Product Reviews

It seems that no area is safe from the march of technology, especially with machines like the Samsung Q20 around. It's getting to the stage where you may as well take your notebook with you just in case you need it, and, in its undocked form, the Q20 weighs less than two copies of the magazine you're holding - just 1.3kg.

The only way to achieve this kind of weight is to sling out the unnecessary, but the Q20 still manages to pack a lot into its svelte 22mm profile. In addition to the two USB 2 ports and a Type II PC Card slot, there's powered FireWire, infrared and a VGA out. There's even a handy three-in-one card reader that accepts Memory Stick, SD and MMC cards. As this is a Centrino machine, 802.11b WLAN comes courtesy of Intel, and there's a V.90 modem and 10/100 Ethernet port too. The only notable omission is Bluetooth.

Then, if you need more, you can add on the docking station, which provides parallel, PS/2 and serial ports, a further two USB 1.1 ports and an unpowered four-pin FireWire connector, as well as a floppy drive and an 8x DVD-ROM and 24x/10x/24x CD-RW combo drive. It's enough to make the Q20 into a competent desktop replacement, and it still only takes the unit up to an acceptably portable 34mm, with a minimal weight of just 2.4kg.

Of course, there's no point in portability without battery life, and the Q20 won't disappoint in this capacity either. Thanks to the low-voltage version of Intel's Pentium-M processor, our light-use tests yielded a comparatively reasonable time of two hours, 52 minutes with the intensive test falling to one hour, 16 minutes. This isn't anywhere near as good as the 1.6kg IBM ThinkPad X31 TK1C8UK (see issue 106, p69), which managed just under five hours, but it's still impressive considering how thin the notebook is.

Running at a clock speed of 1.2GHz, the processor specification may not look like much on paper, but it will comfortably hold its own for everyday business tasks, scoring a perfectly

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usable 1.10 in our 2D benchmarks. It certainly feels responsive in use, although you'll notice a slight performance drop in intensive graphics or video tasks.

But you expect a degree of compromise with such a small chassis, which means it's also difficult to cram in the requisite cooling for powerful graphics. The Q20's Intel Extreme Graphics 2 chipset, for example, won't cut the mustard for modern 3D gaming, scoring just 1,934 in 3DMark2001 SE (in 32-bit colour XGA). To be fair, though, this machine wasn't designed for gaming and it's a reasonable sacrifice for the size.

Another consequence of the diminutive chassis size is the tiny 12.1in TFT panel, running at 1,024 x 768. The pixels are just about large enough to be clear, but it's certainly not conducive to running several applications at once. However, the backlighting is strong enough, if a touch uneven around the edges, and it's adjustable through a useful range of intensities. The viewing angles are better horizontally than vertically, but, along with the contrast, they're perfectly serviceable when you're sat directly in front of the screen.

The rest of the ergonomics are sound enough, except for the level of heat that permeates through the machine. The lack of any active cooling means the unit operates in total silence, but the palmrests can become uncomfortable after a while, and you won't want it on your lap for long.

The tactile and quiet keyboard is very usable, though. It may feel a little shallow, but it's certainly solid, and the layout is commendable too, with separated cursor keys, a Windows key (which you won't find on the IBM) and even a full-size Enter key. The Tab, Shift and spacebar are the only half-sized concessions, but they aren't too distracting.

The touchpad is also pleasantly responsive, with suitably solid mouse buttons. The palmrests feel a little flimsy, though - a theme echoed throughout the build quality. The screen in particular would benefit from more robust protection, although it should be adequate if you're careful.

But that said, the ruggedised plastic is convincingly metallic and should stay looking good for a while too. Compared with the IBM ThinkPad X31 it looks positively chic, although it falls behind on build quality, performance and battery life. The Samsung Q20 TLC 1200 is noticeably thinner and lighter, though, and the inclusion of the well-featured docking station makes for reasonable value at £1,499. If you need a stylish ultra portable that can also act as competent desktop computer, the Q20 is a worthy choice.