Samsung Q310 review

Samsung’s laptops were once synonymous with glossy black finishes and sleek, monochromatic good looks. Now, though, they’ve revisited the design and injected it with colour.

If you’re expecting laptops finished inblues, reds and pinks you’ll be disappointed. Instead, Samsung has stuck to the glossy black theme and simply added a fade of red along the wristrest’s bottom edge. It introduces awelcome frisson of style and, despitetheQ310’s slightly dumpy frame, it still manages to weigh in at areasonable 2.15kg.

Build quality is a highlight thanks to the Q310’s strong, resilient lid and the sturdy chassis. Its firm frame is ably matched by a responsive keyboard and wide trackpad.

Inside you’ll find an Intel Core 2 Duo P8400, 4GB of DDR3 memory, discrete graphics and a 250GB hard disk. With a score of 1.18 in our benchmarks, the Samsung proves it’s no slouch and, thanks to the modest abilities of the Nvidia 9200M GS graphics chipset, it even managed adecent 23fps in our easiest Crysis gaming test.

And, where Toshiba’s M800 stamina left it gasping for breath, the Q310 endures. More than five hours of light usage is good going for a portable, and the 1hr 43mins of heavy usage is even more encouraging.

There’s very little to criticise elsewhere. Connectivity isn’t quite as generous as that of Toshiba’s M800, butyou do get Bluetooth 2.0 as well as HDMI, VGA, three USB ports and a card reader along the laptop’s front edge.

The Samsung Q310 is a superb 13.3in laptop, and if portability is key then there’s plenty to like. Performance and battery life are excellent.

The only issue is that its 15.4in Samsung stablemate, the R560, costs a relatively small amount more and is, just, the better all-rounder.