Samsung X120

We may have mentioned in the past that 2009 was going to be the year of the ULV ultraportable, with the implication that these ‘thin and light’ laptops with more traditional specifications would quickly eat into netbook sales. Well, you know what? We were wrong.

The ULV ultraportables we’ve seen so far have all been far too expensive to tempt anyone who’s considering a £300 netbook and performance, although better than any Atom-powered portable, is still lacking for a laptop that costs £600 or more. Disappointing, eh?

Even so, with 2009 almost at an end, there is now at least one ULV ultraportable that’s come good on the promise — the Samsung X120. It’s one of three new ULV laptops from Samsung, but it’s the only one that really caught our eye — the X420 and X520 are both larger and considerably more expensive.

The Samsung X120 is an 11.6” laptop, which means that it’s much the same size as ASUS 11.6” Eee PC Seashell and not that much bigger than other 10.1” netbooks. At just 1.36kg, it’s also not much of a burden to carry around and since it’s only 1” thick when closed, it slips easily into most bags — laptop or otherwise.

We liked the look of the last Samsung netbook we reviewed and the X120 certainly compares very favourably. Every edge of the case is rounded and the metallic grey lid contrasts nicely with the narrow silver band that runs around the base. The base also has a curved lip at either side that the curved edges of the lid fit snugly into — it’s a completely superfluous touch, but it’s encouraging to see Samsung paying such close attention to the fit and finish of the X120 when other manufacturers don’t bother.

The 11.6” screen sits on two stiff hinges that fold back far enough to let the X120 to be used on your lap comfortably, but they do allow a little wobble — something that may annoy you if you often use a laptop on a moving train or airplane. The screen is bright and clear though, and its 1366 x 768 resolution means that there are no problems with wide web pages or tall dialog boxes — the same can’t be said of 1024 x 600 netbook screens, of course.

We’ve grown accustomed to the near-full-size keyboards with slightly shrunken keys that the better 10.1” netbooks are equipped with, but the Samsung X120 is big enough for a full-size set-up. The large, flat keys have plenty of travel and there isn’t a hint of flex anywhere across the whole width of the keyboard.

The X120’s trackpad may be less appealing, depending on your personal preference. It’s large, supports multi-touch gestures and generally works very well, but the buttons sit at either side of the pad rather than below it. We didn’t have a problem with the layout, not least since the buttons are a good size and have just the right amount of click, but we know that not everyone will feel the same — just something to bear in mind.

Here’s our hands-on video of the Samsung X120.

So far, so good — the Samsung X120 ticks all the right boxes for an ULV ultraportable, but what about performance..? Intel’s ULV (Ultra Low Voltage) processors don’t offer quite the same oomph as their full-voltage equivalents, but the trade-off is that they use less power and run cooler — something that makes a great deal of sense in a laptop like this (but less so in anything larger, in our opinion).

The Samsung X120 uses an Intel Pentium SU4100 ULV processor with a 1.3GHz clock speed. This doesn’t sounds like much, but it is a dual-core 64-bit chip with an 800MHz front-side bus and so should out-perform the single-core, 32-bit, 667MHz FSB Intel Atom. And the good news is, it does — the X120 is around twice as fast in our application benchmarks than any netbook. Integrated Intel graphics mean that 3D performance isn’t quite as capable, but the Intel GMA HD4500M chipset does accelerate HD video, so movie watching up to 720p is perfectly possible.

Unfortunately, few laptops are perfect and the Samsung X120’s Achilles’ heel is its battery life. To be fair, BatteryEater Pro Classic and Reader times of an hour and a half and three and a half hours, respectively, aren’t awful — they equate to around two and a half hours of typical use — but this really isn’t long enough for an ultraportable.

So, this single shortcoming means that we can’t award full marks to the X120, but we still like it enough to give it a Mobile Computer Editor’s Choice award — it really is a cracking little ULV ultraportable.