10 Best Tablet PC

Number 1: iPad mini

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1. iPad mini

iPad mini details
UK release date: November 2012
Price at launch: from £269
OS:iOS 6
TechRadar review: 4.5/5
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Apple's former CEO Steve Jobs famously slammed small tablets a few years back, leading many to believe the Cupertino-based firm would never dabble in the budget end of the market, but here we are.
In terms of consistency in the tablet market Apple cannot be matched, as it now lays claim to two of the top three places in our top 10, with the iPad mini the jewel in an already glistening crown.
The slight downsides to the iPad mini are that it misses out on a Retina display and it pushes the upper end of the budget price bracket, but you can justify that price with its slick operation and premium build quality, letting you know you have a top piece of kit in your hand.

Quick verdict

"The iPad mini is the best iPad Apple has ever created" - need we say more? That's the official verdict from our in-depth review. If you have the extra cash to spend on the iPad mini over the likes of the Nexus 7 and Kindle Fire HD, you won't be disappointed.

Number 2: Google Nexus 7

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2. Google Nexus 7

Google Nexus 7 details
UK release date: July 2012
Price at launch: from £159 (16GB version)
OS:Android Jelly Bean
TechRadar review: 4.5/5
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Number 3: iPad 4

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3. iPad 4

New iPad 4 details
UK release date: October 2012
Price at launch: from £399
OS:iOS 6
TechRadar review: 4.5/5
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We're not a fan of the name, but we reckon the new iPad 4 is the best full sized tablet out there.
The stunning Retina Display is certainly the highlight of Apple's latest tablet, and you won't see a better tablet screen on the market today.
It may be slightly bigger and heavier than the iPad 2, but with a bigger battery, beefed up processor and THAT screen, you can hardly blame Apple for this – plus it still keeps the famous iPad styling that has become something of a cult classic.
The price tag is eye-watering, however, and the lack of widgets and customisation will put some people off, but there are plenty of Android tablets that can satisfy your need for tweaking.
The Android experience cannot compete when it comes to dedicated apps, with the App Store rising head and shoulders above the competition, offering reams of quality applications made especially for the iPad.

Number 4: Google Nexus 10

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4. Google Nexus 10

Google Nexus 10 details
UK release date: November 2012
Price at launch: £319
OS:Android Jelly Bean
TechRadar review: 4.5/5

The 10.1 display is one of the biggest talking points on the Google Nexus 10. At 300 pixels per inch it's the highest resolution tablet display on the planet - take that Apple and your Retina screens.
It's a great performer too. Other than taking a while to process panoramic photos we never felt like it was struggling to keep up. It's fast and smooth whatever you throw at it.
Sure it may not be as stunning to look at, or as well built as an iPad, and the lack of expandable memory will irk some, but overall the Nexus 10 gives you a quality, big-screen Android experience which is not to be sniffed at.

Number 5: Asus Transformer Pad Infinity

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5. Asus Transformer Pad Infinity

Asus Transformer Pad Infinity details
UK release date: April 2012
Price at launch: £
OS:Android 4.1 Jelly Bean
TechRadar review: 4.5/5
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If it wasn't for the higher price, the Infinity would be a real contender for the top spot. It's got everything you could want in a tablet - and a keyboard dock as standard too.

With the latest version of Android on the way, a simple interface and more ports than you can poke with a stick, the Infinity is the tablet that can handle anything you can throw at it.
Add in the Super IPS panel with a tremendous resolution, and you can see why this is a tablet to rate very highly - especially if you're fond of typing on the go but crave the simplicity of a slate too.

Number 6: Amazon Kindle Fire HD

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6. Amazon Kindle Fire HD

Amazon Kindle Fire HD details
UK release date: October 2012
Price at launch: from £159
OS: Android Ice Cream Sandwich
TechRadar review: 4.5/5
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What's better than a modern tablet with a quad core processor? One that costs just £159. That's right: the power of the Kindle brand has mated with an HD screen and won't charge you the earth to own it.
Coming in at 16GB and 32GB flavours, the Kindle Fire HD is sure to be a big hit, bringing the simplicity of the e-book range to the tablet arena, with dedicated space to access your movies, games, apps and music too.
It's a little simplistic for some, but for others it's the perfect mix of curated content and easy to use interface - and despite the price, it's got a decent build quality too.

