SAMSUNG SERIES 5 ULTRA NP 540U3C-A01IN


A decent touchscreen at a great price

SAMSUNG SERIES 5 ULTRA NP 540U3C-A01IN
The Samsung Series 5 540U3C might be a budget Windows 8 ultrabook, but it doesn't feel like one! Sturdy, yet stylish, flipping the well finished silver lid exposes a similar coloured metal wrist rest. The 540U3C also claims to be one of the most elegantly designed ultrabooks. Impressively, Samsung has squeezed everything in a 13.3in touchscreen!

Though we are not too convinced with the utility of touchscreens in a laptop — long-term usage is a bit tiresome though it's cool while searching for an app or zooming an image with a pinch — the touchscreen is responsive and smooth while the display sits properly in the bezel to make sure the edges don't catch your finger. The 1366 x 768 pixel screen is bright and soothing for the eyes but a richer texture would have been better. The viewing angle, though not bad, could do with some improvement.

The chiclet styled keyboard is comfortable enough to type on, with large keys and optimum space between each key and offers a decent balance between depth and flexibility. But again, the absence of backlight cannot be taken very lightly in such a premium laptop.  However, the small-sized touchpad was impressive throughout the test with no noticeable lag.

Weighing 1.69KG, the Series 5 Ultra NP 540U3C-A01IN is easy to carry around. The configuration will also find favour with most users. We were especially impressed with the 24GB Express Cache SSD which makes the laptop way faster than others during while starting up and and shutting down. The Intel Core i5 3317U processor, 8 GB RAM, 500GB of storage and Intel HD Graphics 4000 passed all our real life and benchmarking tests with flying colours! The audio quality doesn't disappoint either and neither do the six hours of battery life.