Core 2 Duo X60s

I saw mention of this in another thread, but does anyone have any feedback on the new Samsung X60s? In particular, the NP-X60TZ01/SUK. With the ATi x1600, a 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo and a glossy 1680 x 1050 screen, weighing only 2.5kg and assuming the battery life & build is similar to the earlier models this seems rather fantastic value at ~£1100 inc VAT from most retailers. So, what's the catch? Especially as lots of retailers are still selling the older models (admittedly with 2GB RAM) for >£1400. The only downside I can see if that it has only 2 RAM slots, both already populated.

They look to have only just been released, everywhere (dabs, savastore.com etc) all claim to be able to source them within the next couple of weeks. I've already ordered one with the latter, but I guess I can cancel if there are any horror stories from early adopters

If not, I'll put together a review after I've had a chance to play with it.

 

I can't think of the catch and I'm also attracted by the pricing. First I have to find a home for my current X60 review (note that I have just added an Addendum to my Samsung X60 review to include six months experience). There may be marketing reasons for Samsung's aggressive pricing of the latest models.

Regarding the RAM, I have been down the upgrade path and find there is no RAM speed hit if you have 1GB in one slot and 512MB in the other (ie dual channel with the current hardware doesn't seems to achieve anything in reality). However, 1GB is enough for most users. I find that the applications which really swallow RAM are those which work with images. ie photo editing and GIS.

John

 

I have been on the hunt for a new laptop with a budget of £1100...and i was almost going for the toshiba p100-240 but once i saw the specs this new x6o and price..i literally fainted!! am also was concerned that there could be a catch bcos the pricing is off the chain!!! it cannot just be the 2gb limit max and prob no inbuilt webcam but i cant wait to have mine delivered(fingers crossed..it is as cool as its specs)

 

For those who want to pay more, Samsung are also releasing an X60 with T7400, 2GB RAM and 120GB HDD. The interesting feature is that Samsung appear to have dropped the WXGA display on the X60 (too much overlap with their other 15.4" widescreen models?).

I have searched around for other computers with 15.4" display in the same weight range and with the same build quality (particularly a metal or carbon fibre display back) and couldn't find any in the UK. The LG P1 http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81628 would be of interest if it were available. I lost interest in the Asus V1J when I discovered that the headline weight is without the optical drive.

The down-side of the Samsung X60's light weight is that the battery is only good for 3 hours of light usage with a dim display. I would also consider that the X60's display is not the best, but is above average. Note also that the Samsung warranty is only for one year, but extensions can be bought.

I've had an X60 for over 6 months and the fact that I'm considering buying a new X60, which I reckon will be about 30% faster (T2300 vs T7200) rather than looking elsewhere should say enough.

John

 

Well, I'm still waiting for mine from savastore.com and the ETA has vanished yet again.
Other retailers still have a "1-2 weeks" placeholder.
I'm wondering if a shortage of mobile Core 2 Duos is to blame.

Fingers crossed it arrives this week...

 

i donot think there is shortage of core2duos i think its more to do with were they get their stock from...i hope we dont get any shock like wrong pricing from savastore as i placed my order on the site..please let us know when yours arrives and how it performs as i just made the order yesterday and whats the ETA?

 

Well, if it is any guidance, the X60 MWM T7200 at http://uk.insight.com/apps/productp..._search=C=102&S=1015&lang=en-gb&K=&M=SA&PS=50 has just moved from "1 expected on 23/10/06" to "1 expected on 30/10/06". That's not quite such a long wait as I've had for a 160GB Hitachi 2.5" HDD. It was meant to be available mid-September, and the arrival date of 23/10/06 has just shuffled along to 25/10/06. I hope the smaller steps means that it is close. I'm desperate for more space.

John

 

i think stock has begun to roll in some stores does anyone know the rpm of the hard disk?? http://prices.cnet.co.uk/0,39100441,36424629,00.htm

 

Regarding availability, I contacted a supplier who responded "We are still waiting the first stocks of these into the UK, they are due towards the end of this month "

Regarding the HDD speed, my current X60 came with a 5400rpm HDD. I would be surprised if Samsung were now putting in something slower. However, you will find that Windows can only see about 86GB of the 100GB HDD, so a bigger HDD may need to be high on your shopping list.

John

 

thanks for the advice...might upgrade later on.but right now its alla bout the arrival of my laptop ..lol although i still feel the pricing of these new X60 model will change because compared to what other manufacturers with similar specs..it is about £200-£500 more than samsungs price tag ...i hope there isnt any catch to this..because that would be devastating...

 

The general price trend for notebooks is downwards. Also, the X1600 GPU is no longer top of the range.

