I
f it’s odd to see Samsung’s name on a note-
book, you’ll likely get used to it. While the
company had previously sold its branded
notebooks only overseas, it recently entered the
U.S. market with no fewer than fi ve notebook
lines, ranging from netbooks to the desktop
replacement model we review here, the R610.
Actually, desktop replacement is a bit of
a stretch, unless your expectations are pretty
minimal. Costing little more than a grand, the
R610 is better classifi ed as a budget notebook.
And on fi rst look, you might be impressed
with what can be had for so little cabbage: a
16-inch glossy screen, a large keyboard and
numeric pad, three USB ports, HDMI, dedi-
cated graphics, and a relatively sleek and
lightweight design.
But just a little time using the
R610 is sure to bring out the critic in
any power user. Our fi rst disap-
pointment was with the screen’s
image quality. There’s a very narrow
sweet spot at which the picture looks
good. Stray from that spot either vertically or
horizontally and the colors fade or reverse and
the contrast is diminished—qualities suggesting
this is a 6-bit-color panel, and not a good one at
that. The keyboard feels similarly low rent.
It’s no surprise then that the R610’s perfor-
mance also underwhelms. The machine sports
a little-known Conroe 65nm Core 2 Duo Mobile
CPU dubbed the T5800. The proc runs at 2GHz,which puts it at a
disadvantage against our
aged 2.6GHz zero-point (not to mention
Penryn-based notebooks) in just about every
benchmark. In our content-creation tests, the
R610’s scores were inferior to our zero-point’s
in all but the Photoshop benchmark, where a
larger hard drive and more RAM likely helped
the R610 achieve its 6.8 percent lead. By com-
parison, the HP HDX 18 notebook we reviewed
last month bested our zero-point in all of the
content-creation tests by 15 to 40 percent.
The R610 did score a surprising 33 percent
win against our zero-point in Quake 4. But to
put that win in perspective, the HP HDX 18
from January and the Gateway P-7811 FX we
reviewed in October trampled our test bed
in Quake 4 by 235 percent and 375 percent,
respectively. Furthermore, the R610’s 9200MGS graphics part did not hold up in FEAR, a
better indicator of a chip’s aptitude with more
modern games.
The R610’s 6-cell battery provided us with
two hours and 12 minutes of DVD movie watch-
ing with the machine in power-saving mode.
Despite our criticisms, we’re reticent to say
the R610 is a bad buy. There are obvious signs
of scrimping and performance is not its strong
suit, but we can’t imagine getting much more of
a machine for the price. A power-user notebook
this is not, but it’s a decent deal for serious
bargain hunters. – K A T H E R I N E S T E V E N S O NSamsung R610 Notebook
You get what you pay for
The R610’s
glossy chas-
sis looks
nice—until it’s
covered with
fi ngerprints.IN THE LAB^
REVIEWS OF THE LATEST HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE+ -
VERDICT$1,050, http://www.samsung.com6
A multicore notebook
for $1,000! Well-
rounded amenities.It looks, feels, and
performs like a bud-
get notebook.FIRE SALESAMSUNG R610 NOTEBOOKFIRESTORMSPECIFICATIONS
CPU Intel 2GHz Core 2 Duo Mobile T5800Intel 2GHz Core 2 Duo Mobile T5800
RAM 3GB DDR2/800MHz (2 DIMMs)
CHIPSET Intel PM45
HARD DRIVE 250GB Samsung (5,400rpm)
OPTICAL TEAC DV-W28S-R DVD burner
GPU GeForce 9200M GS
BOOT/DOWN 70 sec/35 sec
LAP/CARRY 6 lbs, 2.2 oz/7lbs, 4.3 oz38.7 fps2,340 sec (-20.5%)4,350 sec (-19.6%)
12 fps (-14.3%)2,515 sec (-3.9%)222 secZERO POINT
1,860 sec
237 sec
2,416 sec
3,498 sec
14 fps
29.1 fpsOur zero-point notebook uses a 2.6GHz Core 2 Duo E6700, 2GB of DDR2/667 RAM, an 80GB hard drive, a GeForce Go 8600M, and Windows Vista Home Premium.Premiere Pro CS3
Photoshop CS3
ProShow Producer
MainConcept
FEAR 1.07
Quake 4
0 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%secsec
222
sec
sec
(-14.3%)(-14.3%)(-20.5%)(-3.9%)
(-19.6%)(-19.6%)fpsfpsVISTA 32-BIT BENCHMARKS88 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| FEB 09 | http://www.maximumpc.com