Dell Inspiron 14 5000 Series review: An attractive middle-of-the-road 14-inch laptop

Elegant and affordable are two words that describe Dell’s Inspiron 14 5000 series. The brushed aluminum and black minimalist styling Dell has treated this laptop with give it an air of class you don’t often see in a mid-range, all-purpose laptop. It looks more expensive than its $750 price tag, which ironically, makes every imperfection seem that much greater. Hence, less-than-spectacular and slightly frustrating are also valid descriptions.

The Inspiron 5447's brushed-aluminum lid makes this mid-range laptop look more expensive than it is.

The Inspiron 14 5000 series sport 14-inch (duh), glossy, relatively low-res 1366x768 touchscreen displays that are prone to glare and have narrow viewing angles. If you buy one, I suggest sitting directly in front of it, adjusting the screen angle, and watching better movies. Trust me on this. If the movie is good enough, you won’t be worrying about pixels. This is one of those instances when the Inspiron 14 5000’s good looks make you think it deserves better. Or at least a non-touch option to lower its price.

The Inspiron 14 5000 series starts at $600 for an Intel Core i3-4030U, 4GB of DDR3L/1600 memory, and a 500GB hard drive; ramps up to $749 for the model 5447 reviewed here (with a Core i5-4210U, 8GB of memory, and a 1TB, 5,400 rpm Western Digital WD10JPVX-75JC3T0 hard drive); and tops out at $850 with a Core-i5-4510U model with the same memory and hard drive. Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be an SSD option.

Our model weighed in at 4.65 pounds sans AC adapter; 5.4 pounds with it. It measures 13.5-inches wide, 9.75-inches deep, and 0.8-inches thick—that’s not thin-and-light territory, but it’s not so bulky that your friends will be amused at your purchase.

The Inspiron 5000 series is only 0.8 inches thick, but it weighs 4.7 pounds.

The 5447 has two USB 3.0 ports, a full-sized HDMI port, a headset jack, and a 10/100 ethernet port on its right-hand side; and a USB 2.0 port, media card reader, and AC jack on its left. There’s nothing in back and nothing in front apart from two speaker ports.

Use headphones with this laptop; its speakers sound weak and tinny.

The lack of gigabit ethernet is disappointing, but I’m happy to report the presence of 802.11ac Wi-Fi, plus Bluetooth 4.0 and WiDi (for wireless video streaming to displays that support Intel’s technology). There’s also a 720p webcam with dual-array mics.

Flat, slick, short-throw keys make for a less-than-pleasant typing experience for our reviewer.

The Inspiron 14 5447 scooted to a respectable 54 on PCWorld’s Laptop WorldBench 9 benchmark suite, and it managed to wring 4 hours and 50 minutes out of its internally mounted 43-watt hour battery. Hands on, I could tell it had a rather slow hard drive, especially on a cold boot. But after Windows cached what it needed to, the overall experience was more than acceptable.

No surprise here: This middle-of-the-road laptop produced a middle-of-the-road score on our WorldBench 9 benchmark suite. 

High bit-rate 1080p movies played super smoothly, but sound through the speakers was poor. There’s enough volume, but there’s no bass and the overall timbre is gratingly tinny. Whatever Dell did to make its Venue Pro 11 tablet so aurally pleasing should be shared with the Inspiron design team. Gaming is doable in Intel HD 4400 graphics terms, meaning you’re pretty much stuck at 1024x768 if you want anything close to 30 frames per second (the Inspiron 5447 delivered BioShock Infinite at 29 fps at that resolution, with image quality set to low).

Your entertainment options will be limited to movies, YouTube, and casual games. The Inspiron 5447 is not cut out for hardcore gaming.

You may have noticed the reference to an internal battery. You must remove two screws and the pressure-fit bottom panel to get at the 5447’s. These days, however, I don’t know a lot of people who carry extra batteries to swap; most folks prefer to seek an AC outlet at the appointed hour. The 5447’s run time isn’t fantastic, but it’s long enough for most scenarios.

Note that removing said bottom panel also provides easy access to the hard drive, Wi-Fi card, and memory slots. You might want to upgrade the hard drive to an SSD at some point, but 8GB is plenty of memory for most tasks.

Our battery run-down test is harsh. You'll probably get enough battery life for a full day, assuming you're not pounding the keyboard the full eight hours.

The Inspiron 14 5000’s keyboard isn’t one of my favorites. The keys lack the long travel and snap that’s my preference. But establishing a typing rhythm was easy enough, and the perq is that you can bang away in a quiet environment without unduly disturbing your neighbors. I also found the one-piece touchpad smoothly responsive and easy to click. I do have one complaint: The touchpad isn’t clearly tactilely or visually delineated from the rest of the keyboard deck. When not paying close attention, I missed it several times.

The PCMark 8: Office benchmark evaluates performance with Microsoft Office apps. Laptops without SSDs, like this one, don't fare as well as models that do. 

The Inspiron 14 5447 is a generally capable all-purpose laptop with top-shelf styling at an affordable price. But there’s a distinct lack of options to make it faster (SSD and gigabit ethernet, for starters) or even less expensive (via a non-touch display), so its good looks wind up being a bit of a tease.

Perhaps I’m being too being picky. This is good laptop that’s worthy of perusal if you’re shopping the middle of the road.

Editor's note: This article was updated on August 12 to report the correct Laptop WorldBench score of 54 (the chart was accurate, but the body text reported a score of 58).

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Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Series review: This 15-inch notebook disappoints

Dell’s Inspiron 15 5000 series is the bigger-screened cousin to its Inspiron 14 5000 series. The former is outfitted with a spacious 15.6-inch display while the latter has a 14-incher. I’ll review the Inspiron 15 model 5547 here, and you can read my colleague Jon L. Jacobi’s review of the Inspiron 14 model 5447 on this page.

The Inspiron 15 5547 is a slim notebook with a fast Intel Core i7-4510U processor, an ample 16GB of DDR3/1600 memory, and an IPS display with native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels. With those specs, you might also expect to find a speedy SSD inside its chassis, but Dell cheaped out by providing a capacious but annoyingly slow 1TB, 5400 rpm mechanical drive. And that’s not the only thing I didn’t like about this machine.

Michael Homnick

The 15-inch IPS display is just about the only impressive feature of Dell's Inspiron 5547. 

No matter how fast, sexy, inexpensive, or well-supported a notebook is, you won’t want it as a travel companion if you’re worried about damaging it in transit or if you find it a hassle to use. I’m a frequent flyer, and I just can’t see dragging a Inspiron 5547 with me. I really like its crisp vivid IPS screen, but a host of other drawbacks render this notebook less than roadworthy.

Some of the issues are endemic to big-screen models. This machine is 0.8 inches thick and it weighs 5.37 pounds (just over 6 pounds when you add its power brick). You’ll want to carry it in a well-reinforced bag with plenty of padding for your shoulder. But that bulk doesn’t equate to a rugged, well-constructed device. When I gripped the 5547’s diagonal corners and twisted, the body warped and made ominous creaking noises.

Michael Homnick

See that Ethernet port? Its top speed is 100Mbps (in other words, it's not the gigabit Ethernet we've come to expect in laptops at almost every price point).

Like its smaller cousin, the Inspiron 5547 is easy to open up for upgrades. Just two screws fasten its bottom panel; removing it grants access to its dual SODIMM slots (for memory), its 802.11ac Wi-Fi/Bluetooth combo card, and its 43-watt-hour battery.

