Samsung GT8000 Series review

The Samsung is a laptop computer that'll take up your entire lap.

It's a stylish affair, with a silver lid that features the same motif as Samsung's latest range of mobile phones. Very smart.

Features

The Samsung is a grown-up notebook with some beefy specifications. It comes equipped with a built-in DVD drive, which not only allows you to watch movies but also reads CD-ROMs. A floppy disk drive sits snugly above it. There are slots for PC Cards on the left-hand side of the unit, offering support for both Type II and III cards. Just above this is a fairly unusual port on a notebook - a composite video out, useful for sending pictures to a TV. A flap at the back flips down to reveal parallel, serial, VGA, PS/2 and USB ports. A network port and a modem are built into the Samsung, and to help protect it from the dangers of the Internet, Norton AntiVirus has been included. Speakers are built into the Samsung's chassis, but sound was fairly muffled - even considering its small dimensions. The highlight of the Samsung's features, however, is its 30Gb hard disk capacity, more than three times that of the other notebooks here. This would be ideal for tasks such as video editing, but the Samsung let's itself down in this area by not having a FireWire port.

Portability

At 3.3kg, the Samsung is the heaviest machine on test. However, its size does at least allow for a high-capacity battery, which in our tests lasted 2 hours, 21 minutes. It should hang on for even longer than that in everyday use. Battery life will be helped along by Intel's power-saving SpeedStep technology, which can be easily controlled from a utility in Windows' System Tray.

Ergonomics

If you're looking for a large working area on your Windows desktop, the Samsung is the one to go for, thanks to its impressive 15in screen. Not only is it the largest one in the group test, but it has the highest resolution at 1,400x1,050, allowing you to get more on the screen.

The large keys make typing a pleasure, but we found that the trackpad really caused problems when a stray thumb hit it, causing the cursor to shoot off across the screen. Disappointingly, there was no way of controlling this behavior. To get a better typing angle you can raise the legs that sit underneath. This is also useful for keeping the system off the table, as it gets hot after being plugged in for a long time.

There are three handy shortcut keys above the keyboard that allow fast access to your default e-mail and Internet browser programs, while a third has been left for you to link to an application of your choice.

Speed

The 1GHz Pentium III was until recently the fastest mobile chip, and the Samsung's benchmark score of 2778 reflects this. It's helped along by 192Mb of memory. 64Mb of this is apparently given away 'free', but as Samsung actually manufactures memory, that's no great bargain. The only real downer was the fact that 3DMark locked up when we tried to run it. It seems the Samsung's pairing of S3 Savage IX graphics and Windows 2000 isn't the most game-friendly of combinations.

Overall

With its large screen and good performance the Samsung is a fine candidate for a desktop replacement system. However it's also the most expensive notebook in this group test. If you don't require a high-resolution screen, the Compaq Presario is as powerful and much better value.

Author: Benny Har-Even