More and more consumers are looking for thinner and slimmer electronics. We like slim TVs. We like thin cameras. And this fascination with increasingly slender profiles has clearly extended to the world of notebook computers too, but the MacBook Air from Apple isn’t the only thin game in town. Samsung wants to take a bite out of that market too.
We were first introduced to the Samsung Series 9 family of slim notebooks at CES 2011 in Las Vegas earlier this year. Now, that beauty of a laptop has hit the market and we’ve got our hands on a review sample. And yes, it’s the higher end version to boot.
Features and Specifications
At this time, there are basically two different versions of the Samsung Series 9. They both share the same chassis and design, meaning you get a package that measures between 0.62-inches and 0.64-inches in thickness. They also both come with what Samsung calls a Duralumin enclosure, which offers twice the strength of aluminium in an ultra-light aircraft-grade package. Beautiful.
The SKU that we’ve got here is the Samsung NP-900X3A-A02CA, which carries an MSRP of $2,399.99. For that price, you get a second-generation Intel Core i5-2537M processor, Windows 7 Professional (64-bit), 8GB of DDR3-1333 memory (two sticks of 4GB), 13.3-inch LED HD (1366×768) matte display, 256GB SSD, Intel GMA HD GT2 graphics, 802.11b/g/n 2×2 (MIMO), Bluetooth 3.0, 1.3MP webcam, Intel Wireless Display support, Intel Trusted Platform Module (TPM) based security, a 6-cell battery, and an image sensor touchpad.
If you want to save a few hundred dollars, there’s also the Samsung NP-900X3A-A01CA. With an MSRP of $1,699.99, you get bumped down to 4GB of RAM, 128GB SSD, and no TPM support. Aside from that, the substantially cheaper model is basically the same.
What’s in the Box?
So, what do you find when you crack open the box? Check out my unboxing video to find out:
In case you’re not the video-watching type, opening up the high quality retail box, we find the Samsung Series 9 notebook PC itself, as well as the power cable and power supply, which is quite a bit smaller than most other laptops. This takes a page out of Apple’s book, so to speak, because the “brick” part is right at the plug rather than being a separate brick. They’ve also included swappable prongs, so you can travel internationally a little more easily.
Beyond that, you get with a cleaning cloth, an Ethernet network adapter, system recovery CD, and a slew of the usual supporting documentation, like warranty information and a quick start guide.
Input and Output Ports and Jacks
So, how can you connect this beast to the rest of the world and with your existing assortment of peripherals and accessories? It’s clear that Samsung has borrowed a fair bit of inspiration from Apple, because the Series 9 features the same kind of “flip-out” port mechanism as the MacBook Air, except it does it on both sides.
Among the ports is one for micro HDMI out, which can be very handy when you want to dock the slim machine to a larger LCD monitor or HDTV. Instead of having separate headphone and microphone jacks, the Series 9 is more like a smartphone with its combined port. There’s a USB port on either side with USB 2.0 on the right and “SS USB” on the left; the latter is effectively USB 3.0, but it’s not blue.
Rounding out the ports is a microSD card reader (but not an SD/SDHC card reader) and a port for connecting the provided networking adapter with RJ45 Gigabit LAN support. Of course, there’s a power port for DC power too.
Overall Design and Build Quality
I said it when I first saw it at CES and I’ll say it again now that I have it in my hands: the Samsung Series 9 is gorgeous. It doesn’t do the “teardrop” profile that you find on the MacBook Air, but it is very thin throughout. The brushed metal is cool to the touch and the little chrome edging adds a nice dash of class.
The build quality, as far as I can tell, is top-notch. It doesn’t do the unibody construction like Apple, nor is it super rugged like the Getac V100, but you can tell that you are not getting an inferior product when you hold the Samsung Series 9. It’s a premium product with a premium finish and a premium price to match.
