Full Review

30 July 2007 - It may be a little soon to be thinking about the new university year in September but if you’re thinking of buying a new budget priced notebook you have to be quick, as only limited numbers are ever made and the Samsung R20 is well worth considering.

At one time, cheap notebooks were old machines vendors couldn’t sell. Not anymore, as manufacturers design and build specifically for the price. Samsung has reinvented its notebook line of late and the R20 is a great addition. Samsung has gone for a black laquered look to their new machine, with a matte black plastic on the interior, it’s a neat look and is certainly robust but is prone to scratches. The battery sticks out of the rear, which is potentially one area of weakness should you accidentally drop the machine.

What makes this a great machine for students is that it’s a decent weight with a reasonable battery life. Weighing in at 2.3kg, it’s semi-portable and more than light enough to carry around for portions of the day. We got a little over two hours from the battery, which isn’t perfect but it’s get you through a lecture or two without needed to look for a power point. The keyboard spans the full width of the main board and the keys are of a good size and well mounted. There is a degree of rattle as you type but for the price it felt incredibly sturdy.

What helps keep the weight down is the use of a 14.1-inch widescreen panel. It’s large enough to offer plenty of space to view two documents side-by-side and because it’s widescreen and comes with a Super-TFT coating, is great for watching DVDs on. Graphics use an ATi integrated chipset and while they offered the best test results in the group, this is a low level solution that uses up to 128MB of system memory when running taxing applications.

When it comes to the rest of the specification, don’t approach a budget notebook expecting the latest in components, as what you’ll find is sufficient power for your needs but you may also find that in a year or two, you’ll have out grown it. What you’ll get for your money is an Intel 1.73GHz Celeron M 430 with 512MB of memory, which is fine for surfing the web and writing essays but you won’t be able to run anything too taxing on it. The 80GB had drive is average for the price too.

However, we found this system more than lived up to expectations and ran smoothly with no signs of lag, which is surprising considering it’s running Windows Vista Basic edition. When it comes to extras, you won’t find too many on the R20 but there is a DVD and you’ll also find a 6-in-1 card reader and ExpressCard slot, as well as a VGA-out port for connecting to an external monitor.

VERDICT
For the price, Samsung has put together a great machine that will certainly live up to expectations.

The build is neat and sturdy and while it’s not the most powerful notebook out there, it’s well worth the asking price.