Review Samsung Series 5 510R5E Notebook

When it comes to the case, the manufacturer hasn't made any glaring mistakes. Samsung has skillfully combined both plastic (display bezel, keyboard surroundings, base) and metal (palm rest, lid).

With the exception of the jet black bottom of the 15-inch notebook, the remaining surfaces are covered with a refreshing silver-grey color. We would also describe the shape and size to be pleasing to the user. The multimedia device makes a classy and at the same time simplistic impression. Thanks to the matte surfaces, the notebook doesn't stand out as a dust-magnet which is usually the case with glossy devices (e.g. Toshiba Satellite L850).

The manufacturing quality of our reviewed device was up to a good standard. For those that are not especially demanding, the level of quality should definitely be sufficient. We weren't quite as content when it came to the stability though. Depending on the amount of pressure exerted, the keyboard and touchpad dent inwards considerably in some cases, and the lid could also be a bit more firm, although these shortcomings shouldn't stand out negatively during normal daily use. The slim case (23 millimeters high) and the light weight (approximately two kilograms) allow the machine with a good level of mobility.

A few more words regarding the opening mechanism: Samsung have set both of the hinges in such a way that opening the display requires both hands. Despite the relatively rigid mechanical components, the display still wobbles when the base is moved even slightly.

As shown in the screen shot on the right, the manufacturer has pre-installed quite an array of software. Many buyers would be pleasantly surprised to find "Adobe Photoshop Elements 11 and "Cyberlink PowerDVD 10". Thanks to "Adobe Reader X" and the trial version of "Microsoft Office", there shouldn't be problems opening various documents on the laptop on first boot.

We particularly liked the "Settings" software from Samsung. Using this, it is possible to activate the quiet or eco mode, (de-)activating the touchpad and changing other settings for the display and the audio.

Accessories

The delivery package merely includes three information leaflets and the 234 grams AC adapter of 60 W capacity. With a size of 105 x 40 x 30 millimeters, this power supply should fit into almost any pocket. On the subject of power supply, the 43 watt-hour lithium ion battery is unfortunately integrated into the case.

This may be annoying to many, but it has been a long time since an OEM has included a recovery DVD with the laptop. At least the operating system can be backed up with the pre-installed "Recovery" tool. Restoring the operating system is possible directly in Windows 8 or via the hidden recovery partition.

Warranty

The warranty is valid for 24 months. Within the first 90 days from the date of purchase, it is also possible to extend the warranty to three or four years.

Processor

In order to avoid overexerting the cooling system and keep the price of the notebook attractive, Samsung has 'only' included a 2.5-3.1 GHz dual-core CPU, rather than a quad-core processor.

The Core i5-3210M from the Ivy Bridge generation of CPUs is among the most popular notebook CPUs for a few months, which should come as little surprise considering that the model provides good performance and acceptable power efficiency (35 watts TDP).

Like other Ivy Bridge processors, the dual-core CPU is manufactured using the 22 nm process and the 3 MB of L3 cache are also an indication of good performance. Thanks to the Hyper-Threading technology, the Core i5-3210M can process up to four threads simultaneously.

Since Samsung has adopted AMD's Enduro graphics switching technology, the HD Graphics 4000 integrated into the processor also gets put to use. Altogether, we consider the Core i5-3210M to be a very good choice.

For demanding graphics processing, a graphics card by AMD has been included. The Radeon HD 8750M is based on the same GCN architecture (Graphics Core Next) as its predecessor the HD 7750M, which is manufactured using the 28 nm process. With 384 unified shaders, the DirectX 11.1 graphics accelerator nestles comfortably in the table of mid-range GPUs.

2048 Megabytes of DDR3 VRAM may look like an ample amount at first, but the memory only has a 128-bit wide interface. Compared to its GDDR5 counterpart which provides faster/larger throughput, the DDR3 version uses a faster clock speed to compensate for the performance losses. 825 MHz (core) and 900 MHz (memory) are clock speeds that are  rather high frequencies for such a middle-tier card.

Thanks to dynamic graphics switching, the Radeon HD 8750M is only active when its performance is really required. For less demanding applications such as office use, video playback or using a web browser, the HD Graphics 4000 inside the processor is used.