Because it is black and because of the finish they chose, the surface does become a fingerprint magnet though. You don’t notice this quite as much with the silver aluminium finish of Apple’s offerings, so it is important that you carry a cleaning cloth around with you. This is no different than so many smartphones and tablets that we see on the market today.
Screen Quality and Viewing Angles
One of my biggest gripes about the vast majority of consumer-oriented laptops these days is the use of a glossy screen. Yes, I completely understand that the glossy displays provide for more vibrant colors and sharper contrast, but they are also virtually unusable under any kind of direct sunlight. If you feel the same way, you’ll like Samsung.
That’s because they’ve opted for a matte display on the Series 9. This is much more friendly under various lighting conditions, both dim and bright. It’s also generally easier on the eyes. The LED backlighting helps in this regard too.
As far as viewing angles, the screen is perfectly usable under fairly wide angles both vertically and horizontally, though extreme horizontal angles result in weird color effects. You get a reddish hue across the entire display. Something that we’re not sure a color calibration would fix. But given the personal nature of a notebook PC, though, this isn’t really a cause for concern. Just center yourself on the laptop, as your normally would, and it’s all good. Very good.
Keyboard and Trackpad
Let’s start with the keyboard. You get the same kind of chiclet or “island” keyboard that you’ve seen before, which is generally a good thing. The keys have a good amount of travel and separation, making typing a fairly comfortable experience.
That said, I have at least two negatives to say about this keyboard. While it addresses the too-small right shift key on the Samsung N220 netbook and others like it, the Series 9 adds in a too-small left shift key. I keep hitting the extra “\” key every time I want to hit shift. It’s annoying. Just give me the “wide” shift key on both sides. Please.
Second, the large trackpad might be a little too sensitive. I’m a bit of a “lazy” typist, so I tend to rest my wrists a little too much. This means that I keep doing things on the trackpad with the pad of my palms (beneath my thumb) accidentally. Maybe that’s my fault, but it’s still a concern.
To this end, the trackpad is also a double-edged sword. You see, Samsung got rid of the traditional trackpad buttons and just made one big pad. It clicks in, if you want to do that, but a “tap” also registers as a click. It’s also notable that the left side registers as a left-click and the right half registers as a right-click. This sounds like a good idea and it mostly is, but I did find that I had far too many unintentional “taps” than I would have liked. These quirks will require tuning with the software to work out, but you risk desensitizing it too much.
Aside from that, I appreciate the multi-touch gestures and the overall feel of the large pad.
Battery Life Test
To see how long that six-cell battery can last on this machine, I put it through the usual battery rundown that I do with every notebook and netbook that I review.
After allowing the laptop to complete its bootup process, I open up a 720p HD video (about an hour in length) and allow it to play at full-screen. The power cable is then removed and the video is left to loop infinitely. During this time, the Wi-Fi radio is left on but is inactive. The notebook is also set to full brightness and full volume, as well as going to hibernate when the battery is at less than 5% capacity.
Based on these circumstances, the Samsung Series 9 lasted three hours and 20 minutes before putting itself to sleep. That’s adequate for most people and it will presumably last longer with lower brightness, lower volume, and less heavy lifting than playing an HD video full screen.
Benchmark: PCMark05
As per the norm, I also put the Samsung NP-900X3A-A02CA Series 9 notebook through the usual paces for benchmarks, starting with PCMark05 Professional Edition. As you can see in the screenshot above, it didn’t compute an overall PCMark score, but it does show a CPU score of 4923, memory score of 6785, and graphics score of 3448.
With the noted exception of memory (8GB certainly helps), the Series 9 was beat out in every other regard by the Samsung R780 I reviewed some time back. To be fair, the R780 was running a Core i5 M430 (2.27GHz) and NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics. It’s also substantially larger and not slim or ultra portable.
