Samsung releases brighter, lighter, and longer-lasting notebooks
- — 12 February, 2010 15:00
Samsung yesterday launched its 2010 notebook range high above Sydney Harbour. Using the services of Events in the Sky, a bunch of intrepid tech reviewers and Samsung's fearless notebooks product manager, Emmanuele Silanesu, were hoisted 40m into the air by a 160,000kg crane. Strapped into our seats with no chance of escape, we learned of Samsung's new offerings — the R-Series, the N210 and the N150 — while taking in panoramic views of Sydney and an incoming storm (which never actually hit).
Video of a portion of the presentation.
The new notebooks are said to have longer battery life and higher quality screens, as well as be lighter than competing laptops. Unlike many vendors, Samsung manufactures most of the components that go into its laptops, such as the screen and the battery. Samsung claims this lets it deliver better performance than other vendors in these areas.
The R780 is the powerhouse notebook in the R-Series range, available in either Core i5-520M or Core i5-430M versions, with a 17.3in LCD screen, 4GB of DDR3 SDRAM, a 500GB hard drive and a weight of only 2.64kg. It has a comfortable keyboard with island-style keys, and the touchpad has tiny LEDs at the corners so that you can easily see where it is while using the notebook in the dark. It will be available for around $1599.
If you're after something smaller, the Samsung N150 is a netbook with a 10.1in (1024x600) screen and it uses an Intel Atom N450 CPU. It's approximately 1.24kg, has a 6-cell battery and costs $499.
The Samsung N210 is another 10.1in netbook but it has a larger battery (5900mAh compared to 4400mAh) and is therefore a little heavier at around 1.35kg. It will also be a little more expensive than the N150 — $599 as opposed to $499. All new models will be available from JB HiFi, Bing Lee and The Good Guys.
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