13.3" Samsung NP900X3C with Ivy Bridge CPU

thanks. so a few extra ports, 30% more battery, and 8g of ram is the main difference right?

 

And, at the moment, no PLS display. The 15" is also about 40% heavier than the 13" but must still be the lightest machine in its size range.

John

 

ah yeah the pls...nothing is perfect! envy 15 with its crap screen, sony Z being 3x the cost of what it should be and forced fixed memory/disk. Women with less flaws are easier to find.

 

Ultrabooks cost a lot less.

 

What's the lowdown on Ivy Bridge graphics? I wonder how good it will be in gaming!

 

Are you really going to game on a 13" screen? And even if you are, it must not be any serious games. Anything you'd want to actually enjoy will probably need discrete graphics.

 

Recommendation: Use a 55" Samsung Series 8000 LED HDTV for gaming.

 

Likely to be at least 50% faster than the corresponding Sandy Bridge graphics and well into what used to be dedicated GPU territory. See notebookcheck's mobile GPU benchmark list but be aware that the GPU in a 17W part doesn't run as fast as those with higher power ratings.

John

 

15" IB confirmed to have same 400 nit display:
Samsung teases Series 9 Ivy Bridge Ultrabook, leaves availability in the ether -- Engadget

Samsung N900X4C Series 9 Notebook - Samsung UK - OVERVIEW

 

Thanks. Maybe I just should go for the Sony Vaio SA, but I would love to see the Series 9 13'' in a more... "thick" version with heavier specs. I understand that slim is sexy, but if they can keep the weight below 2.0 kilogram, and retain good battery with some killer optimus performance!? What a mobile, sexy powerhouse it would be.


I guess we should be happy with Ivy Bridge graphics. Gamers will never be satisfied with performance haha. It's so difficult to find the mix between a mobile machine and great performance!

 

Too bad the 15" doesn't have a 1080 or 1200p, that would be the only reason I would get a larger screen, to actually use more pixels.

 

As much as I would like to believe Samsung is putting the 400 nit PLS screen on the 15", nothing is confirmed until the product ships and there is ACTUAL confirmation. We already know Marketing makes mistakes on the websites.

 

Does 400 nit brightness automatically mean PLS? What if it's just the brightness specs and not the actual PLS screen?

 

+1 Absolutely!

 

I see that Amazon UK now have the X3 B on back order with more stock due on 20 May. I read that as meaning that the X3C won't be reaching UK before July (but does not exclude the X3C arriving sooner in other markets where the X3B is not being sold).

John

 

It seems the planets are lining up for announcements in the middle of this month. At least that seems to be the case with NVIDIA and Lenovo. Hopefully the clouds will part and all will be clear soon.

I suspect we'll see some limited supply in June, but unfortunately my prediction that most OEMs won't have Ivy Bridge in full force until Q3 is starting to look accurate.

 

I agree. I would think apple, hp and maybe dell are going to snag up the lion's share of the ulv ivy bridge initially. I'm not holding my breath for anything readily available before August from samsung and the other "little guys". In the US, that's just in time for back to school, how convenient

 

I'm not sure if I would call Samsung "little" these days but they aren't yet one of the top 5 notebook manufacturers (but I'm sure they plan to be) while, at the same time being a leading SSD and display manufacturer.

John

 

It's also when Apple usually does their back to school promotions of the current machines with an iPod (thus clearing inventory) followed by the July announcements and availability of new models.

We'll see if that holds true this year.

 

Samsung NP900X4C Core i5 Ultrabook | eBay

Hmm, where did he get it ? And 3 of them.

 

That's the 15" model. I believe in some countries, samsung skipped the NP900X4B and when straight to ivybridge NP900X4C. So maybe he got it from one of the countries that had a model went straight to 15" IB.

 

Which country has it on sale already ?

 

Samsung NP900X4C Core i5 Ultrabook NP900X4C-A01UK - Laptops Direct

"Earliest Delivery: Wednesday 6th June"

How could somebody get it sooo early?

 

He didn't get them yet:

So perhaps he has ordered 3 from somewhere else and hopes to sell them for a 50% mark-up with delivery being whenever they show up from Samsung.

John

 

He even incresed price for £400

 

Somebody give me some good reasons to stick around waiting for Samsung after this was announced today:
Lenovo announces the ThinkPad X1 Carbon, a 14-inch Ultrabook with Ivy Bridge, optional 3G and a 1600 x 900 display -- Engadget

 

S9 is still smaller, thinner, lighter, and IMO looks more elegant. Feature-wise, I think this new lenovo refresh wins.

 

Tough to say, I'd wait and see the price tags and specific options. e.g. 8GB? 256GB? Battery life...
This is definitely on my radar now though. I think they'll both be available starting in June, along with other manufacturers offerings (which will probably pale in comparison, except maybe the macair).

