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.

IT Pro Verdict

The Samsung 600B5B is fairly niche, even for a business laptop, but it's also one of the least expensive laptops with a business-certified graphics card. The 600B5B could be ideal for the user that needs 3D performance that can’t be provided by integrated chips. For most other people though, there are better all-rounders available.

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The Samsung 600B5B has a rubberised soft-touch texture to its lid.

The Samsung 600B5B has a rubberised soft-touch texture to its lid.

The 600B5B uses a fast Core i5-2520M processor running at 2.5GHz. At this speed it should be more than powerful enough for most tasks, but Intel's Turbo Boost technology can push it to a dizzying 3.2GHz for short periods of time when small bursts of extra performance are needed. Paired with 4GB of RAM, it felt incredibly snappy in Windows and managed to score 56 in our multimedia benchmarks. Only the most demanding of desktop tasks should push this computer to its limit.

It can also hold its own when running 3D applications, thanks to its Nvidia NVS dedicated graphics card. Unlike the consumer GeForce series, the NVS 4200M used here is aimed squarely at business users, with 512MB of video memory and drivers certified to work with many of today's most popular CAD and design software. It's reasonably powerful for a laptop card, and can easily decode high definition video for playback on an external display using the HDMI output. Because it's based so heavily on the GeForce architecture, it can also use Nvidia's Optimus graphics switching system to preserve battery life; in our light-use test, the 600B5B managed a fantastic seven hours 50 minutes away from the mains.

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