Samsung RF511

Samsung RF511 review

The Samsung RF511 is a mid-range laptop which offers solid yet unspectacular performance, at a less than inspiring price. With so many great laptop bargains on the market this year boasting new Intel chips, we reckon that Samsung has missed the mark with this middle-of-the-road outing. With its muted grey metal trim around the keyboard and austere black-on-silver keys, the kind of room which would suit Samsung's RF511 will have black leather couches and smoked glass tables. It's a world away from the designer minimalism of something like the Asus Zenbook and a design that will repel as many as it attracts. But once you look at the glossy baked plastic lid, you begin to wonder who exactly the RF511 is aimed at. Is it a workhorse machine for open plan offices? Or something that could be a desktop replacement for the family home? We're just not sure – and the problem is that Samsung doesn't seem to have the answer, either. If you're shopping around, there are two versions of the RF511 available: one has a discrete graphics processor supplied by Nvidia for extra gaming power; the other relies on Intel's HD Graphics 3000 GPU that's built into a Sandy Bridge chip. This is the latter incarnation, meaning that the latest games are going to be beyond your aspirations.