Ok So over Christmas I picked myself up a Laptop & ended up getting the Samsung R505 as the best deal that was about to me at the time for what I wanted at budget. I paid £399.99 for the laptop from Argos on special from £499.99. In actual fact it was a special for Christmas Eve only but since I had reserved it online & the price was still listed at £399.99 after a heated discussion with the manager he agreed I should pay that price after all. & it was Argos' fault for not altering the website in time.









Here are the specs:


* AMD Turion RM-72 dual core (X2) processor.
* 2.1GHz processor speed.
* 1MB cache.
* 3GB DDR2 RAM.
* 15.4in screen size.
* Resolution 1280 x 800 pixels.
* Widescreen.
* 250Gb SATA hard drive.
* Multi-format dual layer optical drive.
* 24x CD-ROM read speed.
* 16x CD-RW write speed.
* 8x DVD-ROM read speed.
* 4x DVD-RW write speed.
* Dedicated ATI HD 3470 graphics.
* 256MB graphics memory.
* 3-in-1 media card reader - compatible with SD, MMC SDHC cards.
* 3 USB ports.
* 1 Ethernet port.
* HDMI output.
* RealTek ACL262-GR sound card.
* 1.3Mp webcam.
* 802.11a/b/g wireless enabled.
* Microsoft Vista Premium operating system installed.
* Up to 3 hours battery life.
* Size (H)31.8, (W)35.8, (D)26.5cm.
* Weight 2.7kg.


As you can see the first thing that stands out is the dedicated ATI HD 3470 256Mb GFX card which not only means I should get better gaming / video performance out of the laptop at that price range over the others that were available (Intel based integrated graphics) but more immportantly the 256 Mb video RAM means no system RAM to share out to video ! Which in turn will make it a better performer.

The Realtek sound is an HD audio chip / codec.

Now I'm no fool I know how the dual core AMD CPUs match up against the Intel ones even the cut down Pentium Ds but as a whole the unit itself overall seemed like it would be a good performer compared to a c2d / pentium d @ the same price range with integrated intel graphics. Also however they (AMD mobile CPUs) don't seem to be as good on battery life as current Intel cpus, I knew this but wasn't too concerned about it.
Battery life itslef is a odd one obviously on high performance mode & with the fan also at full speed it doesn't last very long. I would say about 40 / 45 mins tops using it for anything & everything, about an hour doing the same in optimised & about 2 to 2 & half hours ( if your lucky) throttled way back on power saver mode. Obviously in any power mode it depends what you are doing heavy tasks see it gulp up power.

In power saver mode with the fan in slilent I got it going for upto a little over 3hrs doing just word processing on batts the other night & it still didn't warn me about the power level yet although the battery levels were touching base to look at them. This is good considering it says 'upto' 3hrs battery life which I always take as being left at idle. (Even though I did cripple it back somewhat & was only in Open office to achieve that). But you might say it good if all you do on batts is office work for an hour on the train to & from work using the power supply at home & at work. Saying that it did get rather warm in silent mode. The ATI GPU uses a battery saving feature to on battery power to minimize power useage.

About the battery not looked into it much yet in the manual but I assume its Li - polymer (or possibly Li - Ion) I have noticed the battery life improve over a couple of days, now being experienced with Li - po batteries from my RC model planes I know that they are not supposed to work like that (like Nimh) i.e you should just be able to top them up without having to worry about hampering the life of the battery by fully discharging it first, which also helps improve duration over time. Thats how Li - Pos were designed however some have found it happens with there plane batteries also over time that they begin to last a little longer. So maybe thats whats happening.

It came with 3 GB of PC2 6400 RAM which was quite good for the price considering others were offerring 1GB or 2GB at the most at the same price point. (I know its a higher spec laptop thats on sale price but it was still at the same price point at the end of the day).

Gigabit Ethernet port which works fine just plugs into my Virgin Media modem & works no troubles. Also a standard dial up port.

multi format wireless networking which seems to be picking up a few of my neighbours networks or the factory estate over the back from my house all security enabled though so far

HDMI & VGA connections no DVI so I can plug it upto a HDMI set but a monitor that only has DVI can't be used though.

EXP / PCIMA port, 3x USB one side 2 rear & your multi memory card reader at the front. With usual phones / mic mini jacks at the front.

The DVD RW multi drive I notice is much slower than Desktop drives & it is felt in comparison too but then again it is a laptop, also it spins up every so often & is a real battery drain so I keep it just ejected & shut to, to stop it spinning up & save power on the batts.

I Don't know too much about Windows Vistas many packages but it comes with 32 bit Vista Premium either way it contains the media centre & what else the Premium Edition has to offer.

I have not tried the gaming yet but will try it with a few older games & newer ones to see how it fairs When I find out farcry I will give that a blast as I think it will give me an accurate representation of what to expect before trying other newer games on it. I'm not really sure where this mobility HD 3470 256 Mb is pitched low end or mid point in GFX both for laptops & Desktops ? Obviously is low end in the desktop environment but not sure in the laptop arena ?

I will edit in some pics later on when I get them uploaded etc

Nice lappy mate, I wouldn't worry about it being AMD, they're fine, as you say the main thing is you got one with a discrete gfx solution for £400! Which is a really nice buy.

FYI my C2D lappy lasts EXACTLY an hour with only web-browser + outlook running (if I over-run a 1-hour meeting the battery shuts down), it's a HP Compaq nc6320 business laptop, so 2+1/2 hours from yours is excellent.

Thanks Rack, I was led to believe in benchmarks the AMDs were no where near close to the Intel but it seems to do quite well I even had it going over an hour in 'Samsung optimised mode' which is basicly a half way mode between the power saver & high performance (normal) modes using Abelton Live (a music production program) so audio & effects going on so it wasn't that bad on that. However the AMD ATI card does have throttling of sorts too or in catalyst tried to save power any how. Not tried DVD yet on Batts but have a feeling it will drain pretty quick on that not just the working of the program but the DVD drive in operation too.

I'm actually thinkin the battery might have a decent amount of cells or more over a big Mah to store more charge (because more cells would up the voltage).

I will have to get some pics up later & edit them in & try the gaming some.


Not too concerned about it being an AMD system in fact its all AMD the ATI card & the Chipset (I think).

In fact its quite refreshing to be on an AMD system again in a funny sense if you know what I mean in a computer geekery kind of way being on Intel now for about 2 years or so with the desktops My AMD systems in the past have always (maybe through chance) been more stable (overclocked or not) than my Intel Rigs for some reason. Again it could be down to a flaky chipset(s) though & not the CPU platforms themselves.

Plus I think the performance should be pretty on par with the cut down & low end C2D CPUs not too much in it to make a difference especially in a lappy. But the ability to play anything at maybe half decent to even low settings would be good for sure all in all something I couldn't do with Intel integrated solutions at the same price range.

windows aero scored 3.5 so the base score was 3.5 but heres the windows experience