Samsung Series 3 305E5AI user reviews (15.6" - A series A6-3420M - Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB HDD)

Pros Nice ergonomics, but then there's the computer...

Cons H-O-R-R-I-B-L-E battery. BIOS freezes. Truly lousy support. Touchpad.

Summary Round #1- Samsung usually makes good stuff. So I took a chance, especially at the price. I'm an idiot. The battery is h-o-r-r-i-b-l-e! With no peripherals attached, no programs going except a browser, and the screen dimmed to about 40%, I get way less than an hour on a charge, 46-57 minutes. Called Samsung for support and I have to ship it back, 7-10 days. Now who believes that! She takes my email and says she'll email me a label right away. you got it- 12 hours later no label. And, yes, I checked my spam folder.

Round #2 - Upgrading the RAM

Oh, I thought, a sub $400 laptop from samsung but only 4 gb ram. No biggie, I'll just put in another 4 gb. Samsung's user manual says be sure to use same maker for both chips and timing. Sure. I order 2X4gb by Corsair from Amazon. The manual says 8500, so that's what I order. While waiting for the mem to come, I decide to open it up. I find a Samsung 10600 4 gb chip. Return the chips and order same brand but 10600. I boot up but it'll only read 4 gb. Turns out it only takes samsung chips. Thanks for the tip in the manual.

Round #3 - BIOS freezes. That's a new one on me after building computers since 1988.

Round #4 - I started writing this 15 minutes ago. The battery was at 50%. now it's down to 22%.

Round #5 - When bonked, the touch pad will not show the cursor where you wanted it. Actually it is there, Samsung just wants to entertain with an new game- Touchpad Magician.For some reason, the cursor moves to where you want it, but it's invisible because if you start typing, the letters show up where you want them.

Think hard before you believe any stuff about great price point and value. Shoot, out of juice.

Pros The laptop is so quiet I barely know it is on. Plus, it comes with a feature that lets you quiet it even more called silent mode. The laptop is sexy, sleek & thin. You can lift it with one hand and it looks like no other out there.

Cons None, just wish it came with the backlit keyboard. But not a big deal.

Summary After reading some reviews and watching YouTube videos of Dell XPS I bought a i5 dual core, 2.53ghz, 1gb Nvidia optimus, 8 gb laptop. Boy did it suck. Still have it but it is no more than a useless paperweight. One issue after another. Finally got fed up with the over 25 fixes and it still has operational issues. The noisiest laptop on the planet enough to make you want to punch holes in your own wall it is so annoyingly loud with the fan blowing to cool it down every 10 seconds because of overheating. Dell replaced the laptop 8 times because of issues plus 25 in house repairs. Overheating, noisy fan, random keyboard keystrokes while typing, crappy graphic display, lock ups when playing videos & crashes or while using browsers with hardware acceleration. A total piece of crap.


Decided to replace it and wasn't spending $1300 on another laptop anymore. Bought from the Samsung Series 3 line and won't be looking back. Got my money's worth and then some.

1st boot gives you the option to partition. The display is matte not glossy easy on the eyes, w/no eye strain. Graphics incredible w/AMD quad core processor and graphics card and it has a metal chassis. Beats my i5, 2.53ghz, nvidia optimus laptop by leaps and bounds. Quick boot, open the lid and instant on plus lightening fast. Came with some pretty sweet software and light on the manufacturer crapware. Can't believe all I got for the money.