Number 7: Microsoft Surface

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7. Microsoft Surface

Microsoft Surface details
UK release date: November 2012
Price at launch: from £399
OS:Windows RT
TechRadar review: 4/5
Buy direct from Microsoft

What do you do when you don't think your manufacturers are making good enough hardware? Design and create your own, of course... and that's what Microsoft has done here.
The Surface has a great build and the built-in kickstand is a key part of the device, and provided us with plenty of pleasing moments when we momentarily searched for a place to prop up our tablet before remembering there was no need.
Two types of keyboard, support for SD cards and the ability to choose multiple versions of Windows make this a powerhouse tablet that will unleash the power of Windows 8 to many.

Number 8: Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

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8. Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1

Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 details
Release date: September 2012
Price at launch: from £399
Price today: from £355
OS: Android Jelly Bean
TechRadar review: 4/5
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What's better than a tablet with a big screen? A tablet with a big screen, a quad core processor and the might of the S Pen... known as a stylus to me and you.
Well, not just a stylus - with many levels of pressure sensitivity and the ability easily sketch and annotate on a wide range of items, the Galaxy Note 10.1 offers so much more than your average tablet.
We're huge fans of the alternative choice here, and it even comes with a microSD slot to boot - plus we're now looking at Android Jelly Bean sitting proudly underneath the TouchWiz OS.

Number 9: Apple iPad 2

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9. Apple iPad 2

iPad 2 details
Release date: March 2011
Price at launch: from £399
Price today: From £329 (Wi-Fi) / £429 (Wi-Fi & 3G)
OS:iOS 6
TechRadar review: 4.5/5
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Buy direct from Apple

For a whole year the iPad 2 reigned supreme, usurping the original iPad and setting the standard for all other tablets to aspire to.
However, as the Apple product cycle goes, one year later and the new kid on the block, cleverly named the new iPad, had stolen its thunder, only for that to be replaced six months later by the iPad 4 - crazy times.
It's not all bad news though. The iPad 2 still offers a top tablet experience with access to the huge app store and iTunes libraries, and while the screen is not the Retina Display of its successor, it's gosh darn good.

Number 10: Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9

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10. Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 details
Release date: October 2011
Price at launch: £400
Price today: from £249
OS:Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
TechRadar review: 4.5/5
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Before the onslaught of the tiny budget tabs, the Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 cut a lonely figure at the smaller end of the tablet market.
Based on its bigger brother the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Tab 8.9 provides another decent Android tablet experience, with a lighter body, but of course a sacrifice in screen size.
The smaller and lighter Galaxy Tab 8.9 is great for reading books, checking emails and browsing the web, and as it trumps the 7-inch BlackBerry PlayBook and Acer Iconia Tab A100, it's able to deliver reasonable movie playback too.

Quick verdict

The Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 is great for those who want an ebook reader with extra media functions, or for those who are more conscious of weight than screen size.

Samsung Series 3 Chromebook review

For

• Cheap
• Light
• Simple to use
• Secure
• Reasonable keyboard

Against

• Chrome OS limits you to web apps
• Some build quality issues
• Lacklustre screen
• No 3G option in the UK
• Insufficient power for HD or gaming

Samsung Series 3 Chromebook review

Google says this laptop is "for everyone." Let's see...

Recommended award

This is technically the fifth iteration of the Google Chromebook – so long as you count Google's own CR-48 prototype.
Despite being the fifth Chromebook, the snappily-named Series 3 XE303C12 shouldn't be confused with the previous model, the Samsung Series 5 XE550C22 or even the second Chromebook, the Samsung Series 5 XE500C21.
If you know about Chrome OS already, you'll know that this laptop isn't like mainstream Windows laptops or even machines such as the Apple MacBook Air or the new 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina Display.

Though it struggled with HD, SD video streams play perfectly well; no downloads, though

It doesn't run a conventional operating system such as Windows 8, Mac OS X Mountain Lion or even a straight Linux distro such as Ubuntu.
Instead, it is essentially a computer that does one thing: run a web browser.
In this case, of course, the web browser in question is Google Chrome.
Deciding whether or not the new Chromebook is right for you is actually really easy. The first thing you have to know is that it's cheap. Really cheap.