There are other notebooks with approximately similar specifications in a similar price range. For example, the Asus F3Jp at http://www.asuslaptop.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=Asus_Laptop_F3Jp-AP025Phas the T7200 CPU, 120GB HDD, the ATI X1700 GPU, a WXGA display, carrying case and mouse plus a 2 year warranty as standard. However, it is a bit thicker and heavier than the Samsung X60 and doesn't have as many pixels.

Anyway, I've also pulled the trigger on an X60-T7200, so I hope they show up soon.

John

 

Insight UK's forecast arrival date for the X60-T7200 has now moved from 30 October to 2nd November.

John

 

And yet another update: Insight = 10th November; Dabs = 3 - 4 weeks; and Savastore = 2 - 5 days (was 1 - 2 weeks yesterday).

It seems Samsung are still keeping everyone waiting for the X60-T7200 but one knows why. Maybe they are waiting for the component costs to come down so that they can avoid making a loss on this competitively priced product (the original reason this thread started).

John

PS: The Lenovo Z61m also has the T7200, WSXGA+ display and very competitive pricing, but is a bit heavier.

 

I wonder what would be the performace increase with the core 2 duo?
Would it show on the 3D score? I guess not much, or??? I am happy with mine, I get 3941 3DMark05 marks and 1800 3Dmark06 marks, nad super PI (2million) 1min29sec.
BTW, I have the X60 studentbook with X1600 / T2300 / 1GB RAM and I would like to upgrade RAM to 2 GB. Can somebody tell me the specs of the RAM module that goes in? I don't know how to buy RAM for a laptop. Do I need a particluar brand etc?
Also, would it be worth it upgrading to the faster RAM? (The one 1GB module is the slower PC-4200).
One more thing. You guys think the battery life of 3 hours with the small battery is not good? Could anyone show me a 15-incher with a dedicated graphic card which lasts considerably longer?

 

You need 200 pin DDR2 SODIMM. I currently have 1GB of PC-4200 and 1GB of PC-5300. Tested separately, the speed difference was negligible. The higher clock speed of the PC-5300 is largely offset by its higher latency, CAS#=5, compared with CAS# =4 for PC-4300. If you can find RAM with CAS# = 4 at 667MHz then it may be worth getting. However, if you have modules of different speed then the memory will run at the speed of the slowest.

John

 

Thanks John

 

Thought I would jump into this thread as I have just placed an order for the T7200 version of the X60 from dabs.com. The claim from the support guy I chatted to was that a delivery was expected 15th November. Looks like dates have slipped in the past so I'm not planning days off work just yet.

There does seem to be a fair bit of buzz about this machine - the price is pretty impressive - so maybe there's a pile of orders stacked up and I'm at the back

Girlfriend wonders what all the fuss is about. I suspect she reckons I should just go to Dixons and ask them which one I should have. The very idea! These things have to be researched properly you know

 

Grr, this makes me so mad..

were people aware that Samsung planned to release an updated model of the X60?

i didnt know, i have an 'old' one ;(

 

I don't think the 'old' one is not worthy any more... 25% increase in the computing performance is noteworthy, but nothing terribly essential. I have yet to find the application where I could use it. I am not doing video compression though...

 

Samsung are still keeping us waiting for the new models of X60. The T7200's are in good supply. Insight say 20th Nov. Dabs 1-2 weeks. So maybe here for Christmas!

John

 

DABS now quote delivery date for the X60 T7200 as 28th November. Rats I really hope it's worth the wait.

Are delays like these a general problem, a Samsung problem or a C2D availability problem? Not that it makes much difference. It'll get delivered when it's ready I suppose!

 

The C2Ds are everywhere, so that can't be the constraint. The only other new feature in the new Samsung X60 models is the Lightscribe optical drive (given the price of the media this feature is unlikely to be used). Or is it, given the computitive pricing, Samsung are waiting for the cost of the components to drop?

John

 

At the time of posting this (22nd November) Insight has 37 of the T7200 X60's and 42 of the T7400 X60's in stock http://uk.insight.com/apps/nbs/index.php?K=X60&lang=en-gb&M=SA&C=102&S=1015. They've arrived!!!! (and I'm in a different part of the world for the next couple of weeks).

John

 

I've had a bit of a fight with savastore, the muppets cancelled my order when I only asked to remove a single item.
Anyway, I hit refresh on dabs today and saw that they too have them in stock. Should arrive within a couple of days before I head off to Switzerland!

 

I'm now happily typing this from my shiny new X-60!
However, I'm a bit baffled. It claims to have an ATi x1700, not x1600 as expected.

I'll do some benchmarks this weekend.

