Samsung X20 730 XPP review

Samsung's X20 is an unusual notebook.

While not light enough to be considered an ultra-portable, it is extremely thin and much lighter than most portable PCs with 15" screens and full-size keyboards. It is a good choice for those who want a large screen and decent keyboard without having to compromise too much on portability.

Like most Samsung notebooks, the X20 looks great. Its footprint is about the same as that of most 15" notebooks, but when closed it is far thinner than many. Its metallic silver finish looks expensive, and the stiff screen and base and tough plastic lend it an air of quality. The slim chassis leaves no room for legacy ports, but there are two USB2.0 ports on the right and one on the rear, as well as FireWire and a card reader for SD and MMC memory cards. The notebook has a DVD writer, but unusually it is unable to write two-layer DVDs.

The keys have plenty of travel, although they are a bit snappy and lacking in feedback. The touch pad's buttons have a satisfying click, but the touch pad itself is too small to navigate the screen effectively. Unfortunately, having seen so many high-quality displays in our £750 notebook Labs test (Shopper September 2005), the X20's display suffers by comparison. It is very bright but has quite poor horizontal viewing angles and grainy whites. Colour distribution is also very patchy, with colours fading toward the edges of the screen.

The X20 has a 1.6GHz Intel Pentium M processor and 512MB of system memory. Its performance in the Shopper benchmarks and PCMark04 was good if not spectacular, but in use the notebook seems fast enough for most Windows applications. The integrated Intel graphics have some 3D performance, but not enough to run modern games at anything but the lowest settings. The notebook's light weight is complemented by its excellent five-hour battery life, so this is a great portable to take on the road with you.

Samsung's X20 seems expensive for the performance it provides, and there are notebooks with far better screens available. But it is rare to find a 15" notebook this thin and light, and its battery life is superb. The X20 has its faults, but it performs well as a portable notebook with the minimum of compromise.

Author: Chris Finnamore