Describing its X360 as 'lighter than air', Samsung is looking to persuade potential buyers that there are alternatives to the MacBook Air. At 1.29kg, the X360 is only a smidgen lighter than the Air, but it's also substantially cheaper than the equivalent SSD MacBook, at around £1,300, and includes a host of features that Apple charges extra for.
Design
With its smart red and black chassis, the diminutive X360 makes a good first impression, and it's clearly designed with portability in mind. Ports are kept to a minimum, with the chassis home to just VGA, HDMI, gigabit LAN and three USB sockets. These are joined by a 34mm ExpressCard slot on the left and a multi-format card reader on the right.
Samsung's desire to take on the lightweight Air also means there's no DVD drive, although you do get an external USB model included in the price.
Open the lid and you're greeted by a very Air-esque keyboard, with each key poking out from its own slot in the chassis. The keyboard isn't particularly comfortable, however. We found the flat, plasticky keys too slippery to type on at speed, while the cramped shift and arrow keys on the right-hand side proved similarly tricky to master. If you're prone to forgetting passwords, the fingerprint reader, at the bottom right of the keyboard, lets you log on with nothing more than the swipe of a pinky.
Features
Like the £1,760 MacBook Air, the X360 comes with a 128GB solid-state drive. Although the actual performance benefits of SSDs are debatable, they place less of a demand on the battery compared to traditional hard disks. They're also very expensive, however, so Samsung has done well to include a 128GB model at this price.
Another power-saving feature is the display, which uses an LED backlight. Measuring 13.3 inches and with a resolution of 1,280x800 pixels, it's impressively bright -- your eyes will soon start complaining when it's at full whack. Horizontal viewing angles are also good, but vertical angles aren't so impressive -- tilt the screen up or down by even a small amount and clarity will be lost.
Being a Centrino 2 laptop, you also get 802.11n Wi-Fi, while other extras include Bluetooth and a built-in webcam.
Performance
Samsung was clearly aiming for decent battery life with the X360, and the Intel Core 2 Duo U9300 certainly doesn't place much strain on the six-cell battery. But, while it's not particularly power-hungry, neither is it going to impress performance-wise. With a clock speed of just 1.2GHz, this processor won't thank you for troubling it with intensive applications such as video editing. That said, multi-tasking more basic applications within the installed Windows Vista Business isn't a problem.
Combined with 3GB of RAM and Intel's GMA X4500 graphics chipset, the X360 scored 3,322 in PCMark05 -- had it not been for the SSD, its score would most likely have been much worse. It really suffered in 3DMark06, though, only managing a miserable 676. Needless to say, playing the latest games on this laptop isn't an option.
If battery life is more your thing, the X360 will most definitely appeal. Samsung quotes up to 10 hours of use from a single charge, and, in Battery Eater's undemanding Reader's test, we managed 9 hours and 31 minutes. If you plan on doing more than slowly scrolling through a word document, around 6 hours' use is more likely. Battery Eater's more aggressive Classic test exhausted the battery in 5 hours and 6 minutes, which is hugely impressive for such a light laptop.
Conclusion
The Samsung X360's lightweight design and extra-long battery life are its main attractions, and, while Samsung couldn't squeeze a DVD drive into the chassis, it has found room in the budget for an external model. Similarly impressive, at this price, is the inclusion of a 128GB SSD.
Build quality is acceptable but, if you're expecting something similar to the aluminium-clad MacBook Air, you'll be disappointed. On the whole, though, this is a decent effort from Samsung.
If you can stomach a slight drop in screen size, however, Sony's Vaio TT series is well worth a look. Only slightly heavier, the TT has the bonus of a built-in DVD drive, which may be enough to swing it for some.
Edited by Charles Kloet
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Colin Baglow 13 November 2010
Good: Very Light, super bright screen, All day wires free use, SSD drive
Bad: Intel graphics slow and sometimes unstable (win 7), otherwise none
Comment: I've owned a few different laptops over the years, I was lucky enough to get a refurb one cheap and have to say that is one of the best I've had. It's a fantastic little workhorse.
The LED screen has a great brightness (only have mine on half way and still plenty bright enough!)
The SSD 128GB drive gives the whole laptop a lift in performance.
Keyboard has nicely spaced keys (I think), making typing a breeze. Though that said it does take a while to get used to some keys being in slightly different places compared to bigger laptops.
