Over the last decade, you've probably lusted after some sleekly designed Samsung cell phone, MP3 player, or flat-screen TV, but unfortunately you've never had the chance to lust after a Samsung laptop. That's because, unlike the rest of the world, Samsung's laptops have never been available in the U.S. – until now. Today, Samsung unveiled a new line of high-end portable computers, which will be available online at sites such as Amazon.com, NewEgg.com, Buy.com, and TigerDirect.com later this month.
We got an early hands-on with the laptops when Samsung stopped for a visit a couple of weeks ago, and were impressed with the look and feel of the new models. The snazziest of the new models are the 13.3- and 14.1-inch ultra thin X360 and X460, which are designed to go head-to-head with the
MacBook Air and the
Lenovo X300. These two-toned beauties are just under three pounds and are said to have a superlative 10 hours of battery life, despite having SuperBright LED backlit displays. We're curious to try out the battery life for ourselves, but 10 hours is about as good as it gets. All in all are slick-looking laptops that won't take up much space in your backpack, but we wish they had built-in mobile broadband capability, as the Lenovo X300 and even smaller Sony TZ series do.
Samsung also announced the R610 ($1,049) desktop replacement, which has a feels a bit less bulky than the typical desktop replacement, but still offers a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio, HD resolution and Windows Vista Home Premium for recording and managing all your favorite TV shows and movies. Again, it has a two-toned look that'll look nice on a table or desk and most of the bleeding-edge features you'd want (Bluetooth 2.0, HDMI output, Wi-Fi, 3 USB 2.0 ports), but lacks, for example, a Blu-ray drive, which means it's fine to replace a desktop computer, but maybe not your entire home entertainment system (as many other desktop replacements can).
The new laptop we were most impressed with was the NC10 ($899, pictured, above). Like the Asus eeePC and the Everex Cloudbook, this clutch-sized mini-laptop falls into the growing affordable and small
netbook category, which means it's perfect for checking your e-mail and basic Web-surfing, but don't depend on it for editing videos. Still, we liked the keyboard on the NC10 more than on any other netbook we've had the chance to try out so far – slightly bigger and spaced out keys made for typing at a fast clip not too far off from a standard-sized laptop keyboard. We also like the chrome border around the NC10's edge, which gives this netbook a stylistic edge over some of its brethren (the eeePC, Dell 910 mini, etc).
For a closer look at these laptops, take a look at the gallery below.
