Just $799? Wait, unequivocally? Indeed, it’s quite tough to learn that a Samsung QX410 costs under $800, and when you hear about what you get for a income, you’ll understand exactly why. The system not usually packs a little seriously impressive specs — the Core i5 processor, NVIDIA GeForce 310M GPU with Optimus, and a 640GB tough drive – though it’s also got an aluminum lid, washout glass 14-inch arrangement, and is just an in. thick. And on top of all of which, you can tide video to your TV with Intel’s WiDi and get on the quick WiMAX network but an extra dongle. So yeah, upon paper it’s the killer understanding, though after spending the week with a rig do you still feel the same way? Or do we indicate you keep jolt the piggy bank until you can come up with an additional $200 for the Envy 14 or the Dell XPS 14? Find out in our full review! Samsung QX410 examination

Look as well as feel

We have the sneaking guess which the QX410’s squared edges as well as purify grayish aluminum lid were written with a business veteran in mind, but we’re more than fine with a uncomplicated look. Hey, any laptop that ditches silken plastics and odd patterns is a win in the book. However, it’s the actual build of a QX410 which has us unequivocally taken — which aforementioned aluminum lid feels difficult as nails, as well as whilst a metal doesn’t extend to a bottom of a system, a cosmetic underside shows no noticeable bend. Even under a lid, the silver aluminum palmrest as well as set of keys deck look and feel great. Now, we’re not going to say the laptop feels as rigid as the wholly aluminum Envy 14, but it undoubtedly feels improved than a infancy of systems underneath $1,000.

Samsung additionally did the really nice pursuit of gripping the QX410 skinny as well as light. The 1.07-inch laptop is noticeably trimmer than a 1.3-inch Dell XPS 14, and a 5.07-pound system is slightly lighter (0.13 pounds, to be exact) than the Envy 14. We shoved a supply and the AC adapter into the shoulder bag and still had left over space for our Galaxy Tab, a mean turkey sandwich, a Diet Coke, as well as a (predictably empty) wallet. Naturally, a appurtenance is good stocked with ports – a left corner is home to VGA, Ethernet, HDMI, headphone, as well as microphone ports as good as two USB jacks. We’re not the biggest fans of the plastic latch covering a HDMI and USB connectors — it’s clumsy as well as hard to get to them — as well as we’ve consistently wondered because usually these ports got a protective treatment. Were a Ethernet as well as VGA not great enough? The right edge is home to the visual drive, the 5-in-1 media card, as well as a single superfluous USB port.

Keyboard, touchpad as well as shade

There’s something about a curved keys on the QX410’s chiclet keyboard that reminds us a lot of the ones upon the Sony VAIO Z, as well as believe us, that’s the very great thing. Surrounded by an aluminum deck, there’s positively no bend to the row, as well as a matte keys themselves felt good underneath the fingers while writing this review. They’re a small buoyant, but not overly so. There’s a single thing which could have made the set of keys better, of march — the backlight. Above a set of keys are dedicated volume controls and a WiFi upon / off button.

Samsung went ahead as well as put the Synaptics ClickPad, or what it’s calling the SuperButton, upon a QX4120’s palmrest, as well as while we still have some issues with it, it’s one of a best single-button touchpads we’ve used on the PC. Of march, that’s not just observant much given our knowledge with HP as well as Dell’s ClickPads have been less than stellar. It’s still not as great as Synaptics’ subsequent era pad, that we not long ago tested, but keeping our right thumb on a left rodent button as well as our index finger upon a desk pad let us absolutely point and click — it’s when you stray from this positioning which you run into jumping cursor difficulty. The steel desk pad itself is really well-spoken, as well as surprisingly responsive to multitouch gestures – dual finger scrolling was actually really liquid as was pinching-to-zoom in programs similar to Microsoft Word as well as Firefox.

The 14-inch, 1366×768-resolution edge-to-edge arrangement is really good on a eyes. (What is it about a washout displays which just creates things on screen look even better?) A 720p Burlesque trailer looked incredibly crisp and splendid, though we do wish there was an option to compensate the bit some-more for the system with a higher fortitude arrangement. Viewing angles weren’t distressing actually – sharing a screen with a crony didn’t need much composition, while tilting the screen retrograde the bit when examination the couple of YouTube clips didn’t cause too much color distortion. The speakers above a set of keys have been fine for listening to music whilst you work, though they don’t reason a candle to the Dell XPS 14’s JBL speakers when examination the movie or personification the game. In fact, they’re unequivocally not all that shrill or full in comparison to even standard laptop speakers.

