The 15.6-inch Samsung 300E 5C should appeal to thrifty consumers. Its matte screen is well-suited for long-term personal and professional use. The laptop's performance is determined by the i3-2310M processor, the integrated Graphics 3000 graphics chip, four gigabytes of RAM and a standard hard drive with a rotation speed of 5400 rpm.
Samsung puts an excellent price-performance ratio for the Series 3 models. The manufacturer offers 11.6 "(305U1A), 13.3" (300V3A), 17.3 "(300E7A) and the 15.6-inch form factor considered in this review. To reduce the cost, the 2011 Sandy Bridge processors are mainly used.
Case design
The notebook case resembles the model 305E7A (17.3-inch, with CPU and GPU from AMD) and 355V5C-S05DE (15.6-inch, AMD): it is made of black and gray plastic. A single glossy surface surrounds the keyboard and seems to attract dirt. The display lid is decorated with a familiar corrugated pattern. Although pressure resistance could be better, the laptop resists bends well. The same applies to the display cover. Hard hinges do not allow opening the device with one hand. They prevent the beating of the lid. It's a pity, but Samsung does not offer laptop transport lock.
Connectivity options
The interfaces and their layout correspond to the 300E5A-C01 model. Connector placement is right-handed. External monitors can be connected via digital HDMI or an analog VGA port. Users note that Samsung could have assigned at least one of the three USB 2.0 connectors to standard 3.0. Unfortunately, it did not happen. I am glad that there is a Realtek RTL8168 / 8111 Gigabit-LAN port, Atheros AR9485WB-EG Wi-Fi network adapter and Bluetooth version 4.0, which supports the latest standards.
The quality of the 0.3 megapixel webcam is far from perfect, but enough for video telephony.
Accessories
In addition to the essentials, such as a 48 Wh battery and a 65-watt power supply, several information brochures are included, including a quick start guide. As is now accepted, the user himself must create a recovery DVD. This can be done using the software of the manufacturer Samsung Recovery Solution.
Service
How to disassemble a Samsung 300e laptop ? The hard drive and system memory can be easily accessed through the service cover at the bottom of the device. Unfortunately, there are no free slots or 2.5-inch bays - any update will require removal of installed components. Unfortunately, it is more difficult to disassemble the Samsung 300e in order to get and clean the fan and radiator, and this may lead to loss of warranty in case of damage. The manufacturer guarantees the laptop for 24 months. This period may be extended by the seller.
I / O devices are identical to models 305E7A-S03DE and 300E5A-S01.
The operating system that was installed on the Samsung 300e is Windows 7. It will probably have to be replaced with a more modern one. For the Samsung 300e laptop, drivers for Windows 10 can be downloaded from the manufacturer’s website or updated automatically using the Windows Update program.
Keyboard and touchpad
The Samsung 300e has an ergonomic keyboard that provides excellent tactile sensations and has separate numeric keys. The location of the buttons is not satisfactory for users.
The matte surface of the touchpad provides precise cursor movement. Elan Smart-Pad supports modern multi-touch gestures. Under it are two mouse buttons. They react well.
Display
The installed 15.6-inch screen is called AUO21EC and manufactured by the Chinese manufacturer AU Optronics. The maximum resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels corresponds to the price range of the laptop. The aspect ratio of the screen corresponds to the common 16: 9 format.
Fortunately, the display has a matte surface and a good maximum brightness of 212 cd / m2. In addition, the user should be satisfied with a relatively uniform illumination (83%), a relatively low black level (0.6 cd / m2) and good contrast (353: 1).
Subjectively, owners like the color rendering and contrast of the device. Like most laptops in this price range, the Samsung 300e is not able to cover all the color spaces of sRGB and AdobeRGB. True, this is important only for professional computer graphics users. Color reproduction is sufficient for office and Internet applications.
In the open, the frosted surface of the Samsung 300e is gaining points. A brightness of 200 cd / m2 is sufficient for working with a laptop in the shade. There are no distracting reflections usually appearing at certain viewing angles or incidence of light. To use the laptop in direct sunlight, the brightness of the screen would have to be a little higher. Stability of viewing angles is typical for TN panels. In the horizontal direction, the working area is quite wide. But vertically, especially when viewed from below, color inversion and loss of contrast are quite noticeable.
Performance
The Samsung 300e is based on the Intel HM75 (Panther Point) chipset, which supports Ivy and Sandy Bridge processors. The laptop is equipped with an Intel Core i3-2310M Sandy Bridge with 4 GB of RAM and a hard drive with a speed of 5400 rpm. The integrated Graphics 3000 chip provides graphics. All this indicates that the laptop is focused on the use of office and Internet applications, rather than performing demanding 3D tasks. An alternative model of the third series 355V5C is equipped with a discrete graphics solution mid-range performance.
