It may be a little late to the razor-thin notebook contest, but the Samsung X360-34P has a lot more to offer than just a low profile. This 13-inch ultraportable is not only lighter than both the Apple MacBook Air and Lenovo ThinkPad X301, it features much better battery life. Of course, the X360 shares another trait with the MacBook Air and X301: a high price tag. It sells for about $2,299 online, but with its comfortable keyboard, easy-access ports, and blazing solid state drive, the X360 is one of the best notebooks in its class.
Available Configurations
The Samsung X360 is available in two configurations: the X360-34P (the model reviewed) features a 1.4-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U9400 processor, 3GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD; the X360-34G, which is about $600 cheaper, has a 1.2-GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U9300 chip, 3GB of RAM, and a 5,400-rpm, 120GB hard drive.
Design
Like its larger counterpart, the X460, the X360-34P has a red brushed-metal panel covering about three-quarters of its lid. The rest, along with the inside of the notebook, is a glossy piano black plastic, a signature look for Samsung across a number of its product lines. Aside from its looks, the first thing you notice about this system is how light it is. At 2.8 pounds, it’s more than half a pound lighter than the X301 and 0.2 pounds lighter than the MacBook Air. In fact, the X360 is the same weight as such netbooks as the latest Acer Aspire One, MSI Wind U120, and Samsung NC10.
Despite its thinness, Samsung didn’t skimp on ports. On the left side of the system as it faces you is an Ethernet port, one USB port, an ExpressCard/34 slot, and headphone and microphone jacks. On the opposite side is a VGA port, HDMI, two more USB ports, and a 7-in-1 card reader. Having HDMI on board is especially handy for outputting video and audio using a single cable. The Lenovo ThinkPad X301 lacks this feature (though it does have a DisplayPort), and the MacBook Air requires using a Mini DisplayPort adapter.
Keyboard and Touchpad
As is proving increasingly popular among other notebook manufacturers, the X360 features an island-style keyboard that, while requiring a minor adjustment period, offered a very comfortable typing experience.
The keys (coated in what Samsung says is antibacterial material) were very lively, provided a good amount of feedback, and better yet, were not noisy at all. The only quibble is that the Page Up and Page Down buttons are too close to the Right and Left arrow keys; we often found ourselves paging down when we meant to scroll to the right.
The touchpad, which supports multitouch gestures such as pinch-and-zoom, was decently sized, and had very low friction. The mouse buttons, too, were a good size, and required almost no effort to press. Like the keys, they, too, were very quiet.
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