Samsung R780 review

For those who'd rather enjoy a big screen and plenty of features than carry a laptop around all day, Samsung's spacious R780 ticks all the boxes. It's been a popular choice with us since we first saw it around six months ago, with its slick Touch of Colour finish really setting it apart from the brash chrome-and-lights styling of most 17.3in desktop replacements.

It's had a couple of updates since, but none of that design has changed. The wavy fingerprint lines give it an organic look that's unbroken by anything but the black Scrabble-tile keys - the speaker grilles are as discreet as we've seen, and even the mouse buttons keep that red gloss intact. The multitouch touchpad has four little blue corner LEDs so you'll know where you are at a glance, and the slightly mottled coating - while not kind to sweaty fingers - gives a nice amount of friction and feedback.

As you'd hope, that keyboard is huge, with none of the miniaturisation that plagues smaller laptops, and with room for a full set of Function keys and a numeric keypad. The backing has a little bounce to it, but the keys have the ideal amount of travel and there's plenty of wrist-rest to keep you comfortably typing in any position.

Look up from there and you're greeted by a 17.3in screen with an even, bright backlight and plenty of vibrancy to its colours. It's glossy, but not disruptively so, and viewing angles are as wide as you'd hope given its potential for watching movies in a bedroom or a hotel room.

This is where it first stumbles, however, as Samsung has stuck with a 1,600 x 900 resolution. It isn't a bad desktop experience, and the sharpness is perfectly acceptable, but as Samsung has chosen to add a Blu-ray drive to enhance the R780's media credentials, we'd have much preferred a Full HD screen to go with it.