Customer Reviews

Samsung X360-34G 13.3-Inch Laptop (1.2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 Centrino 2 Processor, 3 GB RAM, 120 GB Hard Drive, Vista Business)

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Since the last review on here wasn't helpful because the owner apparently didn't own the laptop, I will give my review for it. I wanted a laptop that I could easily carry around and do everything I needed without being so heavy. I've had it for about a month now, and here are my thoughts:

PROS:
- Extremely light, right away you will notice how light the laptop is. To me, the bulk of the weight is just the battery itself. The battery strangely felt heavier than the laptop. But since the laptop is so light, you can easily feel all the weight of the laptop at the back of it, throwing off the weight when you're carrying it. Obviously, this isn't a problem when the laptop sits on a table.
- Long battery life. Initially I had the Samsung X360 set to the Samsung's preferred power settings, and with a full battery, it has a life of about 5 hours. I then changed the power settings to maximum power savings settings, and the battery lasted it about 6-7 hours.
- The LED screen is beautiful and extremely bright and sharp. I'm pretty much blind as a bat, but the 13.3 inch screen is plenty big enough to see everything without having to squint. I usually like having my screens as bright as possible, but with the Samsung X360, I had to set it to medium since the brightness was hurting my eyes.
- Built-in webcam, card readers, thumbprint scanner, HDMI... lots of fun extras to play with.
- The keyboard was actually very large and easy to type on. Made is comfortable unlike those flushed Mac keyboards.
- For the price I paid, I did wish it ran a whole lot faster, but it gives me no problems in performance for the things I use it for (internet, Office, Photoshop).

CONS:
- Get ready to wipe off a whole lot of fingerprints from Samsung's Glossy black piano finish.
- No optical drive. But it really isn't a major problem since I rarely do ever use DVDs or CDs anymore because the price of thumb drives and flash drives are so cheap now. To install my software, all I had to do with copy my software over to a usb flash drive, then installed it from there.
- The graphics card isn't anything too impressive. Definitely not good enough to game on, but if you want a gaming laptop, just get the XPS. The Samsung's purpose is just to be a light, portable laptop, the PC's version of the Macbook Air.

I would've given it 5 out of 5 stars if the price was a whole lot cheaper when I bought it, it is a pricey but beautiful laptop.

PS. I think the rebate expired on February 28.

I never write reviews, I barely even read reviews, but I feel compelled to write something here because the majority of reviewers for this product don't know nearly enough about computers to warrant any criticism. This is an ULTRAPORTABLE ... it's supposed to compete against laptops like the Macbook Air, the Lenovo X61s, and Sony TT. If you look at ANY of these laptops, they're significantly more expensive, have less features, and ARE NOT supposed to be used for gaming or heavy multimedia use. Have any of you even picked up a 2.8lb laptop??! It's really freakin' light...so obviously they had to compromise on SOME features.

This laptop is actually really amazing. Google it, read up on review websites like [...], and you'll see that it trumps the competition.

p.s. The hertz cpu value says barely anything about the quality of the processor. The Su9300 is actually the latest generation, and is very efficient (hence, the 5hrs+ battery life). If we went strictly by hertz, then the $99 dell 9 inch laptop (@1.6 ghz) would be faster.

Wow, only one other reviewer really knows what an ultraportable laptop is. I keep reading other reviewers comments on this and I wanted to take a second to bring some actual insight to what you are getting here. This isn't an old machine like so many others claim. In fact, the CPU just came out. This isn't some garbage Intel Atom processor, it's a Core 2 Duo with 3mb L2 Cache. This isn't just 3GB of memory, it's 3GB of DDR3 RAM...more than enough to power through Vista. If you are really concerned just throw Windows 7 or XP Pro on here.

This thing is lighter than most Netbooks and will completely dominate them in performance. Not only is it lighter than a Netbook, it has a 13.3" 1280x800 display, Bluetooth 2.0, long battery life, Gigabit Ethernet, Vista Business, an extremely bright LED backlit display, and a magnesium alloy case.