Advice: If a 3D application is running suspiciously slow, users should start the Catalyst Control Center (right-click on the desktop) and check which profile is active. In the menu 'Graphics options - User settings', all the installed and recently opened programs are listed. The "High performance" option represents the Radeon HD 8750M, while "Power saver" on the other hand uses the HD Graphics 4000. If necessary it is also possible to change the global settings in the Catalyst Control Center.

We carried out our speed tests with the pre-installed GPU driver 9.1.1.0, which is already a few months old.

The hard drive is a 9.5 millimeter high HDD with a capacity of 1000 GB. The SpinPoint M8 HN-M101MBB comes directly from Samsung itself, and provides decent performance. With around 90 MB/s during sequential read and 88 MBytes/s during sequential write (CrystalDiskMark), these are numbers that are not provided by every 5400 rpm hard drive. The access time of 20 ms meanwhile is average for this class of device (HDTune).

Inside the 17-inch 770Z7E, the same HDD provided a comparable performance, while Toshiba's MQ01ABD100 in the HP Pavilion g6-2253sg and other notebooks represents one of the fastest 1 TB HDD competitors to the Samsung Spinpoint.

Our comprehensive gaming test (see table below the Verdict) confirms the impressions we got during the synthetic benchmarks: The Radeon HD 8750M is able to come close to the GeForce GT 640M in terms of performance, but Nvidia's Kepler GPU has a slight lead overall.

While less resource intensive games such as Diablo III, Skyrim, Fifa 13, Dishonored or Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 can also be played with high details and active anti-aliasing, users will have to make do with medium settings in some cases (e.g. Far Cry 3, Battlefield 3, Guild Wars 2 or Need for Speed: Most Wanted).

In most cases, the performance advantage over the Radeon HD 8730M stays within 10%, and occasional gamers that don't have to necessarily play every game with all the bells and whistles are likely to take a liking to the Radeon HD 8750M.

The heat dissipation rates are also acceptable. Starting off in an idle state where the case heats up to an average of 28 °C, and ending with maximum utilization where the case heats up to 37 °C (top) and 41 °C (bottom), the hottest points being at the back of the notebook which can reach between 46 and 52 °C.

The components themselves are of course confronted with even higher temperatures as usual. According to the tool Hardware Monitor, the automatic over-clocking switches itself off when the processor reaches a temperature of 95 °C. As already mentioned, the Core i5-3210M then only runs at a speed of 2.5 GHz. The Radeon HD 8750M meanwhile still operates with its maximum speed of 825/900 MHz. A GPU temperature of 82 °C shouldn't be any cause for concern.

Despite the modest battery capacity (43 Wh) the runtime isn't bad compared to other multimedia notebooks. When using as many power saving features as possible with the lowest display brightness, the 510R5E works for up to seven hours without a power cable. Just about 4.25 hours of mobile web browsing (medium power savings, ~2/3 brightness) isn’t bad.

When the CPU and GPU are both loaded, like in the case of the Battery Eater Classic test, and maximum brightness settings are used, then a single battery charge will last for around 80 minutes. In this case, a higher capacity lithium ion battery could potentially provide for quite a substantial improvement in run times.

The Series 5 510R5E-S01DE presents itself as a successful all-round notebook. On the bright side, the intelligent hardware combination and the slim and light case are aspects worthy of mention.

Neither the design nor the manufacturing and material quality leaves much to be desired. The matte finish additionally provides for reduced susceptibility to dust and fingerprints. Even the keyboard and touchpad designs seem to have been thought through.

The connectivity on the other hand could have been better distributed (only one audio socket), and the absence of keyboard backlight or an optical drive also become substantial reasons for a lower rating.

Most of the criticism has to be attributed to the low quality display. Viewing angles, color space coverage and brightness all failed to meet our expectations. Demanding users should probably opt for a notebook that has a much better display (such as the Acer Aspire V3-571G-53238G1TMaii or the Dell Vostro 3560).

In terms of the system noise, temperature, audio quality and mobility, the 15-inch notebook manages to put on a decent to good performance. Anyone who wants to buy a mobile multimedia notebook will be right on the money with the 510R5E.