NEW DELHI: Not many Ultrabook makers are bothering about the affordability guideline laid down by Intel. The Acer Aspire S3 was the first Ultrabook in India to beat the Rs 50,000 mark and now Samsung's 13.3-inch Series 5 is the second.
Reviewed here is the slightly larger, slightly more expensive but a lot more powerful 14-inch version. Not only does this one have a 14-inch screen (1366 x 768 pixels), it also includes a discrete graphics card for better overall performance, a 1TB hard drive and a built in DVD R/W drive. It does this while maintaining a 20.8mm thin profile and 1.8kg weight. These kind of specs are unheard of for a 14-inch machine.
It has two USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0 port, HDMI out, VGA out, Ethernet port, headphone jack and SD card reader built in. It uses a 1.6Ghz Intel Core i5 processor with 4GB RAM plus the usual multi-touch trackpad, webcam with mic and Wi-Fi N support. And Samsung has included a clever hybrid hard drive which uses some amount of faster flash storage for faster boot times and 3-second 'wake from sleep'.
The Series 5 has a feel of understated elegance. It's sleek and the matte finish metal lid and palm rest resist fingerprints very well. Even the screen reduces glare because it's not glossy. It offers enough performance to match most needs in a compact and elegant package. The battery life is a healthy 6 hours + with normal usage. The worst we could get by taxing everything to the maximum was about 4 hours.
Whichever way you look at it, the Series 5 offers fantastic value for money, but there are a few things that Samsung could improve. For starters, it should have had a backlit keyboard – not everyone needs one, but it adds a lot of appeal. It could do with a snazzier design and a brighter and higher resolution screen. But then again, this would push the price up. It may not have the build quality of the HP Folio or the sheer desireability of the Asus Zenbook, but the combination of performance, portability and affordability is something likely to appeal to a lot of people.
Specifications: 14-inch display, Intel Core i5 processor, 6GB RAM, 1TB storage, DVD-RW, AMD HD 7750 gfx, Windows 7 Home Premium, 1.79kg
Positives: Elegant design, great value, lots of ports, discrete graphics card and DVD R/W in a slim & light package
Negatives: No backlit keyboard, build quality could be better, falls short on the desireability factor.