Samsung XE550C21

Dedicated GeForce graphics featuring Nvidia's Optimus ; Bright, matte screen ; DVD burner ; 2x USB 3.0 ; Good battery life

Outdated CPU ; Mediocre casing ; Small opening angle ; Poor viewing angle stability ; Moderate sound

So it is possible to install a DVD burner in a thin ultrabook without enlarging it after all

A different platform, yet the interior life is almost identical. The input is almost identical to the professional ThinkPad E125

Visual appearance ; - Materials and build quality ; - Compact and comparatively light ; - Well equipped, including optical drive ; - Non-glare display, very bright ; - Not very noisy during every-day use

Average viewing angles ; - Ho-hum performance of CPU und GPU ; - Unpleasant graphics card switching ; - Slow hard drive

That Samsung switched to AMD's Trinity architecture for this 14-inch version instead of sticking with Intel like on the 13.3-inch models. We believe that this change only brings about disadvantages for the potential customer - more because of the...

Matte, bright screen ; Agreeable keyboard ; Easy to clean surfaces ; JBL's 2.1 sound system

High operating temperature ; Unbalanced interface distribution ; Poor image contrast

The operating temperature during load beyond 90 degrees Celsius on both CPU cores and 89 degrees Celsius on the GPU which are definitely too high in our opinion. That will likely be unhealthy for the hardware in the long run

Elegant design ; USB 3.0 and HDMI ; Matte screen ; Good brightness & illumination ; Easy maintenance ; Application performance ; Battery life

VGA adapter no longer included ; Screen?s limited opening angle ; Contrast and high black value ; No Turbo during load ; No full-blown solid state drive ; Increased temperature rates

That Samsung still equips the ultrabook with a conventional hard disk. However, it has a positive impact on the starting price

high performance ; fast graphics card ; low noise emission ; high quality input devices ; excellent speakers ; comparatively good battery stamina

poor stability ; screen has low contrast and narrow viewing angles ; system throttled under load ; no SSD

We were baffled by the maximum sound levels produced by JBL's small 2.1 sound system. Even the sound quality is good enough to make externa speakers unnecessary

Solid, portable hardware; multiband 3G radio; file browser support; great battery life; great keyboard

100MB/month data allocation is ludicrous; needs more plugin support; too pricey

At its price, though, the Chromebook loses its luster; there are just too many things that it doesn’t do, and too few things you can’t get from running the Chrome browser on a regular machine. It’s a good secondary device for a vanishingly small...

The model we’ve reviewed here will cost you a cool $859.99 USD and is available everywhere fine Ultrabooks are sold. We’d recommend, as always, heading out to your local notebook dealer to see how this unit feels before picking one up for yourself....

Effortlessly light ; Cheap, even by Chromebook standards ; USB 3.0 and HDMI compatibility

Software still stuttery from time to time ; Creaky plastic ; Odd, inconvenient port placement

This Chromebook performed like a Chromebook