With such a short amount of time it’s really impossible to say anything definitive about the new Samsung Series 5 Ultrabooks but I’ve had a chance to have some uninterrupted time with the two devices at the Samsung Media Lounge here at CES and the devices do seem well-rounded. I’m especially impressed with the keyboard, ports and Wi-Di . If you’re thinking about the Acer S3, I would advise to wait for the NP530.
More images and two overview videos below.
As you can see on the underside, there’s HDD and Memory access making it easier to upgrade to an SSD if required.
Full gallery set is available here.
The 13” and 14” Series 5 devices compared:
Samsung Series 5 13” Video Overview
Not interested in ANY Ultrabooks with an HDD+SSD combo until one of them shows it can boot a machine from a complete power-off state into Windows at a comparable time to a machine with real SSD storage. I really HATE to see these devices (ACER, SAMSUNG) ESPECIALLY at this price. The Toshiba Z830 is cheaper than both of them and manages to have a 120GB SSD; I’d far rather see a lower performing SSD like in the Toshiba than one of these duct tape combo solutions especially at the 899-999 price point. If you’re going to release a $700 Ultrabook then by all means release a combo drive solution.
The 6 hour battery also missed the mark by 2 hours for me.
The port selection is almost perfect, though; I like the pop-down gigE port as a solution.
BRAVO to Samsung for allowing you to remove the hard drive and memory; this proves that it can be done; the other MFGRs have no excuse now.
The Samsung Series 5 should NOT be called an Ultrabook, IMO but they HAVE filled a completely under-served niche by providing a thin and relatively light (but still heavy compared to a real ultrabook) 15″ device AND the discrete graphics option is a huge bonus, albeit one that won’t make as much sense when IvyBridge launches.
I agree 100% that if you were considering the Acer Ultrabook it really makes no sense if you can get a Samsung 5 for the same price. (USB 3, removable drive and memory bay, & 2 hour better battery life.) Acer launched first but they launched with a lemon of an ultrabook.
The only unforgivable sin from the 13″ Samsung 5 series for me is the combo SDD+HDD in a $1000 computer; Toshiba is showing you up and is showing you how to do it right; go with a cheaper SSD part! Those low latencies are WORTH IT and make apps launch snappy speedy, they’re silent, and you don’t have to worry about chucking your laptop in the passenger seat and having head crash ruin your disk if the laptop woke from sleep.
Friends don’t let friends by Ultrabooks with spinning hard drives!
Edit; I meant to say that the 15″, DVD and discrete GPU wielding Samsung 5 should NOT be called an Ultrabook; it would be like my 6’4″, 350lb friend buying small sized, slim-cut clothing; it just doesn’t fit; implying that it “fits ok” is a kind of awkward conversation to have. -One of these things is clearly NOT like the others…
Just tested the HDD versions of the Series 5. it boots in 24 seconds.