Samsung R519 15.6-inch Notebook (Intel Celeron Dual Core Processor T3100 1.9 GHz, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, Windows 7 Home Premium, Black)

Lovely, can't fault it, quiet with a responsive keyboard, sharp, bright screen and nice and fast, haven't used it long enough to get a handle on battery life but no complaints so far, never tried Samsung before but will try them again.

My mum decided that she was finally going to move her feet firmly into the 21st century by getting herself one of those "laptop things". Amused as I was by the phrase, I also realised that I couldn't actually leave it down to her to go and buy the right machine for her needs. With this in mind I decided to scour the laptop market and buy her a reasonably priced laptop packed with all the features she needed. After quite a bit of searching I thought that for the price; this Samsung not only looked the part but had all the features she needed. Now for the machine itself, to which I can thoroughly inform you of because the responsibility to "set it all up and road test it" as my mother pointed out was firmly down to me.

Well when I opened the box I was very impressed. Samsung have produced a very sexy looking laptop. A high gloss black top that was screaming "Do not touch me" and a nice new keyboard looking well laid out. Now when I say well laid out I am talking about the obvious things. For a start the power button is situated on the far left and is visible even to a Laptop novice. As I understand it this Laptop is offered with either Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows 7 Home Premium. I opted for the Windows 7 Version just because it was the first on the list (nothing like honesty), but to be honest I really didn't think either was a problem for my Mum, she was just glad she had a Laptop.

Set up was easy was once you open the box you realise there is actually very little to it. You put the battery pack in the bottom of the laptop and then plug in and charge. Once you turn the machine on it does an automatic set-up for you guiding you through each stage step by step. Once the initial set up is done you can then start to use the machine. The wireless set up was simple as all you do is activate the Wi-fi by switch and then search for available networks. I must say that I was extremely impressed with the quality of the graphics on this machine, considering its spec was pretty standard the results are fantastic. I ensured that I removed the trial virus software and installed the free AVG that can be downloaded quite simply. Overall my mum was absolutely delighted with it and found it easy to use and has managed to become quite adept (even bragging that she knew how to "download stuff" now). From my own perspective there are a couple of minor points that would stop me from buying one. I currently own a different brand of Laptop with a much higher spec. However the spec isn't the concern, it's more about the ports. They are all located on the left hand side of the machine which can a bit of a nuisance if you have multiple things plugged in. If, like my mum, you only want a laptop to surf the net, download pictures and maybe do a little bit of spreadsheet work then this may be for you and is definitely not for the heavy laptop user. When you weigh up the prices of Laptops at the moment I think the spec is pretty good value and it certainly looks the part, all in all a great buy for somebody who wants a basic laptop or is a light user.

A great Lap top that I would thorughly recommend. It came pre-loaded with Windows 7 which I find to be excellent and no problems so far. I already have Microsoft Office 2003 so when I tried out the new trial version - I was a little disappointed and moreover found that if I continued to use it and converted some of my word documents I would not be able to go back to my old version if I decidedc to buy the new version. Also it caused some conflict problems with both version installed at the same time. In the end I deleted the trial version and continued to use my old version of Office.

The computer is amazingly fast compared to my old Lap-top and I cannot fault it, apart from one thing which can be very annoying. This is the additional mouse wheel at the side of the touch pad. I am right handed and the device is on the right of the mouse. If I don't ensure I work more to the left of the pad I tend to touch this wheel thingy and this constantly causes express movement of my cursor up or down to the top or bottom of the page. Very frustrating and for the times I might need it I would prefer not to be inconvenienced with this annoying problem every few minutes when using the touch pad.
On balance I would still recommend it though.