While inside the computer, I noticed it had very little metal framing. In fact, you see remarkably little metal anywhere in there. Nearly all of the construction is plastic. That might help explain why its chassis flexes so readily.

I expected to find plenty of I/O ports on a machine of this size, but the Inspiron 5547 has a surprisingly modest collection. You get just three USB ports, only two of which are the faster USB 3.0 variety; a memory-card reader; HDMI; a headset; and—what’s this?—a 10/100 ethernet jack? It’s been years since I’ve seen any hardwired ethernet jack delivering speed of less than a gigabit (barring exceptionally thin-and-light notebooks that expect you to rely on Wi-Fi or a USB adapter). Speaking of Wi-Fi, this machine’s dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi adapter is Intel’s 1x1 Wireless AC 3160 that supports maximum throughput of only 433Mbps (Intel’s 2x2 Wireless AC 7260 delivers 867Mbps).

The Inspiron 5547’s keyboard is cursed with nearly every annoying feature I’ve ever suffered, and it tosses in a few new ones. It clatters when I type on it. My fingers slip on its slick, flat-topped keys. It sometimes misses keystrokes, especially the “e” key. The Insert function would mysteriously switch to “Overwrite” mode. Two new things: First, the function keys (F1 through F12) didn’t behave as I expected (a 45-minute call to Dell’s tech support finally resolved that issue—more on that later.) Second, the arrow keys would intermittently stop working after I pressed firmly on the keyboard deck to the left of the trackpad.

Michael Homnick

Our reviewer expressed a rather intense dislike for the Inspiron 5547's keyboard and trackpad.

Speaking of the trackpad: Moody might be the best way to describe it. It tracks a single finger well and at the right speed, but it’s clunky to use for multi-finger gestures like pinch-zoom. And tapping on it to execute commands was a hit-or-miss affair. It worked fine sometimes; other times, I had to thump on it to get any response at all. Still other times, it became so sensitive that it interpreted single taps as double taps, highlighting the whole body of text I was working in when it should have selected just one word.

Despite having a faster CPU and twice as much memory, the Inspiron 5547’s Laptop WorldBench 9 score was just four points higher than the Inspiron 5447's. This could be because the larger model’s display has native resolution of 1920x1080 pixels, where the smaller one’s panel is limited to 1366x768. Looking at the benchmark chart, you’ll see that the Core i5-equipped Samsung ATIV Book 9 delivered a WorldBench score six points higher than the 5547. How’d it manage that, despite having a lesser CPU? The Samsung comes with an SSD. It’s a small one, but it’s fast.

The small-but-fast in Samsung's ATIV Book 9 enabled that machine to beat up on Dell's Inspiron 5547 even though the Dell has a much faster CPU. 

The Samsung and both the Dell Inspiron 5547 and Inspiron 5447 rely on integrated graphics, so we didn’t expect killer gaming. And we didn’t get it. Our reference machine—Dell’s XPS 15—has an older Nvidia GPU, and Lenovo’s Y50 gaming laptop has a newer one. Both those machines’ performances with BioShock Infinite reveal what discrete GPUs can do. The three machines without discrete GPUs had a tough time delivering acceptable frame rates, even with resolution dialed down to 1024x768.

Don't buy a laptop with integrated graphics if you intend to play games on it. (The Lenovo Y50 and Dell XPS 15 both have discrete graphics processors.)

Short battery life is another reason to leave the Inspiron 5547 at home. The faster processor and higher-resolution screen drained its battery more than an hour sooner than the Inspiron 5447's, and a full two hours earlier the Samsung's. Dell’s XPS 15, meanwhile, has a higher-capacity battery, while the Lenovo just has a discrete GPU. Some notebooks recharge quickly, but this one needed two hours to top off its tank.

The Inspiron 5547 has the same battery as the Inspiron 5447, but the former died an hour sooner than the latter because of its faster processor and larger, higher-resolution display.

Dell’s support was once the best in the business, but it’s only marginally better than average now. Input the Express Service Code you’ll find pasted on your Dell PC into the company’s support page, and it will instantly provide details on the specific system configuration and the state of its warranty. I wish more manufacturers had something as useful, even if Dell’s missed a few details (such as this machine’s ethernet and Wi-Fi setup).

I called tech support twice. My first call got off to a slow start, but I eventually got excellent help. Reps bounced me between India and the Philippines, but a very friendly man in Delhi finally solved the F-key mapping problem I mentioned earlier (he had me search for Windows Mobility Center, go to the Fn Key Behavior box, and switch “Multimedia key” to “Function key”). He also gave me his phone extension, so I could contact him directly if I needed to follow up.

The Inspiron 5547's PCMark 8: Office score was as disappointing as the rest of its benchmark results.

The second call was an unmitigated disaster. I asked two basic test questions: “What is the wired ethernet speed in megabits per second?” And “Is the 802.11ac client adapter a 1x1 or a 2x2 device?”

I spent an hour with two reps who hemmed and hawed before getting testy and demanding to know why I wanted this information. They put me on hold frequently, including one time for 20 minutes. Finally, one transferred me to the “Wireless Department” where I was informed I would have to pay them to tell me this information. That person later hung up on me. Needless to say, the experience was acutely frustrating and a colossal waste of time.

The Inspiron 5547 is very inexpensive for a laptop with a Core i7 processor and a 15.6-inch display, but it just doesn’t measure up to Dell’s usual quality standards. Its fit and finish are suspect, and it should have more USB ports, a faster Wi-Fi adapter, and gigabit ethernet—even at this price.

If you’re considering Dell because you expecting quality tech support, don’t count on it (my second call destroyed any goodwill the company earned from the first one). If you need a laptop with a 15.6-inch display, it looks as though Lenovo’s Y50 delivers a better price-to-performance ratio. That machine isn’t perfect either, and it costs more ($1299 vs. $1049 for the Inspiron 5547), but you’ll get a lot more hardware and performance for your money (just be sure to read what the reviewer had to say about its display).

Bryan has been writing about technology since the days of $6,000 desktop PCs and 4-function calculators the size of 8-track tapes. It's been a long strange trip in the land of Moore's law.
More by W. Bryan Hastings

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Intel 730 Series SSD (480GB) review: Good performance and a strong warranty

Intel 730 Series SSD (480GB) $490.00 Intel's 730 Series SSD should last a good long while, but don't buy one thinking the skull logo will endow your PC with killer performance.

Intel’s performance guys have a thing for skulls. They delivered a high-performance, dual-CPU motherboard setup named Skulltrail a few years back. Now they’ve announced the new 730 Series of enthusiast-class SSDs emblazoned with fleshless noggins. Do these drives live up to their “killer” image? 

The company shipped us a pair of 480GB drives so that we could benchmark them striped as a single volume in RAID 0, which is how a PC enthusiast might deploy them. Theoretically, you should get near twice the performance this way; but since we haven’t tested any other SSDs in tandem, we stuck with one drive for our full benchmarking regimen, ran CrystalDiskMark for the RAID 0 setup, and I got to kick them about at home. Sweet. This job does have its perqs.

Alas, the killer image doesn’t quite hold up.

The 730 Series SSDs utilize 20nm MLC (multi-level cell) NAND, and their 7mm height means they'll fit in most any notebook or even an all-in-one (provided it can be upgraded), as well as a conventional desktop rig. It uses the Intel PC29AS21CA0 controller, which also powers the Intel 3500- and 3700 Series SSDs that Intel markets to data-center operators. According to Intel, the controller is overclocked by 50 percent, and the NAND bus by 20 percent to substantially increase overall performance. Intel made some noise at its 2013 developers’ conference that it would allow end users to overclock the controller, but decided against it in the end.

