The display and the controls
Desktop replacement or not, the R480 is still a laptop, which means you'll be stuck using its display, keyboard, and touchpad more often than not. Are those components any good, then? Let's start up top with the 14" display:

The R480's LCD panel is bright, crisp, and glossy. Like most laptop displays, however, it's subject to the narrow vertical viewing angles of TN panel technology. Color reproduction appears good overall, even if my eyes detect a slight blue tinge. (The picture above doesn't really do the panel justice, of course.) It's nice to see that Samsung went with a nice, bright LED backlight to counteract the display's glossiness; there's really nothing worse than a dim LCD with a mirror finish.


Looking down reveals the R480's keyboard, with which I became enamored almost instantly. The chiclet keys provide great tactile and auditory feedback and have great resistance. Also, unlike many of the chiclet keyboards we've used over the years, this specimen has very little flex—even if you push down hard in the middle. A pleasant typing experience is no doubt an important quality for a desktop replacement system, and the R480 delivers in that area.

In case you're wondering, no, that's not a U.S. keyboard up there. Samsung shipped us the Canadian version of this laptop, which comes complete with a big enter key, labels for the Quebec French layout, and a Tim Horton's at the back. The R480 variants that ship in the states have a standard layout with a normal enter key and none of that multilingual gobledygook.

  Total keyboard area Alpha keys
  Width Height Area Width Height Rough area
Size 294 mm 103 mm 30,387 mm² 167 mm 52 mm 8,774 mm²
Versus full size 103% 94% 96% 97% 92% 89%

Size-wise, the R480's chiclets compare favorably overall to the more conventional, "full size" keys of our reference system. Samsung could have gone with a slightly larger keyboard, though, since there's plenty of empty space above and beside the current one.

Samsung scores a partial brownie point for to the R480's touchpad. This Synaptics design has a slightly rough surface and LED lights at each corner, so it feels great to use and stands out clearly from the palm rest. The built-in multi-touch functionality lets you scroll by swiping two fingers, zoom by pinching, and rotate by pivoting. Oddly, I couldn't find a setting to enable right-clicking by tapping with three fingers. That's a little unfortunate, because the touchpad's rocker button sits flush with the palm rest, so hitting it with your thumb involves more work than it should. Tap zones are supported, however.

My only gripe with the R480's input area is the palm rest, which has a glossy finish and not one, not two, not three, but four stickers along the top right. Nothing says "class" like a smudge-ridden palm rest covered with product logos, right?