Wootalyzer's Pricing Post! - The price of today's woot item is saved here for future reference
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Samsung Quad-Core Laptop
$379.99 + $5 Shipping
Condition: Refurbished

*DISCLAIMER* Wootalyzer! is in no way affiliated with Woot!, and this post may not always be here!

$449 on the Amazon new (not refurb)

has decent reviews, but some pretty negative ones as well.

Is this REALLY a good deal? My Toshiba is dying and I'm looking for a good laptop.

Based on the specs this is almost a BUY. The display resolution is horrendous though.

Never been a fan of AMD, but at this price it almost seems like a no-brainer

not sure on this one... just a few more bucks for brand new.

I know I am cheap (which is how I found woot! to begin) but I kinda don't want to buy my wife a laptop that cost more than $250-$300, I mean all she uses it for is Facebook and Word doc's.

Bought this exact model a month ago, for what seems like a slightly better deal ($400 new, since expired).

It's a nice build, though my wife finds the off-center keyboard and touchpad a bit offputting.

A natural question that will arise is which is better, the AMD A6 or the Intel i3, which is around the same price. Benchmarks show that the i3 is faster at most tasks, but the A6 (with its dedicated Radeon HD graphics chip) is far better for games and other intensive graphics tasks. As I find that pretty much any modern computer runs ordinary tasks quite well, this puts me firmly on the side of the A6.

Amazon reviews
Good: Fingerprint and smudge resistant except for frame around keyboard. Great screen, mousepad, loud sound, fast graphics. Cons: only 3 USB ports, crashes, not easy to shut rf and bluetooth off.

AW. Get me the 11.6" or very hopefully the 12.5" Samsung and I will be in.

The question is... will it run Diablo 3?

3

Amazon Reviews
Driver issues seem to cause it to crash frequently. Wiping and reinstalling seem to cure issues.

I just bought a laptop with these exact specs, an Acer Aspire for $400 new from Newegg.

I kind of wish I'd waited after seeing this, but then I'm getting a new PC instead of a refurb.

Not all that a good deal considering not too long ago a new one was available for $400!

4GB and 64-bit, don't want to wait listening swap space being heavily used.

Two days ago on 1saleaday there was a similar laptop, but it had 6GB of RAM, 17.3" screen, and was only $350.

Come on woot, step it up please.

If I didn't already have a laptop I'd be all over this--I wish my HP Ultrabook had a full numberpad, this keyboard is genius!

andrewlin77 wrote:The question is... will it run Diablo 3?

Here's the requirements.

Intel Pentium® D 2.8 GHz or AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 4400+Intel Pentium - Pass
NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800 GT or ATI Radeon™ X1950 Pro or better - Fail
1 GB RAM (XP), 1.5 GB (Vista/7) - Pass

This is how much they ran for new at WorstBuy :-\ Aside from that, this is an awesome laptop. Easy to upgrade and lightning quick when using k10stat to utilize the most out of all 4 cores.

digitalthug916 wrote:Based on the specs this is almost a BUY. The display resolution is horrendous though.

You are on point with that, my 2 year old Acer netbook is running at the 1366 by 768 resolution with a 10 or 11 ish inch screen... and it has HDMI so you can output to a 1080p tv.... At this price I'd say you can many better deals...

let me first say, people who expect a 300$ laptop to perform like a full-priced laptop need to check in with reality.

This processor uses a llano A6 chip which is an amazing value. In regards to gaming, the problem is this is a G, which means it does not use dual graphics, both the CPU and graphics are handled in the processor.

you can still play modern games like batman, albeit on medium settings. Older games like WoW will run on medium-high. this model also doesnt seem to have bluray.

What makes llano special is that it has far better graphic performance than intel's onboard counterpart at a low price point.

someone is going to comment you can get an nvidia card in your intel laptop. yes you can, and alienware laptops sell for 1400$. your CPU means very little if your graphic card cannot do the work.

If you don't really care about graphics, then you don't really need a llano laptop but the low price still makes it a very attractive to everyone.

if you are a serious gamer, I would choose the next model up with dual graphics. A6 or A8 is fine but it should have a discrete card labeled 'M', such as 6750M.

Every AMD processor I've ever owned ends up getting hot and shutting my computer. Both desk top and notebook. Will never buy them again. Their is a reason Apple doesn't use them.

Geeks.com seems to have a similarly appointed gateway for slightly less (345). Considering one of these as I will need a notebook this fall.

Although it says "Radeon HD 6520G" as it's graphics card. The laptop still has only integrated not dedicated graphics. But still a pretty good buy.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/AMD-Radeon-HD-6520G.55734.0.html

Product support page:
http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/NP305E5A-A03US

The manuals are on that page, can't figure out how to directly link them.

Samsung is average or on the higher end in quality in 2012 reader's survey, depending on how you look at their chart:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2400793,00.asp

Here's the requirements.

Intel Pentium® D 2.8 GHz or AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 4400+Intel Pentium - Pass
NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800 GT or ATI Radeon™ X1950 Pro or better - Fail
1 GB RAM (XP), 1.5 GB (Vista/7) - Pass

Actually, the integrated graphics are a recent generation and support all the features required. Diablo III should be a go, but I can't speak to what quality settings and FPS to expect.

Adding a second 4GB DDR3 module will increase 3D graphics performance substantially, at a very small cost.

Nvidia 7800 and ATI x1950 are over 5yr old.

friedricebob wrote:
Adding a second 4GB DDR3 module will increase 3D graphics performance substantially, at a very small cost.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with that. Unless you don't have enough RAM to start with (and 4GB is more than enough for most games + whatever background OS processes are running), adding more RAM to a budget system won't noticeably increase graphic performance.

