Samsung NP355E5C-A01US Laptop (1.7GHz AMD Dual Core E2-1800 Accelerated 1.7GHz Processor, 4GB Ram,

My first day working on the NP355E5C and it's not as slow as I feared it would be. It has a low end AMD processor so I was worried it would be annoyingly slow to use. So far I've installed Windows updates and ClassicShell to make Windows 8 usable and performance has been ok.

The 5400rpm 500GB Hitachi hard drive with 8MB cache is a pretty standard part for inexpensive laptops and it's kinda slow. If this was my daily use computer I'd be tempted to upgrade it to an SSD drive.

I was surprised such an inexpensive PC has Realtek gigabit for wired ethernet and it has bluetooth in addition to two USB 3 ports and two USB 2 ports. That's better connectivity options than other low end laptops.

The screen is bright and clear. I'm not a touch typist but the keyboard is working well for me.

The Elantech track pad has frequently quit tracking my finger until I lift off and put my finger back down. I've not found any setting in the control panel that helps.

Update 04mar13: I'd hoped I could find a way to add Windows7 but this laptop uses "Secure Boot" making it difficult and expensive to get Windows 7 installed. It looks like I would have to turn off Secure Boot then reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows7 from scratch with a retail Win 7 disk. It appears I would then loose the ability to use the provided Windows8 installation. Think I'm stuck with Win8. I'm using Classic Shell to help make Win8 more usable. That makes it pretty much like Win7 but still a little weird. On the upside, every program and tweak I use in Win7 is working in Win8 so that's cool.

I'm still having the problem where the trackpad stops responding until I lift my finger. I'm getting used to doing that but I hope someday a driver update will help with that issue.

Update 08jul13: Downgraded from 4 stars to 1 star. I've given up on this thing. The trackpad has never tracked right. I tried driver updates & setting changes but cannot get it to work smoothly. I have to use a mouse. Then one day the screen went solid white then solid black. I could only see the desktop when I plugged in an external monitor. I called Samsung and set up a warranty service return to get the screen fixed but after a few days and many reboots the screen started working again so I had to cancel the return. The screen has worked perfectly ever since but I no longer trust this laptop to be reliable for travel. This past week I noticed the CPU is always working at half speed, .8GHz instead of 1.7GHz. Turns out the power plan keeps reverting to the Power Saver plan after I set it to the Performance plan. I can't find a way to get the Performance power plan setting to stick.

I like Samsung, they make a lot of price/performance winning stuff. I wanted to like this laptop, but with the poorly performing trackpad, the unreliable screen, & the CPU speed issue, this laptop is just too frustrating.

It is taking us a bit of time to get used to the new Windows format; however, the machine is pretty quick. I'm not a techie, so specifics, i can't give. I got this computer primarily because my daughter loves to create animated videos with Windows Movie Maker while listening to a constant stream of music from Youtube and chatting with friends on Facebook. Works well for that.

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Love this computer ... They said its new but it came with a different persons name. So its referb but it is worth it..Im smillin great computer they got it to me within a week..

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I'm very pleased with the laptop itself and I'm sure I'll eventually get used to it. I'm just one of those people who are totally lost with Windows 8 and I'm tech savvy.....

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this laptop is great! I do like windows 8 AS IT IS LIKE MY WIN smartphone. WIN 8 operating system was so easy to learn! I do believe though that if you do not use a mouse than WIN 8 does frustrate you because it does switch screens back and forth too easily and when you do not want it to, (NOT SO WHEN USING A MOUSE)! This computer is slower so if you want it for business purposes you may want a faster processor and more memory but for an everyday laptop computer this one meets all the requirements! also in WIN 8 it is so much easier to install and uninstall programs and apps than in WIN7! People who complain about WIN8 are probably the high tech people who learned WIN7 completely or dummies (like me) don't want to take the time to learn WIN8! Just give WIN8 2 weeks and you will begin to like it!

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