Samsung Ativ Book 9 Lite

The super-slim chassis of the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Lite is exceptionally pretty, and given our enthusiasm for the hugely impressive and award-winning Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus, we were keen to see whether this cut-price version could set a new standard for £500 laptops.

The Lite’s slightly thicker and heavier than the Ativ Book 9 Plus, but even its slender height of 17mm and featherweight 1.4kg are still very competitive by ultraportable laptop standards. It even has the same exceptional build quality from its more expensive counterpart, although its entire chassis is made of plastic rather than brushed aluminium. We found hardly any flex in the main body and its tapered sides made it look anything but budget.

With such a thin chassis, there’s little space for connection ports, but the Lite makes good use of the available space. There are two USB ports, one of which is USB3, a micro HDMI output, an SD card reader, a combined headphone and microphone jack and two ports for its mini VGA and Gigabit Ethernet adaptors. Its speakers are surpsingly good for its size, and output more bass than we expected.

ONLY SKIN DEEP
In terms of components, the Ativ Book 9 Lite bears little resemblance to the Ativ Book 9 Plus. This is to be expected with a cut-price laptop, but it’s a shame the Lite has lost so much of what made the Plus so special. Its standard 1,366x768 resolution is a far cry from the Plus’s gorgeous 3,200x1,800 touchscreen display.

The Lite’s image quality was also disappointing. Our solid reds, greens and blues all looked a little washed out and they lacked the depth and vibrancy we’d normally expect to see from a glossy screen. Whites were also a little grey and our blacks revealed that the bottom half of the screen was much lighter than the top. We were able to get a uniform colour depending on how we angled the screen, but it was disappointing nonetheless.

Luckily, its contrast levels were a little better. Colours still lacked warmth, but we were able to see a good level of detail in all our high contrast test photos. This was highly dependent on where we angled the screen, though, and its narrow viewing angles meant there was only a very small sweet spot where images looked satisfactory.

LITE ON POWER
The Lite’s underlying hardware also left a lot to be desired, even for a budget laptop. Samsung’s been vague on the exact type of processor the Ativ Book 9 Lite uses, but we suspect it’s an AMD A6-1450. However, it scored just 20 in our multimedia benchmarks despite having four cores and a clock speed that can dynamically rise to 1.4GHz. This is roughly 10 points behind a dual-core Intel Core i3-based ultraportable such as the Asus Vivobook S200E. This is fine for web browsing and writing MS Word documents, but it’ll struggle with anything more demanding like encoding images or video files.

Unsurprisingly, 3D games are another weak point, as the A6-1450’s built-in AMD Radeon HD 8250 graphics processor failed to produce 15fps in our Dirt Showdown test with High quality graphics at a resolution of 1,280x720. It managed a slightly steadier 19.4fps when we set the quality to Low and disabled anti-aliasing at a resolution of 1,280x720, but this frame rate still isn’t fast enough to play modern 3D titles. You should be fine with 2D Flash games from the Windows 8 Store, though, as we could play games such as Jetpack Joyride without issue.

This is a shame, as we found the Lite to be an absolute joy during everyday use. Its springy keyboard gave plenty of tactile feedback while we were typing and its keys had a lot more travel than other ultraportable laptops we’ve tested. The all-in-one touchpad was also very accurate and responsive, and we could execute multitouch gestures and use Windows 8 shortcuts easily.

ALL-DAY COMPUTING
Its battery life was outstanding. With the screen set to half brightness, we managed a huge 7 hours and 20 minutes in our light use test, so you should just be able to get a full day’s work out of it if you’re on the move. This would be a great score for any ultraportable, but it’s easily the best battery life we’ve seen on a laptop of this price.

The Ativ Book 9 Lite also supports Samsung’s SideSync and HomeSync Lite applications. You’ll need a compatible Samsung smartphone or tablet to make use of them, but HomeSync Lite lets you share media with a Samsung mobile device as long as you’re connected to the internet and have the Samsung Link app, while SideSync lets you use your keyboard and mouse to control your phone or mirror your phone’s display on your laptop screen.

