Samsung Series 5 (13-inch) - An Ultra-priced Ultrabook

An Ultra-priced Ultrabook

Ever since Samsung's Series 9 ultraportable notebook arrived on the scene in  mid-2011, we caught a glimpse of what the Korean conglomerate can do with their massive engineering and manufacturing capabilities. The Series 9 had everything going for it such as state-of-the-art design, materials (Duralumin), build quaility and was everything a Windows geek would want in a Macbook Air competitor.

However the Series 9 also fell short in some ways, with the most glaring one being its hard-to-swallow price. Even though it was revealed during 2011’s CES as an Ultrabook, Samsung refused to market it as such, instead insisting on calling it a premium ultraportable notebook and was tagged with a hefty price tag. Being the first mover at that point of time, we can't really fault Samsung for not pricing it down to earth, but they did lose the chance to dominate the market had they made it affordable to the masses.

So what does the predecessor have to do with the new Samsung Series 5 Ultra you ask? Well, plenty because thanks to the release of the Series 9 notebook, Samsung probably learned a few important lessons. Lesson one: people aren't willing to pay so much for a MacBook Air clone, pretty it may be. They’d rather just get a MacBook Air with the same specs and cost almost half as much.

Lesson two: Armed with a first-mover’s knowledge, Samsung now knows just what is the most important aspect of an Ultrabook - excellent battery life, and fantastic price. We’re sure Samsung probably gained a few more valuable insights, but those are probably geared towards the business side of things. What’s more important is that right now, the current product culminates all of those experiences in the brand new Samsung Series 5 Ultra (13-inch), which we're scrutinizing closely in this review.

The Series 5 comes in two sizes, a 13-inch version, which adheres to Intel’s Ultrabook guidelines, and the 14-inch version, which has discrete graphics engine and an extra optical drive. For this review, we’ll look at the 13-inch version Series 5 Ultra just so that we can compare it with 13-inch Ultrabooks from other manufacturers. Unlike most other Ultrabooks, this one uses a normal hard drive with flash memory cache combo (basically a hybrid drive) and not a pure solid state drive, which of course provides more storage at a lower price point and helps the value proposition of this notebook.

At first glance, Samsung’s first official Ultrabook, the 13-inch Series 5, looks fairly similar to its predecessor, the Series 9. It has the same sexy curves and metallic looking chassis, but comes in a light shade of gray. According to Samsung, the metal lid isn’t made of Duralamin that covered the Series 9 because it is extremely expensive to fabricate. Instead what you have now is just plain aluminum alloy, while the rest of the body is a plastic composite.

The Series 5 Ultra doesn’t have much features on the exterior save for a couple of status LEDs that show power, HDD, Wi-Fi and charge status. The Samsung Series 5 also has a good number of useful ports like 3 USB ports (two USB 2.0 and one USB 3.0 variety), a mini-DVI, a full-sized HDMI, collapsible RJ45, and a 4-in-1 card reader. 

Heavy on Plastic

Just like last year's very impressive Series 9 notebook, the Series 5 Ultra has a single (plastic) hinge that runs along most of the notebook's spine. This kind of hinge is aesthetically pleasing, but unfortunately you need both your hands to be free in order to pry the machine open. If the bottom of the notebook were heavier, you might be able open it single-handedly, but then you won't have an Ultrabook on your hands anymore.

In terms of looks, Samsung also decided to play it safe with the design of the interior. Construction quality of the notebook is fairly good, and that's considering when almost everything is made of plastic (save for the palm rest) but yet carries the same look as the matte grey aluminum lid. Most of the interior has got the same shade of gray splashed all over, but broken up by the matte black of the chiclet keyboard design.

On the onset, the chiclet keys look like the normal variety you'd find on any other modern notebook these days, but there are a couple of things which we really liked about the keys on the Samsung Series 5 Ultra. Firstly, the chiclet keys are covered with a rougher matte texture than most other notebook keys we've seen on the market. This, combined with its very satisfying spring makes for a very comfortable typing experience.

And then you have the relatively large trackpad, which most people who are accustomed to using conventional trackpads will appreciate. Because it’s not clickable, the trackpad comes with the conventional left and right click buttons that are springy and satisfying to use.

