The Samsung NP510R5E-A01UB is a slightly different laptop if you compare it to the NP510R5E-A02UB. The 15.6-inchers belong to the thin-and-light notebook category with their profiles measuring 0.9″, aluminum cases, and no optical drives built-in. The NP510R5E-A01UB has an Intel Core i5 chip, while the latter sports an i7, but in reality both processors offer almost the same performance. That’s because the included i5-3230M is a full-voltage part, whereas the i7 CPU in the A02UB model is an ultra-low voltage chip with better power efficiency. You can check these out in the PassMark test chart below. Another difference is 6GB of RAM in the A01UB, down from 8GB, but both RAM amounts are more than sufficient for all daily tasks of the average user.
The 750GB hard drive is also an above average amount on today’s market, while the other stand out features include Bluetooth, Intel Wireless Display technology, and anti-glare display coating which is a good and not so common feature on the consumer-oriented laptops.
Otherwise, the feature set is an average one and provides three USBs, HDMI and VGA, a media card reader, Wi-Fi, Gigabit LAN, a 720p web camera, and stereo speakers.
The price for the Samsung NP510R5E-A01UB $600, wheres the mentioned i7 model with the less power-hungry CPU and more RAM is $730. That higher price doesn’t bring any significant advantage, so the A01UB appears to be a better optimized choice if you consider the price and components.
Samsung NP510R5E-A01UB Specifications
- Display: 15.6-inch, 1366 x 768 pixels, anti-glare
- Processor: 3rd Gen Intel Core i5-3230M, two cores, 3MB L3 cache, 2.6-3.2GHz clock speed
- Graphics: Intel HD 4000 IGP
- Memory: 6GB DDR3 system memory at 1,600MHz
- Storage: 750GB hard drive at 5,400rpm
- Optical drive: no
- Webcam: Yes, 720p
- Audio: stereo speakers
- Network: 802.11n Wi-Fi, Gigabit Ethernet LAN, Bluetooth 4.0 interface, Intel Wireless Display technology
- Input: keyboard with dedicated numeric pad, multitouch touchpad
- Ports and Slots: 1 x USB 3.0, 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x HDMI, 1 x VGA, multi-in-one card reader
- Battery: 3-cell
- Dimensions: 0.90″ x 14.80″ x 9.76″
- Weight: 4.6 pounds
- OS: Windows 8
- Warranty: 1-year
I’m a huge fan of Samsung: have a Galaxy, have one of their TVs, and have this laptop. I bought it about two years ago at Best Buy for $600. The network adapter is malfunctioning, and I have to restart it twice an hour, on a good day. About 2-3 times a week, the OS doesn’t want to wake up from sleep mode, and I have to spend about 10-15 minutes constantly rebooting it, until I finally get the sign-on screen instead of a black, useless screen. Worst of all, the LCD is going out: I can barely read Webpages that have gray-tone text, I can’t see images, I can’t edit my own photographs, because the screen is constantly flickering between blinding white and really dark gray. (It’s not a graphics card issue, as none of this happens when I plug into an external monitor.) Two years, and I’m back in the market for a laptop. I essentially paid $300/year to use this machine. Is it worth it to you? It wasn’t to me.