[...]

I bought this laptop four days before writing this review. I wanted to be sure I was not just overwhelmed at the laptop before writing this review.

First off I want to add that I wanted a laptop that was small, light weight, could use outside without the light negating the screen, had a long battery life and that I could write code on. I say write code on as I am a database developer and use Microsoft's Visual Studio and SQL Server products on a daily basis.

After installing all the software I use, and using it for the last four days, all I can say is that it is almost the perfect laptop.

What is not perfect about it? Well it does not have a CD or DVD player on it (I can live without but nice to have), it is thicker in the back part than what the images show online.

Other than that, it is the best laptop I have ever owned. To give you an idea of laptops I have owned in the last five years, I have owned Toshiba Sattelite, Toshiba Portege, Sony VAIO (both 17" and 12"), and a Dell XPS 13.3". The Dell was my last purchase and I found it very heavy, battery life was terrible, and I could not see the screen un-plugged even inside.

BTW, the LED back lit screen is the most awesome thing I have experienced on this laptop yet.

I would have given it 6 stars if that were possible.
My long quest for a notebook has ended with the purchase of this amazing machine. I marvel at the ingenuity that went into designing this notebook every time I pick it up.
Pros: way too many but I will try and list some important and a few obscure ones.
1. Finger print scanner: Works like a charm. I am so used to it on my desktop; not having it was not an option. If you use it, then DO NOT UPGRADE IE7 to IE8. Current software will not work with the new IE.I had to go back to IE7.

2. HDMI: worked right away when connected to 5 yr old Sony HDTV (SXRD, yeah, they don't make them any more).

3. Weight: LIGHT LIGHT LIGHT: Makes a big difference when lugging bags thru airports.

4. 13.3 screen size is perfect for the resolution, any smaller would be a waste and larger size would not be as sharp. Very bright and readable outdoors.

5. Battery: Seems to go on forever. This combined with weight and screen size was my biggest concern. 7-8 hrs is usual for me (I do not game, so running on Samsung power saver still gets me enough oomph)

6. SD card reader, not unique to this notebook, but coming from a MacBook Pro 15" it was a welcome addition.

7. No bloatware, just the thoughtful utilities you need.

8. Wireless a/b/g/n; all computers at home are on "N", so this helped in not slowing everything down.

9. Screen folds back 180 degrees. Makes life so much simpler.

10. Quiet: Whisper quiet and cool, I have never owned a laptop/notebook this cool.

11. Price: Truth be told, I was about to buy the $2400+ version when I read about the sale on engadget and lucked out with getting one when it was on sale for $749 for the 120GB model. For $1750 less, I can live without the SSD.

12. Looks: This is subjective but I love the color scheme, matches my HTC Touch diamond from sprint. I still would have bought it if it were ugly beige (or neon yellow for that matter), looks are not that important to me, but it is nice to have a good looking computer on top of all the must have features.

13. P-dock, not that important to me, but good to know it is there if I ever have to work out of an office.

CONS:
1. Bright blinking blue LED in sleep mode, I wish there was a way to turn it off.

2. Bluetooth: Takes me several attempts to pair up Stereo Bluetooth headset. It could be me, headset or the notebook. A work in progress. Everything else pairs up without a hitch.

3. Optical drive: Not an issue for me, may be for some. If that is important to you, you can "backup" movies as .iso image to hard drive and mount them with any number of available free software. With 32GB SD cards, transferring data should not be an issue.

4. Vista: This was a sticking point for me and I was going to "UP/Down-grade" to XP. But I have to be honest; this is not the Vista I had tried a few years back. I will keep the Vista Business ultimate.

5. No backlit keyboard.

6. No dedicated wireless switch.

All in all, this is the lightest 13.3 incher, capable, feature rich and good looking notebook that has a great screen and incredible battery life.

