Samsung RF510 - A Fleeting Workhorse

Samsung RF510 - For All Seasons?

It has been almost two years since Samsung first reinstated their presence in the local notebook market. With their recent refresh, Samsung is eager to breathe new life into their existing line-up with an influx  of consumer models, which includes the SF, NF, QX and RF series. This brings their laptop portfolio to a grand total of twenty models as opposed to the previous eleven. We'll be turning our attention to the RF series in particular, touted by the Korean CE giant to be the highest performing notebook under Samsung's mobile PC suite. The RF series consists of two discrete screen sizes - a 14-inch RF410, and the 15.6-inch RF510 which we'll be harping upon.

Apparently, Samsung wasn't kidding when they were tooting the extreme performance horn. The RF510 is armed to the teeth with a quad-core Core i7-720QM processor, discrete GeForce GT 420M graphics, plus the fastest I/O and communications platforms the industry has to offer such as USB 3.0 and Bluetooth 3.0. Such specifications sound good on paper, undoubtedly, but we'll let the benchmarks determine the laptop's proficiency against the likes of similar 15-inch multimedia icons such as the and when it comes to the crunch. We'll also discuss its construction and usability in the following pages as well. It's hard to say if Samsung's latest mobile computer is efficient enough to make the cut as a multi-purpose notebook at this juncture, but do read on as we explore the RF510 in detail.

Stylishly Simple But Amply Endowed 

Gazing at the RF510, we experienced an unexpected sense of dejavu since it reminds us somewhat of the we've reviewed recently. At first sight, Samsung's RF510 might appear to wear an unassuming and glossy lid. But on closer inspection, however, a subtle black radial pattern becomes visible in the middle of the notebook's shell. If fingerprint magnets aren't your thing, you might want to cast your cross-hairs on the Dell XPS 15 instead which sports a matte metallic cover. The RF510's lid exhibits little flex, meaning it can take a decent amount of stress handling. Like its predecessors, Samsung's signature silver logo is placed at the side, as opposed to central placements typical of notebook brands such as HP and Acer.

As a business or multimedia machine, the RF510 offers more than the average horde with a total of four USB ports and a single HDMI connection. The dual-layer optical drive can be found on the notebook's right, along with two USB 3.0 ports characterized by blue plastic 'strips'.  Theoretically, transfer speed for the new USB iteration is approximately ten times faster than USB 2.0. On the flip side, users of the ExpressCard slot will not find any on the RF510. Noticeably, the laptop's side profile is nowhere as skinny as Samsung's upcoming "9 Series". Its 37mm girth is slim enough to fit into your notebook bag, but thankfully, not fat enough to embarrass you. Also noted was a front-facing SD card slot which makes it easy for quick access. The remaining IO ports are aligned on the left, such as the Ethernet, HDMI and audio jacks. Packing a solid heft, the RF510 tips the scales at 2.6kg although we would appreciate the machine a little more if it was a few hundred grams lighter. 

Prettier On The Inside

Not every Joe or Jill fancies a glossy top, but we can assure you the RF510's insides are much more attractive, if not respectable. Its interior is fashioned in a two-toned scheme; mainly silver behind the keys and brushed-metal grey on the wrist rest. Samsung has championed an island keyboard layout since its first slew of notebooks, and we were glad it has retained that same formula on the RF510. The keys provide a firm, but not overly stiff tactile feedback. If you favor chiclet designs such as those found on the Sony VAIOs and Apple MacBooks, then this laptop is for you. Instead of the usual WiFi slider-switch found on most notebooks, Samsung has installed a button for that same purpose above the keyboard along with a set of volume control keys.  

A pair of 3-watt speakers flank the upper areas of the notebook's base. Volume is substantial, but sound quality is a tad scratchy on the whole. Its LED-backlit screen is capable of clear and vibrant images, but its highly reflective surface and poor viewing angles failed to win our approval. Native resolution is fixed at a widescreen aspect of 1366 x 768 pixels, which is ideal for playback of 720p files.