The Chromebook is a great machine to take to a café to get some work done

At a launch price of £229/USD$330/AU$319, it undercuts most conventional laptops, and is cheaper even than the new iPad mini – though it's more expensive than the low-end Android tablets such as the Google Nexus 7 and Amazon Kindle Fire HD.
That's only part of the decision, however.
The other – indeed, main – thing you have to consider is whether you can live with a laptop that only runs everything in a browser, and therefore, with some caveats, depends on being connected to the web at all times over Wi-Fi.

There's no doubt that this is a Chromebook – look at that huge Chrome logo on the lid!

It's not hard to decide if this is something you can live with; take a moment, close your eyes, and think whether what you mostly do on a computer is done through a browser – or could be.
Because while you can install apps from the Chrome Web Store they're not really applications or programs as most of us would recognise them.

In fact, they're little more than links that sit in your launcher and point to URLs on the web. (Actually, it's a little more complex than that; web apps can, if their developers implement it, add extra features such as using local storage on your Chromebook, rather than solely depending on storage on the servers of the companies whose services you're using.)

Regardless of the technical caveats, however, it remains true that you can't install, say, Microsoft Office or Adobe Photoshop Elements on a Chromebook. That's not what the Chromebook is about.

You need two hands to open the Chromebook; the hinge is reasonably stiff

It's a slim, light, cheap, long-lasting little laptop that, partly because really the only thing it does is run a web browser and isn't based on Windows, is very secure, and if you live your life in web apps such as facebook.com and Google Docs (or think you could), or especially if you are already immersed in the Google ecosystem of Docs, Gmail, Calendars and more, it's worth considering.


Specifications

While previous Chromebooks have been powered by various flavours of Intel chips (from a 1.66 GHz single-core Intel Atom N455 in the original to a 1.3GHz dual-core Intel Celeron 867 in the model this latest Chromebook supersedes), this one has an ARM processor – specifically, the 1.7GHz dual-core Samsung Exynos 5 Dual.
That it has an ARM processor at all is notable in itself, but it's especially interesting that this is a Cortex-A15 core, 40% faster than the Cortex-A9 core (all other things being equal); the A9 is a chip that takes various forms, notably the Tegra 3 series and A5 and A5X systems-on-a-chip that power the Apple iPad 3 and Apple iPhone 4S.
What all this translates to in real life is that the new Chromebook really does feel nippy – something we'll cover more in the next section – and is totally silent when you're using it.

The Chromebook is slim and light. Not 'Ultrabook' or 'MacBook Air' slim and light, but notable

Of course, part of the reason for the smooth performance is that the Chromebook only has SSD rather than a slower, mechanical hard disk.
But don't get too excited; there's only 16GB of space here, and it's really only for cacheing stuff.
You could expand that storage by connecting a hard disk (there's a USB 3.0 as well as the more normal USB 2.0 port on the back), but it's worth remembering that in order to be able to open files, you need a compatible app; while the built-in player will happily display H.264 MP4s, for example, most other videos, such as .divx and .mkv files, won't play without being uploaded to a transcoding service.

We're not sure what the point of a USB 3.0 port is on a Chromebook, but one joins the USB 2.0 port

There's only 2GB of RAM in the new Chromebook, but in general usage, when you're writing documents, browsing the web and so on, it never feels underpowered.
Sure, 2GB of RAM would be practically insufficient in a traditional Windows or Mac laptop, where you could be running a dozen or more apps at the same time, but here, presumably in part because it's only running a single app, Chrome, it seems sufficient.
You get an HDMI port for connecting to an external monitor, an SD card slot, a combined headphone/mic port and a basic webcam.

The webcam on the Chromebook is low quality, and light leaks in from the front of the lid

Essentially, you get pretty much all the I/O most people will need, and though you can't install drivers in the traditional sense, lots of USB peripherals will work at a basic level just by plugging them in. (Printing is a little odd; you either have to connect over the web to a Google Cloud Print-enabled printer, or you have to go via the Cloud Print system on a middle-man computer with the Chrome browser installed which has a printer connected to it somehow.)
Unsurprisingly, there's no optical drive.
The screen size and resolution – 11.6-inches, 1366x768 pixels – are perfectly good, though the quality is distinctly lacklustre.

