Some user reviews...

http://reviews.cnet.com/laptops/samsung-rc512-s01/4505-3121_7-34559905.html

Wootalyzer's Pricing Post! - The price of today's woot item is saved here for future reference
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Samsung 15.3" Quad-Core i7 Laptop with WiDi, WiMAX, Blu-ray & HD LED Display
$649.99 + $5 Shipping
Condition: Refurbished

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

Aw man, that's not fair! I just got the dual core i5 for not a lot less. And this has blu-ray! And the broken mirror is just taunting.

Is the broken mirror included?

Why do they put a 5400rpm HD and a 1366x768 (low res) screen, in a seemingly otherwise nice laptop? It couldn't cost more than 50 bucks more to NOT cripple the machine with those features.

hmmmm, wimax. I've been out of touch for a bit on this stuff -- does wimax actually matter?

that sideview mirror needs some work. oh- and to be attached to a car.

"Don’t reflect on your old computer, Grandpa."

Great - what language do i need to be learning now?

Ok for Gaming: Yes or no?

This is BS woot! I bought this exact laptop on August 8th from you guys for $740. TOTALLY SCARED OF THE DARK NOW. I feel ripped off now

roachiepie wrote:Ok for Gaming: Yes or no?

Better than decent for gaming. here is an overview of its graphics subsystem:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-525M.43889.0.html

kaplanfx wrote:Why do they put a 5400rpm HD and a 1366x768 (low res) screen, in a seemingly otherwise nice laptop? It couldn't cost more than 50 bucks more to NOT cripple the machine with those features.

While I agree (when buying for myself) with both, 720p+ isn't "low res". Most people probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between a 7200 rpm and 5400 rpm hard drive or find 720p video to be unsatisfactory. Also, the video card is substantial (plays most newer games on medium settings).

BUT, personally I would prefer the ASUS n53sv to this (better screen, better video card) but its also a little pricier.

smrtdrmmr wrote:This is BS woot! I bought this exact laptop on August 8th from you guys for $740. TOTALLY SCARED OF THE DARK NOW. I feel ripped off now

Ditto. Especially since I had a problem and had to do a full reinstall to correct a RAM/HD failure issue. I would definitely feel better about my August 8th purchase at this new price

kaplanfx wrote:Why do they put a 5400rpm HD and a 1366x768 (low res) screen, in a seemingly otherwise nice laptop? It couldn't cost more than 50 bucks more to NOT cripple the machine with those features.

They feel that they can get away with calling it "HD" or "High Definition" because it's capable of displaying 720p video without downscaling. I'm sick to death of laptops being designed to the same specs as my $200 TV. Newsflash manufacturers: Some of us still buy laptops for use as a computer, not a portable TV!

I wouldn't pay that kind of money for a laptop with a slow hard drive and low-res screen like this either. If anything, I'd opt for a business-class Lenovo ThinkPad with no less than 1600x900 or even 1920x1080, and a 7200 RPM drive for about $150-200 more.

Edit: And before someone calls me stupid or whatever for calling 1366x768 "low res", yes I am quite aware that 720p is considered high definition in the world of television. However, in the world of computers any display bigger than 11 inches with that resolution is going to be an absolute eyesore. Hi res in the computer world has more to do with pixels per inch than with progressive scan lines.

I've been looking for a portable solution for doing professional video editing using Adobe Premiere and After Effects. The price looks enticing. I'm a little concerned about the screen resolution though. Can anyone offer any advice as to whether this is a good buy for me?

Dear Laptop Makers of the World,

We know you're in lurv with putting a number pad on your new laptop keyboards, but you're doing it wrong. Please stop shifting the damned touchpad over. The touchpad has NOTHING to do with the number pad, and you're making everyone's right arm grow slightly longer, and left arm slightly shorter.

When the world can suddenly only fap with their right arm because the other will no longer reach, maybe then you'll see the error of your ways.

Love,
Max

smrtdrmmr wrote:This is BS woot! I bought this exact laptop on August 8th from you guys for $740. TOTALLY SCARED OF THE DARK NOW. I feel ripped off now

Wouldn't you say that having been able to enjoy the use of this laptop for almost TWO months before the rest of us is worth about a hundred bucks to you? Comes out to only a little more than a dollar a day.

retswerb wrote:hmmmm, wimax. I've been out of touch for a bit on this stuff -- does wimax actually matter?

I think I need a WiDi, WiMAX lesson... I'm lost in this jargon. What is it, why do I need it and is it worth it?

kaplanfx wrote:Why do they put a 5400rpm HD and a 1366x768 (low res) screen, in a seemingly otherwise nice laptop? It couldn't cost more than 50 bucks more to NOT cripple the machine with those features.

high res screen typically cost about 100-150 more than the low res counterpart

Previous Woot!

MaxAwesome wrote:Dear Laptop Makers of the World,

We know you're in lurv with putting a number pad on your new laptop keyboards, but you're doing it wrong. Please stop shifting the damned touchpad over.Max

+1

To that end, what's wrong with a centered actual keyboard. How much time as a percentage do people use a number pad anyway? with a desktop machine I can move the keys to be centered, not on a notebook.

linuxuser wrote:Ditto. Especially since I had a problem and had to do a full reinstall to correct a RAM/HD failure issue. I would definitely feel better about my August 8th purchase at this new price

how dare they lower the price so soon and in non-woot-off form! I have to look at this lower price for 24 Hours??? MADNESS!!!

