Samsung make pretty decent vacuum cleaners. I mean, I have one, it does its job pretty well. No wonder they decided to enter the robot vacuum cleaner market. After all, the brand is well known and trusted, the market is growing (supposedly) and there's place for improvements.
To be honest, I have to say that this is not actually Samsung's entry in robotic cleaner market. Well, it is but only for certain locations, as Samsung robot vacuum cleaners are around for quite a while now. Only, they were restricted to Asian markets and named differently.
Now with the Navibot series they entry such markets as Europe and Australia. An earlier entry was made in the Canadian market with a robot designated as VCR8830T1R. Basically, it's the same robot as European and Australian Navibots with few minor differences - one rotating brush instead of two, different input power required, etc. I haven't heard yet of any US entrants.
In my opinion, all Samsung robot vacuums are more or less the same. My two cents is that their basic functions and approaches to doing things are equal no matter how they're called in different places of the world. And some cleaners could even be the same robot with a different name.
However, I'm talking about Navibots here, so let me explain you what models there are, how Navibots differ from other robot vacuum cleaners, and what differences there are between different Navibot models.
Samsung Navibot models
All Navibots (and all Samsung robot vacuums as far as I'm aware) use so called Visionary mapping system. This means that these robots map their environment using a camera. The camera gives a view of the ceiling at a rate of 30 fps. Using these images the robot can determine the layout of the room and its position in it and act accordingly.
So, it cleans in a methodical manner as other robots that map their environment. This means it will clean the room faster than random cleaners (Roomba, CleanMate, others) yet it will cross each place of the room once as opposed to several times in case of random cleaners.
Other important and distinct features include a HEPA filter that's very important to some people, a remote, and the manual control mode in which you can control the Navibot using the remote. Also, it won't bump recklessly into furniture and other objects it detects, it will stop just before them. However, it's possible it will bump into table legs and other thin objects.
Other available functions have become something of an industry standard as I like to call them. These include cliff sensors, different cleaning modes, Virtual guards that can form invisible (infrared) walls to separate taboo areas or indicate doorways, and ability to autonomously find its charging base and resume work after it's done recharging.
All Navibots have following cleaning modes - automatic cleaning mode (duh), spot mode for especially dirty areas, delayed start mode, max mode in which the robot will vacuum until its battery is nearly depleted, the above mentioned manual mode, and the edge mode designed to clean corners and areas near walls.
There are some other minor functions, such as ability to adjust to different surfaces such as wooden floors and carpets, ability to traverse over cords, ability to pick up pet hair. As far as I'm aware, all Navibots have these and other above mentioned functions.
So, there are three Navibot models I'm aware of. Well, four models if we count the Canadian one. These are SR8830 (or Canadian VCR8830T1R), SR8845, SR8855, and SR9630. I believe I've told almost everything about SR8845 above.
SR8830 is basically the same robot as SR8845 with continent specific differences and the quick dust empty option - an ability to clean the dustbin using a conventional vacuum cleaner. This possibility could be quite handy and is a novelty in the robotic vacuum cleaner market.
Navibot SR8855 is a fancier version of SR8845. It arguably looks a bit fancier, it also has the above mentioned quick dust empty option. It has touch buttons as opposed to conventional ones in SR8455, and one more cleaning mode. It's possible to schedule this robot, so it can autonomously clean your place every day at a predefined time. I've also heard that you get two Virtual guards with this model.
SR9630 is a model found only in Italian market. Before any Navibot was released to European market they were tested in Italian market, so this robot is either a robot that will be introduced to other markets later, a robot that didn't make it, or an experiment.
In either case, it has a bit different design, a bit smaller dustbin and most notably its taboo areas can be defined using a magnetic tape, not a Virtual guard as in other Navibots. From other aspects it has similar functions as SR8845. I may be wrong on this model, as my Italian is not very good.
Some criticisms
Apart from criticisms that are frequently addressed to robot vacuum cleaners as a kind, there are some Navibot-specific. First of all, I've heard from different sources that it leaves a significant area uncleaned near walls when cleaning in automatic mode. I suppose that's why they have the edge cleaning mode.
Also, although it supposedly does a good job cleaning pet hair, it seems that pet hair clogs one of its wheels - the front one. This is not such a big deal as pet hair is more or less a maintenance problem for every robot vacuum. Still, it seems that in this case it's not meant to take that particular wheel out so it could get nasty later.
Also, it's possible it will refuse to clean confusing areas with lots of closely placed furniture legs, as it tries not to bump into anything. Well, you can see these criticisms in this hands-on video: