15" Series 9 NP900X4D discussion

5 hours on full brightness display on standard web surfing???? Somehow really hard to believe...unless you divide that by two

...so, can anyone recommend X4D?

 

I want to buy NP900X4D-A01. it has 4 GB RAM.... in the future Definetly 4GB ram is not enough. IS This model( NP900X4D-A01 ) has a empty ram slot or 4GB RAM replaceable for end users? thanks for answers..

 

How is everyone finding the 4d for durability? Does the magnesium alloy scratch easily? The main reason i'm thinking of the 4d (over the 4c) is because i need Windows Professional, as opposed to material etc

By the way, for those of you who are UK based, Samsung have a cashback promotion just started:

Promotions - SAMSUNG UK

 

Samsung advertise this display as 400 nit. The only time you will need full brightness is if sitting in the sun. I find 5/8 is usually right for working indoors when on mains power and willingly step down a notch or two to conserve the battery. If you want good battery time at full brightness then get one of these because the display is only 200 nit.

Link? Which country NP900X4D-A01 (last two letters of the model number, eg UK, US). All the ones I have seen are 8GB. The X4 series have 2 SODIMM slots and have been tested with up to 16GB RAM. Officially the RAM is not user upgradeable but a good size 0 Philips screwdriver and a little care will get the base off.

John

 

NP900X4D-A01TR - TEKN

NP900X-A01TR

 

It says 4GB x 1 so that should be one slot free into which you can put another 4 or 8GB. It's a silly saving by Samsung in your country. Single channel RAM seriously reduces the graphics performance and saves them very little money.

John

 

Just to say, I think I will resign from buying Samsung series 9, i.e. NP900X4D. The opinions on the quality of the display really put me off
Sorry Samsung, need to try harder and make better laptops to convince me!

 

The problem with the X4C / X4D display is that users have high expectations because the X3B / X3C has the first class PLS display and putting the two notebooks side by side highlights the X4's shortcomings. In reality, the X4 has an above-average TN display (definitely a class above what Lenovo put on my T420s). Don't let the fact that people (including myself) would prefer to have a PLS panel on their X4 put you off buying one if it ticks the other boxes on your list. Despite a few shortcomings I don't know of another notebook that would better meet my needs than my X4C: Big screen; needs little space in the bag; up to 10 hours on battery.

John

 

John, what are your personal thoughts on the Series 9 (either size) vs the new Lenovo X1 Carbon?

Here's a review: http://hothardware.com/m/News/Lenovo-ThinkPad-X1-Carbon-Ultrabook-Review/Default.aspx

 

I could write an essay, but also read the NBR X1 carbon review.

The X1 carbon size and weight sits between the two Series 9 models. Some advantages are: Integrated 3G, a mini DisplayPort, a properly performing Sandisk SSD and possibly a better touchpad. WiFi is likely to be better if the antennae are in the carbon-fibre lid.

Disadvantages include the fixed 4GB RAM and, for me, the worry that the carbon fibre lid might cause pressure spots on the display (as has happened on my T420s).

I'm not queuing up to buy one.

John

 

Gotcha. Thanks... much appreciated.

 

May I ask why?

 

Thank you guys, this has turned out to be a very useful thread for me and for everyone. I feel paying 2000 US$ for this machine is wasting money! This is because:
- Poor screen
- Poor trackpad - some say none responsive and other say too sensitive.
- Poor SSD - imagine an SSD that has 6.1 WEI - My HP Pavilion DV4 HDD (3 years old) has 5.9 WEI!
- No full HDMI or VGA ports - takes time to buy a converter (not serious)
- Weak connection of the power cord to the laptop - doesn't stick well
- And Finally 2,000 US $ for all of these limitations to live with.

The spec on review sites tells the good side so no need to talk about why I chose it.

I will not buy this, thank you all for the advice. Where should I go from here?
What is in my mind for now is Asus Zenbook Prime UX32VD. I would love that if I can upgrade to SSD. Is it possible?

 

You might want to consider the Lenovo X1 Carbon. Just keep in mind that no laptop is perfect (unfortunately).

 

It seems no laptop is perfect. X1 Carbon seems nice feature wise but I really hate the look.

 

I'm not crazy about the look either (although it looks a lot nicer than the typical chunky/boxy Lenovo). But it covers a lot of bases for me and what I'd like in my next laptop.

I much prefer the looks of the Series 9, but I can't bring myself to buy on looks alone. Not at these prices, anyway.