CPU
Intel's i3-2310M is a dual-core Sandy Bridge generation CPU. Thanks to hyper-threading technology, up to four threads can be calculated simultaneously. There is not enough turbo mode, since the graphic chip, depending on the heating, changes its clock frequency in the range of 650 to 1100 MHz. The processor performance in all oriented tests is at the expected level. In the Cinebench R10 test, the laptop scores 3421 points for one core and 7517 points for two.
Samsung 300e: performance feature
Two tests of PCMark, Vantage with 5216 points and PCMark 7 from 1922, evaluate the effectiveness of each individual component and summarize the overall result. Here, the fast memory has a positive effect, and the graphics work is not significant. The overall system performance is at the expected level. At the same time, a faster storage device (SSD, hybrid solutions, or even a 7200 rpm hard drive) could provide a significant increase in laptop performance.
HDD
The Hitachi Travelstar 5K750 HDD was installed with a capacity of 500 GB and a rotation speed of 5400 rpm. HDTune and CrystalDiskmark test results are typical for a model of this class. The data transfer rate was 36.5–80.5 MB / s, and the access time was 18.3 ms.
Video
The Graphics 3000 is integrated into the CPU. Although the Core i3 does not have Turbo Boost, the graphics can be overclocked from 650 to 1100 MHz. When creating this model, Samsung focused on users with fairly moderate requests for 3D performance. In general, the laptop is not inferior to analogues with similar graphics, both in the 3DMark Vantage and 3DMark06 tests, and in the OpenGL Cinebench R11.5 test. However, the shading tests in both versions of the Cinebench R10 (32-bit and 64-bit) showed rather poor results. Given the popularity of the graphics card and its intended purpose - office and Internet applications - it does not make sense to run game tests on it. The 300E5C is only enough for the lowest installations of demanding 3D games.
Noise level
When inactive, the laptop seems pretty quiet. Sometimes the fan shuts off completely, leaving only a faint rustling of the spinning hard drive. Under load, the noise level reaches 41.3 dB. Those who find it too loud can use simple tuning tools and turn on silent mode. In this case, the maximum volume under load drops to 35.3 dB. This is due to a decrease in performance, since the processor clock speeds are reduced. Deviations in the fan operation control were not noted by users.
Temperature
At low load, for which the Samsung 300E was designed, the surface temperature remains within normal limits. But in the case of unrealistic tests for several hours, 100% load of the CPU and GPU, with standard settings, the temperature rises to 50 ° C. In practice, users should not experience any problems. During a stress test, the temperature of the two processor cores and the graphics chip remains in the green zone. The clock frequency of both cores is stable. Only the graphics processor operates in the 950 MHz region. Throttling is not observed, since the 3DMark tests carried out immediately after that ended with a slight difference compared to a cold start.
Speakers
The speakers are located above the keyboard. The sound remains undistorted even at maximum volume, but there is not enough bass, as is usually the case in devices without a subwoofer. In order to enjoy the music, the owners recommend using external speakers or high-quality headphones. The 3.5 mm jack test did not reveal any problems.
Power consumption
Standby power consumption is a maximum of 11.2 watts, with moderate load in 3D tests - 45.1 watts and 56 watts - at full. Silent mode not only reduces the noise level, but also the processor clock speed. Thus, the power consumption in the 3DMark06 tests drops to 23.6 W and up to 28 W in the stress test.
Battery life
Notebook Samsung NP 300E is equipped with a 48 W ∙ h lithium-ion battery. At minimum brightness, power-saving mode turned on and the Wi-Fi module turned off, the battery life reaches 7 hours. At maximum brightness, high performance and the included wireless module, battery power is consumed in 1.5 hours. This value is the minimum runtime of the device. In practice, with a brightness of 150 cd / m2 and a fully charged battery, you can surf the Internet through Wi-Fi access points for 4 hours or watch DVDs for 3.5 hours. In both cases, an energy-saving profile was selected, which is sufficient to perform these tasks.
Verdict
In series 3, Samsung has focused on providing good value for money. The positive thing is that this savings did not touch on key things for users, such as screen quality and input devices. The display is not bright, but, combined with a matte surface, is sufficient to work outdoors in the shade. There is a comfortable keyboard and touchpad.
Samsung, on the other hand, saved on interfaces. A user must have access to at least one USB 3.0 port. In addition, the motherboard allows the installation of a more modern Ivy Bridge processor. Instead, Samsung has equipped the laptop with a Sandy Bridge generation Core i3-2310M chip. Application performance is limited by the speed of the hard drive. But competitors do not offer anything better in this price range. The finish of the laptop is far from perfect. Analogs from other manufacturers look much better. HP even uses brushed aluminum cladding.
The model is not designed to perform demanding 3D-tasks, such as computer games. Instead, the emphasis is on working with office applications and Internet surfing. Those users who need better graphics and performance should consider other features with a discrete graphics card.