Alas, the killer image doesn’t quite hold up. The drives are available in 240- and 480GB flavors, priced at $250 and $490 respectively. We tested the 480GB model and it proved to be a good, but not a great performer, ranking 10th out of the 19 drives we’ve tested to date. That said, it does smoke the Intel 335 Series, and the difference between the 1st and 10th-place drives is statistically insignificant once you throw out Plextor’s new PCIe drive and Samsung’s EVO using its Rapid caching software.

In this test, we measure the drive's performance reading and writing a 10GB collection of small files and folders. The Intel 730 Series finished in the middle of the pack.

By the numbers, the 480GB Series 730 wrote our 10GB mix of files and folders at 469.1MBps and a single 10GB file at 461.9MBps. It read the files and folders at 384.4MBps and the single large file at 454.2MBps.

I saw a significant performance jump with two of these drives striped in RAID 0, using Intel Rapid Storage Technology. (Note: PCWorld's benchmarking environment is described at the bottom of this story.) That’s very close to the 100-percent improvement that Intel claims.

CrystalDiskMark’s sequential write number jumped from about 460MBps to 800MBps, and the read number went from 470MBps to just over 900MBps. But the performance gains will vary depending on which RAID technology is in use. When I repeated these tests on my own system—a motherboard with an Intel Z77 chipset, an Intel Core i7-3770 CPU, and 8GB DDR3/1600 memory—I saw a performance increase of only about 50MBps.

In our second real-world benchmark, we measure how fast the drive can read and write a single 10GB file. Here again, Intel's drive delivered a good performance.

But performance is only part of the 730 Series story: Intel talks a great deal about longevity, and the company backs that up with healthy 5-year warranty. You can tell from the capacities—240- and 480GB, versus 256- and 512GB—that a great deal of NAND is devoted to housekeeping and over-provisioning (memory cells set aside to replace bad blocks, or to be swapped with deleted-but-not-erased memory in certain situations).

Intel rates both drives at 1.2 million hours mean time between failure, or about 13 years. Looked at another way, the claimed 50GB (240GB model) and 70GB (480GB model) of writes per day works out to roughly 90 to 125 terabytes written under warranty. Those are decent numbers.

Based on the 480GB model we tested, Intel’s 730 Series SSDs aren’t the absolute fastest solid-state drives you can buy, but they are very solid. The enterprise-class heritage and 5-year warranty are reassuring; and in pairs—coupled with Intel’s Rapid Storage Technology—they make for a very fast storage subsystem.

About our test environment: We benchmark hard drives and SSDs using an Asus Z98 Expert motherboard (Intel Z87 chipset) with an Intel Core i7-4770K CPU, 32GB of Corsair Vengeance DDR3/1600 memory, and a 512GB Toshiba Q Series Pro SSD. The operating system is Windows 8.1 Pro. 

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Review: The Toshiba Q Series Pro SSD delivers top performance at a discount

Many capable SSDs are out there, but don't overlook a relative newcomer: Toshiba's Q Series Pro. Toshiba's drives are among the very fastest we've tested, and in an unusual development, we saw no drop in performance in its smaller capacities. Throw in heavy online discounts, and you have an excellent bargain in a top-performing drive.

The Q Series Pro drives are only 7mm thick, so they'll fit in just about any laptop that supports a 2.5-inch drive. The controller is Toshiba's own TC358790XBG, as is the 19nm Toggle-mode MLC NAND. In our tests reading and writing a single 10GB file (using a 16GB RAM drive on our test bed), each of the three capacities Toshiba sent us—128GB, 256GB, and 512GB—proved excellent performers.

Toshiba's drive delivered very high performance when reading and writing a single 10GB file (click to enlarge).

Until now, the rule as been that the smaller the capacity, the slower the drive (because of fewer chips and fewer channels), but the Q Series blew that up and then some. The 128GB drive actually ended up being the fastest capacity we tested, although the difference was so small as to be statistically irrelevant. 

The 128GB Q Series Pro wrote our 10GB mix of files and folders at 409.9 MBps and read it at 412.25 MBps. With a single large 10GB file, that jumped to 635.4 MBps writing and 481.4 MBps reading. No single result was fast enough for first place, but where many drives shine at either reading or writing, the Q Series Pro is top-notch at both. 

Toshiba's Q Pro Series SSD also delivered excellent performance when reading and writing 20GB of folders and small files.

As mentioned, the larger capacities were slower, but only by very slight margins. Overall, the 128GB finished third among all the unaided drives (no software on the PC) that we've tested of any capacity, and it finished far ahead of other 128GB drives we've tested.

The 256GB and 512GB drives placed fifth and sixth respectively; you should note, however, that first and sixth place are separated in performance by just 3 percent. 

The Toshiba Q Series Pro drives carry some rather hefty suggested retail pricing: $160 for the 128GB, $310 for the 256GB, and a sky-high $740 for the 512GB model. But a quick trip online revealed stunning discounts that drop the price below 80 cents per gigabyte. That's a bargain in a drive this fast. The only downside is that the Q Series Pro is warrantied for just three years, while its Samsung 840 Pro and OCZ Vector competitors carry five-year warranties.

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Lenovo Launches ThinkPad T431s, Lightest T Series Ever

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Samsung Series 7 All-in-One review: Beautiful design, but average performance

Samsung delivers one of the nicer looking all-in-ones on the market with good overall performance, but weak gaming capabilities.

$1000

Stylish designGood performance with everyday tasks HDMI in and out, plus DisplayPortNo Blu-ray drive Pricey, considering its componentsVery weak gaming performance

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Samsung Series 7 All-in-One review: Beautiful design, but average performance

Samsung delivers one of the nicer looking all-in-ones on the market with good overall performance, but weak gaming capabilities.

$1000

Stylish designGood performance with everyday tasks HDMI in and out, plus DisplayPortNo Blu-ray drive Pricey, considering its componentsVery weak gaming performance

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LG Brings 4G LTE to the Masses with Optimus F Series Smartphones

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Samsung Launches Series 7 Ultra with AMD Graphics, 1080p Touch Screen

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Samsung Series 7 Chronos for Windows 8 Boasts Blazing RAM Accelerator

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Tablet World Series Game 3: Amazon Kindle Fire HD 7-inch vs. Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1, Voting Ends 10/26 at 8:00 a.m.

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Pogoplug Series 4 Review: Remote Drive Access Made Simpler and Faster

The Pogoplug lets you turn any USB-attached drive into a network-accessible drive. The Pogoplug Series 4 is a vast improvement over previous models, starting with the upgrade of the USB ports to the 3.0 standard. In addition, series 4 offers a SATA/USM (Universal Storage Module, such as Seagate's Expansion drives use) slot on the top of the unit and an SD Card slot.

Pogoplug makes implementing your own remotely accessible storage extremely easy. Power up the unit, attach it to your network router or switch, and step through a simple online setup procedure using your browser--and you can access the unit and any attached drives from anyplace that has an Internet connection. You don't even have to enter a unit ID, as in the past. I'm one of the very few people to have experienced trouble with the Pogoplug's auto-configuration. Long story short: If the light on the front of your unit doesn't turn green as it should, put the Pogoplug in your router's DMZ until the light turns green, and then place it back behind the firewall.