 

Have been looking at the UX32VD instead of the Samsung for the same reason. UX32VD supports 7mm SSD.

Seems like the best thin laptop at the moment specwise, but I fear 1080p is a bit much on 13", would've been nice on 15" though.

 

SoundsGood, you have your point.

Finduz, I agree with you. Unless we use a magnifying glass 13'' is very small for 1080p.

 

Which is exactly why I can't consider the Asus. I think 1600x900 is about perfect on a 15" screen (like the Series 9). The X1 Carbon is pretty darn close, though (14.1" vs 15.0").

 

The 4c thread might be worth looking through to see more positive user experiences (maybe because the price is lower?). I just bought a 4d-A02US two days ago, and I like it a lot so far. I chose the 4d because of the color + 0.15lbs lighter than the 4c, and because it's my reflexive habit to go for the latest hardware. I chose the series 9 because my priority is to have a travel-friendly and stylish/professional laptop with a large screen, and I'm ~$3000 invested in Windows software.

I'm also very picky about keyboards (personal taste tho), and the series 9 had a nicer feel than any of the other ultrabooks I found at Best Buy (including a Dell and ~4 others). As far as the look, I've had 2 people at work ask me 'is that a mac'... It looks extremely similar to the MBA when the two are side by side, but the larger size of the samsung makes it more businesslike to my eye. On the same theme, I'm glad that this version lacks the "cool" blue tint and shiny side embellishments of the 4c.

For performance, I have the sandisk 256gb ssd (WEI is 7.5), but I haven't known where to look to notice any slowdown from it. The computer is very responsive under my typical work layout, e.g. currently with 1 word document, winEdt, 3 ppts, 3 pdfs, several multitab firefox windows, matlab, and coreldraw open simultaneously. The screen brightness was a godsend this afternoon, when I had a meeting in a room with large west-facing windows.

The negatives for me aren't severe. The display _definitely_ needs to be adjusted (see the 4c thread), but looks nice after some tuning. I think I'm getting 4-6hrs of battery life at brightness 5/8, which I assume would be better if I weren't running processor heavy (2 core parallelized) simulations from time to time. Hyperthreading keeps the computer usable and actually rather smooth during simulations, but the fan gets noisy. (I don't use the laptop for any job that runs longer than ~5 mins; otherwise 4 cores & a higher clock frequency would be essential.) Mac trackpads give better gesture control, but the 4c/d trackpad seems above average next to the other ultrabooks I tried.

Maybe I'll notice more to complain about as I settle in with the computer (e.g. challenges connecting to an external monitor?)

 

Where'd you get the 4d-A02US?

 

Nice review. What I don't understand is, the price of 4d is much higher than 4c. Is the change really worth the money? 4C-A02US costs 1,500 US$ and 4D-A02US costs 2,000 US$. The only difference I see is SSD size, and 2 hours battery life difference.

But from your review your batter life is 4-6 hrs is well below 10 hrs claimed Samsung. Where you using high performance setting or power saving?

How is the track pad? My fear of the track pad is, it is very wide, and I fear I might accidentally touch it while typing on Word. This might take me to wrong typing position. When I type I want to rest my arm on the laptop. What is your experience on this?

 

Sorry, I meant that it arrived two days ago. I bought it online a week before that from Bottom Line Telecom:

ShopBLT.com: Samsung Series9 I7-3517u 1.9g 8gb 256gb 15in Wl Bluetooth Windows 7 Professional 64bit Magnesium

They have a nice real time availability display.

 

Thanks. I happen to like that color. But the price is... yikes!

Yeah, I don't understand this either. Why is it so high?

 

I think the 4c and 4d should get basically the same battery life... One difference though is that the processor of the 4d-a02US is an i7, processor of the 4c-a02US is an i5:

ShopBLT.com: Samsung Series9 I5-3317u 1.7g 8gb 128gb 15in Windows 7 Professional Ssd 3yr Aluminum

It's just a 10% difference in clock speed, as far as I can see (both have hyperthreading, in this case). My power setting is "Samsung optimized"... I really don't know much about the battery life yet. Yesterday, I saw the battery meter dip to ~67% after 2 hours of use, so my "4-6" hour number came from extrapolating how long it would take to drain to 10% (with +-1hr error bars). This isn't a very reliable test, and I'm sure the system would have done better if I hadn't been periodically running processor heavy tasks that ramp up both cores. The maximum power output of the processor is 17W, so running just the processor full steam could in principle drain the battery in less than 4 hours. (with monitor&WIFI etc off)

I think it's always a good idea to test keyboards in person before buying a computer -- you might want to look for a 4c to type on at Best Buy. I haven't had trouble with bumping the track pad, but I have big hands. My wife is 5'4", and says that it didn't happen for her either when she was playing with the computer earlier, but that was just for a few minutes. You might also prefer the look of the 4c. I think it has a sexier color scheme; the 4d just has a slightly cleaner look to my eye.