 

ATi x1700!!..thats really cool! i think that is one the latest graphics card by ati for notebooks but i was wondering if the ATix1700 comes with both models of the core2duo that is with the 2ghz version T7200 and the 2.16ghz version T7400 or is it only for the really high end model the i.e T7400..basically all am asking is which model did u purchase??
Also is there by any chance a DVI port included with its upgraded features..

 

Some other notes:
The HD on the 100GB/2.0GHz model is actually 104.68GB. There is one hidden partition of 3.42GB (AV?), leaving the main partition at 101.25GB formatted. At first run I was asked if I wanted to install RecoverPro and it doesn't have a partition by default.
I ran Super Pi and got a respectable 1min 3secs for 2 million digits.

 

So that may be a 120GB HDD. What are the model numbers for the HDD and the optical drive?

Thanks,

John

 

HDD is a Fujitsu MHV2120BH http://www.fujitsu.com/us/services/computing/storage/hdd/mobile/mhv2120bh-sata.html

which looks like it's 120GB

Optical drive - TSSTCorp CD/DVDW TS-L632M ... doesn't mean much to me!

And an ATI X1700 too. The screen res is taking a little to get used to and LCDs in general are something I don't use regularly. Picked up a MS mouse this morning with a magnifying function (!) for when my eyes need a bit of a rest

I'm impressed by how quiet it is. It's not silent by any means but with the radio on at a moderate level it's hard to make out any noise in in normal use. Haven't really taxed it yet. 3ds max installed and played with a little bit but mostly happy that Civ 4 ticks along without problems at the highest graphics level.

Next step is a decent backpack style carrier for it. There seems to be a lot of choice out there, at least online. Any recommendations for a 15.4" widescreen notebook backpack that has extra storage too but can be taken onto a plane as hand luggage?

 

Various points:

1. Yes, that looks like 120GB HDD, so there must be another hidden partition. If that is not big enough, look for the Samsung HM160JI (it's a mystery to me why Samsung don't use their own HDDs).

2. TS-L632M must be the latest version of last year's TS-L532, and is a joint Toshiba-Samsung product. The X60 specs say that it should support Lightscribe.

3. That screen resolution will need some tweaking unless you have 21/20 reading vision. My first suggestion is under Display Properties > Appearance , try the Large or Extra Large settings for the font size. However this might leave the icons impossibly small. The second suggestion would be to get the latest graphics driver from www.omegadrivers.net and try different resolution settings. The Omega driver includes 1440 x 900 and 1360 x 850, which have the right aspect ratio (and were missing from the ATI driver last time I looked). Also experiment with the different font smoothing options (Display Properties > Appearance > Effects). I hope you can find something you like. Report back, because I am planning to move to the new X60 when I get home and will need to tweak the display (when I get home, I'm elsewhere in the world at the moment).

4. I know from experience that the X60 fits nicely in the Swissgear "Star" GA-7309-13 backpack. W H Smiths were selling these for £19.99 in August / September. This bag will definitely fit with the flight hand baggage restrictions. However, for my present overseas trip I left that bag at home and put my X60 into a neoprene pouch (Currys £13.99?) inside a trolley bag.

I will also be interested to see how well the Core 2 Duo undervolts. The T2300 in my current X60 runs happily at a maximum of 1.05V, which means the fan never gets above slow speed.

Hope this helps,

John

 

Thanks a lot for the information, comments below.

Didn't like the way this looked so back to normal font size.

OK, I dived into the omegadrivers a little bit too enthusiastically but it looks like I've gotten away with it Read before that X1600 and X1700 are pretty similar. Omegadrivers doesn't seem to support X1700 specifically so having already wiped the previous drivers (yes I know) I installed for X1600. By the way, ATI web-site doesn't appear to have a download for X1700 drivers yet which struck me as a little odd.

Yes I can now select 1440x900 but the display becomes very 'soft' if you know what I mean, almost 'fuzzy'. OK, I'm struggling with my adjectives but let's just say it looks crap. I'd rather keep the sharper higher res.

I ran a couple of benchmark tests before removing the X1700 drivers and installing Omegadrivers. 3dmark06 reported 1815 marks before and 1814 afterwards! Not exactly meaningful! Furthermore a 3ds max rendering test took the same time, to the second, before and after the change. Incidentally this test took about 30% of the time it takes to run on my desktop so I'm well pleased, or rather my girlfriend the designer is.

For the record I also ran SuperPi and am getting 1m 3s for the 2M calculation as a previous poster.

Edit: Selecting ClearType in (Display Properties > Appearance > Effects) does make the text a little bit clearer to my eyes - hence the name I guess Not dramatically better but an improvement certainly.