Aligned slightly to the left on the base is the 90 by 55 mm touchpad. Powered by ELAN, a Taiwanese firm better known for their touch-sensitive products, the RF510's trackpad is wonderfully spacious and comes with a lovely matte surface perfect for finger work. The multi-touch pad also allows for pinch-and-zoom as well as 3-finger swipes. Furthermore, we tend to favor the trackpad's keys which offer a soft and relatively quiet travel.  

Performance Benchmarking

You can call this a battle royale of the Core i7 clan. Three notebooks are coming into the performance fray with similar but discrete specifications. The Lenovo IdeaPad may possess a slight advantage, since it touts the slightly faster Core i7-740QM processor with a higher clock speed. They are all riding on the same HM55 chipset but sport distinct GPUs. We'd like to draw your attention to the Samsung and Dell troopers. Both machines share the same discrete graphics, but it's likely the quad-core CPU will give the Samsung notebook a slight advantage. Memory wise, the RF510 is packed with 6GB of DDR3 RAM like the Dell XPS 15. Let's see how it pans out on the benchmarks.

PCMark Vantage

Futuremark's Vantage yielded rather interesting results. Judging from the numbers crunched, the RF510 was most effective on the TV and Movies suite, which makes the notebook ideal for video playback as well. What's intriguing, however, is that Samsung's laptop came out tops although it didn't feature exceptionally well for the rest of the test suites. It racked up a score of 6,083 PCMarks, versus Lenovo (5,813 PCMarks) and Dell (5,888 PCMarks). Checking out the HDD test suite revealed that it had good drive performance which In essence boosted most of the other benchmark figures, making the RF510 a splendid all-rounder when it comes to tackling your computing chores. More importantly, the RF510 was a diligent worker when it came to juggling various applications on its Windows 7 Home Premium platform. Apart from an active WiFi connection, we tried out simultaneous apps such as MS Word & Excel 2007, IE8, Windows Media Player and the MSN Chat client which we threw in for good measure. The machine didn't falter one bit. On the down side, we encountered a strange issue when the notebook awoke from its suspend mode. Only half a screen showed up, while the left portion is blank. A cold reboot resolved the glitch nonetheless.

3D Mark06

Samsung's RF-series harvested decent 3DMark results, but obviously not the best among the three notebooks. It was clearly outmatched by the IdeaPad, which touts the Radeon HD 5730 designed to handle current games ranging anywhere from medium to high settings, provided you stick with a conservative resolution. Think FIFA 11 or Mafia 2. An outcome of 7,352 3DMarks is not shoddy, by any means. And if we could put those numbers into perspective, Samsung's rig should breeze through less intensive games at medium configurations without issues. Games based on newer APIs such as OpenGL 4.0 and DirectX 11 are also supported by the GT 420M by the way, but don't expect it to wow you as it's not really cut out for it in terms of performance.

Speaking of graphics and performance, we also tested its video playback performance with a 1080p H.264 clip for fifteen minutes or so. As anticipated, the RF510 worked like a charm without producing any ghosting, lags or artifacts, although we must say its display is marginally less brighter than what we've experienced with the LG R590.

Far Cry 2

Ubisoft's Far Cry 2 was released more than two years ago, but it's still our title of choice in helping us gauge a notebook's gaming performance. Evidently, it is less demanding than Crysis but eats up just the right hardware resources. The Samsung RF510 returned a frame rate of 51.44fps on the Medium detail setting and 30.71fps on Very High. That tells us that Far Cry 2 is definitely playable on Medium but might stutter with richer gameplay modes. Do note that our results are based on a 1024 x 768 pixels resolution for results compatibility sake. Naturally, frame rates would suffer if you prefer to run the game with a higher resolution. As a whole, Samsung's laptop did better than the Dell XPS, but still trails the IdeaPad when it comes down to crunching gaming renders.