Performance and graphics

As you’d design, the QX410’s Core i5-460M processor and NVIDIA GeForce 310M provide rock-solid opening. Bundled with 4GB of IMPEL and the 640GB 5,400rpm hard drive, the machine had no issues handling the common day-to-day activities, including simultaneously essay this review in Word Starter 2010, using Firefox with over 10 tabs open, listening to music in iTunes and monitoring the stirring Twitter feed in TweetDeck. Even when we threw in a DVD a system kept up at a brisk pace. Those thinking this thing would only sail with an SSD would be 100 percent correct, and there’s the latch on a bottom of a system that’ll allow you to pull the 5,400rpm drive out and swap it in for something faster.

 PCMarkVantage 3DMark06
 Battery Life 

Samsung QX410 6062 3807/1967 4:45 

Dell XPS 14 (Core i5-460M, NVIDIA 420M) 5796 6827 / 1955 2:58 

HP Envy 14 (Core i5-450M, ATI HD 5650) 6038 6899/1928 3:51 

Sony VAIO Z (Core i5-450M, NVIDIA 330M) 9949 6193 4:25 

ASUS U33Jc (Core i3-370M, NVIDIA 310M) 5574 3403 / 1860 5:10 

Toshiba Portege R705 (Intel Core i3-350M) 5024 1759 4:25 

On a graphics front, a 310M GPU as well as 512MB of IMPEL seem a bit old-fashioned since a key of the GeForce 400M series, that is in the Dell XPS 14, though it still pushes along internal as well as peep HD calm exquisitely as well as reasonably handles a little mainstream games. We dismissed up Arkham Asylum as well as had Batman kicking Joker’s posse to a belligerent during an average of 26fps. Clearly the draft on top of shows that a graphics opening of the Envy 14 as well as the XPS 14 is about dual which of the QX410, but similar to you pronounced, the excellent for everyday activities — only not tall end gaming. Also, the rig packs NVIDIA’s Optimus, so you didn’t essentially have to crack the switch upon a GPU for those graphics-intensive tasks – a program and hardware combo took care of it all.
The QX410 joins a ASUS U33Jc as being one of a first laptops to combine Intel’s WiDi with a dissimilar GPU. Unfortunately, a wireless arrangement technology doesn’t nonetheless concede you to daub the graphics power, though we had no issues connecting the laptop to the 40-inch Toshiba HDTV with the Netgear Push2TV box and streaming 720p calm (it chokes on 1080p clips). Note which Best Buy doesn’t essentially include a Netgear box with a complement, so you’ll have to flare over an additional $99 at checkout if you wish to stream Modern Family to a large shade.
Battery holdup, WiMax, and software

For a 14-inch laptop with dissimilar graphics, the battery holdup on the QX410 is really considerable. On our battery exam, that loops a same standard clarification video at 65 brightness with WiFi on, a 61Wh six-cell battery lasted four hours and 45 mins with the GPU off. In actual make use of you got closer to five hours as well as 15 minutes, which beats out both a HP Envy 14 and a XPS 14. Unfortunately, there’s no way to essentially swap out the battery, that equates to you better squeeze a coach chair with an opening since there’s going to be no shopping an additional cell.

The QX410 comes versed with an embedded WiMax modem. We were means to burst onto a Sprint / Clear WiMAX network in New York City, buy the $10 pass, as well as enjoy a little solid 4G speeds. In the high rise bureau office building you got an average of 1.24 Mbps download speeds and .33Mbps on a uplink. Out and about the city, speeds were stronger with 1.33Mbps download as well as and .44 Mbps. It’s no LTE, but it’s embedded as well as doesn’t stick out of the laptop similar to the bruise thumb. However, you get WiMAX in place of Bluetooth it seems, that is a definitely downer for those with BT mice and keyboards in their arsenal.

And here comes the major censure about a complement, and which has to do with a volume of program that Samsung bundles with this laptop. It’s only officious vitriolic. The Samsung printed matter contains 11 exclusive programs including, Battery Life Extender, Easy Network Manager, Easy File Share, and lots of others. Samsung, because don’t you just gold those all together into a single killer settings application? Just the suspicion. There’s also other third-party software like CyberLink’s DVD as well as YouCam, as well as because this is the Best Buy model, it comes with Best Buy’s PERSONAL COMPUTER app, which unequivocally just provides the portal to the program store. Oh, and don’t forget Norton Internet Security. Point being, there’s a lot of preloaded things here, as well as your best gamble is to outlay 30 mins uninstalling all a things you’ll never ever make use of to giveaway up space.

Wrap-up

It’s pretty viewable what we’re starting say here: for $799 a QX410 isn’t only the great deal, it’s the good a single. Sure, we knew the specs were impressive, but a machine impresses even more when you get it out of the box, start typing upon the awesome chiclet keyboard, and comprehend you get tip-top performance for over five hours on the assign. Of course, a Envy 14 is done of tougher stuff as well as provides stronger graphics muscle, as well as a XPS 14 has way better speakers, though in conclusion if you want the rapid and svelte mainstream complement for underneath $800, the QX410 is a sure-fire bet.

Via Engadget