The Chromebook, though, does well in portability and reasonably in longevity.
At only a little over a kilogram, it's eminently toteable (and 400g lighter than its predecessor, which makes a difference), and the battery usually lasts somewhere a little over six hours – not enough to make it through most people's working day, but certainly enough that you don't have a constant background anxiety about being away from the mains.
One fairly major caveat, though: while there appears to be a slot for a SIM card in the back, it's bunged with a rubber gromit, and while Google (via Amazon) offers the option to pre-order a 3G model in the States ($330 rather than $249 for the Wi-Fi-only model), it's not currently available in the UK.

There appears to be a SIM slot in this Wi-Fi only model, but it's bunged with rubber

It might seem stupid to make a computer that essentially wants to be connected to the internet at all times and that doesn't have a SIM slot to allow mobile broadband, but, as we'll see in the next section, it's not quite the handicap that it might seem.

Performance

The important point here is that for most of what you'll probably be doing on a Chromebook – browsing, emailing, writing, watching YouTube and the like – the performance is so good as to be unremarkable.
Even though we find it interesting that this model proves you don't need the grunt of an Intel processor (albeit a low-power one), few people who buy one should know or care.
Essentially, the only times you notice delays are when it's pulling information from the internet; on one hand, this issue is exacerbated by the fact that the Chromebook's whole schtick is 'pulling information from the internet', but on the other, even the meatiest Core i7 monster would have basically the same delays if you were using a suite of online services.

You do begin to notice delays in the auto-saving to the cloud when you're working on big documents, but it's not unacceptable, and it doesn't slow you down when working.
It's not perfect, though.
While it had no problems playing standard-definition streaming video from BBC iPlayer, say, once we tried HD streams, it struggled.
It always gave it a damn good try, and always made it through to the end, but there was sporadic flickering and slight audio glitches. It was almost there, but not enough.
At least now we do have the option of watching films and TV shows online through services such as Netflix.
Gaming, of course, is poor, even when those games are simple HTML5 ones such as Angry Birds and Bejeweled; there just isn't the horsepower here to behave well.
Stability was curious. Most of the time, it proved to be rock solid, but occasionally – and when doing apparently innocuous things such as trying to watch a live iPlayer stream or plugging in an external monitor – it would hard reboot with no warning.

It wasn't disastrous, though, especially if you're using Google's web apps such as Docs or Gmail; changes are continuously saved to the cloud or locally if you have enabled Offline Mode, and as soon as the Chromebook has rebooted (something that only takes 10 seconds), it can restore your open tabs.
We had a few crashes but lost no work, which makes it an odd thing to judge; ultimately, of course, any crashes are bad.
That offline mode is important, especially since this is a model that only has Wi-Fi; it's why you can keep using the Chromebook in a cafe, say, without having a connection to the internet.
Not all web apps have it, but Gmail, documents, Google Calendar and a few others do; see the list that Google maintains here.
You'd be forgiven for being suspicious of how well and reliably this offline mode works, but in truth, it has proven to be both since it was formally launched a year ago; in the process of writing this review, for example, we switched from being connected to being away from Wi-Fi frequently, and we had zero problems. To steal a phrase from Apple, it just works.
Again, though, we have to temper our enthusiasm.
There are some limitations and problems, and not just those that come from the whole idea of Chrome OS. For one thing, we tried a few different displays plugged into the HDMI port, but some weren't recognised, and some had trouble finding a good resolution.

Though it struggled with HD, SD video streams play perfectly well; no downloads, though

And while we appreciate that this is a cheap laptop, it's nevertheless true that you can see and feel where costs have been cut in the manufacture: that ugly hump of a screen hinge; the flex in the display; the use of silver plastic which, no matter how you squint, doesn't quite convince you that you're using a MacBook Air; the basic black power brick with a fiddly little connector; the screen which is terribly washed out, has poor viewing angles, and which looks like it has a layer of sugar sandwiched between the pixels and the outer surface – some will like that it's reflection-suppressing matt, at least.

The bulge of the hinge on the otherwise quite svelte Chromebook is a disapointment

And then there's the fact that, on ours at least, the foot at the left of the wrist rest hovers a fraction of a millimeter above the table, producing an infinitesimally irritating little 'clunk' if you tap it.
The keyboard at least is good. It's a little too flat and unresponsive to be called 'superb', but it's certainly eminently usable for long periods at a stretch – and we also like that there are dedicated keys for page forward/back, refresh, window toggle and more.