 

Given that my Lenovo T420s has developed some white blotches on the display due to, it appears, the carbon fibre lid pressing on the back of the display at certain points, I'm in no hurry to buy another Lenovo. And a big unknown is the display quality.

John

 

there were some pictures on a blog that showed inversion at a very low angle looking up on the X1 carbon screen. From the side it looks good though. I would guess it to be a good quality TN panel most likely.

I've tried to look for 1600x900 laptops with IPS but i haven't seen any at any size. I don't think it is popular to manufacture.

The samsung is PLS and is the only nice quality 1600x900 I've seen.

What is interesting to me would be the x230/t series since they mention 1600x900 in 12.5" (not sure if ips) but those machines are pretty thick and I didn't like the short palm rests and weak construction.

The samsung is still has the best overall specs imho. Lightest, most thin, correct palm depth, matte screen, PLS 1600x900, thin bezel

The only real competitor still so far is the zenbook prime with 1080p ips but the bezel is huge and display is glossy with an extra 0.5lbs

 

At least the X1 has display port

 

I have to agree with this. Samsung should have put mini DP on the Series 9 along with 3 year warranties.

 

An even better screen on the S9? Probably not till next year.

Samsung considering a 13-inch, 1080p, PLS panel, display snobs get their hopes up -- Engadget

 

Wow... this looks pretty darn good. Covers a lot of things I'm looking/waiting for.

 

There are a lot of unanswered X1 Carbon questions:

What type of screen? IPS?
Although the screen appears to be matte, it is a shiny matte.
Battery life?
Externally attached dock options?
Price
Reliability
Storage device options
How many SoDIMM slots?
Max supported RAM amount
GPU options if any
Does it run cool and quiet?
Did I mention price?

 

There are still some unanswered questions on the next S9 as well:
Battery life, any better?
Max RAM = 8GB?
CPU options, i7?
Storage options 256GB?
Did I mention price?

I have a million more questions about the NEC Lavie, all I know is it looks cool and is light as a feather.

 

Many of those have been answered (also here). That's not to say that an NP900X3C will be released with better specs within a few months but the versions that have been announced so far are like the X3B but use Ivy Bridge hardware.

John

 

Remember guys, the S9 is blue. And I won't get a blue computer.

That is all.

 

ahhhh! If the next Series 9 does get released with full 1080p resolution, I'm getting it for sure. I'm always a sucker for higher pixel density screens.

 

However, it's a very dark grey / black shade of blue that looks like black under many conditions.

John

 

Wasn't there an X3B with an i7? Guess I'm just hoping there'll be another version besides A02, with better specs. Maybe not till the X3D though
Battery life is still in the wind, hoping for a slight bump since IVB is supposedly a little better (according to always reliable intel).

 

There are i7 versions on both - 13" and 15" - model codes A74 and A78.

 

That's what I thought. So there's no reason they wouldn't do the same for IVB. As for the 256GB SSD and 8GB RAM, I haven't seen anything definitive. But it is an msata, and 256 msata exist (including one made by samsung). So I assume that would make it into this line at some point, but perhaps not for awhile. I heard apple was gobbling them up, typical. Not a big deal as I can get by on 128 after a clean install and swap it later when the price drops. There was a post for a shopping link earlier showing an 8GB system, but it certainly could've been a typo, or refered to the 15". RAM can't be upgraded here and 4GB is the deal breaker for me, really hope they bump it up.

 

Well, there are 8GB Sandy models with 256gb ssd & i7 - why there wouldn`t be Ivy? There will be, 100%.

 

I haven't seen firm evidence that an NP (or NT) 900X3B with 8GB RAM actually exists. Some people (I recall a French site) published info that the RAM was upgradable to 8GB but perhaps they hadn't seen the inside of the computer.

I did a little research on what the DDP memory actually was and found this. Having what is effectively two RAM modules squashed together helps explain why there's a heatsink.

John

 

I doubt it. Only real hardware change is the processor, and power difference between sandybridge vs ivy bridge is not that much, especially in idle. Other components, like the screen makes much more difference in battery than processor.

 

Amazon has pages up for the NP900X3C-A01US and NP900X3C-A02US, but I can't tell any difference between the 2 models besides price. Any insights?

Samsung Series 9 NP900X3C-A01US 13.3-Inch Laptop

Samsung Series 9 NP900X3C-A02US 13.3-Inch Laptop

 

The A01US is Windows 7 Home Premium, the AO2US is Windows 7 Professional.

 

Hopefully the Pro SKU also has TPM. That would make sense for the $100 diff.

 

See http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...es-9-np900x4c-ivy-bridge-cpu.html#post8534561 for the new 15" listings.