13.3" Samsung NP900X3C with Ivy Bridge CPU

talking about ssd,
which ssd suit the machine?
right now, i'm looking between:

- Crucial 256GB M4 Internal SATA III (6G) MLC mSATA SSD Solid State Drive - CT256M4SSD3
- MyDigitalSSD 256GB BP3 Bullet Proof 3 mSATA III (6G) SSD Solid State Drive - MDMS-BP3-256
- MyDigitalSSD 256GB Smart Series SATA III (6G) SandForce mSATA SSD - MDMS-SFIII-256

Does anyone have compare between this 3 msata ssd?

 

Probably go with the crucial. I believe it provides the best bang for the buck. The BP3 is possibly a tad faster, but doubtful you would notice the difference. I wouldn't bother with the third guy unless you can get a great deal. But when will someone put out a 512GB msata is the real question!

 

Just got a refund of £1,080.00 on my faulty NP900X3B-A01UK from John Lewis and purchased a NP900X3C-A02UK from Amazon for £935.91.

I had already received £180.00 VAT Cashback from Samsung bringing the original price to £900.00.

1) Is it likely that they will ask for this £180 VAT Cashback back even though I have purchased a new laptop?
2) If not, is the NP900X3C-A02UK worth the additional £35.91 and loss of the 2nd Year Warranty offered by John Lewis?
3) What warranty does Amazon UK offer and is there any warranty extentions available? If I remember right, was Samsung offering a FREE Warranty Upgrade for registering?
4) Would I have been better waiting for another Samsung Promotion before making the purchase? Or would you recommend a different laptop for the price?

Hope someone can help with these questions

Thanks

 

On the left is my CrystalDiskMark result for the BP3 and on the right is result for the Crucial m4.



The m4 is the faster of those two. The MyDigitalSSD Smart is probably faster still but comes with a price premium. Also note that one way the Sandforce controller gets better throughput is by using compression technology, which doesn't work with all types of data.

John

 

Great! thank you for checking.

 

My mistake, I got those two confused. I agree the premium (adata oem) mydigitalssd is not worth said premium over the crucial.

 

I doubt that the Samsung system is clever enough to spot that you may no longer be entitled to the cashback.

When did you get the X3C? It's eligible for the £100 cashback if bought between 15 August and 30 September (but the normal prices dropped once the promotions finished). The Samsung extended warranty offer applies to the X3C-A04UK.

This is the 2 year extension warranty I bought for my X4C. The paperwork claimed to be on-site although I doubt if that is realistic for the Series 9s.

John

 

I´ve just become a proud owner of this laptop I am considering weather or not to install a fresh copy of windows or stick with the one that came installed. 30 gig with only windows installed seems quite alot no? Are there lots of bloatware that comes with this laptop? what is your suggestion?
Also, the easy settings program seems quite useful, and i do want to keep the faster boot time option that is set there.

 

Your first action should be to run the backup option in Samsung Recovery Solution to create a backup of the supplied drivers and software. Then, if you have an external hard disk and an imaging program such as Acronis TrueImage then you can save a complete image of the SSD after which you can delete the Recovery Partition to give an extra 20GB of space.

You can use Easy Software Manager to go through the list of Samsung installed software and delete anything you don't like the look of. Many of us start with Norton and replace it with our favorite AV software. However, before too long you might want to consider installing a larger SSD, in which case read this thread.

John

 

I have 98GB free with MS Office, Powerdvd, Rapidstart and assorted smaller programs installed with a fresh install. It can be tricky to find a compatible flash drive/odd to boot the install though. Deleting the partitions (after backup) and uninstalling a few programs would probably be sufficient for many people.

 

Someone posted this Engadget article a while ago about a Series 9 with a "retina" display:
Samsung smuggles new Series 9 prototype into IFA: 2,560 x 1,440 on a matte display (hands-on) - Engadget

For people hoping that Windows 8 will have better handling of high resolution scaling and wondering whether a 1080p display like on the Asus is superior, from what I read up on it it's not looking so good. Metro apps will handle scaling properly and do it automatically. However it seems that Windows 8 for desktop apps handles scaling exactly the same way as Windows 7, meaning not nearly as well as OS X for the retina displays.