First off, I was a samsung nc10 netbook user and I was very very happy with it that I got rid of my main laptop which sported 4gb ram and core 2 duo processor. The main reason that I embraced samsung nc10 was the lightness, battery life and portability of it. Ever since I saw someone using it, I fell it love with it and I had to buy one to try it out. After using for about 2 weeks, I said to myself that I would never go back to a big laptop that weighed too much or the overall size is too big.


On my 3rd months of usage, I came across this x360-34g and the price was reasonable considering the fact that it had a core 2 duo processor, 3 gb ram, vista(which I love), and most importantly, weight of 2.9 lbs and its thinness.

I waited until the price would go further down, but it didn't. Then, the amazon was out of stock. I missed out on the deal. But I got a great deal on ebay a few days later and scored one of these.


Pros
-Very light (as light as any netbook you see in the market)
-Thin, so it doesn't feel bulky even with the 13.3 inch screen
-Piano black finish is just elegant
-Red brushed-metal first worried me a little because I am a guy with 200lbs of meat. But, it looks much better in person than in photos. The red is more like a darkish red/maroon and it's not a solid red color. It has streaks going from side to side so it makes it look more stylish and it would even camouflage any scratches you would get from normal use. (can't vouch for it, but I am guessing so)
-camera works fine, up-to-par quality in video chat
-Chicklet keyboard is awesome. I've always loved it on my gf's macbook. It just feels so comfortable and it actually makes me type a little faster than other keyboard.
-3 usb, 1HDMI, SD slot, etc, etc
-HDMI is a must if you want to use a big monitor/TV as an output and this little machine has it!
-From 100% charge, I watched a 2 hour divx movie with full volume and it still had 76% battery left. I couldn't believe it because that was actually better than how my nc10 fared. It was just one test, so I don't think it's a definitive benchmark, but I was impressed. I expected to see 30~40% battery, but it was a good surprise
-cool blue leds on power button and indicator lights
-Bright Screen - Brighter than any other screen I've had. I have to lower it down to 2 bars to feel comfortable.
-Finger print reader, just cool. But I don't plan on using it since I don't have any personal stuff in my computer.
-Intuitive Function (FN) key layout.
-C2D processor feels much much faster than the atom processor I've used (of course). It doesn't feel any slower than my previous c2d processor that had 2.0 ghz if the task is not too intensive(I haven't gotten to a point where I felt the computer was slowing down because of 1.2 ghz speed yet)
-nice little rubber paddings between the screen and the body. They prvent rubbing/scratching of the plastics parts on the screen and the body. I've had sony computer without these rubber pieces and the inside of the laptop was full of little scratches and rubbing marks.
-cool thing - battery indicator on the bottom of the laptop. Useful = don't know.
-Price is awesome for a fast, lightweight, ultracompact laptop.


Cons
-Glossy screen sometimes bothers me if there's a direct light coming from the back. But tilting the screen gets rid of the glares most of the time.
-Hard drive is a little on the small side.
-power cord jack is in the back right corner. I cant plug it right in unless I turn the laptop a little to see the hole.

I tried to write an honest review of this product. I usually don't go out of my way to write a review, but when I am impressed by something, I tend to find a tme to write a review. I actually went ahead and sold my nc10 because this x360-34g is as portable and compact as nc10 is.

This is definitely bigger than nc10, but it is thinner than nc10 so in some way, it makes up for the overall size. when I first opened the box, I couldn't believe that this was a 13.3 inch laptop because it felt very compact due to the thinness.

If you have netbook and you are fed up with its weak processor and ram limitation, this one definitely suit you better. I am so glad that I've got this and got rid of my nc10. I was very happy with nc10, but this one is more versatile in every aspect.

ultracompact laptop that performs!
If you have any specific question to ask about x360-34g, feel free to write me an email. I would be more than glad to help you out.