However, because we've been spoiled by other manufacturers and their huge clickable trackpad (ever the Samsung Series 9 had one) it's a bit sad to see that missing this time round. Perhaps it's one of the differentiating factors to set the Series 5 apart from the more prestigious Series 9 notebook (2012 version coming soon). Certainly costs come in to consideration since the Series 5 Ultra is targeting a different market segment.

While working with the machine, we found that the Samsung Series 5 had a slight design flaw. This is an oversight which we found on quite a number of earlier Ultrabooks, as well as on the MacBook Air, but strangely not 2011's expensive Samsung Series 9. The problem lies with the edges along the notebook which are really sharp and is especially problematic on the area where you place your wrists. When you use your laptop on your lap, your wrists would be lying right on top of the wrist slashing edge. That means you’d have to consciously adjust the position of the notebook so that your wrists won't be resting anywhere near the edge. 

Multimedia

Aside from that rather painful design flaw that we mentioned, the Samsung Series 5 Ultra notebook functions pretty well as a multimedia machine. It sports a coveted feature rarely seen outside of a business grade machine - a matte screen. If you're wondering what the fuss about matte and glossy screens is all about, here's a (very) brief overview.

Glossy screens are reflective and under bright environments, details onscreen would be hard to make out. However glossy screens usually make colors on the screen pop out, and appear much more vibrant. Matte screens are the exact opposite as they don't have a gloss finish. As such, viewing images on the Samsung Series 5 Ultra look a very slightly washed out and dull, but you won't be bothered by annoying and distracting reflections that you would otherwise need to be vary of (depending on your operating environment) when using a glossy screen.

Ultimately it's down to preferences, but most people prefer not to see a reflection of ceiling lights, the sun or their colleagues. And to be fair, if you don't put the Series 5 Ultra beside a notebook with a glossy screen, you probably wouldn't tell that colors on its screen aren't as vibrant. All things said, we definitely prefer matte screen based notebooks for most needs and purposes, so the Series 5 Ultra has chalked up yet another brownie point against other competing Ultrabooks.

Another feature that adds to the overall experience of a notebook are the speakers found on the machine. We've said it before, and we'll say it again - we really like how manufacturers manage to squeeze such capable speakers into the first wave of Ultrabooks. They aren't so loud that they'd wake patients in a coma, but the sound is crisp, clear and loud enough for you to enjoy video clips and music on your Samsung Series 5 Ultra. We don't mean quality audio that you get out of dedicated speaker systems, but they are sufficient, audible and clear enough for standard needs on the move. You definitely don't have a reason to complain.

Performance and Benchmarking

To give you a rough idea of just how the Samsung Series 5 Ultra fares against similar notebooks out there, we've selected a few models from other manufacturers. One of the more important comparisons to keep a look out for is the Acer Aspire S3, which also sports a similar hybrid hard drive. The other comparison Ulteabooks have solid-state-drives (SSD) instead and tend to boost some of their benchmark scores. In actual usage though, the difference isn't as varied as the scores suggest.

PCMark 7

The PC mark 7 is a benchmark that stresses several aspects of the notebook, ranging from its storage capabilities, graphics module and processor. The reason for the above results is that the Samsung notebook is the only unit that uses a Core i5 processor and a hybrid hard drive. Acer comes with a Core i7 processor and an older hybrid drive; HP uses a Core i5 processor but uses an SSD and finally Lenovo is equipped with a Core i7 processor and a SSD drive. As such, there are times the Samsung Series 5 Ultra tends to end up with the lowest scores.

However in terms of normal usage, you wouldn't really feel much difference because the Series 5 Ultra has a solid state cache that helps it stay competitive against units with SSDs in terms of loading speeds.

3DMark06

We're still using the 3DMark06 benchmark to test the graphics performance of the notebooks because as of now, the Intel HD 3000 integrated graphics are still unable to handle DirectX 11. The scores from this benchmark would indicate just how capable your notebook would be when playing games. But because all of the notebooks have the same integrated graphics core within the CPU, the scores are very similar. What you can take away from this test is that the Samsung Series 5 Ultra hasn't been handicapped in anyway by the manufacturer. Facebook games, movies, and light multimedia editing definitely won't pose any issues, but anything more intensive and you just might have to consider a non Ultrabook because there's none yet in this form factor to offer a discrete graphics engine.

