Samsung Series 5 Ultra NP530U3B-A02

Ultrabooks are popping up everywhere these days, and as the market becomes increasingly saturated, the one-time "wow" factor has given way to more sober assessment. The Samsung Series 5 Ultra NP530U3B-A02 ($1,099 list) is the latest to enter this crowded arena. It has plenty going for it, from its good looks to its fine display to its comfortably ergonomic keyboard and touchpad. But in terms of performance, it falls short of comparable systems in its class, and given the amount of money users are expected to shell out for it, they could do better.

Design and Features
The Series 5 measures 12.4 by 8.6 inches (WD), with its thickness ranging from 0.58 inch at its thinnest point to 0.68 inch at its thickest. Its weight of 3 pounds puts it towards the lighter end of the ultrabook spectrum, somewhere between the Asus Zenbook UX31-RSL8 ($1,049 list, 4 stars) (2.86 pounds) and the HP Folio 13 ($1,048.99 list, 4 stars) (3.25 pounds). This light weight can be attributed to its primarily aluminum chassis, with a fiberglass underside. Overall, the Series 5 is decked out in a handsome silver finish, and, like most ultrabooks, it kills in the looks department.

Its 13.3-inch display has a maximum resolution of 1,366 by 768, which, though good enough for 720p video, isn't as crisp as that of the Zenbook UX31-RSL8. The screen is bright (300 nits) and comes in a matte finish, which may turn off fans of glossy screens but is actually conducive for outdoor use, especially in sunny environments. You may want to stick to well-lit places in general, as the lack of a backlit keyboard can make using the Series 5 in the dark somewhat difficult.

Aside from this shortcoming, however, the tiled keyboard is a breeze to type on. In addition to its quickness and responsiveness, it exhibits minimal flexing during typing, which is notable given the shallow profile. And though I would have preferred to see a Caps Lock light instead of the ephemeral notification that pops up on the display whenever you switch to and fro, this hardly constitutes a fatal flaw. The palm rest is comfortably sized for the most part, though because the generously sized touchpad takes up a third of it, the occasional stray thumb is unavoidable. Otherwise, the touchpad is comfortable and provides the right amount of tactile feedback for two-finger scrolling and pinch-zooming. The left- and right- click buttons beneath the touchpad, on the other hand, don't feel as sturdy and are noticeably clacky.

The speakers beneath the display are surprisingly loud. When playing a test track ("Crew Love" by Drake), I actually had to lower the volume by a notch because I was disturbing others in the Labs. I wouldn't categorize the sound as room-filling, nor would I suggest DJ-ing a party armed with only the Series 5, but as far as ultrabooks go, these speakers are louder than most I've encountered. Be it for movies or music, they make for a pleasant experience.

Port selection on the Series 5 is fairly lean. The right side has two USB 2.0 ports and a multiformat card reader (SD/SDHC/SDXC/MMC). On the left side of the system you'll find a USB 3.0 port and a headphone/microphone input. There's also a mini VGA port (which can be used in conjunction with the included dongle) and a full-size HDMI port, so you need not fuss with any dongles whenever you connect the Series 5 to a larger screen. Alternatively, you may ditch the cables altogether and utilize the built-in Intel Wireless Display (WiDi) technology to beam the Series 5's audio and video to an HDTV outfitted with an aftermarket adapter, like the Netgear Push2TV ($99 list).

The 128GB solid-state-drive comes preloaded with software ranging from the useful (Microsoft Office Starter 2010) to pure bloatware (Bing Bar, Skype, and the WildTangent games) to a few loose ends that fall somewhere in the middle (a 60-day trial of Norton Internet Security 2012).

Performance
The Samsung Series 5, which combines the Intel Core i5-2467M 1.6GHz "Sandy Bridge" processor and 4GB DDR3 RAM, yielded so-so results in our benchmark tests. Its PCMark 7 score of 3,330 was surpassed by the 2,822 of the Samsung Series 5 Ultra (NP530U4B-A01US) ($899.99 list, 3.5 stars) and the 3,146 of the HP Folio 13. Meanwhile, the Toshiba Portege Z830-S8302 ($1,429 list, 3.5 stars) eked past the Series 5 with 3,366, as did the Zenbook UX31A-RSL8 with an even higher 3,634. The Series 5's results in our multimedia tests were almost uniformly near the lower end of the range. It completed our Handbrake video-encoding test in 2 minutes 41 seconds, coming within striking distance of the Series 5 Ultra (2:38) but nowhere near the front-of-the-pack Portege Z830 (1:59). Similarly, its CineBench R11.5 score of 1.74 managed to nip at the heels of Series 5 Ultra and HP Folio 13 (tied with 1.93) but fell far behind the Portege Z830 (2.32). The Series 5 completed our Photoshop CS5 test in 5 minutes 26 seconds, bettering the Series 5 Ultra (5:39) and coming in only a second behind the HP Folio 13 (5:27) but, once again, falling significantly short of the Portege Z830 (4:08).

Despite being equipped with the same integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 GPU and Sandy Bridge processor as other similar laptops, the Series 5 churned out 3DMark06 scores that paled in comparison to the others (3,234 at medium detail settings and 1,024-by-768 resolution; 1,934 at native resolution with 4x anti-aliasing), landing at the bottom near the HP Folio 13 (3,765 and 1,912, respectively) and nowhere near the Portege Z830 (4,769 and 2,623) or the Zenbook UX31A-RSL8 (4,619 and 3,417). Ultrabooks aren't designed for gaming, so it's unsurprising that, like its peers, the Series 5 failed to crack the 30fps playability barrier in our Crysis and Lost Planet 2 tests. Thus, its performance in Crysis (14fps in medium quality at 1,024-by-768 resolution; 5fps in high quality at native resolution) and Lost Planet 2 (12fps in medium quality at 1,024-by-768 resolution; 5fps in high quality at native resolution) didn't fare much worse than the class-leading Portege Z83099 (20fps in Crysis at medium quality and 1,024-by-768 resolution; 19fps in Lost Planet 2 at medium quality at 1,024-by-768 resolution and 8fps in high quality at native resolution).

Unlike the Zenbook UX31A-RSL8's sealed-in battery, the 40Wh battery in the Series 5 is removable. Though Samsung has claimed that it provides up to 7 hours of continuous use, it lasted only 5 hours 44 minutes in MobileMark 2007. With the exception of the Series 5 Ultra (5 hours 47 minutes), all comparable systems demonstrated much more capable battery life. Both the Zenbook UX31A-RSL8 (6 hours 9 minutes) and Portege Z830 (6 hours 27 minutes) outlasted the Series 5, and the HP Folio 13 put it to shame with its 7 hours 33 minutes of battery life.

The Samsung Series 5 Ultra NP530U3B-A02 gets the job done, but its price tag is difficult to justify in the face of its unimpressive performance and more nimble competitors. Though it's since been updated with a faster, third-generation Ivy Core processor, as far as Sandy Bridge-equipped ultrabooks go, the Editors' Choice for ultrabooks, the Asus Zenbook UX31A-RSL8, is still the one to beat.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the The Samsung Series 5 Ultra NP530U3B-A02 with several other laptops side by side.

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