Battery life (with the Bluetooth disabled) is again great. It's nice not to have to go looking for your charger every few hours!
Dropped Vista like a hot rock and installed Win 7. :)
The only things I found a little lacking is the fingerprint part a little unnecessary and unreliable.
The CPU (s) are a little slow and coupled with it's poor graphics ability it kind of rules out any major game playing.
I have had many problems with getting the Win 7 drivers to be 100% happy, with problems ranging from complete 'lock ups' and failure to output fully though HDMI (video but no sound)
So apart from the complaints of the graphics and processor there is still something about this laptops ability to perform well above other models in it's class.
I have tried to think about changing it for a new i3 or even a i5 but I have tested a couple i3 laptops with standard HDD's recently and have still noticed the speed difference's on data transfer, start times and general all round performance.
So until this can be replicated (reasonably priced!) by a 15.6" laptop. I'll hang onto this old girl ;)
pauldy1000 2 March 2009
Good: Lightweight; Vista business works well; Bright screen; clear screen; battery life; silent; connectivity; much more.
Bad: Nothing yet
Comment: Introduction
I was looking around for a new laptop as I was disgruntled at having to carry around the company’s heavy Lenovo laptop. When I had all my gear in my rucksack, it was so heavy I was getting backache by the end of the week. Time for a change, time for me to buy my own.
Knowing I would not be able to get a blindingly powerful laptop which is light weight and sensible cost I set up my own buying criteria as follows:
My criteria: Lightweight; long battery life; reasonable performance for office work, software engineering work, running virtual machines and so on; reasonable screen clarity and resolution; connectivity-rich.
I researched for quite a while and stumbled across the Samsung X360 which looked a really good fit for my criteria. I read a lot of reviews most of which confirmed that the CPU power was very good for non-CPU intensive work but perhaps not so good for activities such as video editing. For me this was fine as I have powerful desktops for that sort of thing. All other features of the device looked fine for my requirements. I decided to buy one and www.oyyy.co.uk duly delivered the product on time.
I have owned the laptop for around 2 weeks and have used it almost every day.
Summaries
Dislikes: Hmmm, tricky one. I cannot think of a single thing I dislike about this laptop. Really, I can’t.
Likes: Lightweight; Vista business works well; Bright screen; clear screen; battery life; silent; connectivity; much more.
Commentary
It just works; Vista Business seems to work well - I have not had a single lock-up and all the applications run as fast as I need. I installed Open Office which runs perfectly (expected) which saves me a few(!!) pounds for other software which can be expensive.
The screen is extremely bright; I have to turn it down every time I boot. The reviews explained that it is so bright you cannot work at that output level of light. I took that comment “with a pinch of salt” but have since discovered they are right – you can’t. The screen is extremely clear the resolution of 1280x800 works well with the LED type display – the delightful clarity quite surprised me.
The battery life is extraordinary. If I set the battery scheme to power-save and reduce the screen brightness a little the battery really does last over 8 hours – quite extraordinary. I can also choose the high performance profile and also a kind of hybrid profile too. I have discovered that if I leave the power setting on high performance and work constantly with the laptop I still get 4 hours work before the battery complains.
The laptop is eerily silent – I think there is a fan inside which sometimes kicks-in but it is really quiet. Clearly, this has a lot to do with having a solid-state disk drive but I didn’t really comprehend how nice it is with no noise from the laptop.
Connectivity offered by the laptop is excellent – once the appropriate wireless keys have been entered once, all my wireless LANs connect straight away with no fuss whatsoever. I use a Bluetooth mouse which connects instantly and has never failed. I use the Vodafone mobile internet modem stick (E172?) and again this works brilliantly with the laptop giving me Internet wherever I go, basically.
The disk drive is fast. Given the CPU speed is 1.2GHz the laptop feels quick and light. Windows open fast and I haven’t experienced any finger-drumming-on-the-table delays.
Finally
As you can probably tell, I really like this laptop. It performs well against my criteria and looks extremely good too. I have had no problems with this laptop nor have I found anything irritating about it either. I am delighted I chose to spend my money on this laptop and would recommend it to anyone as long as their criteria are similar to the ones outlined at the top of this review.
Background: I am a Software Engineer / Business Analyst in England, have been working in IT for 27 years and using laptops for over 15 years.
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