I will hit the shops tomorrow

Presumably this is to increase battery life. Not sure I'm too keen to muck about with the processor at the moment.

Thanks again for the useful advice and info.

Tim

 

i stumbled upon this site some days ago http://www.igear.com/products.php?category_name=Laptop%20Cases&group_name=Laptop%20Accessorieswhich has quite a collection of laptop bags..i think its worth a check if you are looking for "the perfect notebook bag" before heading out to the shops...

 

Tim

Thanks for the feedback. You will also find that the Omega drivers make it easy to switch resolution should you find that different applications are viewed best as differing resolutions.

LCDs are always sharpest at their native resolution. With my current display (1280 x 800) I find that ClearType makes things look worse because it effectively reduces contrast because of the grey pixels smoothing the corners of the black text. However, I expect the loss of contrast to be less obvious as the pixels become smaller and more numerous and then the overall font smoothing becomes more beneficial.

Ideally, one would keep the display running at its native resolution and higher resolution gives the potential for better definition. Unfortunately, both Windows itself and various software packages haven't got their brain around providing the user with the same size of text or graphics irrespective of display size and resolution (I was hoping that Vista might have properly addressed this problem but what little I've read suggests that it hasn't). The "zoom" setting in Word and Excel doesn't adjust the menus and icons.

So the alternative is to move to a lower resolution and using the smoothing facilities to make things most readable. They may be less sharp but are actually easier on the eye. This can only be determined after several hours use.

Note that I haven't seen the Swissgear bags in my local Smiths for a couple of months. They were part of the back-to-school displays. There could be some in the store rooms waiting for the Xmas sales. Currently, it is my favourite medium sized backpack. Not the boring black "I'm a computer bag" colour, but it is also light and well padded.

The undervolting will makes no difference to the battery running time unless you are loading the CPU because Intel have locked the minimum voltage (unlike on the Pentium Ms). Therefore the main benefit of undervolting will be a cooler computer when running under load.

John

 

This site http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-X1700.2157.0.html suggests that the ATI X1700 is about 30% faster than the X1600 without using more power, although I am struggling to see difference between the specifications of the two GPUs posted on the ATI web site. I would also hope that more performance per watt means that it uses less power than the X1600 (or even the X1400) when under light use.

The X1700 is quite new and I now wonder whether it was the cause of the delay in arrival of the new X60's. The mystery is why did Samsung wait for the new GPU when all their sales info still refers to the X1400 and X1600?

John

 

According to the docs, they're also shipping the X1450 in some models.

Oh, and I can confirm that the drive does indeed have Lightscribe. At least, Nero believes it does and there's a little logo on the drive. I might have to invest in some media.

And one final note, to differentiate these models, they are now labelled "X60plus" (with a superscript 'plus').

I'm extremely happy all round. The screen looks great at 1280 x 720 (or something like that). Just make sure you turn off ClearType (this'll never work at anything other than native res) or you'll get a blurry mess.

I'm still trying to find a nice Linux distro. Ubuntu 6.06 installed great, but wouldn't let me have 1680x1050. Only 1450x1050.
Ubuntu 6.10 gets upset whereve X starts and even screws up the console.
Now I'm having problems getting Fedora Core 6 (Zod) to boot from the DVD

 

my samsung X60plus came today!!! wow! this is definitely one of the best laptops i have laid my hands on especially if design is just as important as the product's specification...as the saying goes..."good things comes to those who wait"..l ..am so happy with this because i was at the point of switching to the Lg S1 or the Toshiba P100 series.i wish i could make a comprehensive test and review because all i have is praise for the build and performance but am still quite a novice so i think i will leave that to the pros...like john

The only two features missing in this high end laptop is a DVI port and a built in camera but these can easily be bought as add-on features from third party manufacturers.

i have one question..when i try to play a video file(which is in avi format) with the avs premium 3.75...only the audio plays but the video doesnt...is this a missing codec problem or is the avs software reliable at all..because i am able to play video files with WMP(windows media player)

i have manage to resolve this problem by installing a k-lite codec pack...

 

Backpack: try to get one of these:
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Toshiba_Backpack_Lite_TP09TA-BPK_/version.asp
I have it, and it's like meant to carry the greater width of the X60. (Regular 15.4" notebook are 3-4cm less in width)

Neoprene pouch: Definitely the Apple 15.4" model. Fits soo snugly, that I doubt it wasn't designed for the X60.

Screen res: isn't it 1680x1050? My "old" X60 runs at this resolution and I really don't find a reason to lower it. I wear glasses, though I can still read it without glasses. But the omega drivers are definitely a must.