The Pogoplug website portal where you upload, download, share, and view files is capable enough to get the task done. You use an email address and a password to log on. Of course, you're limited to the speed of your connection, but if you connect from the same local network, the Pogoplug is smart enough to bypass the Web portal and use the local connection for much faster uploads and downloads--a major benefit when you need to transfer large amounts of data before hitting the road.

The portal supports media streaming through your browser, and it understands a reasonable array of common music, image, and video file types, though it could use some tweaking. It misplaced an OGG Vorbis audio file in the movies section, and it doesn't visually delineate files and folders adequately. I could also argue for requiring a double-click rather than a single-click to tunnel down into folders, but that's being picky. The portal is certainly usable, but it has plenty of room for improvement. Pogoplug also provides passable remote access apps for both Android and iOS.

With Series 4, Pogoplug has finally addressed a major concern about the company's devices--that they would be useless if the company/portal ever went belly up. The company now has a PC/Mac/Linux software client that lets you directly access (restore) the files stored with the Pogoplug storage, and back up files from your PC. Portal or no, you can now use the Pogoplug for local network storage.

Since the danger that your Pogoplug might morph into an unreachable box has vanished, I can recommend it without reservation as a stress-free way to access and share files across the Internet without actually storing them online. The portal would benefit from some minor adjustments, but otherwise the Pogoplug Series 4 experience is top-notch.

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Pogoplug Series 4 Review: Remote Drive Access Made Simpler and Faster

The Pogoplug lets you turn any USB-attached drive into a network-accessible drive. The Pogoplug Series 4 is a vast improvement over previous models, starting with the upgrade of the USB ports to the 3.0 standard. In addition, series 4 offers a SATA/USM (Universal Storage Module, such as Seagate's Expansion drives use) slot on the top of the unit and an SD Card slot.

Pogoplug makes implementing your own remotely accessible storage extremely easy. Power up the unit, attach it to your network router or switch, and step through a simple online setup procedure using your browser--and you can access the unit and any attached drives from anyplace that has an Internet connection. You don't even have to enter a unit ID, as in the past. I'm one of the very few people to have experienced trouble with the Pogoplug's auto-configuration. Long story short: If the light on the front of your unit doesn't turn green as it should, put the Pogoplug in your router's DMZ until the light turns green, and then place it back behind the firewall.

The Pogoplug website portal where you upload, download, share, and view files is capable enough to get the task done. You use an email address and a password to log on. Of course, you're limited to the speed of your connection, but if you connect from the same local network, the Pogoplug is smart enough to bypass the Web portal and use the local connection for much faster uploads and downloads--a major benefit when you need to transfer large amounts of data before hitting the road.

The portal supports media streaming through your browser, and it understands a reasonable array of common music, image, and video file types, though it could use some tweaking. It misplaced an OGG Vorbis audio file in the movies section, and it doesn't visually delineate files and folders adequately. I could also argue for requiring a double-click rather than a single-click to tunnel down into folders, but that's being picky. The portal is certainly usable, but it has plenty of room for improvement. Pogoplug also provides passable remote access apps for both Android and iOS.

With Series 4, Pogoplug has finally addressed a major concern about the company's devices--that they would be useless if the company/portal ever went belly up. The company now has a PC/Mac/Linux software client that lets you directly access (restore) the files stored with the Pogoplug storage, and back up files from your PC. Portal or no, you can now use the Pogoplug for local network storage.

Since the danger that your Pogoplug might morph into an unreachable box has vanished, I can recommend it without reservation as a stress-free way to access and share files across the Internet without actually storing them online. The portal would benefit from some minor adjustments, but otherwise the Pogoplug Series 4 experience is top-notch.

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Samsung Series 5 NP535U3C Review: AMD Takes on Intel's Ultrabook

It's only 0.7 inch thick, and it weighs just 3.35 pounds (3.8 pounds with power block), but the 13.3-inch Samsung Series 5 NP535U3C doesn't qualify as an Ultrabook. The reason? "Ultrabook" is a trademark belonging to Intel--and the Series 5 NP535U3C doesn't use an Intel processor. Instead, it has a 2.1GHz dual-core AMD Fusion A6-4455M processor. The crucial question: Can this ultrathin, AMD-based ultraportable laptop hold its own in an Ultrabook world? We tested it to find out.

Our review model, priced at $699 (as of August 6, 2012) as configured, sports an AMD Fusion A6-4455M processor, 4GB of RAM, a 500GB hard drive, and a 13.3-inch screen. It also offers 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and a built-in 1.3MP webcam. The Series 5 runs a 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium.

Performance

Diehard AMD fans will be saddened to learn that the Series 5 NP535U3C doesn't quite match the performance of its Ultrabook counterparts. In PCWorld's WorldBench 7 benchmark tests, the Series 5 earned a rather puny 62 out of 100, meaning that it's speed was only 62 percent of our testing model's. The average WorldBench 7 score for the most recent three Ultrabooks we tested was 127.7.

To be fair, the WorldBench 7 tests take more than just processor speed into account, so components other than the AMD processor may share responsibility for the Series 5's poor showing. For instance, a major factor in WorldBench 7 tests is storage and startup speed; and one Ultrabook requirement is speedy boot-up times, which many Ultrabooks accomplish by using a small SSD caching drive plus Intel’s Smart Response technology. This Series 5 doesn't have an SSD cache drive, so its startup time is comparatively slow (31.4 seconds versus 12.3 seconds for the much speedier Acer Aspire S5).

But some WorldBench 7 tests stress processor speed. In our Office Productivity tests, for example, the Series 5 managed a mark of just 950, while the Aspire S5 earned a score of 4039. And in our Web Performance tests, the Series 5 sustained 6.8 frames per second versus the Aspire S5's 12.8.

The Samsung Series 5's graphics performance was somewhat stronger, thanks to the integrated AMD Radeon-class GPU. In our Crysis 2 graphics tests, the Series 5 managed frame rates of between 11.3 (at high quality settings and 1366-by-768-pixel resolution) and 24.5 (at low quality settings and 800-by-600-pixel resolution) frames per second. This frame rate was slightly higher than the average for the last three Ultrabooks we've tested. All of the laptops we're comparing, including the Series 5, rely on integrated HD graphics.

The Series 5 has a disappointingly short battery life. In our tests, we managed to eking out a scant 5 hours, 2 minutes in our tests; all three of the most recent Ultrabooks we've tested held out for more than 6 hours.

Design: Chassis, Keyboard, Trackpad

The 13.3-inch Series 5 model that we evaluated looks a lot the rest of Samsung's Series 5 lineup. It has a solid, slate-gray aluminum cover with a small, understated Samsung logo. The muted gray aluminum of the interior is just a few shades darker than that of the Apple MacBook Air. The minimalist keyboard deck contains a small power button in the upper right corner, speakers just above the keyboard, and tiny blue lights at the front for Wi-Fi, power, and battery.

The keyboard and trackpad are comfortable to use, but they have some of the same drawbacks as those on the Samsung Series 5 Ultra, which I reviewed in March. The keyboard's widely spaced, island-style matte keys are very quiet but offer weak feedback. The trackpad is smooth and accurate, and it supports multitouch gestures such as a surprisingly responsive pinch to zoom. The two discrete mouse buttons below the trackpad, however, feel flimsy and cheap.