 

- Screen is poor when compared with the excellent PLS panel on the 13" Series 9 but is good when compared with most TN panels.
- Which SSD is that? The Sandisk U100 scores 7.5.
- Samsung are now shipping a rev 1.5 PSU with an L-shaped power jack which feels much more robust.

Can you check the actual weight on some digital scales? My X4C is 1.65kg.

The Sandisk chokes if hit with queued concurrent input/output. This caused my X3B to temporarily freeze when it need to write to the swap file while loading another program. The 8GB RAM (more if you want) of the X4 reduces the likelihood of the swap file being used.

IIRC the X4D has Win 7 Pro and a 3 year warranty, plus the model being discussed here has an i7 CPU and 256GB SSD. All factors for pushing up the price. The battery time should be the same under equivalent operating conditions. 10 hours needs very light usage such as offline editing of a Word document. Start using WiFi or Bluetooth and having some bursts of CPU activity and the battery time will plummet.

John

 

Thank you for the replay. Did you get Enternet and vga dongle?

 

The LAN cable dongle is included in the box. As far as I know, users who want VGA have to buy a dongle.

John

 

The nicer scales here only work for small enclosed volumes. I get 1.59kg from the mail room; maybe 3.51+-0.03lbs.

Thanks for the clarification on the ssd. Some of the things I do are ram-intensive, but they're also processor/gpu-heavy, so I don't run them on the laptop.

 

Thanks. So it is a little lighter than the aluminum X4C (mine weighted in at 1.65kg / 3.64 lbs). I had speculated that the X4D should be lighter because magnesium is a less dense metal (1.74 g/cc vs 2.70 g/cc).

John

 

This is another deal breaker. Why would I pay fault full laptop for an expensive price? Why don't Samsung control its quality. I also saw your review on NP900X4C. The Wifi weak signal is another deal beaker. I think this is the characteristics of all Windows Manufacturers, POOR QUALITY. I am just trying to get out of HP laptop, that had 9 parts replacement over the past 3 years. I don't wanna repeat that hardship.

 

Just got my x4d-a02us today. Two things i was wondering were if I click on the left hand side of the trackpad i almost get a double click sound. One when I click down and the other when I release. I also wonder if i heard the "whistle" sound of the speakers when I had a notification. I was also trying to find the color guide but couldn't locate it anywhere. I am upgrading from a 4 1/2 year old dell xps and chose this over the UX32VD so I hope I continue to like this machine.

 

Yes, there's a click when you push the button down and it also clicks when you release the button. However, this is only noticeable if you hold the button down rather than giving it a quick tap. Note that you can also give anywhere on the pad a quick tap to emulate the left button.

By "color guide" do you mean the calibrated display profile? A quick guide on how to install it is here.

John

 

Hi, it seems the italian version of the X4D also has 4 GB x 1 RAM.
Do you know whether this model (A01IT) has a free slot for RAM upgrade or RAM is soldered and not upgradable? I really don't know where to get this peice of info.
Thank you very much.

 

I think it highly unlikely that Samsung would make a different X4 mainboard with 4GB of soldered RAM but one never knows (they could do that and provide two fans to reduce the noise). I suspect that it's an attempt at cost saving by the marketing department who were given the choice of what to order from the factory.

John

 

Is it possible to turn Bluetooth and WiFi on/off independently? Either native or something like the btonoff utility that I use on my x360/34p which is about to be repurposed.

 

You can do that on the Wireless page in Easy Settings. On paper, the settings should persist across a reboot if you select the appropriate option but whereas BT behaves correctly, the WiFi seems to come on again.

John

 

Thanks

My NP900x4D-002US is on the Fedex truck and I am waiting for delivery today. I choose the 4D vs 4C because the 3 yr warranty and Win 7 Pro were of value to me. I actually like the X4C color better but don't really care that much.

I have ordered the Samsung Chronos Series 9 VGA Dongle AA-AV2N12B/US from ANTonline via amazon.com
Amazon.com: Samsung AA-AV2N12B - VGA adapter: Computers & Accessories

This will be left in my laptop bag for use on travel for projectors.