The problem is that while in Windows you can tell the OS to scale the fonts and UI elements, many Windows programs use their own UI elements instead of the OS-supplied ones and these aren't scaled. That's why even when you enable font scaling you will have bits of apps that are not scaled, and in many cases they don't "fit" properly with the parts that do get scaled resulting in a broken UI (worse case) or an ugly UI (best case).

OS X handles this much better by rendering the entire display internally at a very high resolution and then scaling it to fit the "apparent" resolution you want (but looking sharper). I've seen a retina display and it's great for text, but it really needs proper OS support to work 100%. Since Windows doesn't have (and will not have) proper OS support for scaling desktop apps for a long time, you're better off getting a display that's actually usable at 100% scale - like 1600x900 on a 13". 1920x1080 is too small for a 13" screen, the UI elements are just too hard to see for most people. If you're just going to use Office and a web browser you might be OK, but when you move to other software you might be disappointed.

 

Parallels works perfectly with the Retina - the problem isn't Windows. The problem is that most applications don't scale well. Windows itself looks great. MS Office doesn't.

 

I now have a Retina MBP and the NP900x3c side by side - the Samsung's revolution looks great, even in a direct comparison. Yes, it's not 100% as sharp, but it doesn't make me want to throw up like other notebooks I compared directly to the Retina.

As for the scaling: you're completely right. Metro apps look great, desktop apps don't (at least most of them - some do scale ok).

Mac OS doesn't do that much better, though. There are tons of apps that look like crap on the Retina

Anyway - I'm glad I didn't get the UX31a - the screen's perfect and a higher resolution just doesn't make sense on a 13" Display

 

Really, what issues do you see? I thought the method they used was basically fool proof, as *everything* is re-scaled and not just fonts and some UI elements.

 

Actually now it's $999 until Oct 11th. Thanks so much for posting this, you just saved me and two relatives $125 each!

 

hey guys,
quick question: Is there a benchmark between the the stock 256Gb and the Crucial m4 256GB somewhere available?
Is it much faster than the stock one?
I just realized that the GPU at the i7 model is also higher clocked, so the upgrade might be worth it!?

EDIT: Ok, I just found one for the stock: http://www.notebookcheck.com/typo3temp/pics/9827d8f418.jpg
Not that much of a difference...

 

I think most people talking about the Crucial M4 256GB are upgrading from the 128GB Sandisk u100. The 'stock' 256GB drive in that link is a very capable Lite-on SSD. I don't think there would be any reason to replace that with a Crucial M4.

 

sure. I was thinking between the i5 and upgrade it with the crucial m4 or get the i7 right away. I ll probably go with the i7.

Most of you guys choose the i5 model right?

 

Has anyone had an issue with not being able to adjust the screen brightness after resuming from sleep? After resuming, the brightness level is stuck on max. However changing the backlit keyboard and sound still works when using the Fn + key shortcut. I even tried going into the control panel settings and seem to not be able to change the brightness when this happens.

 

I think the only mobile i7 worth getting is the 3612QM. All others you're paying 90% for the distinction, 10% for the performance. The difference between the i5 and i7 will be very small with power savings enabled as well. If you got 8GB with the i7 then an argument could be made, but alas...

 

Yes, I have had this problem too. Like you say, backlit keyboard(F7/F8) and sound controls(F10/F11) still work. But for me, the brightness controls(F2/F3) are not immediately responsive. They will work eventually after like 20 or 30 seconds. When it happens and the screen is super bright and I don't want to wait 20 or 30 seconds for it to respond, I open the "Windows Mobility Center" program which I have pinned to my toolbar for immediate access when I need it. The program opens quickly and I use the slider for "Display brightness" to dim the screen.

Every time I have used this method when the problem you've described has occurred to me, the screen has immediately dimmed and was no longer blinding me. Hope this works for you too.

 

Thanks for the tip! I'll definitely try this.

 

I've got my preferences for both mains and battery brightness set under the Power Options for my power profile. Those seem to work OK. The other place there's a brightness setting is in Easy Settings > Display.

John

 

Glad I could help!