The Samsung Ativ Book 9 Lite is certainly one of the best-looking ultraportables around regardless of price, but even its brilliant battery life can’t offset its sluggish processing power and average display. If all you need is a cheap touchscreen laptop, the faster award-winning Asus VivoBook S200 is a much better buy.

Basic Specifications
Part Code	NP905S3G-K01UK
Processor	AMD A6-1450
Processor clock speed	1GHz
Memory	4.00GB
Memory slots	1
Memory slots free	0
Maximum memory	4GB
Size	17x324x224mm
Weight	1.4kg
Sound	Realtek HD Audio
Pointing device	touchpad

Display
Viewable size	13.3 in
Native resolution	1,366x768
Graphics Processor	AMD Radeon HD 8250 Graphics
Graphics/video ports	micro HDMI
Graphics Memory	512MB

Storage
Total storage capacity	128GB
Optical drive type	none

Ports and Expansion
USB ports	2
Bluetooth
Wired network ports	1x 10/100/1000 via adaptor
Wireless networking support	802.11n
PC Card slots	N/A
Supported memory cards	SD, SDHC, SDXC
Other ports	headphone, microphone

Miscellaneous
Carrying case
Operating system	Windows 8
Operating system restore option	restore partition
Software included	N/A
Optional extras	N/A

Buying Information
Warranty	one year RTB
Price	£489
Details	www.samsung.co.uk

Asus MemoPad FHD 10

                                                                                                                                                             

Hot on the heels of the Budget Buy award winning Asus Memopad HD7 is the Asus Memopad FHD 10. It's a 10in tablet with a Full HD 1,920x1,080-resolution display and a delightfully minimal design.

A slim black bezel, textured plastic rear and svelte 9mm thickness make the Memopad FHD 10 pretty and comfortable to hold. At 580g, it weighs less than an iPad and its build is excellent, with almost no signs of flex in the plastic back. The screen bezel is large enough to leave room for your fingers without obscuring the screen whether you're holding it in portrait or landscape mode, and the sensible rear speaker placement means you're unlikely to mask the sound with your hands.

You get all the ports you need, with a micro USB port for charging, a microSD card slot and micro HDMI video output on one side and a 3.5mm audio jack on the other. A wired video output is a welcome inclusion, but the Miracast support is even better if you have a display that supports it. You can stream 1080p video directly from the tablet to most modern TVs. Naturally, 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support is included.

The last point of interest on the back of the tablet is its 5-megapixel camera. We're rarely impressed by tablet cameras, but the Memopad FHD 10 at least supports tap-to-focus. It manages to capture a fair amount of detail in well-lit indoor scenes, although it overexposed the natural light from nearby windows. There's no flash, so low light scenes are unsurprisingly noisy and lacking in detail. You can capture Full HD video with the rear camera, or record 720p videos with the front-facing 1.2-megapixel sensor, but the latter is best used for Skype video conferencing.

DISPLAY

At the front, the highlight is the 10in, Full HD display. At 1,920x1,080, both still images and high-definition video look superb, especially as the panel doesn't have the grainy finish we often find on less expensive models. Brightness is above average, but it can still be a struggle to see what's on-screen when outdoors because of the reflective finish.

The Asus Splendid app gives you control over hue, saturation and colour temperature, letting you tweak the display to your own personal preference. However, colours were already accurate, if a little muted. Enabling the Vivid mode gives Android's icons a welcome colour boost, although you may want to disable it when watching video.

ANDROID

Asus has sensibly refrained from tweaking the default Android interface too much. The only major changes are a skinned notification drawer, which can be disabled if you prefer the standard one, and a fourth icon next to the Home, Back and Recent soft buttons. This opens a list of small floating apps, including a web browser, timer, calculator and email client, which run over the top of any full screen application.

Although we appreciate the near-default Android installation, it's a shame Asus has filled the Memopad FHD 10 with so many preinstalled apps. Some, such as AudioWizard, are useful, as it lets you customise the sound for your headphones or its integrated speakers. Others, like Asus To-Do, Asus photo Studio, SuperNote, Amazon Kindle and Zinio mimic existing Google features, so you may never need to use them. We’re not sure that two separate dictionary apps are strictly necessary, either. Annoyingly, you can’t remove them completely, but you can at least disable them should you prefer.