Snakefish wrote:I've been looking for a portable solution for doing professional video editing using Adobe Premiere and After Effects. The price looks enticing. I'm a little concerned about the screen resolution though.

The resolution is a little low for a 15". Both of those apps love screen area. 1366x768 should feel cramped as you try to fit your keyframed video timeline, assets, effects, monitors, scopes, etc all on the same screen. Just for comparison (I'm not saying you should buy this), the high end MacBook Pro 15" has an option for a 1680x1050 screen.

1680x1050 is 1.76 megapixels, while 1366x768 is nearly just half the screen real estate, both on a 15" laptop.

As far as 5400RPM, tell me what the throughput of the drive is. RPM doesn't tell you that. A data-dense 5400 can keep up with an older 7200.

I bought the I5 version of this for $500 on Woot about a month ago. I wanted the Samsung because the lid and keyboard top are made of aluminum as opposed to plastic. Feels a lot like a MAC and I really wanted something that did not flex when I put pressure on it. Just makes it feel more rugged.

PC is great. Only issue is that the fans in the Samsung's are pretty loud. I only hear them when on an AC outlet (plugged in). When running on battery only the loud fans get much quieter. So since the battery life is pretty good (5 hrs or so) I have no real complaints.

I7 with a Blue ray would have been a tough decision for the extra though. Still I love the aluminum lid and case.

How many places actually use (802.16e)? Most of the time I see (802.11a/b/g/n) and is 300 Mbps bandwidth over Wi–Fi (802.11a/b/g/n) a noticiable improvement to most laptops?

It's not that 720p (768 rows) is too low for video playback on the 15" monitor, it's that 768 rows of resolution on a 15" monitor means the pixel density is too low, and text is going to look HUGE. I have 1366x768 resolution on an 11.6" laptop at home, and on a 13.3" laptop at work. Having the same resolution on a 15" screen is just too low. I'm not blind, I don't need giant default fonts and icons. Throw a 1600x900 pixel resolution on these 15" screens, and they'd be much better.

I'm sorry, but if you buy this laptop, you really need to learn more about computers.
first of, you can get a better laptop for the same price elsewhere, second, no you cant game on it and games will look crappy unless you play 10 year old games, you cant realy mod this laptop to be better. If you want to game then this wont work, if you want to just do work/school stuff then this is too high of a price for a simple laptop. Crappy resolution, crappy gpu, with 6gb ram and quadcore i7 2ghz is useless. Sorry woot.

I have a 23.5" name brand (HP) monitor running at 720p and it looks great, no more eye strain than than the 17" CRT it replaced.

What if i just want an i7? you cant get that for much cheaper

biosnake20 wrote:What if i just want an i7? you cant get that for much cheaper

Amen, plus a blu-ray player? I think this computer is pretty snappy. I just wish there weren't so many people apologizing to me for buying it.

kaidenshi wrote:I wouldn't pay that kind of money for a laptop with a slow hard drive and low-res screen like this either. If anything, I'd opt for a business-class Lenovo ThinkPad with no less than 1600x900 or even 1920x1080, and a 7200 RPM drive for about $150-200 more.

I always picked the 5400rpm hard drive for laptop if I could choose between 5400 and 7200, even when I bought new ones to replace the old ones.

5400rpm consumes less power compared to 7200rpm of the same series, so the laptop gets longer battery time which is important to many laptop users.

5400rpm also generates less heat so it's more comfortable to use and the fan won't go into "jet engine" mode as often.

Only if the work involves a lot of disk loading, e.g. video processing, the difference between 5400 and 7200 is significant.

However, I have to say 1366x768 is very low for a 15". Even my 12" Dell and HP got 1280x800 (though I connect it to a 27" to use when at home)
I guess the audience of this laptop is for old people who need everything look bigger.

biosnake20 wrote:What if i just want an i7? you cant get that for much cheaper

if you want an i7 for fun and no use then i don't see why buying this laptop is a bad idea :D

And they continue to insist that 1366 x 768 is "HD". Nevermind that any movies played on the internal Blue-ray drive will be in 1920x1080, and will only show half the detail.

cindihoward wrote:I think I need a WiDi, WiMAX lesson... I'm lost in this jargon. What is it, why do I need it and is it worth it?

If only there was a way to search the Internet, and perhaps an online encyclopedia...

CPU Benchmarks from PassMark

I'd appreciate a 15" laptop with higher screen resolution than a 4" cell phone.

Woooooo, shiny. Must buy.

beeftinkle wrote:I'm sorry, but if you buy this laptop, you really need to learn more about computers.
first of, you can get a better laptop for the same price elsewhere, second, no you cant game on it and games will look crappy unless you play 10 year old games, you cant realy mod this laptop to be better. If you want to game then this wont work, if you want to just do work/school stuff then this is too high of a price for a simple laptop. Crappy resolution, crappy gpu, with 6gb ram and quadcore i7 2ghz is useless. Sorry woot.

So...what are we supposed to look for then?