Product Reviews

Not everyone wants or needs the flashiest gizmos. Sure, you need technology that's up to the job. But just as a Chelsea tractor is overkill on the school run, the number-crunching might of today's fastest mobile processors is wasted on most everyday tasks. Samsung's no-frills R60plus laptop aims to give you everything you're likely to need - DVD writer, wireless networking, widescreen display - but trades in the luxe extras to keep its price down to under £400.

We hardly need tell you that involves some compromises, but they're not conspicuous at first glance. The Samsung's gloss black exterior is smart enough, although the textured plastic inside isn't the finish du jour for fashion-conscious laptop luggers. That said, it's still understatedly stylish. It also makes the Samsung resistant to the scratches that can quickly mar the appearance of other machines. The 15.4 inch widescreen display has a high-gloss reflective coating to heighten contrast when playing DVDs, and while colours looked a little washed-out and viewing angles weren't great, we were more than satisfied given the R60plus' modest price.

The built-in stereo speakers were another pleasant surprise. Granted, they're predictably lacking in the bass department, but they give a decently spread stereo image that helps immerse you in movies. And then there's the keyboard. With full-size keys and none of the loose, wiggly action we associate with many budget laptop keyboards, it was a joy to type on. (For hygiene-conscious

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users, it also has a 'silver nano' coating to keep bacteria at bay. Handy if you have to share your laptop with a scuzzball.) There are no shortcut buttons to clutter the keyboard surround, an omission that didn't bother us at all; we rarely use them anyway.

Modest performer

So far, so good. But what about the inside? At the heart of the R60plus is an Intel Pentium Dual Core T2310 processor. Not one of the latest Core 2 Duo chips, but not too shabby either. In this case, though, it's hampered by the Samsung's surprisingly mean 768MB of RAM, leading the system to an unimpressive score of 117% in our general (2D) peformance test. That's enough to run Windows Vista Premium, which comes installed, and the majority of everyday home software. Open a few applications at once, though, and things are likely to grind to a crawl.

That lack of oomph also applies to the R60's gaming abilities. 3D graphics are provided by a Radeon X1250, which was just powerful enough to run our demanding Call Of Duty 2 games test - something that's beyond the capability of many low-cost notebooks - but at an unplayable 6.1 frames per second. You could get away with all but the latest games if you turn the detail levels right down, but don't expect the Samsung to cope with future titles.

Battery life is fair: we eked nearly three hours out of the Samsung in our light use test. Playing a DVD, it lasted a reasonable two hours and 13 minutes, enough to see you through most movies. The 80GB hard disk is adequate rather than generous, big enough to cope until you start hoarding high-resolution photos and video clips.

The Samsung R60plus isn't an ideal laptop. We'd hardly expect it to be, given the price. The most serious compromise is the amount of RAM, which really is quite bizarrely small, but this could be remedied with an inexpensive and fairly simple upgrade. Niceties such as a memory card reader, Bluetooth, FireWire or a built-in webcam are also missing, but if your needs are modest and your budget tight, the R60plus is well worth a look.