CHIPSET AND BENCHMARKS

The Memopad FHD 10 is a very capable tablet when it comes to 2D tasks thanks to its dual-core Intel Atom Z2560. The processor runs at 1.6GHz and is paired with 2GB of RAM, which helped it achieve a rapid 1129ms in the SunSpider JavaScript test. That puts it ahead of all the 10in Android tablets we've recently tested, and on par with many high-end smartphones too. Our review unit had 32GB of internal storage and although there will eventually be a 16GB model, we don't yet know how much cheaper it will be. Both models have a MicroSD card for adding extra capacity later.

The PowerVR SGX 544MP graphics are perfectly capable of rendering the Android operating system smoothly, and all the 2D games we tried worked flawlessly too. Unfortunately, very demanding 3D games ask a little too much of the chip, so expect to see less smooth results. This was reflected in its 3Dmark scores of 5884 and 3423 in the Ice Storm and Ice Storm Extreme tests respectively. That’s much less than the Xperia Tablet Z and the Nexus 10, but it's still quicker than the original Nexus 7.

Intel's mobile processors aren't as energy efficient as those based on ARM architecture, so we weren't expecting fantastic results from our video playback test. However, the Memopad FHD 10 lasted 9 hours and 40 minutes, which is over one hour more than the Google Nexus 10. As long as you stick to multimedia tasks rather than 3D games, you should easily get an entire day's use out of a single charge.

CONCLUSION

While many 7in tablets now combine power and speed at low prices, it's tougher to find cheaper 10in models, but the Asus Memopad FHD 10 is among the better devices available today for the money.

Its only serious competitor is the Nexus 10, the 32GB Memopad is around £20 cheaper than the 16GB Nexus, plus it has a memory card slot to further expand its storage space. This makes the Memopad FHD 10 the clear choice if you plan on loading up your device with lots of HD video files. The Nexus is slightly quicker in our benchmarks, but the Memopad is more stylish and feels better built.

That's a win for the Asus then, however the current Google Nexus 10 has been on sale for almost a year now, so it's a little disappointing that the Memopad isn't significantly cheaper or better specified. A new Nexus 10 is rumoured to be coming soon and that could make the Memopad seem rather overpriced. If you're happy to spend the extra then the Sony Xperia Z is still our Ultimate tablet, but then its £100 more.

Basic Specifications
Part Code	ME302C-1B019A
Processor	Intel Atom Z2560
Processor clock speed	1.6GHz
Memory	2.00GB
Memory slots	1
Memory slots free	0
Maximum memory	2GB
Size	265x182x9.5mm
Weight	580g
Sound	Intel HD Audio
Pointing device	touchscreen

Display
Viewable size	10.1 in
Native resolution	1,920x1,080
Graphics Processor	PowerVR SGX 544MP
Graphics/video ports	Micro HDMI

Storage
Total storage capacity	32GB
Optical drive type	none

Ports and Expansion
Bluetooth
Wired network ports	none
Wireless networking support	802.11n
PC Card slots	none
Supported memory cards	microSDHC
Other ports	3.5mm combined audio input and output

Miscellaneous
Carrying case
Operating system	Android 4.2.2
Operating system restore option	restore partition
Software included	none
Optional extras	none

Buying Information
Warranty	one year RTB
Price	£300
Details	www.asus.com

Toshiba C50-A-156

The Toshiba Satellite C50-A-156 is a rather bland and unassuming-looking general purpose laptop, but as it costs less than £350 we can forgive a boring chassis. It's unashamedly plastic and, at 32mm thick, pretty chunky, but it looks smart and feels sturdy. In keeping with its businesslike appearance, it has a matt display, with which means that you don't need to worry about reflections on dark screens or glare in brightly-lit environments.

The 15.6in, 1,366x768 display is surprisingly good. What really stood out in our subjective tests was the accurate, natural looking colour, and we saw no trace of unwanted colour tints in our test images. Our calibration tests bore this out, as we measured the screen as displaying 72.9% of the sRGB colour gamut. Our dark, low-contrast test images looked murky and greyish, though. Although black tones didn't look too bad to the naked eye, our calibrator rated black levels as a poor 0.72cd/m2 and the display's contrast ratio was also relatively low at 360:1.

