Samsung 600B5B review
Samsung isn't well known for its business laptops. Can the company's latest model, the 600B5B, convince businesses to turn away from their ThinkPads and ProBooks? Tom Morgan takes a look in our review.
The Samsung 600B5B seems rather chunky if you're used to far slimmer laptops, but its angular chassis is still surprisingly compact for a 15.6in laptop. It's certainly not an ultra-portable at 2.5kg, but is still transportable. The main benefit to its size is its excellent connectivity; two USB3 ports, a single USB2 and one combined USB2/eSATA port are all welcome and useful inclusions, as is an ExpressCard/34 slot, multi-format card reader and internal DVD re-writer. There's no modem port, so you'll need a third party expansion card to add such a feature. Security-conscious users will appreciate the fingerprint reader.
The ports located on the right-hand side of the Samsung 600B5B.
Typing on the full-size QWERTY keyboard is best described as functional. Although we got used to typing on the keyboard after some practice, it wasn't easy - the keys have far too much travel and limited amount of tactile feedback. The numerical keypad is a welcome inclusion, although it has been reduced in size to fit the chassis we didn't encounter any problems with data entry, so this shouldn't be a problem for most people.
The keyboard on the Samsung 600B5B isn't especially comfortable to type on.
Like a lot of business-centric laptops, the 600B5B provides two options for controlling the Windows mouse cursor. The traditional touchpad felt responsive, with the rubberised finish creating only a tiny amount of friction, and the touchstick recessed into the keyboard was very firm. It seems unlikely it will come loose from regular use, unlike some touchsticks we've used in the past. Unfortunately, the touchstick's buttons were very springy, while the touchpad's buttons felt loose and had almost no tactile feedback. We had to press down very far before a click would register, which becomes annoying when web browsing or trying to drag files between folders.
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