Micro HDMI from meritline:
Adapter, Computer Adapter | Meritline.com

I got 2 of these, one for the computer bag and one for my external LCD screen which has an existing hdmi cable.

Finally, I got a sleeve from ebay.com similar to this one:

Samsung Series 9, 15" NP900X4B Slim Laptop Notebook / Case Sleeve Protection Bag | eBay

I'll wait on a spare power supply until I see if any of the tips for an existing universal supply I have laying around fit.

 

I doubt if any will fit - the power tip is quite thin. The size is in this thread. I recall someone finding an adaptor to make a standard Samsung plug fit the small socket.

John

 

You are of course correct. It arrived and none of the tips I have fit.
I miss the physical left and right click buttons of my old X360-34P but in general I like it. It has the Sandisk U100 SSD which seems fine considering I am used to a 3.5 yr old notebook and SSD.

WiFi strength is around the same as the old X360. No complaints.
Easy Software Manager downloads are really slow but other downloads are fast so its ESM, not my network.

Thanks for all the help in this and the other threads

 

Ordered NP900X4D-A01UK. I will also be getting a Recovery DVD; I hope it can be used to restore the OS on the Crucial M4 256gb mSATA, which I have ordered from here. Otherwise, I intend using Acronis to capture the images of individual partitions on an external drive, cut a boot flash disk to restore the OS from the external drive to the Crucial M4 mSATA.

 

I am coming to NP900X4D from NP900X4C. The NP900X4D-A02DE has reasonable price with only 4GB RAM less than X4C-A01US. Does the X4C-A01US 8GB RAM just a single 8 GB RAM or two 4 GB RAM? In the NP900X4D-A02DE model, it says it can be upgraded to 8 GB RAM with 4GB RAM costing 100 Euros.

 

I would expect the 8GB version to be shipped with 2 x 4GB modules. Providing only one RAM stick gives a significant performance reduction. I suspect the 4GB version ships with 2 x 2GB so upgrade involves changing both sticks. Given that Crucial's current pricing is 2 x 2GB = €26.19 and 2 x 4GB = €41.99, replacing both modules leaves plenty of change out of €100.

By the way, Samsung's UK support site now has an NP900X4D-A03UK as well as NP900X4D-A01UK. However, Google is currently giving no hits for the A03UK but it looks like another version is coming.

John

 

I checked in different sites that the RAM is single 4GB. See this link. It says 1x4 GB RAM. So I think I can get another 4 GB RAM. Now my worry is, I wish I could get the same one as the one that comes with the machine. It might slow down the PC further if they are different brands and model, am I right?

I checked NP900X4D-A01UK and it is very expensive as it is Windows 7 Pro.

 

Those sites may be correct although it's not the way I would package a computer that's meant to be non user upgradeable. However, if you don't want to wait until you get the computer (when you can check the RAM configuration using a program such as CPU-z) then you buy one 4GB module. DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600MHz). The RAM in my X4C is Samsung with 11-11-11-28 timings and 1.5V. However, if buying RAM I would recommend getting a 1.35V module which will use slightly less power. There's no need to worry about having identical modules. The BIOS inspects the timings (SPD data) on each modules and works out the fastest timings that is supported by both.

And I wasn't suggesting that you buy the UK version - just making a note in this X4D thread that in addition to the current A01UK it seems that an A03UK is in the pipeline.

John

 

Thank you for the advice on the RAM. I found out that mixing two voltage sizes can cause a problem is not recommended. See the link here and here. What do you think?

I got you about A01UK.

 

Those links refer to desktop problems where the voltage can be set by the user. The Crucial 1.35V parts are labelled as 1.35V / 1.50V so I presume that the system will decide. I've just ordered a pair for my X4C so I can report back in a few days what happens.

John

 

I see. Ok, I will wait eagerly.

I am really tired of finding online shops in Ethiopia.Is there anyone with ideas? I want t ship from Germany.

 

Are you meaning that you are in Ethiopia but Google isn't listing German shops? If so, go to google.de and then search, and clicking on the shopping option should give you German shops. That method usually works for me when I am away from home.

John

 

That is not the case. I have used Google.de to finds pages from Germany. I have found some with good price of the laptop like Amazon.de and notebook.de. Even though they do international shipping, they said they don't ship to Ethiopia. So I have tried other German online shops with NP900X4D but they either only ship in German only and EU.