Notebook Hunter

At $1380 the Samsung R580-JS05AU is a very respectable allrounder notebook. It has one of the fastest processors available, the Intel Core i7-620M. The NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics processor isn’t as good in comparison, but it’s still one of NVIDIA’s faster offerings. Games like Modern Warfare 2 will merrily run on low to medium settings. It’ll also handle most other common tasks as well, like watching movies, managing large photo libraries, and running many programs at once. It’s got a large 640GB hard drive as well, so you won’t run out of storage space any time soon. The 4GB of RAM and 15.6in (1366x768 resolution) screen are more or less typical for this price bracket.

All that power comes at a physical price, as the 2.6kg weight diminishes portability. It’s also 36.7mm thick, 255.5mm deep, and 379.8mm wide; small isn’t a feature here. Although equivalents exist with better graphics processors and higher resolution screens, they tend to cost more as well. For $1380, this allrounder notebook will give you very good value for money.

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