Port selection on the Series 5 is adequate for an ultraportable laptop. On the left side are a gigabit ethernet port (which pops out, to avoid disrupting the machine's slim profile), a USB3.0 port, an HDMI-out port, a combination headphone/microphone jack, and a mini-DisplayPort. On the right side are two USB 2.0 ports and a four-in-one card reader.

Screen and Speakers

The Series 5's 13.3-inch matte LED-backlit display has a native resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels. The screen features SuperBright Technology, which in our assessments appeared to live up to its name: The screen was quite bright, making it is usable even in very harsh lighting. Colors seemed accurate for the most part, though whites occasionally took on a bluish tint; text and images looked crisp. Off-axis viewing angles, especially the vertical angles, were poor, however, and viewing the screen from a less-than-optimum position yielded darker, contrasty images.

High-definition video looked reasonably good on the Series 5. Not everything was entirely smooth--especially in higher-definition streaming clips--but artifacting in video clips seemed to be limited to darker, fast-moving scenes, and choppiness was minimal.

The Series 5's speakers, though not very loud, produced very full sound, considering the size of the system.

The Bottom Line

You shouldn't write off the Samsung Series 5 NP535U3C just because it has an AMD processor instead of an Intel processor. Though Intel's Ultrabooks may outperform the AMD Series 5 overall, the Series 5's integrated Radeon HD 7500G graphics are slightly more impressive than Intel's HD 4000 integrated graphics. In addition, theAMD Series 5 is $100 cheaper than its Intel counterpart, and it has excellent speakers for the category.

So if you're looking for an ultraportable multimedia machine--and you're not too picky about startup time or branding--the Series 5 deserves a look.

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Samsung Series 7 Gamer Review: A Mobile Gamer's Best Tool

For many PC gamers, owning a powerful laptop that will let them have their fun anywhere is preferable to staying rooted at home with an oversize desktop rig. The Series 7 Gamer is Samsung’s answer--but how does it stack up against other high-performance portables?

The Series 7 Gamer (priced at $1899 as of June 6, 2012) comes equipped with an Intel Core i7-3610QM processor at a stock speed of 2.3GHz, a generous 16GB of RAM, 1.5TB of hard-disk space, a 2-megapixel camera, and a Blu-ray optical drive.

The Gamer doesn't skimp on connectivity options and ports. It's packed with two USB 3.0 ports, two USB 2.0 ports, HDMI and VGA out, DisplayPort, a multiformat card reader, headphone and microphone jacks, and an RJ45 gigabit ethernet port. As for wireless options, it has Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n, as well as Bluetooth 4.0.

In addition, Samsung spared no expense with the graphics hardware, inserting Nvidia's top-of-the-line GeForce GTX 675M graphics card to give this mobile machine real desktop power. On our strenuous graphics tests, which run at ultrahigh settings and 1920 by 1080 resolution, the Series 7 Gamer produced respectable results, running Dirt 3 at an average of 42.2 frames per second and Crysis 2 at an average of 27.7 fps. At those frame rates, the games were very playable and still looked their best.

All of this capable hardware helped the Series 7 Gamer achieve a score of 123 on our WorldBench 7 benchmark suite, which means that it was 23 percent faster than our baseline system. Although that is a very good score, it has been a strong month for desktop-replacement laptops. The overclocked Origin EON17-S, for instance, posted a whopping 200, ranking as the highest-scoring laptop. Of course, you have to pay about $1500 more for such stunning mobile performance; the Gamer manages to be powerful while staying at a reasonable price.

One cool feature in the Series 7 Gamer is a dial that allows you to choose a power setting on the fly. The laptop has a total of four modes: Gaming, Balanced, Library, and Eco. The Gaming mode is an all-out power fest, battery life be damned, turbocharging the processor and fans as well as optimizing the audio and video for games. The moment you turn the laptop to Gaming mode, a graphic plays on screen, the background changes, the cursor becomes a bull’s-eye, the keyboard glows a bright blue, and the turbo light flashes on. The Balanced mode is what a default setting may look like, with nothing running to an exorbitant degree. The Library mode keeps the system quiet, automatically muting the sound and turning the fans off. Finally, Eco mode saves power for maximum battery life, adjusting the processor speed and screen accordingly. Although most laptops offer power settings, it is a nice option to have a physical dial for quickly switching them out.

When you're gaming on the go, you might be concerned about how much time you can squeeze out of the Series 7 Gamer before the battery dies out. In our tests it lasted 3 hours, about half an hour longer than other recent high-power laptops. Although that is a reasonable time for a desktop replacement, you will most likely need to keep the power brick close by, and you shouldn't be afraid to shut the machine down; the startup time is a mere 24 seconds. If you want to get more time out of your laptop, consider the MSI GT70, which lasted over 2 hours longer in our tests and sacrifices just a little graphics power.

Of course, a key aspect of mobility is the size and weight of a laptop. Just like other high-performing laptops on the market, this model is fairly heavy, weighing 11.2 pounds including the large AC power brick. It is also large, measuring 16.1 inches wide by 11.2 inches deep by 2.0 inches thick. The size allows for a nice high-definition screen with a resolution of 1920 by 1080, perfect for games and movies. Be sure to find a good, supportive carrying bag if you wish to take gaming power wherever you go.

Despite its large size, the Series 7 Gamer manages to stay sleek without sacrificing any physical features, such as a number pad. The smooth touchpad is roomy, and more important, very responsive. The keyboard is backlit, and when the machine is in Gamer mode, the WASD keys--the keys that PC gamers most frequently use--are outlined and red, just to accentuate their importance. Touch-sensitive volume, mute, Wi-Fi, and brightness controls sit at the top of the keyboard.

Overall the Samsung Series 7 Gamer is a great choice for anyone who needs the best hardware on the go. Though you can find other portable systems that top it in benchmarks, this model manages to stay in an affordable price range. The power and style of the Series 7 Gamer will impress game fans and casual computer users alike. If you are looking to invest in a reasonably priced gaming laptop, look no further.

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Sony Walkman Z Series Review: A Solid Multimedia Player With Limited Storage

Walkman is a familiar name in portable media players, going back several decades. Sony's Walkman Z Series ($210, as of June 1, 2012) is basically an Android phone without the phone, and with a strong emphasis on media playback and gaming.

Design

The Z Series' 4.3-inch, 800-by-480-pixel-resolution screen is big enough for good video playback and an enjoyable gaming experience and yet small enough for the device to feel comfortable in one hand. The player weighs 0.34 pound, which eventually felt a tad heavy, but was fine for casual use.

The sharp edges and button layout make it a little less friendly for one-handed use, though. I have small hands, and my thumb can almost make it to the top corner on the far side, but the Z Series' sharp corners and edges make the stretch uncomfortable. Three capacitive buttons sit on the bezel below the screen for Back, Home, and Menu.

When held in portrait orientation, the power button is on the left side of the top edge, out my fingers' reach when I held the player in my left hand. The volume rocker and the Walkman button occupy the right edge--a location that made them much easier for me to press.

The headphone jack and proprietary charging/data connection port sit on the bottom, and the mini HDMI port is on the bottom of the right edge. The left side has nothing. On the back are the tiny speakers and a reset button. The back is not removable, meaning that the battery is not user-accessible, and hence that the reset button is necessary.

The purple-blue plastic on the back of the Walkman provides a nice contrast to the shiny black of the rest of the device. The design has gentle curves near the top and bottom, which makes the device a pleasure to hold in two hands in landscape orientation.

