Samsung Series 5 UltraTouch review: Slim but sturdy, for less than you’d think

Windows 8 touch-screen laptops to date have largely fallen into two categories — really high-end systems, from $1,200 to $1,600 or more, with slim, sexy designs; or else entry-level models that cram in a touch screen, but at the expense of design, with middling, plastic bodies.

Samsung’s 13-inch Series 5 UltraTouch threads the needle excellently, with an upscale, metallic body, an Intel Core i5 CPU, and good battery life for $849 (note that we also saw it listed on the Home Depot Web site, which is apparently selling laptops now, for $50 less). A less expensive Core i3 version runs about $150 less, but the i5 is where you want to be for a system you can use as your main laptop for several years.

The Series 5 UltraTouch doesn’t have any secret tricks up its sleeve, like a screen that detaches, rotates, or flips around, it’s just a reasonably solid, reasonably priced ultrabook that looks like a more expensive product (perhaps from Samsung’s own higher-end Series 7 and Series 9 lines). Only the twitchy touch pad, with separate buttons, rather than a single clickpad, keeps it from being an easy got-to-have-it recommendation.

Price as reviewed	$849
Processor	1.7GHz Intel Core i5-3317U
Memory	4GB, 1,600MHz DDR3
Hard drive	500GB 5,400rpm w/24GB SSD cache
Chipset	Intel HM77
Graphics	Intel HD4000
Operating system	Windows 8
Dimensions (WD)	12.4×8.6 inches
Height	0.6 inch
Screen size (diagonal)	13.3 inches
System weight / Weight with AC adapter	3.7 pounds / 4.3 pounds
Category	13-inch

Design and features
Unlike some other Windows 8 laptops, which were designed (or redesigned) from the ground up, this Series 5 looks and feels a lot like the pre-Windows 8 Series 5 laptops we’ve looked at previously.

The matte brushed-aluminum finish does a great job of resisting fingerprints and looks sharp, and this 13-inch model is significantly thinner than 14-inch Series 5 laptops we’ve reviewed — but those larger models do manage to fit in a tray-loading optical drive.

The front edge of the system creates the illusion that it’s a bit thinner than it actually is. The sides taper toward the front, while expanding toward the back, where they can accommodate ports and connections. No one will mistake this for a MacBook Air (or Acer Aspire S7) in size and weight, but it’s certainly competitive in the under-$900 category.

This Series 5 carries Intel’s official Ultrabook sticker, while the last Series 5 I reviewed had an AMD processor, so it was lumped in with the larger category of fauxtrabooks — laptops that are thin and powerful, but don’t meet Intel’s official specs for the ultrabook designation. While the Series 5 has a standard platter hard drive, it skirts the solid-state drive (SSD) requirement by adding a small SSD cache to the hard drive.

The island-style keyboard keys, in a slightly darker gray than the rest of the body, have a matte finish to them, and have absolutely no flex under the fingers, even with heavy typing. Shift, Enter, Tab, and other important keys are large and easy to hit, but the spacebar is shorter than I’d like.

Multimedia functions are mapped to the alternate function of the F-keys. Some laptops, including recent HP models, swap the F-key and the alternate F-key commands, giving you easier access to volume and brightness settings, for example.

The large touch pad is responsive enough to single-input commands, but it still has separate left and right mouse buttons below it, which is quickly becoming a dated look. Many new laptops are switching to a buttonless clickpad design. Multitouch gestures, such as the all-important two-finger scroll, feel a little sluggish, and it’s far too easy to accidentally trigger the Windows 8 UI charms bar while putting your fingers anywhere near the right side of the pad.

The 13.3-inch display has a native resolution of 1,366×768 pixels. That’s still fine for a 13-inch laptop, and gives you a good mix of screen real estate and readability. Using that resolution in larger 14- and 15-inch laptops is starting to look clumsy, especially when you pass the $800 mark.

Like nearly all new Windows 8 laptops, the screen here is covered by edge-to-edge glass — scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass, in this case — and supports full 10-finger touch input. So far, the Windows 8 UI has worked great with every new laptop we’ve tested, from the lowly Intel Atom all the way through high-end Core i7 systems.

Video	HDMI, Mini-VGA (requires sold-separately dongle)	HDMI or DisplayPort
Audio	Stereo speakers, combo headphone/microphone jack	Stereo speakers, headphone/microphone jacks
Data	1 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, SD card reader	2 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, SD card reader
Networking	Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth	Ethernet, 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
Optical drive	None	DVD burner