 

Don't know - have you ever looked at any Adobe product on a Retina MBP? One fuzzy-looking mess. So are 95% of all other apps.

 

When I looked at the Retina MacBook Pro, there were a number of challenges that are likely getting resolved.

First of all, it's laughable for Apple to promote 2880x1800 as the resolution when the default setting is 1440x900. I did most of my testing on OS X at 1920x1200 which is a scaled resolution. Although the resolution is awesome, the performance of Lion at that resolution wasn't. You could feel the performance hit. My T420 driving an external 27" display at 2560x1440 felt much faster. Having said that, I fully expect Apple to continue to improve the performance with each update to OS X. In fact, it might be much better now.

As for the applications, clearly they weren't ready when the Retina launched. Apple only had a couple of their own apps ready. And you can't just flip the switch overnight and all of the apps suddenly know how to display themselves correctly. Scaling doesn't get that done either.

Take a photo at 640x480 then try to resize it to 2880x1800. Filling in those new pixels isn't easy.

The Retina screen is still killer though. Looking forward to seeing the 13.3" version. Hopefully soon.

 

Anyone have hinges making a clicking noise when they move? its bugging the crap out of me. Even with fresh DOW 33 grease, it is still persistent. I'm thinking it might be something else.

Could really use some advice as to what it might be. thanks

 

Performance: it still isn't great. Most Retina apps have choppy scrolling and and the whole device feels drastically slower than, say, a currenty Macbook Air. This isn't something Apple is going to fix through udpates - it's clearly a hardware issue. The graphics board isn't strong enough to drive the insanely high resolution. Don't get me wrong: the screen looks absolutely awesome, but the MBP Retina is quite slow for its massive price-tag.

And the apps: it's been almost half a year since the Retina was introduced and hardly any mainstream apps have been upgraded. As a matter of fact, Adobe just released Premiere Elements 11 and Photoshop Elements 11 without Retina support. Microsoft Office has received a half-a**ed update which fixes the text but doesn't update the rest of the application suite. Apart from that, you're on your own. I work as a photographer and have to hook up the Retina to a low-res external screen in order to work. That's just a fraking joke.

And then there's the quality issue - I'm on my 3rd screen and now USB doesn't work anymore. That's not ok for a 2500$ machine (that's how much Apple charges us for it here).

 

Hi guys, i have a question about the difference NP900X3C-A01CA vs. NP900X4D-A03CA

Obviously, I'm from Canada and I just bought the first one (13" for $1000 on rebate last week). It's very good ultrabook, except the weakest point the ssd. Right now, the retailer anounced the second one (15"), it's still preorder until 26.10 and it comes with Win8 (i have to upgrade mine for 15$), Free Microsoft Office 2010 Home and Student (mine is with Starter edition) and grey body (I don't know if it's better material used)

My question is about the LCDs. Is it the same as 13" IPS or is different (NT may be 15")? I'm concerned because of the price anounced - $1099..it's very cheap for 15" IPS I think... I'm asking you beacause I have the possibility to return mine and replace it with the new one for the difference of 85 ($100 price diff. -$15 win8 upgrade). What do you think? I like the quality of IPS and I wouldn't swap it for cheap NT

 

I didn't realize it was so bad. A coworker demoed his $2700 MBP to me and all the console windows looked awesome at high res with no visible windows but I didn't really see any apps running. I guess native resolution is still the only way to go whether it's Windows or OS X.

 

The 15" display is a standard TN panel so not in the same class as the 13.3". You can see some side-by-side photos in my X4C review. The X4D is functionally the same as the X4C except that the chassis is magnesium instead of aluminium and is slightly lighter (and unpainted). There are wider issues when comparing the 13.3" and 15" Series 9s. The former is much more portable but my eyes found the smaller pixels a little challenging (I was subconsciously sitting very close to the screen). The 15" panel is much easier on my eyes, the extra USB port is also very welcome as is the extra battery capacity.

John

 

Thanks for your replay,
so the price is close because of the cheapest LCD... according to your review of X4C, all 15" are RAM, HDD and battery upgradeable, but for 13", only HDD can be replaced, true?