 

adoniteking: Forget AVS completely! AVS is good to control with the remote bundled with the laptop, but it lacks all the codecs other players (like MediaPlayerClassic) are able to use. Hence it will never play quicktime, it can't play VBR mp3 files, etc, etc, etc. I really recommend MPC & foobar2000. None of them is designed to be controlled by a remote in the manner AVS is, but those are rather better choices when it comes to good media players!

 

Sobriquet: as for linux, the newest Ubuntu is working fine with X60, provided you have kernel version at least 2.6.17. This is required to make ALSA (HD Audio). Everything else is working fine.

 

I wouldn't describe myself as a pro, just a heavy user with innumerable years of experience with different computers.

Anyway, I've heard that a new X60 is sitting in my house while I am about 3,600 miles away in an ESE direction, still using my old X60.

Examination of the label on the box of the new X60 confirms the X1700 and 120GB HDD reported by others, but it will be 13 December before I expect to make physical contact and a thorough side-by-side comparison.

John

 

Even the Desktop installer for 6.10 (Edgy) can't bring up X correctly. It looks like a modelines problem. 6.06 was fine (an upgrade to 6.10 broke in the same way).

Anyway, I'm now fine with Fedora Core 6, even if I hit every bug going (installing i586 kernel instead of i686). And unlike Ubuntu, it correctly installed and setup the Syntaptics touchpad driver.

 

thanks for the advice...i kind of knew the AVS software was not as efficient as i imagined it to be cos its a samsung's software i think and that basically screams red alert! they should stick to digial electronics and hardware manufacturing but the one thing i find pretty useful are the special dedicated key that examines the laptop utilities like battery management etc these might not be new features on notebooks but since this is my 1st notebook ..i find such little things useful will check out the media players you mentioned but as i have very reliable player already i.e. vlc media so it would be hard to switch to a new one

 

lol well just keep admiring ur new laptop from ur current location....while am having a blast with mine i tried running civilization IV no it the other day and the graphics was abosutely beautiful even at 1680x1050 and it ran amazingly smooth so will be expecting that review...

i wanted to know what is the ram specification cos i would like to max out my ram space..

 

200-pin SODIMM DDR2 no ECC, unbuffered, such as http://www.orcalogic.co.uk/asp/prodtype.asp?prodtype=20855&ft=s&st=2 or http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Products.ASP?CatID=22&FilterCategories=300&Thumbnails=yes.

There's not a lot of difference in performance between the PC4200 (533MHz) and PC5300 (667MHz) RAM because the latter has got higher latency (delay). If you can find PC5300 RAM with CL=4, tell us where.

I'm running with 1GB of Transcend PC4200 (bought last year) + 1GB of Corsair Value Select PC5300 bought a few months ago. Together, they run at 533MHz, but examination of the details suggests that the Corsair RAM has a slightly higher tRAS value than the Transcend.

Does the new X60 come with 2 x 512MB or 1 x 1GB? If the latter, ungrading the RAM doesn't mean putting the old modules into storage. If the former, you might want to try running with 1536MB. Forget the theoretical dual channel business. My own tests showed that this arrangement runs OK. The real advantage of maxing out to 2GB only applies if you are running combinations of applications which will use up all the available RAM.

John

 

I guess you might be interested in this:
HOWTO: Change AVS Hotkeys

It will allow you to redefine the applications launched when you hit one of the media hotkeys.

 

hmm! just briefly went thru ur page....i think i might try it out but was wondering if i change the hotkeys eg the music hotkey to WMP11 then the avs remote is useless? isnt it.

 

1. I would buy PC5300 RAM because the latency is measured in clock steps which, for PC5300, will be shorter than for PC4200, so the real time is about the same. And there may be a small advantage in having the RAM frequency in tune with the FSB.

2. There is some issue with having more than 2GB of RAM. I forget what - maybe it is to do with Windows (so it might be fixed with Vista, or you may need to 64 bit). And until 2GB modules come down a long way in price, the technical issue will remain theoretical for most users. 2GB will help you a lot with your proposed software.

John

 

It seems that Samsung Russia is ahead of the rest of the world in acknowledging the existence of the X60-plus http://www.samsung.ru/products/computers/notebooks/x60plus/x60-plus/?tab=specification. They've got the 120GB HDD, but still have X1600 GPU. Their model has only WXGA display.

John

 

Oh, one thing I haven't mentioned. It doesn't have the 6-in-1 card reader, instead it appears to have only a Sony MemoryStick reader installed.
(even the docs that came with it referenced only a model with the 6-in-1).

No problem for me, the only large flash-based media I have are MS.