The keyboard on the Chromebook is good – not superb, but definitely good

We occasionally hit the power key at the top right, but it cleverly gives you a tiny hint, by bouncing the window, that you need to hold the power button down to shut down the system.

It doesn't matter if you tap this power button by accident; you need to hold it down to shut the Chromebook down

There's also, controversially, no caps lock key. Instead, there's a universal search button in its place, which pops up the list of installed 'apps' and lets you perform searches online without first opening a tab in Chrome.

This handy universal Search button takes the place of caps lock – though it can be ressigned

It took a while for us to train our muscle memory to remember to use it, but it proved a boon – and at least without caps lock, YouTube comments should be a bit more civil.
(The boring real answer is: you can reassign it as caps lock in Settings, just like you can enable/disable tap-to-click and reverse trackpad scrolling direction.)

Verdict

We've always liked the promise of the Chromebook idea.
Traditional computer users will sneer at it, despite its low price. They'll use phrases like 'full-fat operating system', 'no local storage', 'just an ARM processor'. They'll ask what use it is when it's not connected to the internet.
They miss the point.
Google say this is a computer 'for everyone' in big blue letters on the Chromebook homepage. This is hubris. It's not the computer for everyone, not by a long shot.
However, it is a very good little machine that should appeal to a few distinct groups.
First, if you're on a budget, here's a brand new computer for £229.

Second, if you already heavily use Google's online services (including if you use Google Apps to manage your business's domains, email and so on), signing into your Chromebook will feel like home, instantly.
Third, if most of your life is done through a web browser anyway, and there's nothing stopping you doing the rest of it online too, then you could argue that paying even £399 for a cheap Windows laptop that has more storage, more power and can run normal apps is a waste of money.
And perhaps more importantly, if you think you could be the sort of person who could do all their computing using web apps, you could well benefit from the good battery life, silent operation, light weight and portability, simplicity and implicit security of the Chromebook, not to mention its price.

We liked

It always takes a few days for you to really 'get' the Chromebook – though that period is shorter if you're a card-carrying Google aficionado who uses Gmail, Docs, Calendar and so on all the time anyway.
But once you get it, it gets under your skin. The simplicity and security of it – a nice compromise between the one-app-at-a-time mode of the iPad, say, and the potential complexity of a traditional computer – is refreshing and welcome.
It's also cheap, light, easy to use, silent, reasonably well built, innovative and, broadly, a pleasure to use.

We disliked

Though the offline mode supported by some apps mitigates against the problem, we would nevertheless have preferred a model that had 3G as well as Wi-Fi; the Chromebook needs to access the internet in order to be able to do meaningful work, and even if you're in range of Wi-Fi most of the time, or carry a smartphone to which you can tether, it could still prove frustrating.
The sporadic crashes irked, and the build quality issues niggled – that grainy, washed-out screen being the worst offender.
What's more, media playback is sketchy, and while it would technically be possible to edit video using YouTube, we'd strongly counsel against it.
This is a laptop for browsing, writing, Facebooking and the like, and if you buy it without carefully thinking through what you use a computer for and deciding that one that only runs a web browser would suffice, you could be in for nasty surprises; even if there's just one tiny app that you use on a traditional computer that can't be comfortably replicated online, never mind if you rely on something like Adobe InDesign or want to play Medal of Honor, the Chromebook's not for you.
There are no niceties such as a back-lit keyboard or Apple's clever MagSafe connector.

Final verdict

Traditionally, we'd have said that a Chromebook isn't good enough to be your primary computer, and in too crowded a market with smartphones and even tablets, to consider as a second computer.
Things change, though. It's not the technologies that change – broadband speeds and processor power haven't changed all that much since the Chromebook was announced late in 2010 – but what is beginning to change are our habits and priorities.
Where five years ago lots of people would have preferred desktop email clients to webmail, for example, these days millions of us access Gmail in browsers without giving it a second thought.
With that in mind, we think we might just be at a tipping point for the Chromebook concept.
This latest model is good, and for lots of people would be perfectly sufficient as a primary computer.
It's a great cheap machine for students (so long as your campus has Wi-Fi), and not in a patronising way; younger folks are more likely to be happy using web apps rather than traditional programs anyway.
And actually, it could be a useful second machine, especially if your primary computer is a desktop tower or all-in-one, or even just a bulky, heavy laptop. It's a good chuck-it-in-a-bag-and-head-to-Starbucks-to-get-some-work-done machine.

