Never one to make a lot of noise in the notebook sector, Samsung has quietly revealed a new ultraportable laptop based on AMD's Nile platform. The 11.6in X125 will soon be shipping for £449 and should provide a great blend of power and portability.
Sammy is offering the diminutive laptop with a single-core Athlon II Neo K125 clocked at 1.7GHz and 3GB of DDR3. As with other Nile-based laptops, an integrated Radeon HD 4225 has been drafted in to drive the 1,366x768px LED-backlit display. The remainder of the spec-sheet is fairly unspectacular, with a 320GB, 5400rpm hard-drive as standard and all of the usual connectivity options for this class available. This includes Bluetooth 3.0, 802.11n wireless, a 4-in-1 card-reader and an HDMI output.
The manufacturer seems a little confused on the included battery, though, listing the ‘Standard Battery' as a 6-cell, while the weight and dimensions refer to a 4-cell power-pack. However, an Amazon pre-order listing points to the larger battery being included in the price. Given that the low-power Athlon Neos are still quite thirsty, we'd be disappointed to see the lower-capacity version as standard. However, with the 4-cell option the laptop weighs a mere 1.51kg and measures only 24.5mm thick.
Samsung netbooks earned a reputation for being well-built and comfortable to use, so we expect nothing less from the slightly larger X125. But there doesn't seem to be an option for a dual-core model at this point, and the lack of a SIM-card slot is disappointing for a laptop of this form-factor. Combined with competition from the likes of Dell, which is offering a very similar laptop for around £380, and Samsung may have difficulty winning customers over to its new ultraportable. For those interested, Amazon has the laptop listed as shipping on August 14 for a little under the MSRP.
