Samsung is joining the club of ultra-light laptops, alongside Lenovo’s X300 and Apple’s MacBook Air, with the introduction of their X360 laptop.
North Americans may not be very familiar with Samsung laptops, but the X360 is definitely an eye-catcher with a bright 13.3-inch LED display and sleek look. Thanks to Intel’s Centrino 2 ULV processor, Samsung was able to slim down the laptop’s thickness and reduce the weight to 2.8-pounds. Samsung did end up sacrificing the optical drive, but that free space left room for a 7-in-1 memory card reader, three USB ports, VGA port, HDMI port and docking station connector. Samsung didn’t skimp on the battery luckily, providing up to 10 hours of battery life, which should be enough for most people’s needs.
The X360 features a 64 GB or 128 GB solid-state drive, which are becoming the norm on high-end laptops, though a typical hard disk drive option is still available. The rated speeds for the SSD in the press release seem a bit on the low end, with a 53 MB/s read speed and 28 MB/s write speed, whereas Samsung’s own high-performance SSDs can double those speeds with sequential data.
Detailed system specifications include 1 GB of DDR3 memory expandable to 4 GB, 1280 x 800 LED backlit display with 300 nits brightness, Intel 802.11a/n, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR, Gigabit Ethernet, PCI Express Card slot and a 1.3 MP web camera. The graphics is powered by Intel’s new GMA X4500 graphics core, a solution many gamers will not be satisfied with, but should be fine for most other users.
The main attraction with this laptop is likely going to be its size and weight, not performance as much, so how does it stack up against the competition in that regard?
| Row 0 - Cell 0 | Apple MacBook Air | VoodooPC Envy 133 | Lenovo X300 | Samsung X360 |
| Thickness | 4 mm to 19.4 mm | 17.9 mm | 18.5 mm | 16.7 mm to 30.9 mm |
| Weight | 3.0 lbs | 3.37 lbs | 3.3 lbs* | 2.79 lbs |
| Screen Size | 13.3-inch | 13.3-inch | 13.3-inch | 13.3-inch |
*With optical drive. Lenovo X300 is approx. 2.9 without optical drive, like its competition.
As we see, although the new Samsung X360 is quite a bit thicker than other laptops in its class, it is a tad lighter too. With the competition priced starting at about $1,800, Samsung could have a winner on their hands if the price is right.
