13.3" laptop please

chrismscotland · 13 Nov 2010 at 19:07

sja360 said:
what OS and ram do you have in it atm?

Running Windows XP but only the standard 1GB RAM

Chapple · 15 Nov 2010 at 18:22

Anyone got anything good to say about the Samsung SF310?

I'm seriously tempted to splash out on one of these...

Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium (64b)
13.3" LED HD (1366 x 768) 16:9 Gloss
Intel® Core™ i5 Processor 460M (2.53GHz, 3MB)
Intel HM55
4GB (DDR3 / on BD 2GB + 2GB)
NVIDIA GeForce 310M (Ext. Graphic) / 512MB gDDR3 (Ext. Graphic)
320GB (5400rpm S-ATA)

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/.../NP-SF310-S02UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail

Price looks to be around £750. With the Lenovo Y460 seemingly not heading to the UK, are there any other sleek, stylish 13.3" laptops out there that I've missed? I'm willing to spend extra money in a trade off between size/spec (i.e. paying more money for a smaller laptop that packs a punch).

Ta

.

kevpuk · 15 Nov 2010 at 21:43

There is an Acer 3820 variant with 5650 gfx for similar money, I believe....for the money, this and the Sammy may well be best bet, unless you want to spend plenty on Vaio Z series

chrismscotland · 15 Nov 2010 at 22:08

I've Googleed the 8371 and looked at the cheapest options under shopping but are they trust worthy?

sja360 · 16 Nov 2010 at 00:18

im pretty sure most people from here have bought it for £349.99 so if you find it at that price (exc del) then that website to me and most likely others is reputable and wont screw you over.

hideki · 16 Nov 2010 at 02:06

How capable is the CPU in the 8371? It looks pretty weak.
Can it run Windows 7 smoothly, maybe something like Visual Studio?

LadFromWales · 16 Nov 2010 at 02:25

Just ordered the 8371 and USB drive and next day delivery for £378.56 using the 2.5% off coupon

Almost ordered the TZ4810G but decided I care more about Bluetooth and a faster processor than I do about an internal optical drive and added bulk.

Looking forward to it arriving!

chrismscotland · 16 Nov 2010 at 07:25

sja360 said:
im pretty sure most people from here have bought it for £349.99 so if you find it at that price (exc del) then that website to me and most likely others is reputable and wont screw you over.

Cheers mate, I'm tempted to order it and give it a try next to my HP mini to see what I think, got some more RAM coming today for my HP Mini so will see what I think once that is added.

haz_pro · 16 Nov 2010 at 11:32

hideki said:
How capable is the CPU in the 8371? It looks pretty weak.
Can it run Windows 7 smoothly, maybe something like Visual Studio?

It runs windows 7 64bit professional very smoothly. I havent used visual studio but i use eclipse on a daily basis and its fine, when developing android apps the android virtual device takes a while to load, but only about 10 seconds longer than on my 2.1 dual core amd 2gb ram HP laptop!

Feel free to ask any more questions.

e36Adz · 16 Nov 2010 at 12:23

hideki said:
How capable is the CPU in the 8371? It looks pretty weak.
Can it run Windows 7 smoothly, maybe something like Visual Studio?

It's a low voltage intel 1.4 dual core cpu, and it handles Win 7 64 bit exceptionally well. You can also get 7-8 hrs out of the battery.

Just to give you some idea so you can compare to what you currently use, the windows index experience looks something like this:

That's with a crucial S300 SSD installed.

hideki · 16 Nov 2010 at 12:58

haz_pro said:
It runs windows 7 64bit professional very smoothly. I havent used visual studio but i use eclipse on a daily basis and its fine, when developing android apps the android virtual device takes a while to load, but only about 10 seconds longer than on my 2.1 dual core amd 2gb ram HP laptop!

Feel free to ask any more questions.

e36Adz said:
It's a low voltage intel 1.4 dual core cpu, and it handles Win 7 64 bit exceptionally well. You can also get 7-8 hrs out of the battery.

Just to give you some idea so you can compare to what you currently use, the windows index experience looks something like this:

That's with a crucial S300 SSD installed.

Thanks guys.
That laptop does look like a good deal, I was just worried it wouldn't be capable under load.

What if any is upgrade potential, apart from the hdd?

ninja2000 · 16 Nov 2010 at 13:26

realistically you can upgrade the HDD/RAM/WIFI, thats about it.

lewism · 16 Nov 2010 at 17:38

Just opened mines, got it yesterday after ordering on friday. Fantastic service from them 24/7

What a cracking looking and feeling laptop. Havent started it up yet but it feels like a really nice peice of kit. lovely to look at as well. Might swap in an SSD if I feel like it. Very impressed for the price i paid.

chrismscotland · 16 Nov 2010 at 17:57

lewism said:
Just opened mines, got it yesterday after ordering on friday. Fantastic service from them 24/7

What a cracking looking and feeling laptop. Havent started it up yet but it feels like a really nice peice of kit. lovely to look at as well. Might swap in an SSD if I feel like it. Very impressed for the price i paid.

Going to be trying any games on it?

kevpuk · 16 Nov 2010 at 22:23

lewism said:
...Fantastic service from them 24/7

LOL - dangerously flirting there

lewism said:
What a cracking looking and feeling laptop......it feels like a really nice peice of kit. lovely to look at as well......Very impressed for the price i paid.

Yep - have to agree ! Really nice to have something other than the usual generic plasticky cases...feels very solid/substantial and the alloy is a nice touch. I guess we all have to remember that this model was circa. £800 on release, a year or so back !

e36Adz · 16 Nov 2010 at 22:42

hideki said:
Thanks guys.
That laptop does look like a good deal, I was just worried it wouldn't be capable under load.

What if any is upgrade potential, apart from the hdd?

I would say just the HDD really to SSD, which gives it a nice boost especially when booting up windows. You can probably get 8GB ram in it too but I doubt anyone needing that much ram would be using a laptop like this anyway.

lewism said:
What a cracking looking and feeling laptop. Havent started it up yet but it feels like a really nice peice of kit. lovely to look at as well. Might swap in an SSD if I feel like it. Very impressed for the price i paid.

You won't regret it. Cost me £440 total for the laptop plus a 64GB crucial SSD - and you can use the 320GB as an external usb drive.

chrismscotland said:
Going to be trying any games on it?

Just been playing UT3 on a lowish res at medium settings, looks 'ok' and plays really well.

SuperPi score 1M - 33 seconds

If anyone has a netbook or portable laptop, please run SuperPI and post the score and CPU. It should give people a rough idea how this dual core 1.4 performs.

ninja2000 · 17 Nov 2010 at 09:25

Guys, what is the screen quality like? I am thinking about picking one of these up for movie watching/surfing/light photo editing and really want something with a decent screen.

I am more bothered about blacks/colour saturation rather than viewing angles.
Thanks

sja360 · 17 Nov 2010 at 15:07

well my old T7500 2.2Ghz Core 2 Duo gets 24 seconds in superpi. i think 33 seconds is really quite quick for that speed of CPU.

sja360 · 17 Nov 2010 at 15:59

i bit the bullet, i've got one on order. put in for next day delivery so i hope it comes tomorrow..
cant wait to use a smaller display. my 15 inch display looks huge and is rather clunky for moving about tbh. also looking forward to some graphics power compared to my intel x3100

kevpuk · 17 Nov 2010 at 18:06

sja360 said:
i bit the bullet, i've got one on order. put in for next day delivery so i hope it comes tomorrow....

Good man, sure you will be as delighted as the rest of us