With Samsung, style comes to fore

By Raquel P. Gomez Philippine Daily Inquirer MANILA, Philippines—There is a huge demand for more appealing consumer electronic products, such as notebooks. Consumers have lost their appetite for the usual thin box designs, and are looking for notebooks that feature industry-grade materials such as aluminum casing, pretty, colorful designs, and high quality work, even if the devices cost a tidy sum. Samsung addressed this demand when it introduced notebooks that rate high on both form and function. Samsung’s new pretty and elegant notebooks feature Intel’s latest Core i3 and Core i5 processors with Turbo Boost technology, discrete graphics of 512 MB to 1 GB capacity, and battery life that lasts up to 11 hours. The new notebooks—the 13.3-inch display Q330, 14-inch QX410, 14-inch SF410 and NF310 netbook—are intended for the upper mid-range to high-end market. The notebooks feature classy designs incorporating high-end metal finishes and eye-magnet appeal and colors. The QX410 has a silver metal chassis with a minimalist look. Its keyboard area has a metal feel to it that looks super neat. It has floating island keys, bar type grille speakers, oval-shaped tiny hardware buttons, and sub-dented multi-touch pad. Its LED HD screen appears borderless, with a wide panel gloss glass that runs from edge to edge. The slim 13.3-inch display R440 shares the same looks and appeal of the QX410, but on a smaller scale. Samsung’s innovative design called the “Shark” is evident on the 14-inch SF410 and NF310 netbook. These notebooks feature glossy sloping white and black finishes with protruding keyboard sides. When half opened, both notebooks look like the jaws of a shark. Samsung officials are confident that, even though the new notebooks do not come cheap, the products will be warmly received by consumers. According to Eric Sulit, head of IT Business for Samsung, the sale of the R480 notebooks has been positive. More dealers are now prominently displaying the Samsung notebooks in their stores, he said. Also, one advantage Samsung has over other notebook brands is its lower rate of return for repairs, said Bong Wan Kim, Samsung’s vice president for Information Technology. He said Samsung doesn’t outsource manufacturing of the notebooks to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) since the company has a dedicated manufacturing arm, which makes all Samsung devices. “Consumers are assured of the quality of Samsung products because we make most of the components,” Kim said. “We even supply other OEMs with Samsung electronic parts.” With a suggested retail price of P59,900, the QX410 features Intel Core i5 processor (2.66 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost and 3MB Cache), 4 GB DDR3 memory, 500 GB storage, Bluetooth 3.0, and 1 GB nVIDIA GeForce graphics card. For P51,900, a user may purchase the SF410, which features Intel Core i5 processor (2.5 GHz with Intel Turbo Boost, and 3 MB Cache), 4 GB DDR3 memory, 500 GB storage, Bluetooth 3.0, and 1 GB nVIDIA GeForce graphics card. Retailing at P44,900, the Q330 features Intel Core i5 processor (2.40 GHz and 3 MB Cache), 4 GB DDR3 memory, 500 GB storage, Bluetooth 3.0, and 512 MB ATI Mobility Radeon graphics card. The NF310 netbook, which has a price tag of P25,900, features the Intel Atom Dual Core processor N550 (1.5 GHz, 1 MB cache, and 667 FSB), 2 GB DDR3 memory, 320 GB storage, 10.1 LED HD display, Bluetooth 3.0, and up to 11 hours of battery life. When in Cebu City, please visit gregmelep.com for your real estate and retirement needs.