 

The mSATA SSD can be changed in either model (see this thread). The 13.3" has soldered RAM (currently 4GB) which is a limitation. The 15" has two SODIMM slots normally with 4GB modules (ie 8GB total) but can be replaced. Batteries in either could be changed if necessary.

I should point out that, if you ask Samsung, nothing can be changed and doing so will invalidate the warranty. However, I work on the principle of trying to leave no trace of entry and would keep any parts replaced in order to restore the machine to the supplied condition should warranty service be required.

John

 

What is the best way to keep the battery life if I use my ultrabook most of the time plugged in (the option to max 80% charge is already ON, but I'm not sure how much this will help). The battery of my old laptop was in my fridge on 50% and 3 years after it was like new

 

The Battery Life Extender option seems to work well for me. There has been no change in the reported wear. The battery charge has to drop a few percent below 80% before a top-up is initiated.

John

 

Ran across this today.

Newegg.com - SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC256B/WW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

 

Just don't try and fit one in the Series 9. You need an mSATA SSD.

John

 

Ah. Dang it! Was worth a shot!

 

Hi everyone,
I've had the x3c-a01us for about 2 months now, and absolutely love the machine. That being said, has anyone else encountered this annoying issue? When playing any netflix movies, after a couple of minutes there is considerable lag and eventually the audio and video are completely not in sync. Additionally, youtube movies in 1080p have some stuttering and lag. Is there a fix to this? It's impossible to watch a netflix movie on my laptop which sucks =(

 

You trying on battery or AC?

 

Thanks for your reply. I purchased it on 9th October 2012 for £926.95 which I thought was a pretty good price, so looks like I'm a bit too late?

I believe John Lewis offer a 2 year warranty on laptops?

Hopefully they won't come back asking for the VAT, and it'll make this laptop £746.95!

 

It appears to happen regardless

 

Try clearing your internet cache. I recommend using CCleaner from piriform.

 

I just picked up an NP9003XC-A01(CA unfortunately) and was curious how these laptops have held up

I've been offered one of those instore warranties at about $190 for 2 years and I was wondering if it would be worthwhile

Everything I've read leads me to believe that these laptops are quite well-made, but I'm sure concessions have been made to get this laptop to the size it is.

I'm going to try and baby the battery, but I think it's pointless to get the warranty for that anyways, since barring a totally defective unit, the battery will only start failing after the 2 year mark.

Thoughts?

 

I've haven't had mine long enough to comment on longevity, but, I've never heard of an in-store warantee that was worth buying. They're just money-making propositions for the store, which is why they push them so hard.

bert

 

We haven't heard about a lot of problems with the X3A, which are a year older, and the X3B/C/D are improvements. However, while the risk of failure is fairy low, the cost of repair is likely to be higher than for a traditional notebook so it may be worthwhile sharing the risk. $100 for a extra two years is reasonable (that's about what I paid for a Samsung extended warranty for my X4C) but $190 is high.

As for the battery, use the Battery Life Extender option in Easy Settings unless you need the maximum run time but also keep an eye on the wear during the first few months - there seem to have been a few bad batteries which have been replaced under warranty. Also, I suspect that spare batteries will become available in time. While not officially user-replaceable, it's easily done with a set of good screwdrivers.

John

 

Thanks. I agree with what you guys are saying, and I think I'm going to pass.

I was debating for the longest time between this and the Zenbook Prime equivalent (UX31A-DB51). But I picked up this because it was on sale right now. If I waited for the Zenbook's next sale I probably would've saved $50 or so, but I also probably would've paid for the warranty because of the numerous stories I have heard regarding those units.

 

Did a quick inspection - as expected, I got the crappy U100

Initial battery wear of 6.3% - that's a bit high out of the box IMHO!

Set the Battery Saver charging on, so it only juices up to 80%

Will probably back up the drivers tonight, not sure if I have the resources to backup the restoration partition though... only have 16GB USB drives, nothing larger. Can I split the partition image into parts?

Then I'll debate whether to do a clean install of W7 or wait until W8 comes out and has proper Samsung support.

Anything you guys think I missed?

 

How to check the battery wear?

 

I use HWiNFO. The wear is under the battery properties.

John