My Two-Week Experience with Samsung Notebook Series 5 535 (AMD Ultrathin)

“The first AMD Ultrathin in Indonesia”, Samsung says on its official site.  Without even knowing this tagline though, Samsung NP535U3C-A01ID is still impressive no matter what. The 535 is part of Samsung Notebook 5 Series product line. By and large, it’s been fun and relatively flawless experience. That’s all I can say if I was asked about my general verdict. This light ultrabook seems so appealing to me thanks to its very thin thickness and light weight. Samsung Series 5 535 is only 14.9 – 17.6 mm and weighs 1.52 kilogram. The color is elegant, doesn’t sting the eyes but still attract attention in a manly way (whatever that means but it managed to wow my coworkers).

Samsung Series 5 AMD Ultrathin as it looks on Samsung official site. Don’t be fooled. The machine is prettier than this photo.

Besides, it doesn’t look so plastic. It’s as solid as an ultrabook can get. And the hinge is, contrary to my previous belief, quite robust. The design is fabulous. The boot time is faster, compared to my old netbooks (yes, I worked with netbooks that to some extent suck in terms of speed). And no more Shockwave plug-in crashes which irks me a lot these days!!  The audio quality is something a decent music listener like me can’t complain about. The battery seems decent so far. Around 4,5-5 hours, depending on so many factors. I expect more, but then I think I have to sacrifice the juicier battery for a slim look, which is forgivable, totally. When it comes to the keys, I have to say it’s not that excellent. Maybe that’s because I love how the old netbook’s keyboard felt on my fingers. But fortunately enough, I love the spaciousness of the keyboard. That matters as the large keyboard is something luxurious for a netbook user. And this has no backlight, so I can’t type in complete darkness, which is good because that means I can take a rest. Let me give you the key specifications:

• DOS ( I was lucky to find a store which already installed it with Windows 7 Home Premium. It’s pretty much hassle-free and I could work as soon as I bought this on October 4)
• AMD Dual Core A6 4455M (2,1GHz) : Why settle for Intel’s if you can get the more affordable with more or less similar function?
• AMD Radeon™ HD 7500 Graphics: I’m no fan of 3D games so this won’t bother me that much.
• 13,3″ SuperBright Anti-Reflective HD LED Display:  I do really appreciate the crisp colorful screen. It’s more than a game hater could ask for.
• HDD 500GB: Considerably spacious for my future articles, photos, or novels?

I know I sound like a broken old record. But I can’t help saying the design is top notch. You’ll be less likely to find fingerprints on its surface. And if I’m not mistaken the material is from aluminum and the unibody rocks as well. Obviously enough, though it’s not the most expensive slim machine produced by Samsung, the Korean manufacturer seems to be quite generous with the lovely design and high quality material. Ah! Before I forget, as someone with extremely huge concern with environmental issues, energy conservation and efficiency, I admit this is the best machine I’ve had in my gadget history. Just inside the “Easy Settings”, you can find “Power Management” and later choose “Samsung Eco Mode“. Samsung claims the mode can minimize carbon dioxide generation and energy consumption when activated. That means wireless LAN, wireless WAN and bluetooth are deactivated. That said, I also lower down the brightness level which in turn can strain the eyes less and save more energy. Another eco-friendly feature the machine offers us is the battery endurance in the long run. Here we’re not talking about how long it’ll last in a whole day but how many years it can still function after hundreds or thousands of charging-draining cycles, for the entire machine life cycle perhaps. Samsung claimed the Battery Life Plus technology it applies on the notebook can extend the cycle up to 1,500 cycles/ 3 years. Shown in a chart, it is explained how other brands’ notebook battery performance without the technology can plumet to 20% within a couple of years of use. With the technology, this laptop’s battery is expected to still remain able to stay at 70% of its original capacity and performance. And the disclaimer is it depends on how you adjust the settings.

The AMD ultrabook in reality, with ketoprak beside it.

On YouTube, I saw this ultrabook with an internal optical drive but at the store where I bought this, I couldn’t find it. Samsung is telling a lie? Absolutely not. It seemed that Samsung released 2 variants of the AMD ultrathin type. The first one is  with 13.3 inch screen and the other is one inch wider. The first, which I happened to have purchased, has no internal optical drive. But the latter has and hence a bit heavier. Just to show you how much I love this ultrabook. If only it’s legal, I’d really like to marry ‘her’, like most 21st century male geeks trading their quality bed time with their spouse for curling up with this gorgeous inanimate object in the couch. Apart from my sleek sophisticated objects fettish, I just realized how painful it was for my back and shoulders to carry along the bulky cumbersome HP Presario V3803 I had like 3 years ago. It weighed 2.4 kilograms! Almost a kilogram heavier than the ultrabook. (Also published on akhlisblog.wordpress.com)