a 15.4" with a wsxga+ glossy resolution these days. the other being the bulkier z96j.

for those interested in acquiring them in the US.. www.dynamism.com sells it, of course they charge quite a premium to it.

 

According to the specs Goren, the model imported by www.dynamism.com only has a X1400 for $3,299.99usa. =P

Cool review. 5.4pounds is light for a 15.4in. It is to bad this model isn't available for a reasonable price on the U.S. It is really pretty looking.

 

ah you are right
i think it is THE lightest 15.4" notebook in the market.. for any country !

 

Don't forget that it looks pretty. I love the look of the silver keyboard for some reason, even the font looks attractive. I know that sounds crazy.

 

I also have an X60-Studentbook.
I would just like to communicate to whoever may be thinking about buying this machine but, like me about 8 weeks ago, cannot make the final decision because of all the horrible stories about the display:
1. there is nothing wrong with the display. THERE ARE NO ARTIFACTS !!! I seriously think that the author of this review should send his machine back. The artifacts on the black background really should not be there. My display is clean and crisp. No problems.
2. Yes the display is slightly dimmer than for example samsung x1. It has 8 brightness levels, and during the day I mostly work at level 6 or 7. In the evening mostly at 4. The display is surprisingly good even in environments with many different light sources.
3. Performance:
Without any updates I ran the 3DMark tests and the SuperPi test and these are my results:
SuperPi 2M - 1min29sec
3DMark05 - 3941 marks (I ran the test 3 times, lowest score was 3939)
3DMark06 - 1797 marks

Note: I did not upgrade RAM - my system has 1GB
(Samsung X60 Studentbook, [email protected], 1GB RAM, ATI X1600)