The Chromebook is a great machine to take to a café to get some work done

It is, ultimately, good at doing the thing it's designed to do. All you have to do is decide if that thing is right for you.

Samsung Series 7 Gamer review

For

• High-end performance
• Good hardware for the money
• Samsung's UI has some useful options
• Runs relatively quiet and cool

Against

• Gaudy case lights
• Samsung's UI is mostly obnoxious
• No 3D support

Samsung Series 7 Gamer review

A big, beefy and shiny laptop ready for the latest titles

With its blue backlit keyboard and i7 processor, Samsung's Series 7 Gamer laptop is a big shiny box of power. At 17 inches and 9 pounds, it's more of a semi-portable desktop replacement than a truly portable laptop. Still, this is a gaming computer, and with great power generally comes some serious bulk and a hefty down payment.
The first thing you'll notice about the Series 7 Gamer are all the blue lights, and a silver dial on the right side, near the monitor. This lets you cycle the computer into one of four modes: Gaming, Balanced, Library and Green Mode.

With an MSRP of $1,899 (note: Amazon is currently selling it for $1,742.98/£1,349.97), the Series 7 Gamer isn't cheap, but it's also not the priciest mobile gaming solution on the market (just look at the $2,500 Razer Blade). A little under two grand is pretty much par for the course with any machine that's (partially) portable and capable of running Skyrim at a respectable resolution.

Specifications

Let's get down to brass tacks: how much horsepower are you getting for your money? Quite a bit, we're happy to say. Here are the hard and fast specs for the Series 7:
Intel Core i7-3610QM @ 2.3GHz
w/ 6MB L3 cache
16GB DDR3 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675M Graphics
1.5TB Hitachi Hard Drive
8GB SanDisk SSD
17.3" display with 1920x1080 resolution

The Samsung Series 7 Gamer also sports four USB ports (2x USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0), a Blu-Ray drive, four stereo speakers, plus built-in webcam and microphone. Our review unit had Windows 7 Home Premium installed.
The Series 7 is not customizable, this is the only configuration that Samsung currently offers.

Benchmarks, Design and Performance

With an i7 processor and a whopping 16GB of DDR3 RAM, the Samsung Series 7 Gamer laptop has the stats (and the price tag) that scream performance. The system boots up in about 35 seconds, thanks to the SSD that assists with vital system functions. We really enjoyed how the Series 7 could come out of sleep mode almost instantly. As soon as we popped open the lid, it was ready to go.

In Gaming mode, the Series 7 is impossible to miss. Everything from the keyboard to the mouse pad to the power button to a superfluous "Turbo" icon below the monitor glows a bright blue. It's rather gaudy, and not the sort of aesthetic we gravitate toward. We welcomed the laptop's Library mode, which keeps the fans running low and quiet, and turns off all illumination. It's a great option for the college bound gamer who needs to hit the books once in awhile.
Not that the thing is very loud. The fans are certainly audible when gaming, but they don't scream or whine, and the system remains surprisingly cool. It seemed to get warm, but not hot.

Samsung's custom UI, which plays flashy animations when shifting into Gaming mode, is gimmicky, and seemed to be fighting with the vanilla Windows 7. We would change the screen saver by right clicking on the desktop, like any good Windows user would do, and Samsung's UI would change it right back after shifting in and out of gaming mode. We found it had to be disabled using Samsung's software. Not exactly a deal breaker, but frustrating nonetheless. It would be great if Windows 7 and the UI played nicer together.
The UI did offer one or two tweaks we actually liked, such as being able to toggle power to the USB ports when the laptop is asleep (for charging gadgets via USB), and disabling the Windows keys and trackpad when in a game. These are redeeming features, but we wished the UI was more customizable. If we could have four power modes of our own design to toggle through, that would be a worthwhile. Overall, this software came off as tacky and annoying.