One feature omission is a camera. The Walkman focuses on media playback, but I would have appreciated having a rear- or front-facing camera to take pictures and videos, or handle video chat.

Performance and Specs

The Z Series runs Android 2.3.4 Gingerbread, and packs a dual-core 1GHz Tegra 2 processor and 1GB of RAM. Thanks to these specs, multimedia playback and gaming worked well. The unit comes with a demo version of Riptide GP, which played smoothly and showed crisp, clear graphics. Every video file I tried--from the included Spiderman trailer, to a 720p rip, to an Avengers trailer on YouTube--played without a hitch.

The screen is bright and clear, with enough resolution to make games and videos look good. It's not a 720p screen, but at this screen size, it looks good.

On the wireless side, since the device doesn't include a phone, there is no data modem. You do get Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n and Bluetooth with A2DP and AVRCP. The built-in FM radio uses the headphone cable as an antenna, so it works only with the headphones plugged in.

Headphones are essentially the only way you'll want to listen to music from this player. The built-in stereo speakers on the back produced disappointingly weak and muffled sound.

Regrettably, Sony chose not to include a MicroSD card slot with its player. The Walkman comes in 8GB, 16GB, and 32GB sizes, but a sizable chunk of that space will be unavailable from the get-go: On the 8GB model we had for testing, only 4.58GB were free for user storage.

Sony promises 5 hours of video playback, and the battery seemed to hold up well in my informal testing. The standby times are great too--enough to let me to enjoy several days of casual use without needing to recharge the battery.

Software and Extras

Sony's customization of the Android home-screen launcher and its inclusion of a convenient music playback widget are pleasing. And each of Sony's custom apps has a similarly designed icon, which gives the bottom navigation bar filled with these apps a more unified look.

Sony provides several custom apps for media management and playback. One app is designed to help you use DLNA to listen to music and to view pictures and videos from your home network. Another, the Sony music player, is clean and well-organized. The stock Android music app is available too, but Sony's offering is both more attractive and more functional.

You get additional options for sorting your tracks, including by release year or by folder. In addition, the player's SensMe channels can organize the music in your library on the basis of such themes as Energetic, Upbeat, and Relax. It took the Walkman Z Series about an hour to analyze the 500MB of sample music that I loaded on it and to sort the files into SensMe categories. Sony also includes a five-band equalizer and a handful of other Sony-developed audio enhancement technologies like virtual surround sound.

A link to Sony's Music Unlimited service enables you to stream music from Sony's collection and to manage personalized playlists. The link on the homescreen goes to a Web page that explains the service and provides links for downloading the app. Basic service costs $4 per month, and premium service runs $10 per month.

Sony doesn't preinstall much beyond its custom apps. In particular, I didn't find any productivity apps besides Google's Gmail and Calendar; but with full access to the Google Play Store, you can add anything you might need.

The most annoying thing about using the Z-Series Walkman involves its proprietary cable for data transfers. Part of the beauty of an Android player is the openness of the Android ecosystem; but being stuck with a proprietary cable is regressive--and a tremendous annoyance in practical use.

Sony's included earbuds offer full, rich sound. They aren't especially comfortable to wear, though, and they stick out rather far. They're joined together in that annoying (or endearing, depending on your taste) Sony way where they don't split in an even Y shape. The cord to the left bud is significantly shorter than the cord to the right bud, so that the main cable that connects to the player runs off the left side, leaving an extra loop of cable to run over the right ear.

Media

Sony's experience with audio playback really shows. The built-in speakers may be thin, but the audio quality through a good set of headphones or speakers is strong. Sony calls its audio-processing software S-Master Technology, and it yielded full, rich sound through my Bose desktop speakers and through several test pairs of headphones. And Sony offers a ton of equalizer options that you can tweak if the straight sound is not to your liking.

The Walkman supports MP4 and WMV video, as well as AAC-LC, L-PCM, MP3, and WMA audio; the competing Samsung Galaxy Player 3.6 and Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2 support far more video codecs, plus FLAC, Ogg, and WAV audio.

Bottom Line

The Sony Walkman Z Series combines a powerful processor, a good screen, and great audio processing. But if you're prepared to deal with a proprietary connector, a sealed battery, and an absence of expandable storage, you may want to check out the iPod Touch. That said, the bigger screen and Tegra 2 gaming options may sway some buyers looking for an Android alternative to Apple's hegemony.

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Samsung Series 7 Slate Review: Laptop Power in a Slim Package

The Samsung Series 7 Slate takes a different path from that of other recent Windows 7 tablets, packing more-powerful components that include an Intel Core i5 processor and a 128GB solid-state drive. But the fancy ingredients aren't cheap: The Series 7 starts at $1100, and the configuration we tested costs $1350 (prices as of June 1, 2012).

Hardware

Samsung is no stranger to the tablet world, but this model is its first attempt at a Windows-based slate. The Series 7 Slate benefits from Samsung's overall design experience; at 0.51 inch thick, the Series 7 Slate is the thinnest of the six Windows 7 tablets we've tested to date. Nevertheless, a number of recent Android tablets are thinner, as is the third-generation Apple iPad (at 0.37 inch).

Thanks to its dual-core 1.6GHz Core i5 CPU and 1GB of graphics memory, Samsung's Series 7 Slate is virtually an ultraportable with the keyboard chopped off. The machine comes with a generous 4GB of RAM, four times what you'd find in a typical Android tablet, and twice what the other Windows models we've seen offer. It also has either a 64GB or a 128GB solid-state drive (we tested the 64GB version).

The 11.6-inch IPS display supports 1366-by-768-pixel resolution. Viewing angles are expansive, and our panel of judges gave high marks to the color and contrast in our display testing. The 16:9 aspect ratio on a screen of this size display does seem oddly wide, and (conversely) unusually tall and thin in portrait mode.

The touchscreen's responsiveness is great. In my hands-on testing, I experienced no missed taps; and with the larger screen, I could expand the onscreen Windows keyboard to near-touch-typable size. The tablet instantly recognized my swipes and flicks.

The Slate comes in at just under 1.98 pounds, but the Slate feels reasonably well-balanced for two-handed holding.

Samsung equips the Series 7 Slate with two cameras: a 3-megapixel camera on the back, and a 2-megapixel forward-facing camera on the front.

On the right side of the case, you'll find the power button (with a blue LED to indicate charging) and a rotation lock switch. The bottom houses the dock connector and two speakers. On the left side are the AC adapter jack, a micro HDMI port, a volume rocker, a combination headphone/microphone jack, and a full-size USB port. The top hosts a MicroSD card slot and dual built-in microphones.

The curved back and edges make the tablet quite comfortable to hold, given its weight. The matching, extra-cost ($100) dock enhances desktop use, and I found that couch surfing with the tablet propped up on my knees worked well.

Pen and Digitizer

One of the Series 7 Slate's distinguishing features is its dual-input pen and touch digitizer. Samsung uses Wacom's technology, which in my experience provides the most fluid and accurate inking experience available. The Series 7 Slate's handling of pen-based input didn't disappoint; my writing experience was excellent. In addition, the touch layer can sense ten touch points, making it useful for any multitouch applications or scenarios you may encounter.

The only drawback to the system is that the glossy screen feels quite slippery under the pen. Unlike the matte screen of the Fujitsu Stylistic Q550, which behaves more like paper, the Samsung's screen conveyed the strong impression that I was writing on glass. Still, my handwriting looked noticeably better on the Samsung than on the Fujitsu.

