Samsung Q45
Retails at €1300
The Samsung Q45 is a black, shiny and light mobile laptop which weighs 1.86kg. It looks well and performs well. It comes preinstalled with Windows Vista which despite all the flack, works very well for the average user.
The Q45 comes with a 1.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 1GB of memory, has a 12 widescreen display. When it comes to battery life, it is meant to last 6 hours but for me it lasted on average 4-5 hours but this was working away wirelessly surfing the Internet and processing some videos.
The screen is good and bad at the same time, the resolution is good but the shinyness of the screen can become annoying and difficult to read when it’s sunny outside. Even with the cloudy Irish weather, a little brightness outside can make you squint your eyes when on the laptop.
Weight wise, this laptop is easy to use, even over 4 hours and doesn’t strain the back when carried around in carrier bag or napsack. The shiny black surface though means that it’s a fingerprint display unit and you’ll find yourself wiping off your fingerprints a lot from the laptop.
The biggest weakness of this laptop though is the keyboard. For some odd and I must say stupid reason, Samsung has swapped some of the function keys on the laptop around, meaning you are pressing the Windows and C key when you want to copy and paste. It causes you to relearn the keyboard settings which are standard on every other desktop and laptop. If you can forgive this then the Q45 does the business. Small, fast, and affordable.