Samsung NP355E5x [Honest Review, OC] (AMD APU Vision E1 1.4Ghz, AMD 7310, 2GB DDR3, 500GB)

ithehappy

Human Spambot
Well I hope I am not trying to intrigue anyone but I ended up selling this, I was getting really annoyed with the performance of this, even after OC'ing it up to 2.0 GHz!
Sorry to say.
 
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bhvm

Journeyman
Just a Long term Update-
The system continues to work flawlessly, No hang ups or whatever. I am planning to Upgrade the Lappy with Seagate SSHD 1TB which shall instill some speed into it. It would work very well as a media server with all the space. Battery life is always 5 hours Plus, and the Lappy never heats up.

If you understand the Purpose & Price this lappy was made for, its unbeatable!
 

gopi_vbboy

Cyborg Agent
Nice review.


Just wanted to know How is the feel of keyboard keys ? Are they soft while in contact with fingers like in sony vaio? or plastic like feel?
 
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bhvm

Journeyman
Just a Small Update. Last sunday, i was keying Articles on this laptop. I can CONFIRM that the Laptop has 6 hours of battery life Running light tasks like Text Editor and Brightness on medium. Even with Multimedia the battery would be 4~5 hours. This is VERY impressive to say the least. What the AMD E-Series lacks in Performance is made up in Endurance!:)

I have upgraded the Laptop with SSHD, Which could be a reason of Better battery life. I guess It would spin down and the SSD part would take simple light tasks. Here is the review-
*www.thinkdigit.com/forum/reviews/183201-seagate-1tb-sshd-honest-review-benchmarks.html
 
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bhvm

Journeyman
using the new version of MSI afterburner,
I was able to overclock the Inbuilt HD 7310 all the way upto 805 Mhz and then 930 mhz!!!
Thats a 90% overclock people! As a result the framerate jumped from 17 FPS to a much better 28 FPS. Transformers fall of cybertron is finally playable at 800x600. I bet this is a feat no other GPU can OC upto!!

Hurrayyyyyyyy!!!:twisted:

(Dont know why i cant upload screenshots today!)
 
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bhvm

Journeyman
When playing games, I noticed that the bottleneck was not the GPU but actually the small dual core CPU. Please bear in mind that this is an Netbook class CPU running at 18W.

I downloaded Brazos tweaker, and Lo and behold, I was able to OC the Puppy to 3.5 Ghz! This is crazy.

For those using K10 stat, it gives an empty overclock, The clock values seem to be applied but there is no increase in performance, But with Brazon tweaker, the Clock speeds were actuall applied and I confirmed the same using some game benhmarks. I am seeing about a 10 Fps boost in older games and 4 FPS extra in new games.

AMD e1 at 3.5 Ghz! yes people!
 
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bhvm

Journeyman
Time for a long term review,
The laptop has been happily chugging along. However recently, the DVD drive has been dissapearing from the My computer as well as BIOS.
Any ideas folks?
 
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bhvm

Journeyman
After about a week,
1) The news is not so good. DVD has not shown up in Windows or even BIOS for that matter, and any fixes shown on various forums are'nt working.
2) There are sometimes (rarely) a blizzard of Horizontal lines on the screen
3) Laptop is heating up quite a bit. The CPU idles around 58~61.c which is not alarming. However, what is worrisome is that HDD idles about 44~46.c and quickly climbs to 48.C. Ouch.

(p.s above values without any OC or tuning processes. I have disabled OC for many Months now as the lappy is on Lightweight duty and is infrequently used.)

Talk to me Folks!.
 
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bhvm

Journeyman
More Long term Update-
1>DVD finally went Kaput. Removed it and put aside. Put a tape on opening.
2> Horizontal lines on Screen do trouble intermittently. Not that I care much due to accounting use. The Lines are not related to Flexing of Screen, CPU load or Heat. Its random.
3> CPU idling is near 53~54.C. HDD idle is near 42.C

Overall satisfaction is low. So is the price.
Points 1 & 2 show the poor build quaility of Samsung. Unfortunately these things started just as warranty Ran out.

Full BOOOO to samsung on this.
 
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bhvm

Journeyman
Even More long term update-
The laptop has been moved to Net surfing and other Light duties.

1> The weird lines on screen have disappeared automatically. The Matte display is a joy to use as always. Laptop is quite stable now.
2> I've added one more 2GB ram stick, and machine is surprisingly peppy now for daily tasks. I guess its as good as any other Intel budget laptop now. The total RAM size now is 4GB, out of which, 256 MB is set to graphics. Rest everything is for system.
3> Threw away the DVD drive.
4> Gave a good TLC to laptop by dusting out the fans and cleaning circuits etc using a soft brush. I really appreciate the large access panel. These things are becoming a rarity on modern laptops.
 
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bhvm

Journeyman
Long term update-
The laptop has been moved to Tertiary duty. Which means Web surfing, Youtube and lots of Backup archival.

1. Weird lines on screen have not returned.
2. This laptop seems to have the best speakers among mine entire lot. They're loud enough to properly understand you-tube tutorials.
3. No Hanging or freezing problem.
4. Enjoyed some old games. I mean whats the fun in running old games on blazing fast GPU?
I Ran a few games from 2001~2003~2005 era.
HALO 2003
COD1, COD 2
NFS MW
Painkiller (original with city on water... ohhh so beautiful)
Painkiller overdose
Painkiller redemption
PK Recurring evil
FEAR & FEAR 2
NOLF 1 & 2
Project Snow-blind (Amazing gameplay)
Conflict Global storm (Global terror)
UT 2003.

These games work very well mated to the puppy 7310 Graphics with 80 shaders. Roughly the same power as High end card from late 2005. What charm.
 
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