Using Wacom for the digitizer opens up a world of optional replacement pens of different sizes and feature sets to accommodate a wide range of tastes. The stock pen that Samsung provides has a right-click button on the side, and a button on the top that acts as an eraser. To me, the pen seemed to be on the thin side of comfortable, but it was lightweight; and unlike N-trig pens, Wacom pens don't require a battery.

Performance

This tablet smoked the other Windows 7 tablets we've looked at. It took one-quarter the time to complete the Heaven Photoshop test, was more than twice as fast as its closest competitor at WebVizBench Web browsing, and earned a score of 1346 on PCMark 7's productivity suite--more than doubling the mark of its nearest competitor. Videos looked especially pleasing on the 11.6-inch screen, and the speakers are strong enough to fill a room.

Impressively, the Series 7 Slate's 5520mAh battery kept the tablet's i5 processor running for 5 hours, 35 minutes in the PCWorld Labs' battery tests. That's less than an hour worse than the battery life of the much weaker Intel Atom-based Fujitsu Stylistic Q550.

The biggest drawback of the Series 7 Slate's raw power is the fan required to keep it cool. In my use, the fan kicked on at the slightest hint of activity and was loud enough to be distracting in a quiet room. At times, it was so loud that it sounded like a tiny airplane trying to take off.

The Easy Settings app provides some fan control, including an option called 'silent mode' to run the fan continuously at low speed. I highly recommend turning this setting on, since when the fan was running at full speed people in my office could hear it from several desks away.

The active fan pushes some pretty warm air out the exhaust vent at the top. That's fine when you hold the tablet in landscape mode, but if you're a lefty looking to hold it in portrait mode in your right hand while you write, or if you want to tuck it into the crook of your left arm and wrap your hand around to hold it, you'll find that it gets pretty toasty.

Software

Recognizing that the Windows 7 interface is not the touch-friendliest one around, Samsung did something about it. The company provides a Touch Launcher overlay to make finger navigation easier. This welcome addition comes up when you tap the home button on the bottom bezel.

In the left third of the screen, a collapsible information panel keeps track of battery charge, Wi-Fi status, to-do items, time, and weather. The rest of the screen contains large app icons similar to those present in Android and iOS.

The collection of apps includes some written for the touchscreen, some (such as the YouTube app) that are really just links to Web pages, and some (like the link to Windows Journal) that are built-in Windows programs.

Oddly, the specially written notes app doesn't take advantage of the pen; it's text only. Fortunately Samsung includes a link to Windows Journal, which is normally buried in the Start menu, for people who want to launch handwritten notes from Samsung's touch overlay.

The RSS app uses Google credentials to log in, which makes it a touch-friendly version of Google Reader. Social Dashboard handles Facebook and Twitter. A separate Twitter app repeatedly timed out when I tried to use it to sign in.

The Easy Settings app provides finger-based access to most of the system settings you'll need regularly, including display, power management, and Wi-Fi connections.

All of the custom touch apps run at full screen, but the overlay itself leaves the Windows taskbar exposed so you still have access to the clock, system tray, and Start menu, as well as to any pinned or already running programs.

I'm accustomed to using Windows 7 on touch tablets; and though the experience isn't ideal, I rarely feel the need to use special touch apps or launcher overlays. Nevertheless, Samsung has done a solid job with its launcher; it's one of the few additions I've found that genuinely enhances the Windows tablet experience, rather than just slowing it down. Of course, the Samsung Slate benefits immensely from having the processing power to drive an overlay without getting bogged down.

Bottom Line

The Samsung Series 7 Slate is a sleek and powerful piece of hardware that will serve you well if you can bear its relatively high cost, and you can't wait for the wave of Windows 8 tablets due to arrive later this year. If you need to run Windows programs without compromise, this is the tablet for you. If you need a Wacom digitizer, this is the thinnest and lightest package you can get it in. Just keep in mind that to get that power, you must put up with some fan noise and heat--and a high sticker price.

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Samsung Series 5 Ultra: Slim and Stylish, but Not an Ultrabook

The Samsung Series 5 Ultra is the company's first foray into the Ultrabook market (if you don’t count the Series 9, which predates the Ultrabook brand). There's just one problem: It weighs nearly 4 pounds, and measures 0.82 inch thick. In other words, this 14-inch laptop is closer to a regular ol' ultraportable than it is to an Ultrabook.

Ultrabooks are high-end, ultrathin notebooks defined by Intel as being 18mm (0.7 inch) thick at the most--but that specification is for models with screens 13.3 inches or smaller. With the advent of the Series 5 Ultra, Intel has stretched the requirements to make 21mm (0.83 inch) the standard thickness for machines with 14-inch or larger screens. Nevertheless, the Series 5 Ultra looks a little, well, thick, especially when it's sitting next to other Ultrabooks. In fact, it looks almost as chunky as my 15-inch MacBook Pro, which measures 24mm (0.95 inch) thick.

Needless to say, the Series 5 Ultra hardly inspires the same oohs, aahs, and oh-my-gosh-that-laptop-is-so-thins as other Ultrabooks do.

But there's a reason that this particular laptop is so comparatively hefty: It has both a DVD-RW drive and a 500GB hard drive. Our review model, priced at $950 (as of March 30, 2012), features an Intel Core i5-2467M processor, 4GB of RAM, and Windows 7 Home Premium. It also has built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0, and a 16GB solid-state cache drive that helps it boot quickly and resume from hibernate more rapidly (a necessity for Ultrabook branding).

The Series 5 Ultra sports a minimalist design and looks an awful lot like Apple's MacBook Pro line. The laptop's cover is a smooth, lightly brushed slate-gray aluminum with a small silver Samsung logo on the left side. The interior is largely the same: smooth, lightly brushed, and slate-gray, though not all of it is aluminum (just the wrist-rest area is metal; the remainder is plastic). The laptop feels sturdy (and heavy, for an Ultrabook), though the hinge is a little squeaky.

The laptop has more ports than the average Ultrabook, probably because the machine is thicker than the average Ultrabook. On the left side, it provides a fold-out gigabit ethernet port, two USB 3.0 ports, VGA-out, HDMI-out, and a combined headphone/microphone jack. The right side is mostly dedicated to the tray-loading DVD-RW drive, but Samsung also squeezes in a lock slot, a USB 2.0 port, and a four-in-one card reader. That's a lot to pack into an Ultrabook, and the other Ultrabooks we've seen have had no more than one USB 3.0 port.

You won't find much on the keyboard deck of the Series 5 Ultra--just a small silver power button, a moderately roomy touchpad with two discrete buttons, and, of course, the full-size Chiclet-style keyboard. The keyboard is fairly comfortable to type on, though the matte-black keys are a little small and give slightly weaker-than-average feedback.

The touchpad is less impressive: It's smooth but not very sensitive, and the buttons feel cheap. In fact, on our test unit the left mouse button appears to sit lower than the right one, and feels as if it will break after a few months of normal usage. The touchpad supports multitouch gestures, such as pinch-to-zoom and two-finger scrolling, but the results are somewhat jumpy and inaccurate. For example, when you try to scroll with two fingers, Web pages jump up and down erratically instead of moving smoothly.

