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Samsung RF711 review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £899
inc VAT

A blazingly-fast processor makes the RF711 great for multimedia editing

Samsung’s laptops have always had a refined look, and the RF711 is no exception. The glossy lid has a translucent starburst effect which is eye-catching, and it opens up to a two-tone keyboard panel that reminded us of one of Sony’s Vaio designs. A silver panel above and to the right of the keyboard contains the power button as well as a networking toggle button and volume controls. Build quality is good, with little flex in the lid and none in the case.

Samsung RF711

One of the highlights is the Intel Core i7-2630QM processor, running at 2GHz. That may seem a bit slow, until you consider that the Core i7 supports Turbo Boost, which can automatically overclock the chip to a maximum of 2.9GHz. It’s also a quad-core chip and is paired with 6GB of memory, so it’s great at multitasking, and its score of 74 overall mean it’s quite capable of running most applications, including video-editing and 3D-modelling software.

Samsung RF711 Ports 2

There’s also a dedicated Nvidia GeForce GT 540M graphics card, which helped the RF711 to a score of 40fps in Call of Duty 4. This is fine but at the screen’s native resolution of 1,600×900, the score dropped to 32fps, which is only just playable. Support for CUDA means you’ll also benefit from speedier operations in GPU-accelerated applications such as the latest version of Photoshop.

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Basic Specifications

Rating****
ProcessorIntel Core i7-2630QM
Processor clock speed2GHz
Memory6.00GB
Memory slots2
Memory slots free0
Maximum memory8GB
Size416x276x38mm
Weight2.9kg
SoundRealtek HD Audio
Pointing devicetouchpad

Display

Viewable size17.3 in
Native resolution1,600×900
Graphics ProcessorNvidia GeForce GT 540M
Graphics/video portsVGA, HDMI
Graphics Memory1,024MB

Storage

Total storage capacity1,000GB
Optical drive typeDVD+/-RW +/-DL BD-ROM

Ports and Expansion

USB ports4
Bluetoothyes
Wired network ports1x 10/100/1000
Wireless networking support802.11b/g/n
PC Card slotsnone
Supported memory cardsSDHC
Other portsminijack audio output, minijack microphone input

Miscellaneous

Carrying caseNo
Operating systemWindows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Operating system restore optionrestore partition
Software includedMicrosoft Office 2010 Starter

Buying Information

Warrantyone year collect and return
Price£899
Detailswww.samsung.com/uk
Supplierhttp://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk

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