I have owned many computers over the last 25 years, starting with an IBM "personal portable" which had the size and portability of small refridgerator ;-}. High points have included the Compaq Aero of the late 1980s, the pioneering sub 3 lb Sony Vaio TS of the late 1990s and the shiny ultralight Toshiba M300 Portege of the early 2000s: in my view this Samsung X360 is the best of the lot, the shizzle when it comes to ultralight laptops. For me the key issues are its lightness (scarcely over a kilogram), its large very bright 13.3 screen, its seven hour battery life, and its solid build quality. The only possible thing might have been if it also included an optical drive, but that might have meant it was less svelte, light, and cheap... (I got it on a day Amazon was selling it for $1049, and there is a $300 Samsung mail-in rebate on top of that). I am really happy with the purchase

I am a die hard pc guy who had never even thought of getting a Mac until I saw the Mac Air. It is light weight, sexy and with the SSD drive is probably pretty fast. I found that there was the ability to get Windows on it but just on pure luck I started looking for a PC based Mac Air killer.

Of course I hit the VooDoo and a few others but saw the Samsung, read the reviews and had to take the plunge. I couldn't be happier. Light, yes! Lighter than the Mac Air. Speed, Wow! With the SSD drive it boots so quick it is crazy. It quickly loads word, wakes up after sleep like I had just move the cursor from the screen saver.

Am I happy? There is no doubt. I have been using this laptop on and off today and I still have over 5 1/2 hours of battery life. This morning it said a little under 10 hours with a full charge.

Flimsy? I don't think so. In fact, I think it feels solid and is far more manegable than the big beast of a laptop my wife has. I will never get another desktop replacement.

The only wish I had was a better graphic processor. Don't plan on playing any serious games with it. But, I knew that going into it. I wanted something easy to take to a meeting, and run presentations as well as the various other business tasks I needed it for. This is it! The CEO of the company I work for even said, "Wow, what is that?" Laptop envy? Absolutely!

I bought this laptop when the rebate was in effect. For the price I am more than satisfied, ecstatic in fact! Even if I had to pay more I would say it is very worth it as it has the perfect combination of form and function.
Pros
- 5-6 hour battery life. Even while doing heavy surfing, watching videos, listening to music etc.
- Very light and svelte package. Extremely light laptop that still feels solid to hold
- Screen is very bright and readable
Cons
- I am not that enamored by the chiclet style keyboard.
- The trackpad is not the most responsive, but still very useable
- Lack of dvd-drive in the box (Samsung has this accessory listed for ~$300)

I did plenty of research prior to purchasing this laptop and looked hard at netbooks as well. But based on the price I got this laptop for (couple of hundred more than a netbook) I am sure I made the right choice.

I've been playing with this laptop for several days now. While I am impressed with how light it is (2.9 pounds), the battery run time (more like 5 hours as I have many programs open at once), the large enough screen (13.3 inches), what really has me impressed is the type of performance this su9300 w/ intel 4500 graphics can kick out given it's speed. I can only imagine how quick this will run once I upgrade to an SSD. I'm starting to think it's worth it even with the current ~$1500 price tag (I landed the 749.99 after rebate deal). Most of the laptops with the beefier processors cause the fan to run LOUD, even the lenovo s10 netbook has a fan that's loud, and even when pushing this processor, I feel very little heat from the vent, and hear nothing. My wife has an hp tx2500 and I can hear that from across the room!

I do, however, feel that intel has a few tricks up their sleeves in upgrading this processor, so you may want to wait for those later this year, however, this laptop will hopefully serve me faithfully for a few years, windows 7 should make this even more usable.

Keyboard is nothing to complain about

Ergonomics is nothing to complain about, however, the "feet" that stick out of the bottom of the laptop are annoying if you place your laptop on your lap.

As for durability, I could possibly see a very slight issue with the screen, but nothing deal-breaking. The rest of the case is extremely sturdy!

Again, with a 1.2 core 2 duo, and integrated graphics, I'm impressed, I guess I had low expectations, but don't see any real-world "performance" hits versus my wife's 2.0 dual core laptop with an ati hd3200 graphics processor with dedicated video ram. Perhaps its the ddr3 memory..