Far Cry 2

The best way to determine if a notebook is good at games, is to put it in a real gaming situation. For this test, we're using the benchmark tool of Far Cry 2 to gauge if it's worth installing any games onto your new Ultrabook. As you can see from the charts below and from the 3DMark results earlier, the Samsung Series 5 Ultra doesn't really perform better, or worse than the other notebooks. However, like we've mentioned before in previous Ultrabook reviews, these machines aren't exactly built for gaming. What you can gauge from this benchmark however, is the fact that it can manage certain less demanding games, but not intensive games like this test.

Battery life and Portability Index

The name "Ultrabook" certainly comes from the combination "ultraportable" (a term or descriptor) and "notebook" (a noun, of course). The combination of these two words just serves to describe this new class of notebooks which are far more capable than their predecessors - be in terms of battery life, physical properties or processing capabiltities. Certainly past ultraportables and notebooks managed only a certain set of those aspects, but Ultrabooks have proven us so far to live up to their namesake.

Having established the platform performance of the Samsung Series 5 Ultra, we now check out its battery life and portability aspects that make up the other facets of an Ultrabook. Being late in the game, this is going to be a tough for Samsung.

Battery Life

Battery life, in our opinion, is one of the key elements that define an Ultrabook. Unfortunately, the battery life on the Samsung Series 5 Ultra isn't as good as the machines from the competitors. However if you noticed, its battery life is extremely similar to that of the Acer Aspire S3. Though both sport a hybrid drive, that isn't the reason. In fact according to the notebook's specs and its battery charge capacity, it should have actually fared better than the 3 hours and 48 minutes we got out of it while playing a video continuously. Naturally, it would last a lot longer if you aren't doing something as intensive, for example like word processing.

Power Consumption

Given the stats we've obtained, applying a little math quickly gave us the power consumption stats and the real reason why the Samsung Series 5 Ultra didn't last as long as we hoped it would. For some reason, its power draw stats are higher than the HP Folio 13 and worst of all, the Acer Aspire S3. Looks like Samsung hasn't quite mastered power management finesse of the competitors.

Portability Index

Our portability index basically tells you if it's how worthy is the notebook to be lugged around while being powered on its own. The elements used to derive the final ratio include the machine's mass, dimensions and battery life. From our calculations, it looks like the Samsung Series 5 Ultra is as about as portable as the Acer Aspire S3 and is about one of the lower ranking Ultrabooks. Not as portable as the almost similarly weighing 1.49kg HP Folio 13, this is mostly due to the difference in battery capacity (hence battery life). However as far as notebooks go, the Samsung Series 5 Ultra is still reasonably light enough for you to carry it anywhere you go. Just don't expect to run intensive tasks on it and yet have it last the whole day.

Almost There

So this is the part where we tell you if you should or shouldn't buy the Samsung Series 5 Ultra. Unfortunately, it isn't as simple and clear-cut as many of its cometitors we've come across. This is largely due to the fact that as an Ultrabook, the Samsung Series 5 Ultra is very attractively priced at just $S1288. For what you pay, you get a laptop with good build, a matte screen (which is unheard of in its class), a fantastic keyboard and a fairly large (but non-clickable) trackpad. It's basically the notebook that you should get if you need something that's thin, light and has plenty of storage space.

However like the Acer Aspire S3 before it, the Samsung Series 5 Ultra has very middling battery life (compared to the other Ultrabooks of course). As we scrutnized further, it was clear that despite the Samsung's decent battey capacity (better than the Acer), the power usage optimization of the machine leaves much to be desired given its specs. Performance in producticivity and gaming benchmarks on the other hand were to expectations and while generally holding up the rear, it wasn't much worse or better than the other Ultrabooks.

Battery life and minor design flaws (such as sharp edges that can hurt your wrists) aside, the Samsung Series 5 Ultra does live up to overall expectations and isn't handicapped in other ways. What that means is that you can get this notebook without much concern other than the couple of aspects we've have stated. As a budget-class Ultrabook, Samsung has made a good attempt, but should these issues become deal-breakers for you, you can rest assure that there are plenty of other Ultrabooks in the market that you can consider, though you might have to pay more for them.

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