A thin, silver bezel surrounds the Series 5 Ultra's matte 14-inch screen. At the top of the bezel is a webcam, complete with a pinprick LED that indicates whether the webcam is turned on (in other words, exactly the way Apple's MacBook Air is set up). The screen looks pretty good. It has a native resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels, which is a little low for a 14-inch display. By comparison, the Asus Zenbook UX31E has a native resolution of 1600 by 900 pixels, and a 13.3-inch screen. Likewise, Apple's 11-inch MacBook Air has a native resolution of 1366 by 768 pixels--but, of course, its screen is smaller.

The Series 5 Ultra's screen is extremely bright at its brightest setting (perfect for working in direct sunlight), and color representation is mostly accurate, though colors sometimes look washed out. The screen's temperature seems a little on the cool side, which means that whites occasionally take on a bluish tint. That effect is hardly noticeable, however, unless you turn the brightness up and look at a mostly white screen.

In PCWorld's WorldBench 7 benchmark tests, the Series 5 Ultra performed well for its category with a score of 95. This means that the Series 5 Ultra is only 5 percent slower at general computing tasks than our baseline reference PC, which has an Intel Core i5-2500K processor, 8GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive, and an Nvidia GeForce GTX 560 Ti graphics card.

The Series 5 Ultra didn't do quite as well in our graphics tests, as it relies on Intel's integrated graphics technology. In our Crysis 2 graphics test, the Series 5 Ultra spit out only a wimpy 23 frames per second (low quality, 800 by 600 resolution). The machine did better in our Dirt 3 test, with frame rates ranging from a decent 40 fps (low quality, 800 by 600) to a not-so-decent 13 fps (high quality, 1366 by 768 pixels).

Samsung's Series 5 Ultra may not be a gaming machine or even a multimedia powerhouse, but it does have a DVD-RW drive, which is more than any other Ultrabook can say. Video looks good on the Series 5 Ultra, though high-resolution content occasionally suffers from artifacts such as blocks--especially in motion-heavy scenes--and general choppiness. The speakers, located along the top of the keyboard, produce loud but thin and bass-less sound.

Here's the thing: Samsung pitches the Series 5 Ultra as the first Ultrabook to sport an optical drive. But it's not, because it's not an Ultrabook. Sure, it may (barely) hit the 21mm thickness mark, but it contains a hard disk drive (along with a cache SSD for speedy startup) and it weighs 3.9 pounds. Don't get me wrong, this is a decent ultraportable laptop--it's just not at all what I think of when I think "Ultrabook." Still, if you're looking for a small laptop with more ports and functionality than an Ultrabook, the Samsung Series 5 Ultra is your machine.

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Deal of the Day: Save $100 on Samsung Series 7

Those in the market for a premium laptop with stellar battery life and tons of extras, look no further. Samsung’s Series 7 NP700Z5A-S02US laptop packs in a lot of features, and you can save $100 on the device today. Normally $1,149, the Samsung Series 7 is retailing for $1,049 today plus free shipping through a deal with LogicBUY.

The laptop’s sleek, metal chassis combined with its powerful battery life and backlit keyboard are enough to turn heads. But on top of that, Samsung throws in 2 USB 3.0 ports, 6GB RAM, AMD Radeon HD graphics and Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit). Although the savings itself isn’t that great, LogicBUY throws in $200 worth of Microsoft Store credit. 

Base specs: Intel Core i7-2675QM quad-core 2.2-GHz-3.1-GHz processor, 15.6? 1600 x 900 LED backlit SuperBright display, 6GB DDR3 RAM, 750GB hard drive + 8GB SSD, 1GB AMD Radeon HD 6750M graphics, HDMI, 2 USB 3.0 ports, Bluetooth, webcam, DVDRW, card reader, 9 hours battery life, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)

Samsung Series 7 NP700Z5A-S02US Core i7 Quad ULV 15.6? Laptop + $200 MS Store Credit for $1,049 through LogicBUY

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Samsung Series 7 All-in-One: A Fresh Face

The Samsung Series 7 All-in-One is Samsung's first foray into the all-in-one market--and it shows. Although the system is housed in a distinct and striking brushed-aluminum casing, Samsung makes some mistakes that veteran all-in-one manufacturers wouldn't. Still, some design features, such as the screen's ability to lie completely flat, will appeal to many people.

Our review model, priced at $1199 (as of March 14, 2012), packs an Intel Core i5-2390T processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. It also features built-in Bluetooth 3.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11n, and runs Windows 7 Home Premium. Unfortunately, the Series 7 doesn't have a discrete graphics card or a Blu-ray Disc player, relying instead on Intel integrated graphics and a simple DVD burner.

The Series 7 performed well for its category in PCWorld's WorldBench 6 benchmark tests, earning a score of 131. That's high enough to put it near the top of our list of the best big-screen all-in-one PCs.

The Series 7 All-in-One’s screen sits on a flat, brushed-aluminum base. Its hinged design allows the screen to tilt all the way back, so that you can use the machine as a desktop-style tablet. HP is taking a similar approach with recent entries in its TouchSmart line, but those models rely on an innovative braking mechanism to slide the display along their easel stands.

The Series 7’s base is mostly rectangular aside from a large protrusion on the right side, where the slot-loading optical drive is located. Samsung uses that space wisely--placing touch-sensitive buttons and the power button along the edge of the protrusion--but it still looks a little off when the screen is tilted all the way back.

I have a couple of issues with the base. First of all, it might be generous on the screen angle, but it's very restrictive on the height. You have no way to raise the screen, and since the base is so thin, the screen basically ends up sitting on your desk. Secondly, the hinge doesn't feel particularly sturdy. That isn't an issue when you're using the PC in flat mode, but it's a big deal when you're trying to tap on an upright screen and the entire thing is shaking.

The display itself is a glossy, 23-inch touchscreen with a native resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels. It's bright and it has good color representation, but its touch interface leaves something to be desired. Instead of using capacitive touch, which is what most people are used to (thanks to smartphones), the Series 7's screen uses surface acoustic wave. It's still multitouch, but it needs more pressure than a capacitive touchscreen does.

Ports are located on three sides of the machine’s base. The headphone and microphone jacks are on the left, while the right offers an SD Card slot and a USB 3.0 port. On the rear you’ll find an HDMI-out port, an ethernet port, three USB 2.0 ports, and an HDMI-in port.

The Series 7 comes with a mouse and a keyboard. The peripherals look cool, but they’re fairly basic. The silver keyboard has black Chiclet-style, soft-touch keys, which are a little too soft and a bit too close together to type on accurately. The light-feeling mouse sports a curved design, making it comfortable, smooth, and easy to use. Both peripherals are wireless.

The PC relies on Intel’s integrated graphics technology, which delivers decidedly paltry gaming performance: On our Dirt 3 benchmark, it generated only 28.9 frames per second when we dialed down to a resolution of 1024 by 768 and kept the settings low. Needless to say, this isn't a gaming machine.

Video looks good on the Series 7, and audio playback is fine. Bass is lacking, owing to the size of the chassis--the base doesn’t have enough room to hold anything substantial--and audio can sound tinny when you crank the volume up. The speakers are suitably loud, though, and sound fine for casual watching and listening.

The Series 7 does come with some nice touchscreen-worthy software, namely Samsung's Touch Launcher application. Touch Launcher is more of a screen makeover than an application, and it transforms the screen into a tablet-style interface to make touch input a little easier. Touch Launcher features a sidebar with weather updates, a clock, and a to-do list, and it provides large, touchable shortcuts to applications.

Samsung's Series 7 is far from perfect, but it does offer some interesting features. The lack of higher-end multimedia options limits its utility, but the interesting design and decent performance come at a fair price.

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