Labs

Samsung's R700 desktop replacement won a Recommended award back in our January issue (web id: 161442), winning us over both with its good looks and its fine performance.

And even a few months down the line it's still a handsome laptop. The large glossy black lid is a fingerprint magnet, but keep it clean and it looks great. The interior is all black, and even though it looks a little plasticky it doesn't feel overtly like a budget model.

It's well built, too. The lid protects the display from all but the most heavy-handed of prods and twists, and the base has only a slight bit of flex in it; surprising given its size.

A large chassis gives plenty of room for a fine, good-feeling keyboard, and that's

And despite its 17in screen and larger dimensions, the R700 doesn't weigh much more than many of the smaller laptops here. At 3.06kg it's still a bit too heavy to carry every day, but it's manageable. And with light use, battery life stretches to an unlikely 4hrs 4mins, with heavy use reducing this to 1hr 18mins.

Its longevity is matched by good performance. The Intel Core 2 Duo T5450 trails its faster stablemates, but a score of 0.87 in our 2D benchmarks is still more than acceptable. And to even things up, the Nvidia GeForce 8400M GS graphics got the best 3D result here - it's one of the few machines on test with genuine gaming abilities.

If we were to nit pick, the display's 17in diagonal has a native resolution of 1,440 x 900, spacious for a Windows desktop, but contrast is a little lacking. Given the ample brightness and even-handed colour reproduction, though, we can just about let that one go.

For £477 Samsung's R700 offers a superbly well-balanced desktop replacement. It's fast enough for most tasks, has usable 3D graphics, it's quite light and is blessed with real stamina. On its own it won a Recommended award; in the context of this Labs, it takes top place.