Benchmark: 3DMark06
Not unlike PCMark05, the same kind of thing happened with 3DMark06 Professional Edition. The Series 9 was only able to get 2479 3DMarks, easily outperformed by the 6130 3DMarks that the R780 scored. The other figures — SM2.0 score (857), HDR/SM3.0 score (992), and CPU score (1677) — were similarly lower.
This should come as little surprise to most. When you go for thin and light, you usually have to make the sacrifice in performance relative to a machine that is much larger and heavier. Based on the overall ratings provided to me by Samsung, though, the Series 9 generally outperforms the MacBook Air, which is probably closer to an apples-to-apples comparison. It will be interesting to see how Apple’s new machines based on Sandy Bridge will fair.
Benchmark: CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1
The 256GB solid state drive included in this SKU of the Series 9 is no slouch and it is broken into two partitions out of the box. It’s definitely responsible for much of the system’s overall responsiveness. Using the larger partition, I ran the benchmark through CrystalDiskMark 3.0.1 x64 and found some pretty impressive numbers. It was reading at up to 250.8MB/s and writing at 243.5MB/s in the sequential test which is quite impressive actually, but shows only mid-range performance in the 4K tests.
Benchmark: Street Fighter IV
Based on the numbers in PCMark05 and 3DMark06, the performance of this notebook in the Street Fighter IV benchmark should come as little surprise: it’s not a gaming rig.
First, I stuck with all the default settings for the benchmark. This includes anti-aliasing off, full-screen at 1366×768, variable framerate, parallel rendering on, high model quality, high background quality, low self shadow, and medium particles. This got a score of E (6029) with an average of just 13.28 frames per second. So, the default settings render the game unplayable.
Dialing everything all the way down (no AA, full screen at 640×480, low model quality, low background quality, low particles, self shadow off, soft shadow off, and motion blur off), I was able to get that score up to B (13456) with an average 55.39 fps. That’s perfectly playable, but the game looks like crap at these settings. Even when I gave it a slight bump (low model quality, high background quality, 1024×768 full screen), I was thrown all the way back to a grade of E (8577) and an average of 29.37 fps.
It would be interesting to see if high performance memory could help it along like we found out in our review of the HyperX PnP DDR3 Notebook Memory for Sandy Bridge platforms. The fast 1866MHz memory clock might push a few of these scores over the hump.
Closing Thoughts
I wanted to like this machine. I really wanted to like this machine. Taking the Series 9 out of the retail box, I was immediately attracted to its svelte attractiveness. She is an absolute beauty with the brushed metal and super slim profile. On paper, the specs sounded really good too, including Core i5, 8GB of DDR3, and a 256GB SSD.
Then, I started using it. The keyboard itself is reasonably comfortable (left shift key aside), but the trackpad is too sensitive. The benchmark scores, with the noted exception of CrystalDiskMark, are anything but stellar. But then, you have to take a moment to pause and reflect on what the Series 9 is supposed to accomplish. It’s not supposed to be a high-end gaming rig. It’s not supposed to be a powerhouse. It’s supposed to be adequate but gorgeous.
And in that regard, I think it succeeds. It’ll easily outperform many of the cheaper and clunkier laptops out there, but it does come at a premium for that high-end finish and super slim profile. It’ll be interesting to see how the new Asus UX Series will compete against the Samsung Series 9 and MacBook Air. Apple isn’t the only pretty game in town and the Series 9 definitely joins that “blingariffic” club of notebooks that you lust to have, but it’s hard to make a good practical case for it. Especially with an MSRP of $2399 as tested.
It certainly receives our Ultra Bling Award because it truly is luxury and if money was no object, one might have to add it to the travel bag.
Pros
- Positively gorgeous design aesthetic
- Super fast SSD as standard equipment
- Multi-touch and gesture-enabled trackpad
- Non-glare LED backlit HD display
Cons
- Disappointing benchmark performance
- Higher end model is quite expensive
- Trackpad is too sensitive to taps
- Annoying too-small left shift key
Overall Rating: 8.0 / 10.0
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