Battery Life & Portability Index

Portability and battery life matter to notebook users. Suffice to say, a laptop which kicks serious performance butt can easily be undermined by a short-lived battery life.  The Samsung RF510 measures about 380 by 255 by 37mm, which is slightly larger than your typical sheet of A4 paper. Weighing in at 2.6kg, the RF510 is a shade lighter than the LG R590 and Dell XPS 15, but is actually comparable to the Lenovo IdeaPad Y560. Samsung is offering a 6-cell battery, rated at 11.1V and 48WHr, as part of its standard notebook package. As far as we know, the 6-cell is the only power pack available for the RF510 model without any battery upgrade options.

We tend to be more forgiving when it comes to assessing the battery life of 17-inch monsters, but not so much a 15.6-incher. In our books, a laptop which clocks less than an hour and a half doesn't bode very well for mobile warriors on the road. You'll probably need to bring the power adapter along and depend on an AC outlet nearby. Bad news is, Samsung's RF510 is one such example. Our battery test involves looping a DVD movie till the notebook's battery fizzles out. As usual, WiFi and any unnecessary apps are disabled to lessen the variables. Total uptime? The RF510 sputtered for exactly 85 minutes before breathing its last. If you are a movie buff, Samsung's multimedia darling should last the length of an average movie without needing to recharge, but it's probably inadequate for the better feature films which clock in closer to two hours.

Ideally, Lenovo's IdeaPad should trump it two rivals here, given its plump ampere-hour rating. Samsung's 6-cell is rated at 4400mAH, against Lenovo's 5130mAH and Dell's 5045mAH. This, in turn, gave us an indication of the notebook's weaker power operations in general. However, let's not forget that the laptops are bred with different hardware specifications. After running the numbers through our formula, the RF510 presented a power consumption level of 34.47 watts, as opposed to 34.97 watts (Lenovo) and 18.66 watts (Dell). Although Dell's battery specs might not be as meaty as Lenovo's, its Core i7-740QM and GeForce GT 435M concoction have proved to be the most power efficient of the lot. On the other hand, we were hoping for a slightly longer mileage from Samsung since it carts the least demanding processor with a lower clock speed.  

If you're reading our reviews for the first time, then our Battery Life vs Weight & Volume ratio might not make much sense to you. To shed some light on its formula, the figure is derived by dividing the notebook's uptime by its weight and volume. Contrary to the Power Consumption numbers, the higher the numbers are here, the more portable the laptop is. With a final score of 0.152, Samsung's mobile rig did not rank very highly in the mobility charts. The Dell XPS 15 is by no means light, but it fared better in the portability index with credit to its enduring battery life. In conclusion, the RF510 would make a fine notebook if you intend to use it more like a desk-bound workstation; just don't count on its uptime or weight factor when you are out and about.

The Final Word

Samsung is marketing the RF-series as "high-end performance notebooks matched with a futuristic design". In essence, we won't refute its performance clause, judging from satisfactory results garnered on the PCMark and 3DMark benches. After all, the middle class laptop does come with an adequate quad-core solution and discrete graphics. Design wise, we adore the trackpad, keyboard and interior layout pretty much, although we can't say the same for the glossy lid and hit-and-miss display. Picture quality was rich enough but suffered inevitably from poor viewing angles. Its speakers are loud, and tolerable if you can bear with the hissing nuances.  

Overall, the notebook exhibited a robust build. However, it would improve its portability factor by a notch if Samsung could just trim its weight a little more. In the connectivity department, the Koreans have catered the best possible spread for the RF510, ranging from USB 3.0 inlets to 802.11n to Bluetooth 3.0 standards. Such specifications might lure those who hanker after the best specs, but please be warned about the RF510's middling battery life. The RF510 would have been an ideal all-rounder if not for shortfalls such as its average uptime and imperfect screen among a few others. It does make us question its S$1,999 asking price when you can get better for less.

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