Samsung Series 3 NP365E5C-S02US 15.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

For the price, this is an amazing value. The case, while made primarilly of plastic, isn't cheesy at all. The lid is made of aluminum and looks very nice, like units costing much more. The keyboard layout with the 10 key fits the shell well, the bonus is that the keys are separated from each other so there's less chance of getting stuff down between the keys nice! There are 2 USB 3.0 ports and an HDMI port. The built in camera is adequate, the memory at 4GB is perfectly sized for this price range. I'm honestly surprised by how quick this AMD processor is, it's almost as fast as my Intel quadcore (non-hyperthreaded) 2.67 Ghz desktop. All nice features for a laptop in this price range. The primary reason for this purchase was to use it to browse the internet and email along with the occasional spreadsheet/word document. It performs beyond expectation in that catagory. Other benefits of this laptop are the bottom stays cool when running, and the battery life is great, about 5+ hours of use without recharging.

As an aside, it comes loaded with Windows 8, which admittedly takes a little getting used to. I can see after working with this OS that it would be beneficial to have a touch screen interface. It works okay without one after you get used to the quirks of Win8 and the "gestures" that you use to open the start screen, like swipe in to the touch pad from the computer shell on the right side, or switch applications by swiping in to the touch pad from the computer shell on the left side. The top down swipe motion in context sensitive. For non-touch screen computers I'd prefer it if Microsoft put the Win7 start menu back on the desktop interface. On touch screen based computers I'm sure I'd rather use the Win8 "start" interface.

At this point although early in the game I'm very happy with the results.

The laptop itself is light and sleek looking. The feel of it is good and solid and the keyboard is similar to a Mac in its spacing and design. They are separated by a bit of space that would make it easier to clean. The battery life is pretty long. I've been using it on a single charge for about 6.5 hrs now and still have 25% remaining. The screen is pretty nice and crisp. Colors are nice and vivid. I haven't watched HD videos yet but so far it seems good.

The laptop comes preinstalled with windows 8. I don't mind it but I believe that Microsoft really intended for windows 8 to be use with a touch screen devise. You can go back to windows 7 if you choose by going to the Samsung website and following their instructions. I just received mine today so I'm going to give W8 a try.

The bad thing I can say about this model is that the mouse pad is not sensitive. I have to tap pretty hard for it to double click or even respond. The mouse pad response time is relatively slow compared to how fast I'm moving my fingers to items I want to click on. The computer also does not have a light or any kind of signal that would tell you whether number lock or caps lock is on. I used to have a Toshiba Satellite and I would say that I prefer Toshiba's mouse pad over this one.

Overall I would say that its a good laptop but it does take some getting used to. If you want a sensitive mouse pad that highly responsive I would advise you not to get this model. Other than that it seems like a good device. I'll post another review in about a month so you can see how it holds up to a Biology major/English Minor college student usage.

One Month Later: I ended up returning the laptop in favor of purchasing an Acer Aspire V5 due to all the problems I was having with the laptop. Some programs that I needed to run for my homework were unable to work. The processor speed scored a 2.2 out of 9 and I was unable to speed it up. Others buyers say that their laptop was great so maybe my unit was just faulty. On the positive side, Samsung customer service is great even though they couldn't help me much whenever I spoke to them.

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Just bought this computer and I am amazed at the build quality compared to my 3 year-old Dell. The processor is great and I just downloaded a Windows 7 shell in order to fix the Windows 8 issue.

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This laptop is fast and quiet. The wifi is ready to work while the start screen appears (very fast)... W8-64bit, the USB3.0 ports are much faster than 2.0 and this is a plus ! ! I was continously working a little more than 4 hours and the battery said 10%. I doubt another laptop with this kind of performance ! ! ! The W8 is completely different to the previous versions, and it is fast ! ! Now, I like it.... So this a new paradigm. We must adapt to do the same things in a different way. The aluminium body is great ! !

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Don't expect it to handle high density graphic games, but for school, programming, and light gaming, nothing could have been better for the money!