samsung quality, heat and noise

john ratsey recently pointed me to the new Samsung X65, and i have to say i was sold almost immediately. its exactly the type of machine i am going for.

i was previously contemplating asus, and based on word of mouth and previous experience with ASUS products i was confident of their build quality and cooling solutions. though the more powerful GPU's in their machines might lead to more heat and thus noise.

so whats the build quality of samsungs laptops like? in particular the X60/X60plus since they will be preceeding the new X65?

i am an mechanical engineering student and i must say, a bit of a perfectionist (though not with my writing) and i do appreciate a very well made bit of kit.

how sturdy is their construction? do they have solid keyboards? tight shut lines?

whats the noise levels like? heat level? do any areas get signifcantly hot? are the cooling systems refined? (i can deal with "woosh" from moving air...but rattly harsh fan bearings do my nut)

how about the LCD? hows the backlight bleeding? colour reproduction? does the screen flex or are they quite rigid? do the hinges wear easily or do they maintain a useful stiffness a significant time?

sorry for all the questions, but given the wedge i am prepared to spend...i want something that i will like and if its well engineered and quiet...i will like it.

if you would like to post some indepth quality discussion...go for it. im all ears.

 

First, have you read the reviews of the X60 / plus? My X60 review was originally posted in April 06 and then updated about 6 months later.

The fan on my X60 plus is on most of the time but it is a woosh not a whine. I have undervolted the CPU so the fan rarely goes above the lowest speed. Samsung use real fans which have some thickness to them so they run more slowly and quietly than the propeller-type fans in some slim notebooks.

The underside gets warm, but not hot. Perhaps the warmest place is the left palm rest. I have my remote control stored in the PC card slot. Taking that out reduces the amount of heat coming up to the palm rest. The HDD is under the right palm rest and stays cool. It is quite probable that the Nvidia GPU in the X65 plus will be more power-efficient that the ATI GPUs and reduce the heat a little.

The overall build quality is good. There is a metal alloy chassis and it is no problem to pick up the open computer by one of the front corners. The hinges on my X60 plus have a little looseness over 6 months - there is now about 5mm play at the top of the screen. The display itself has a metal alloy back (apart from a plastic section at the top where the antennae are located) and provides very good protection to the LCD panel.

While reviewing the R20 I noticed that its keyboard is a little better, because it has more travel, than the X60 keyboard. That's a disadvantage of a slim machine. But there is no problem of keys marking the display during transport, which I have seen on some other notebooks. I should point out that Samsung have followed IBM / Lenovo in putting the Fn key in the bottom left corner. I am used to this, but some people strongly believe that the Ctrl key should take the corner position.

The LCD is good although I found the R20's LCD to have more contrast (see the R20 review for a comparison). LCDs are being continuously improved and it is quite likely that whatever goes into the X65 will be a little better than the X60 plus. The backlighting is slightly uneven with a little bleeed at the bottom, but this is not obvious in normal use.

My three grumbles about the X60 plus are: (a) failure to get the GPU's power management working; (b) keyboard wear; and (c) I would like a smaller PSU. I hope the Nvidia GPU will address (a), having a black unpainted keyboard fixes (b) but it is unlikely that we will see a smaller PSU since Samsung seem to use either 60W and 90W.

I've said enough for now. Let others comment.

John

 

all I am writing here relates to the X60:

1. Display
a) bleeding: unnoticable under daily use, but you might find some (really minor) in a targetted setup (black screen, dark room, max. backlight) towards the bottom of the screen.
b) The backlight is somewhat weak. Sitting in a room when the sun is shining towards you (yeah, it's finally summer time) makes me unable to see the details in certain games. For work of course it's perfectly enough.

For the X65 I expect the display to be just better if not the same.

2. Heat/Noise: Under office work the fan goes on and off, but only on the lowest RPM. If both cores are under maximum load the fan is running on medium RPM which is still inside a comfortable noise. If the GPU is running under load the fan is doing its maximum. This noise is already something you'll notice easily, but hardly annoying during the games. Actually the game sounds from the notebook's speakers easily outperforms the fan noise. The HDD (HTS541010G9SA00) is a bit noisier than others, but I find it acceptable. However, you can hear it during the night. My brother's 5 year old notebook HDD is completely silent in the same scenario for example.

3. Build quality: I did not notice even the slightest issue with the quality. As I already posted, the keyboard color is still perfect, the casing does not make any visible or audible sign of imperfection even if lifting it by grabbing just one of the front corners of the laptop.

Overall - based on my current experience with my X60 - I would say an X65 might be a very good choice. This is however to be taken with a grain of salt & pepper, because as others pointed out, the build quality of the X60Plus is less than perfect.

 

Regarding the general picture, German IT magazine c't regularly surveys its readership to determine hardware and service quality (repairs covered by warranty etc.), latest results are available here (in German, but the charts pretty much sum up the findings).
The results probably aren't representative because it's mostly techies, and people unhappy with their gear are more likely to take part, but the raw figures are still interesting.

In short, the results aren't very flattering for Asus, while Samsung takes one of the top spots (just below IBM/Lenovo and Dell, most of the time).

 

My X60 and X60plus both came with Fujitsu HDDs. The Hitachi HDDs (my Q35 came with one) are noisier due to faster head movement for best performance but there is an acoustic management option in Hitachi's Feature Tool software. I'm currently using a 160GB Samsung HDD and I've just ordered a 250GB model. I am always short of space and more room means I can try a dual boot with Vista. Samsung's own HDDs are cool and quiet and only fractionally down on performance compared with the Hitachi HDDs.

John

 

it seems abit odd that samsung dont use their own drives in their own product lol

WD just released a 250gb 5400rpm perpendicular drive...that should be able to keep up or even best current 7200rpm drives just through sheer density.

i hate it when hard drive.... humm and throb, this 80gig WD i have my computer at home throbs, it goes in an out of resonance with the case as it does it too so you get this type of effect

mmmmmmmMMMMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmmm...............mmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmmm..............mmmmmmmmmmMMMMMMMMmmmmmmmm..............

i dont mind clicking, so long as it doesnt sound like your mixing a barrel of scrap metal. before i sold it, my monster rig always used samsung spinpoints they were quiet, cool and you could barely hear them in operation and the performance was pretty good.

 

I don't know why Samsung don't use thier own HDDs. Maybe they can sell them for more money than they pay to buy HDDs from others? Or maybe they have some old contracts to honour. They have ramped up production of 2.5" HDDs in the last year and are now a leader, not follower in the HDD business. I've got a couple of review by Digit Life suggests that the latest models run hot. I think Hitach and Fujitsu are also now producing, or are about to prodiuce, 5400rpm 250GB, so there will be plenty of choice.

John