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Samsung’s latest entry-level laptop might not look all that different if you’re familiar with the other models in its line-up – the 3 series uses an almost identical chassis to the older RV-series laptops we looked at last year, with a few minor tweaks to bring it up to date for 2012.
The 15.6in chassis won’t look out of place in the office or at home thanks to its brushed metal lid, which is both scratch- and fingerprint-resistant. There’s a good selection of ports around the edges, including three USB, VGA, HDMI, 3.5mm mic and headphone ports, a multi-format card reader and an internal DVD re-writer. We would have liked to have seen at least one USB3 port, though.
The minimalist theme continues once you open the lid, with a silver wrist rest complementing the black keyboard tray nicely. A keyboard comprised of Chiclet-style keys and a separate numeric keypad are ideal for getting on with work, as is the large touchpad beneath it – the keys were bouncy, responsive and in their usual locations, although because they felt very slightly smaller than full size it took a little while before we were typing at full speed.
The touchpad was a joy to use, thanks to its smooth finish and large size – it actually felt too sensitive at its default settings, with a single swipe sending the cursor flying across the screen, but we could easily change it using the control panel. The buttons beneath it were slightly wobbly, but still clicked firmly when pressed.
We were happy to see Samsung has added a matt display to the 300E5A, as it let us work without being distracted by light reflections. The 1,366×768 resolution is par for the course at this price, but image quality was surprisingly good – colours looked accurate and both images and text were crisp. The speakers beneath it were only average, producing basic audio that can’t compete with a good pair of headphones or external speakers.
Performance comes courtesy of an Intel Core i3-2330M processor running at 2.2GHz. It supports Hyper-threading, but not Turbo Boost, so this will be the maximum clock speed no matter what application you run. In our multimedia benchmarks, the 300E5A achieved a respectable 43 overall, which makes the laptop more suited to standard Windows tasks than serious number-crunching.
When you’re not pushing the laptop to the limit, you shouldn’t have to worry about running out of battery – the 300E5A lasted over six and a half hours in our light-use test.
This is mainly due to Intel’s integrated graphics, which use less power than a dedicated card. It’s fine for playing high definition video – we had no trouble running 720p files on the laptop and could also watch 1080p content on an external display. However, we couldn’t play games smoothly – it could only manage 13.5 fps in Dirt 3, so you’ll have to either stick to old games or lower the resolution.
Based solely on looks, the 300E5A looks like great value for £400 – it’s stylish yet understated and has everything you could want from an entry-level all-rounder. It’s not quite perfect – performance is only average, and most games are out of the question, but if you just want a basic machine that can handle most everyday tasks, it’s a good buy.