The laptop relies on the processor's on-chip Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU, and there are VGA and HDMI outputs for external displays. The GPU is far more powerful than the integrated graphics in previous generations of Intel Core processors. In our standard Dirt Showdown laptop graphics test, which we run at a resolution of 1,280x720 with High quality settings and 4x anti-aliasing, we saw a frame rate of 16.1fps. When we dropped the quality to Low we got 31fps, and saw a hyper-smooth 44fps at Ultra Low quality. You'll easily be able to play older 3D games and most new ones will work well if you keep the quality settings down.

The processor itself is a 2.5GHz Intel Core i3-3120M, and it managed an overall score of 44 in our benchmark tests. That's good by laptop standards, and it's even more impressive considering the Toshiba's low price. It can easily handle running multiple applications at once and keeping open large numbers of browser tabs. The laptop has 4GB of RAM, which is good enough for general computing tasks if not editing enormous images. You can upgrade the laptop to a maximum of 16GB RAM, and there's one memory slot free by default.

The laptop's 1TB hard disk is another massive coup for a machine at this price, giving you all the room you'll need for your multimedia collection, as well as plenty of space to install software. There's a DVD-RW drive, too, helping to set this laptop apart from many similarly priced portables, which often lack optical drives. The C50 has three USB ports, one of which is USB3, as well as an SDXC memory card reader and the usual 3.5mm mic and headphone ports. Network connectivity comes in the form of a 10/100 Ethernet port and 802.11n Wi-Fi.

The keyboard's closely positioned keys look a bit cramped compared to the near-ubiquitous Chiclet style keyboards, which have gaps between each keys. However, they're large, with a reasonable amount of travel when you strike each key, which makes the keyboard feel responsive. We were able to touch-type on the keyboard accurately, although you need to hold down the Function key to activate certain keys such as Print Screen.

There's a full-sized numeric keypad, too, set slightly apart from the rest of the keyboard. This means that the touchpad is pushed a little further to the right than we're entirely comfortable with, but we didn't brush it while typing and had enough space for our right wrist. The wrist rest gets a bit warm after an hour or so of use, though, particularly to the right of the touchpad. The pad is surprisingly small, but its compact size and separate buttons make it easy to click and drag to select text.

The integrated speaker is positioned just behind the keyboard. Our audio test files sounded clear and reasonably loud, but, like most laptop speakers, there's no bass and treble tones are uncomfortably harsh. Connect external speakers if you want to listen to music properly. Although the laptop is fairly powerful and has a relatively large 15.6in screen, it did well in our light use battery test, lasting six hours and six minutes.

With a surprisingly powerful processor for the money, in addition to an impressive display, this is a great laptop for less than £350. While the laptop and touchpad layout aren't entirely to our taste, both proved to be perfectly usable, making this a laptop with few compromises and a Best Buy winner.

Basic Specifications
Part Code	PSCG6E-05J002EN
Processor	Intel Core i3-3120M
Processor clock speed	2.5GHz
Memory	4.00GB
Memory slots	2
Memory slots free	1
Maximum memory	16GB
Size	32x380x240mm
Weight	2.3kg
Sound	Realtek HD Audio
Pointing device	touchpad

Display
Viewable size	15.6 in
Native resolution	1,366x768
Graphics Processor	Intel HD Graphics 4000
Graphics/video ports	HDMI, VGA
Graphics Memory	256MB

Storage
Total storage capacity	1,024GB
Optical drive type	DVD+/-RW +/-DL

Ports and Expansion
USB ports	3
Bluetooth
Wired network ports	1x 10/100
Wireless networking support	802.11n
PC Card slots	none
Supported memory cards	SDXC, MMC
Other ports	1x USB3, headphone, microphone

Miscellaneous
Carrying case
Operating system	Windows 8
Operating system restore option	restore partition
Software included	none
Optional extras	none

Buying Information
Warranty	one year RTB
Price	£350
Details	www.toshiba-europe.com