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The Samsung Series 5 laptop 31x21.5x1cm, the last figure is the width at the front while it grows to 1.5cm at the back, it weights 1680grams.

Open the lid and you find the screen is quite reflective and sadly the screen surround is shiny black. The viewable screen is 29.5x16.7cm giving the notional diagonal imperial measurement of 13.3inches the default screen display is 1366x768. A 1.3MP webcam is mounted in the centre of the top border of the screen.

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The screen opens to 135 degrees which may not always be enough; there are no connections behind it so I am not sure why it cannot go further.

The left side has DC input, Ethernet, USB3, HDMI, external Headset and a proprietary VGA connection. The front edge has just four LEDs in a line. The right side has two USB2 ports and an SD Card slot. Undo one screw on the back for access to the memory slots and the hard disc.

The keyboard is 81 keys with the alpha and numeric keys being full size. A 3cm strip behind the keyboard has the speakers and at the right end the on/off button. There is a 1.5cm area each side of the keyboard clear and there is an 8cm strip in front of the keyboard for your wrists. The 10.5x7cm trackpad is mounted 9cm from the left and 12cm from the right.

It is a rapid booting unit for which the small SSD integrated with the hard disc gives a boot of 13 seconds and shut down from as little as 5 seconds. If required there is a 128GB SSD option if you think that is enough storage.

The SSD is only 24GB and while it will learn to place required booting files on itself the 500GB hard disc takes the rest of your data. The actual available hard disc is 442GB.

I used this unit with both Ethernet and Wi-Fi.

The processor is an Intel i3 offering running at 1.8GHz and it comes with 6GB of RAM.

Apart from the 64bit version of Windows 8 you get a range of Samsung Apps as well as Power DVD and 60 day trial of Norton Internet Security and 30 day trial of Norton Online Backup.

In use I found it responsive and able to cope with anything I tried and I soon forgot it was only an i3 processor (there is a similar unit with an i7 option if that is required), the main reason for Windows 8 is Touch and this 13.3inch screen is just about the right distance to stab a finger at the screen without stretching. The touch available is the more advanced 10 point meaning you are not limited to selection or just text increase or decrease, it is very responsive.

I found the battery lasted well through a working day when used with Wi-Fi and this in itself had a good range before it slowed down as it retried to connect and deliver web pages.

I mentioned that the screen was reflective but providing you can avoid bright light exactly onto the screen it is quite useable and the display is clear and sharp.

If you move around a lot the weight is not excessive and you can get a days worth of work from a single battery charge even with extensive Wi-Fi use.

The Samsung 13.3inch Series 5 Notebook (NP530U3C) is available from the link below for £719.95 with free delivery.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00B18RRDI?ie=UTF8&tag=gadge0a-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/ultra-portable/NP530U3C-A09UK