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Samsung R780

Samsung R780 17.3in laptop

Big and beautiful?

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Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

Review Samsung’s R780 has clearly been designed to get noticed. The glossy, deep-red chassis and slightly nauseating swirly line motif won’t appeal to those who like their laptops to be subtle, but it does make it stand out from the crowd. Personally speaking, I quite like it. That said, I also quite liked the design of Acer’s Ethos, and it appears there were a few of you who thought I had a screw loose for saying that.

Samsung R780

Hard and fast: Samsung’s R780

It’s also pretty darn sturdy. In an absent-minded moment I managed to whack it hard into a doorway. After nervously looking to see what damage I’d inflicted, I was relieved to discover it had emerged completely unscathed. I opted not to repeat the test, though.

The keyboard follows the chiclet/scrabble tile design – Samsung has opted to call it an island keyboard. The keys have a decent amount of resistance and travel, making typing a pleasant experience. As is so often the case, some flexing to the keyboard lets it down, but it’s only likely to affect those with a particularly heavy-handed approach to typing.

Numeric keypads are commonplace on larger notebooks, but they always pose a problem when it comes to the arrow keys. Most manufacturers tend to shrink the arrow keys and shift them down slightly in order to fit the numeric keypad in. The problem with this method is that the arrow keys then become slightly less comfortable to use, particularly when gaming.

Samsung R780

Decent keyboard and touchpad

With the R780, Samsung has instead opted to keep the arrow keys the same size as the others. However, in order to do this it’s had to halve the size of the zero key on the numeric keypad, which is usually double-width. I reckon Samsung’s got the right idea here, though – I’d much rather the single-width zero key as opposed to reduced-size arrow keys.

Customer Success Testimonial: Recovery is Everything

Only 1600 x900 on 17."

Is this for people that need reading glasses but won't wear them? It's only about 104 dpi

My 8 y.o. laptop is 1600 x 1200 and 15.4" yet is lower resolution than my PMP and many mobile phones. It's about 133dpi

What happened to the dream of a 200 dpi or better paper like WYSIWG display?

Why is it nearly impossible to find a laptop with a display that can show an entire A4 document at readable quality? (You do need at least 1200 lines, 1080, the HDTV resolution is just too small).

Good review though :-)

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Even cheaper

The model from Argos you quoted is an i3 processor, not i5. It also has a GT310 video card instead of a 330. Check processor type, speed and just about everything else before comparing!

You can avoid Argos and pay about £100 less from a number of suppliers (ebuyer.com for one). (£605 is the cheapest I've found so far for the same model as the Argos version)

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Actually im not after 1600x1200 display...

... but in a 17" machine i still do not understand why you wouldnt have at least a 1080p resolution. Especially with a machine with a Bluray player. It really does not make since to me!

HP have done this with there new DV7 line as well. The only 1080p compliant model at 17" will be the Envy 17 (in the UK at least).

If your going to include a Bluray player it should be a minium requirement to have a screen which can show the film at full resolution. Sorry Samsung until you bring out a 1080p screen - your off my selection list!

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