Samsung Series 5 Ultrabook 530U4BI review

Juice box
Samsung Series 5	Average watts per hour
Off (60 percent)	0.49
Sleep (10 percent)	0.67
Idle (25 percent)	8.25
Load (5 percent)	32.48
Raw kWh	35.36
Annual energy cost	$4.02

The Samsung Series 5 ran for 4 hours and 44 minutes in our video playback battery drain test. That's decent for a midsize laptop, but a bit below average for an ultrabook. Dell's XPS 13, the Lenovo U300s, and even the 14-inch HP Spectre did a bit better. That's fine for everyday use, but we'd want it to hit at least 5 hours before we'd feel confident in carrying this system around all day for mission-critical work without a power cord.

Samsung includes a standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty with the system. The company's support Web site offers an easy-to-use menu for finding your laptop model, and frequently asked questions and driver/manual downloads are easily accessible. Samsung's 1-800 service number is also prominently displayed, which isn't always the case on support pages.

The Samsung Series 5 is a perfectly fine 14-inch laptop, and is even pleasingly slim and long-lived compared with other 14- and 15-inch models. But its use of the ultrabook term is unfortunate: it may meet Intel's definition, but it definitely skirts the spirit, if not the letter, of the concept.

Multimedia multitasking test
(Shorter bars indicate better performance)

Multimedia multitasking test (in seconds)

Asus UX31E-DH52

670 

Lenovo IdeaPad U300s

701 

HP Envy 14 Spectre

714 

Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook

763 

Samsung Series 5 NP530U4B-A01

776 

Find out more about how we test laptops.

System configurations
Samsung Series 5 NP530U4B-A01
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-2467M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 64MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 3000; 500GB Seagate 5,400rpm

HP Envy 14 Spectre
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-2467M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 64MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 3000; 128GB Samsung solid-state drive

Dell XPS 13 Ultrabook
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 1.6GHz Intel Core i5-2467M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 64MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 3000; 128GB Samsung solid-state drive; Intel HD 3000 Toshiba 128GB solid-state drive

Asus Zenbook UX31E-DH52
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 1.7GHz Intel Core i5-2557M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 64MB(Dedicated) Intel GMA HD; 128GB solid-state drive

Lenovo IdeaPad U300s
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) w/ SP1; 1.8GHz Intel Core i7-2677M; 4GB DDR3 SDRAM 1,333MHz; 64MB (Dedicated) Intel HD 3000; 256GB JMicron 616 solid-state drive