Introducing the Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook, designed with portability thanks a duralumin chasis. This is the same material used on advanced aircrafts and is twice as strong as aluminum. Why lug around a huge laptop when you can carry an ultrabook that weighs less than 3 pounds (2.88lbs) and is an thinner than a inch (0.62″-0.62″)? Mobility is nothing without speed which the Series 9 shows. With less than a 10 second boot time and a wake up time of 3 seconds, you no longer have to go to the washroom while waiting for your computer to boot up. Knowing that people like their bright screens, Samsung has even bumped up the brightness of their ultrabook to 400nits!
Even the thinnest ultrabook means nothing without specs. The Series 9 has an Intel Core i5 Processor 2537M @1.40 GHz and an integrated Intel HD Graphics 3000 GPU. As of now, there just isn’t enough space to fit a dedicated GPU inside an ultrabook. There are currently two Series 9 models on the market, the NP-900X3A-A01CA & NP-900X3A-A02CA. The NP-900X3A-A02CA just has a bit more RAM and hard drive storage than the NP-900X3A-A01CA. There is either 4GB RAM or 8GB RAM and a 128GB SSD or 256GB SSD. Both models have a 13.3″ HD LED anti-glare display, capable of up to 16 million colours with a resolution of 1366 x 768 and a screen ratio of 16:9.
Pointing out the chart below, you can see that the Series 9 has the top PCMarkVantage score, although it averages on the 3DMark06 score. In terms of battery life, it has a 6 cell battery and from tests, it gets about 4 hours and 20 minutes of moderate usage. Samsung is currently advertising the battery life at 7 hours, but we now know that may be an exaggeration. With Samsung’s innovated PowerPlus charging technology, the battery lifespan lasts up to three times longer than the typical notebook battery.
| PCMarkVantage | 3DMark06 |
Battery Life | |
| Samsung Series 9 (Core i5-2537M) | 7582 | 2240 | 4:20 |
| 13-inch MacBook Air (Core 2 Duo, GeForce 320M) | 5170 | 4643 | 4:45 |
| ThinkPad X220 (Core i5-2520M) | 7635 | 3517 | 7:19 |
| ASUS U36Jc (Core i5 / NVIDIA GeForce 310M) | 5981 | 2048 / 3524 | 5:30 |
| Lenovo IdeaPad U260 (Core i5) | 3858 | 1153 | 2:56 |
| Dell Vostro V13 (Core 2 Duo) | 2687 | 556 | 2:39 |
| Toshiba Portege R705 (Core i3-350M) | 5024 | 1739 / 3686 | 4:25 |
| HP Pavilion dm1z (AMD Zacate E350) |
2510 | 2213 | 5:02 |
| Notes: the higher the score the better. For 3DMark06, the first number reflects score with GPU off, the second with it on. | |||
You might be asking yourself what an SSD is when I mentioned it earlier on. Well, compared to your normal HDD used in most computers, the SDD boots up 60% faster. It also has a lower power consumption as well as being more reliable than the HDD which is prone to losing data because of its internal moving parts. Inside the Series 9 there are two 1.5 watt stereo speakers with HD Audio and a 1.3 MP HD Webcam on it. Moving into I/O ports, there is a micro HDMI input, 1 USB 3.0, 1 USB 2.0, a mic and headphone jack and a microSD slot.
There’s no point of a bright screen if you can’t see the keyboard in the dark. That’s why the creators of this ultrabook included a back-lit 81-key keyboard. The touchpad is even more impressive because it features a glass coating and image sensor which means no more cursors disappearing or jumping around on the screen. The multi-touch gesture pad is located in the center of the palm rest and includes 21 different types of gesture motions.
Source: Engadget
You can find the older article on the Samsung Series 9 at CES 2012 Here