We also weren't big fans of the keyboard. Pushing one key tended to make those around it shift, giving the whole thing the feeling of a big cheap slab of plastic. Also, the touch buttons above the keyboard, which control the volume and toggle WiFi, are easy to accidentally activate.
The Series 7 does have a full numpad, which is not common for laptops, and we did appreciate that. It also has a very responsive touchpad. If wasn't for the inherent carpal tunnel risk, we'd say you could almost play Diablo 3 on this thing. Instead, we'll say it's great for casual web browsing.

Benchmarks

The Series 7 has some beefy specs, and the benchmarks prove that it's ready to game.

3DMark Performance score: 3576
Batman: Arkham City (1920x1080, anti-aliasing FXAA high, detail level Very High, DX11 features disabled) average FPS: 53
Dirt 3 (1920x1080 multisampling, 4x MSAA, detail High, post processing Medium) average FPS: 89
Borderlands 2 (1920x1080, texture quality and game detail High, anisotropic filtering 4x, physx effects Low, FXAA Off) average FPS: 62
At these settings, the Series 7 was leaps and bounds above the 30 frames per second that most gamers consider the minimum for playability. Running at the display's maximum resolution of 1920x1080, the rain slick world of Gotham City looked pretty enough to make the Dark Knight himself crack a smile, and the reflective sheen of the hard driving racer cars in Dirt 3 was impressive. Even the brand new, system pushing Borderlands 2 ran butter-smooth. However, when we really turned up the specs, Samsung's laptop began to show some modest limitations.

Batman: Arkham City (1920x1080, anti-aliasing FXAA High, detail level Very High, DX11 features Enabled, DX11 tessellation Normal) average FPS: 29
Dirt 3 (1920x1080, multisampling 8x QCSAA, detail High, post process High) average FPS: 76
Borderlands 2 (1920x1080, texture quality and game detail High, anisotropic filtering 16x, physx effects High, FXAA On) average FPS: 30
While the DX11 features had Gotham City looking extra gritty, the frame rate dipped just south of what we'd consider optimal. Dirt 3 still performed admirably, providing enough responsiveness to execute those hairpin turns. Finally, the Borderlands 2 results, with the Physx turned up all the way, still maintained a playable framerate, during benchmarking, at least. Actually, when playing the game we found that setting too hot for the Series 7 to handle, but turning it down just a tad gave a striking balance of power and playability.
Verdict

The Samsung Series 7 Gamer laptop is a bit of a gilded lily. It's got the hardware and performance that gamers care about, and a price tag that we would deem fair. Samsung's custom UI, however, doesn't add much to the experience. Short of one or two niceties, like being able to disable the trackpad and Windows keys, it mostly detracts from the overall experience.
Can the Series 7 still be recommended in light of its hardware, annoying software notwithstanding? We think so.

We liked

The hardware. The Series 7 Gamer has got it going on where it counts: inside. Its i7-3610QM processor is no longer the new, fastest kid on the block (we're looking at you, i7-3632QM debuting in the Razer Blade) but it's no slouch. It honestly blew us away with its Borderlands 2 Physx performance. We're sure that generous 16GBs of RAM had a something to do with it as well.
It's also pretty cool and quiet, which you don't often find with a powerful gaming machine. Sure, it gets warm, but it's no space heater like the Toshiba Qosmio X870. Even its brick of a power supply doesn't get that hot.

We disliked

Samsung's UI. At its worst, it was tacky and a little annoying. It gets out of the way once you disable it, but we just didn't want to deal with it. We found the case lights ridiculous and always wanted to disable them.
The lack of 3D support is a little disappointing, only because you can get a 3D capable machine with the comparably priced Toshiba Qosmio X870. We also found the keyboard to be slightly subpar, and while the touch button toggles for volume, WiFi, mute and case lights are nice in theory, in practice it was a little too easy to accidentally trigger them.

Verdict

From a purely processor to pennies perspective, the Series 7 Gamer is worth the money. Its a gaming machine capable of playing the latest titles at respectable settings. With all its case lights and fancy UI, its a bit like a party guest who arrives overdressed. You're glad they showed up, but the bow tie they're wearing just makes them look silly.
At 9 pounds, the Series 7 isn't the heaviest gaming laptop we've ever encountered, but you wouldn't want to haul it to and from work everyday. It's a great option for the occasional LAN party or gaming session at a friend's house. To get something easier to haul, you would have to spend quite a bit more, and we think most gamers would rather save their wallet then their back. After all, you've got to leave some money for your Steam wallet.