Hands on with the Samsung Series 5 Ultra

For those who have been craving a more affordable Samsung ultrabook, here's your saviour: the Series 5 Ultra.

Last year, the Samsung Series 9 nearly stole the show as one of the must-have laptops at CES, but the thin 13-incher — an ultrabook before the name ultrabook was coined — cost more than a MacBook Air.

This year, the Series 9 survives, in an even sleeker yet still expensive iteration. The Series 5 Ultra, which comes in both 13- and 14-inch varieties, starts at US$899. That's the price we've come to expect from a Windows ultrabook, and, surprisingly enough, the Series 5 Ultra looks like it hasn't made too many concessions to get there.

You'll notice right away from the photos that the Series 5 is thicker than the Series 9. Looks-wise, it resembles the Samsung Series 7 Chronos that we reviewed last year, but slimmed down. The streamlined metal body weighs under 1.8kg, and is less than 25.4mm thick.

The Series 5 also has a matte display, just like the Series 7 and Series 9. The 1366x768 resolution screen has SuperBright technology, which means it should look as good as the Series 7 Chronos display (it won't look as spectacular as the Series 9's screen, though).

For those who didn't love the fold-down port doors on the Series 9, the good news is that the Series 5 has fully exposed ports, and more of them. A full-sized HDMI port, Ethernet and SD card slot come standard, and a mini-VGA dongle is included in the box. The 13-inch Series 5 (NP530U3B-A01US) feels a lot like the HP Folio 13 in terms of its overall size.

Interestingly, the 14-inch version of the Series 5 Ultra (NP530U4B-A01US) comes with an optical drive, further blurring the line on what we think of as an ultrabook. In terms of storage options, the Series 5 can be equipped with either a 128GB SSD, or with a more capacious 500GB standard SATA hard drive and 16GB of ExpressCache memory. We last saw that type of hybrid hard-drive solution on the Acer Aspire S3, and it could be of interest to a potential ultrabook customer who wants more space for their media.

Based on a first hands-on look at the Series 5, the initial conclusion is that it's certainly a hot-looking ultrabook — and it won't cost an arm and a leg to buy one. Still, in the wake of Intel's press conference and what we know about future Ivy Bridge processors, the Series 5 is decidedly a current-gen ultrabook, not a next-gen one. That makes us hesitant, and it should make you, a potential customer, hesitant, too.

Via CNET