Samsung Series 3 NP305V5A-A04US 15.6-Inch Laptop

Having just purchased a similiar laptop with the same exact specs and processor from another manufacturer, I was literally blown away by this laptop's performance. After uninstalling all the bloatware, downloading the latest bios and drivers from both Samsung and AMD this laptop posts the following WEI...

Processor: 6.9 (Just shy of a typical quad-core desktop cpu)

RAM: 6.9 (probably due to latency and cpu speed)

2D Graphics: 5.9 (far above most on-board graphics)

3D Graphics: 6.5 (amazing since it costs $100 or more for a GPU equal to this rating)

Hard Drive: 5.9 (standard for any 7200 RPM drive)

With all this said, I had to install more RAM and add an SSD on my other laptop to meet this level of performance. So, I'm very impressed to say the least.

Note: To truly see performance gains with this laptop be certain to 1)uninstall all bloatware, 2) update the BIOS and all drivers from samsung.com, 3) use the grpahics card auto-detect from AMD.com and install the latest Catalyst driver, and finally 4) clean the registry. The laptop will run 20-30% faster than out of the box if you do.

I chose this laptop because it has the AMD A-series A8 chip... This is a powerful integrated graphics processor for a mid/low-end laptop and I'm surprised just how great a deal this machine is. The game performance is impressive according to a few reports online (youtube videos and PC harwdare test sites) compared to Intel i3 with integrated graphics it's double in terms of games performance) and it's very fast in Sketchup too. I almost went for the newer model suggested... but that only had an A6 chip... if you need a little extra performance buy this computer, you won't regret it. Speakers are average (ie weak) but not a deal breaker for me. Nice a light, LOVE the fast start feature that's awesome. Samsung are doing great things.

Buy Samsung Series 3 NP305V5A-A04US 15.6-Inch Laptop Now

All in all, this is a sweet deal!!

Yes, it's on the economic side as far as Samsung build quality goes.

It delivers on AMD's A8 vision without issues/incident.

Running quiet & cool 64-bit (KVM) Linux flawlessly (Kernel 3.x series)

On-board components 100% operational!!

Read Best Reviews of Samsung Series 3 NP305V5A-A04US 15.6-Inch Laptop Here

Bought this for my 13 yr old son. He dropped is last laptop to many times. He can play SWTOR, Skyrim, ME3 and a few other newer games with no problem (and do school work). It does get hot when playing some games but I have him use one of those fans that plug into the usb port just to be safe. The laptop he wanted was almost 2k but this will do just fine for a younger teenager.

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This is my first day with the laptop. I am just a general user (music, video, MS Office, web browsing), so this is just for the feel/ease of use:

Track pad is nice. Good position and just sensitive enough. It does the Mac scrolling thing (2 fingers).

Feel of keyboard is great for me. I saw some complaints below, but it all makes sense; keys are a good size, it's not squished. I like that there aren't any touch buttons. Those things suck (had some on my HP Pavilion and they rarely worked right).

It never specifies, but the entire computer is matte (including screen) and black

Really fast start up and resume, with that Samsung sleep to wake thing. Seems to work well.

Samsung usually loads its products with tons of crap (I have the Tab too), but didn't do much of that with this laptop.

Comes with an OS recovery CD

Don't know about battery life yet, but other posts have good options for maximizing it.

It does get a little hot, specifically on the left side (right by where you plug in the power adapter). Kinda strange, but maybe it's b/c I'm installing/uninstalling a bunch of stuff right now. It might be that my entire Dropbox has been syncing for a while.

Isn't heavy, definitely not an Ultrabook/Air but good option if you want a 15" screen. Feels compact.

Charging it now, and it's going up pretty fast.

Speakers are nice, nothing fabulous. Sounds comes from a long bar extending across the entire laptop. Doesn't get that loud, but what do you expect...

I'll change this review to a 5 if I love it after a few weeks, or knock it down if anything bad happens. Overall, I'd say for under $600 this is a great deal. I can see this thing lasting me a while (I don't game though). Will update later.

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