First of all, I'd have to say that I am very impressed with this product, though it does have a few minor flaws.The good: Nice, bright 17.3" matte HD screen, backlit keyboard, 8 GB RAM, Windows 8 preinstalled.
This laptop has a nice, solid frame that doesn't flex much, making it especially suited to pick up one-handed while it's running without having to worry about the battery unlatching and turning the machine off (a problem with my last laptop). It is weighty, but about right for it's size I guess.
It's painless to disassemble the back cover to access the hard drive (about 8 screws), though it will take a little effort to pry the cover off. I took mine apart to replace the stock 5400 RPM hard drive with a Seagate Momentus XT 7200 RPM drive. I'm also not a fan of having a built-in DVD drive on my laptop (wasted space to me), so I stuck the OEM 1 TB 5400 drive there to back up my OS and data drive using a hard drive caddy from my last Samsung laptop.
It looks as firm and well-built inside as it is on the outside. I love the brushed aluminum frame. It dissipates heat fairly well, even with the extra mods. It doesn't get anywhere close to the heat output of my wife's MacBook Pro 15". I don't hear the fan ever, and my temperatures sit around 50 degrees C.
You may read other reviews about the battery being "integrated" and customers who worry about what to do when it comes time to replace it. In this laptop, after removing the back cover, you have full access to the battery which just plugs into the motherboard. One drawback is the motherboard has 4 GB RAM soldered into the board and is not easily accessible by removing the back cover. The other 4 GB doesn't require the entire back cover to be removed at all, it has a separately latched compartment that is bound to the bottom by a single screw. It IS upgradable to 8 GB, for a total capacity of 12 GB of RAM for this machine. 8 GB is sufficient for Windows 8 for now (for what I do anyway), but if you run virtual machines while doing other stuff you may consider the upgrade.
I don't do much gaming, but the graphics seem ok. It has both the built-in Intel HD graphics and a discrete Nvidia graphics card.
I've also read other complaints about the Wifi card. I have had no issues so far out if it.
The screen is amazing, a 1920 X 1080 HD screen. This makes watching movies very enjoyable, but sometimes the on-screen font can be a little difficult to read without changing font size or DPI. I prefer to use the Microsoft ZoomIt tool to get around this.
The not-so good: Battery life is so-so, 5400 RPM drive sucks, reinstalling Windows 8 is a major pain on this laptop (see below), trackpad takes some getting used to.
I am a fairly experienced computer technician and I love to start fiddling with my laptops as soon as I get them. This being no exception, I figured I'd just slap a copy of Acronis on the computer and backup to my new hard drive. Not so fast! Windows 8 out-of-the-box comes with UEFI Secure Boot enabled, which effectively binds an OS installation to the BIOS. After I cloned the original hard drive and installed the new one, the laptop wouldn't boot. After changing some settings in the BIOS (turning Secure Boot off), I could boot the drive (blazing fast on the Seagate Momentus XT by the way) but I had lost a key feature of Windows 8. So I opted for the clean install. Be prepared to format a USB stick for EFI boot plus extracting the contents of the Windows 8 ISO to the stick. I could not get an external CD drive to work with the UEFI BIOS. End of story. It may work better if you keep the original DVD drive though. The whole process (research included), took about 3 hours. But after all the crap, Win 8 installs just like on any other computer.
By doing a clean install, be warned! You will no longer have access to Samsung's pre-installed apps in the Windows Store. Still haven't found a way to reinstall them. A minor flaw.
The original hard drive was SLOW. Very slow, even with the 8 GB Express Cache. The 8 GB cache on the Momentus XT works much better. You do have plenty of space with 1 TB though. And that's good, because out-of-the-box Samsung uses multiple partitions (2 system, 2 recovery partitions). The 2 system partitions are a product of Secure Boot and Windows 8, so there's nothing you can do about those. The 2 Samsung recovery partitions use up about 24 GB of space. I deleted these during the clean install, but if you don't keep your Windows 8 disc on you, you may want to consider keeping these partitions.
The battery life with all OEM hardware was only about 6 hours. This was 2 hrs less than the Best Buy salesman had advertised (which jives with Samsung's claims on 8 hrs). After adding the extra hard drive, I find that I get about 5.5 hours of battery life, which is ok for what I need the laptop for. Just understand this is a full-featured, desktop replacement laptop and not an ultrabook.
I read a lot about the Elan touchpad issues with this laptop. A lot of people don't like it. Mine came with Elan driver 11.2.7.1 out-of-the-box. This was ok, and I didn't experience the touchpad causing the pointer "jumping" too much on the screen. It's definitely sensitive, which is good for the Windows 8 gestures. Be prepared to change some settings in the Control Panel. After making a few tweaks and spending some time with the touchpad, I've come to actually enjoy it as much as the Synaptics on my last laptop. I especially like the 2 finger tap that mimics the right-click of the touchpad. I really don't use the integrated touchpad click buttons that much.
Final thoughts: This is a great laptop that is worth every cent. I feel like I'm getting twice the computer for half the price I'd expect for these many features.
When they finally offered a "same as or better" replacement, they considered that offering me a 15.6" laptop screen instead of the 17.3" I currently had was the "same or better". Also, their "refund" was not for my full purchase price it was for $200 less after a year of continual crashes. I finally gave up with them, filed a claim with Amex platinum and they refunded me the entire price let them deal with this garbage. My time is worth much more than spending in excess of 10hrs dealing with Samsung...
Incidentally, after the 1TB drive failed that arrived with the system, I purchased a solid state drive. It then crashed that drive. Luckily that drive (by Crucial) was under its own warranty and they have had to continually replace it for me 3 times. At this point, they won't replace it for me any more as it's obvious the fault is with the laptop. So, I'm out the price of the solid state drive ($350). Samsung, even though they accept responsibility that the laptop caused the failures will give me no reimbursement at all.
It really is the absolute worst customer service. It is not only the laptop that stops me from buying from them again, it's the support if something goes wrong, you really are in trouble.Nice looking and solid design notebook with good price compared to other brand names. So far every thing is working well. I do not have problem with weak wireless connection and over heat issue as I read some reviews previously. The fan is running rather quite which I like it. This notebook model is pre-loaded with Windows 8. At first I was disappointed with Windows 8 because it did not have the old start menu and it forced me to use Window Metro GUI. After downloading the free Classic Shell from the Internet and installing it, I now have the old start menu back and I have a choice to use Metro GUI by selecting Shift + Window key. I am happy with the purchase.I love the computer. Exceed my expections. Good packing. Good product. On time and affordable price. Samsung best computer. like it.It's perfect for me! Not expensive for the specs it has, it runs great games like GTA4 on best quality easy!
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