Samsung X120 Ultraportable Laptop Review

Results Analysis

The performance from the Samsung X120 was really rather high considering its price, size and sub-1.5kg weight. In general Windows 7 use we didn’t see much of the spinning wheel cursor and could even throw fairly complicated task at the laptop without having to worry much. The two CPU cores handled multiple applications well, and the laptop was perfectly responsive for the vast majority of the time we used it.

This is a marked difference to similarly sized Atom-based laptops, where even hitting the Windows key to bring up the Start menu results in a pause of a few seconds as the CPU struggles to keep up with its user. Trying to browse the internet, especially Flash-heavy pages, on an Atom laptop is tedious at best.

The results from the Media Benchmarks back up our general experience of the X120, and mark it as one of the fastest CULV laptops out there, as well as one of the smallest. With scores of 500 points in the image editing test and of 536 in the video encoding test, this laptop was able to handle editing 8megapixel images without much pausing and waiting.

The 1.3GHz Intel Pentium SU4100 processor was perfectly fine when it came to playing our modest HD video too, with a CPU load of between 0 and 17 per cent. Our Shrek 4 trailer is a 1080p video with a bit-rate of 9MB/sec, so isn’t the toughest video to play, but playing the video on a 1.66GHz Atom N280 or N450 laptop resulted in unwatchable stuttering and CPU loads of 60-100 per cent. This goes to show just how poor Atom is for a conventional modern PC – even the extra frequency over the dual-core Pentium CPU of this laptop doesn’t help it deliver an acceptable level of performance.

If the X120 has an Achilles heel, it’s the battery. Despite shipping with a 8,850mAh unit, the laptop couldn’t even manage two hours away from the plug, which meant that we had to carry the power brick with us wherever we went. This wasn’t too arduous, as it’s a tiny unit – power stone might be accurate, even if it sounds entirely wrong – and it has lengthy cable to stretch across a living room or desk too. Still, we’d hoped for far more time between charges, as other ultra-portable laptops last for over twice as long.

Conclusion

While the Samsung X120 is very neat and small laptop, it manages to pack a lot of performance in too. Don’t be fooled by the slightly anachronistic Pentium brand of CPU, as the 1.3GHz SU4100 has two reasonably fast cores to churn through tasks pretty quickly, and the 3GB of memory comes in handy too. We’d prefer the black lid to our silvery grey one, but we still had a certain amount of pride when drawing the X120 from our satchel bag, as its sleek looks and respectable keyboard (even if a few keys are oddly positioned) set this laptop apart from more blocky, basic designs.

While the X120 delivers on performance, looks and quality it fails to deliver in other key areas. The poor battery life is the most detrimental element to the appeal of the X120, with not even two hours of web-surfing available despite the large 8,850mAh battery. Considering that the X120 is also one of the more expensive CULV laptops on the market, the short of battery life is a compromise too far. So, while the LED-backlit screen is pleasant to use, and we could possibly get used the odd arrangement of the keys (though after a good few weeks with the machine, we’ll still admit to having to play Hunt the Backslash), the X120 ultimately fails to deliver completely on its ultra-portable promises.

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Build Quality
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• 8/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• -
• -
• 7/10

Score Guide