Hi everyone! I found a really good unboxing video. Here's the Link!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS2PjdD9u8k

penwynd wrote:Is this REALLY a good deal? My Toshiba is dying and I'm looking for a good laptop.

Why not? At least you'll have something better than what you have.

What's so terrible about the resolution? I use my 32" lcd tv as a monitor with 1366x768 resolution, and it isn't that annoying. Do you really really need a 1080p screen on something that small?

Monitor resolutions are starting to feel like the old megapixel wars with cameras. Also, it'll just make your video card work harder for a negligible difference. :\

I have this exact model, and it's been really reliable since I bought it a few months ago for $400 at Best Buy. The CPU can go to 2.4GHz when you enable turbo core. I play games like League of Legends at high settings and don't have to worry about overheating.

annzgman wrote:Why not? At least you'll have something better than what you have.

Well, the Toshiba is elderly, but it's been through hell and back with me and I just got a new X battery for it 3 months ago. Now the touchpad is wonky. Can you beat the Samsung up and it'll keep on clicking?

I was looking at everyday laptops at Best Buy the other day. There are many new products from $309 and up.

KcasMij wrote:You are on point with that, my 2 year old Acer netbook is running at the 1366 by 768 resolution with a 10 or 11 ish inch screen... and it has HDMI so you can output to a 1080p tv.... At this price I'd say you can many better deals...

this has HDMI out, too.

I have this laptop, got it for about this price a couple months ago, and I love it. It's never crashed on me either - I see people saying that it's crashy on some of the reviews.
A number pad on a 15.6" laptop makes me happy

salvato99 wrote:Every AMD processor I've ever owned ends up getting hot and shutting my computer. Both desk top and notebook. Will never buy them again. Their is a reason Apple doesn't use them.

Historically, AMD's mobile offerings have been garbage, though that is finally starting to change. For desktop systems, I've owned several AMD chips that have worked fine with stock cooling. The only stories I've heard about desktop AMD chips overheating have involved some sort of fan failure or careless overclocking.

If your AMD desktops got hot enough to shut down your system, your system builder messed up somewhere.

Apple most likely does not use AMD hardware because it's not expensive enough for a suc^H^H^H"premium"-level brand. AMD's current offerings (relative to Intel's) kinda place them in the "value" segment.

tljx wrote:I'm afraid I have to disagree with that. Unless you don't have enough RAM to start with (and 4GB is more than enough for most games + whatever background OS processes are running), adding more RAM to a budget system won't noticeably increase graphic performance.

The integrated graphics on this laptop use shared system memory, so a game probably could max out the 4GB fairly easily when you factor in the chunk that's allocated to the video card. More RAM would allow you to give the graphics card 2GB (or whatever the max is) while still leaving plenty of system memory available.

L4m3r wrote:The integrated graphics on this laptop use shared system memory, so a game probably could max out the 4GB fairly easily when you factor in the chunk that's allocated to the video card. More RAM would allow you to give the graphics card 2GB (or whatever the max is) while still leaving plenty of system memory available.

I doubt the gpu would need that much ram. mid to high end desktop GPUs can perform fine at 1080p resolutions with higher resolution textures using 512 MB GDDR5. DDr3 and GDDR3 are roughly the same; GDDR5 has around twice the bandwidth as GDDR3(assuming same clock rates and bit rates). With an intergrated, low -end GPU like this, i would expect low end textures and they will be run at a ~720p resolution. I can't imagine that the GPU will use 1 GB let alone 2 GB of ram.

Eh, I think the elephant in the room no one is talking about is the fact it's a refurb. Without knowing why an unit is sent back for refurb, or what components are replaced, you can't know how long your unit will last. In particular this is an AMD lappy that tends to run hotter, and who knows if the previous owner tried to overclock it and made it overheat. If the factory didn't simply build a new unit and insisted on recycling components from the overheated one, and you end up with the unit, don't expect to keep it too long.

I've learned my lessons buying refurb computers. Struck out 3 out of 3.

Picked up this model last fall for my wife on a screamin' deal at Staples. Got it new for $350 after using a $150-off coupon. While it said on the box it had a 500 GB drive, it actually had a 750. No complaints here! :-) It's a pretty sweet laptop. The quick boot feature is VERY nice. Open the lid and you're at the logon screen almost immediately.

The screen is very bright, but unlike many LCD screens this one can actually be turned down to a very dim setting. I like this a lot when using it at night. Ours came with a single 4 GB memory card, leaving the other slot empty. You can add 4 GB more for around $20 if you watch for a sale.

It does have HDMI out and recognizes immediately when we plug it into our Vizio TV. It plays video and movies flawlessly onscreen or on the TV.

One thing I've noticed is that the cooling fan runs most of the time. Not at high speed, but there's almost always a blast of warm air coming out the side. Perhaps this is just the nature of modern processors as more and more functionality it built into them.

We've been quite pleased with this laptop, but we aren't power users. No gaming, but lots of video streaming. As for the price, it seems that laptop prices have crept ever upwards since Christmas. Most laptops I see lately in this price range, even "on sale", have E-300 AMD or B950 Intel processors that pale by comparison to the A6.

Does anyone know if this comes with the CD's or DVD's to completely re-install the OS? I have had the problem before where a "new" machine comes completely loaded with Windows but if I ever have to re-install Windows, I cannot do that because no installation media came with the machine. Thanks...