2013 Ativ Book 9 Plus owner's lounge (NP940X3G)

That's interesting, in several hands-on of the AB9+ i heard that the keys would actually have a little bit of increased travel and now the reality is that it's the opposite despite the AB9+ being a bit thicker?

 

I am as well afflicted by the screen flicker. Any solution so far? Someone mentioned a mirrored driver?

Very content with the computer. The hardware is superb, the only minus being the a little too shallow keyboard. The software on the other hand, is not so pleasant. I've got no idea which programs are safe to uninstall (except the obvious one like norton and samsung's etc.) and it feels like there are loads of them. Furthermore the screen flicker and color issues when charged/on battery are apparent.

Has anyone wiped theirs, installing a clean windows 8? If so, were the results better than pre-wipe?

 

Have you updated the graphics drivers to the last available in the internet?? If you got the latest from Intel site try downloading the latest from statio-drivers. Their you can get the leakeds version.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 4

 

I'd like to ask you some questions about AB9+ vs NP900X3E i7 with 256gb ssd and 4gb ram (unfortunately I can't wait for AB9+ with 256gb ssd and 8gb ram).

First, is there a significant advantage of QHD+ after scaling vs. FHD of AB9 for an average user?
Second, it might be a stupid question, but is it possible to install a 256gb ssd to AB9+? I know that it is not possible to add more ram but I'm not sure about ssd..
Third, I assume that both i5 of AB9+ and i7 of AB9 would be definitely faster than mine current Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2ghz, so instead I'd like you to compare i5 Haswell and 3rd gen i7 in terms of e.g. cooling. I have read that they both are good at it, right?
Finally, are there any other differences that I am missing except touchscreen? Thanks!

 

You can use this post as guidance for bloatware removal. Make sure to click the link in (1) which contains a bloatware list. I am sure your model has some new junk items not covered on the list, but it's a starting point. The link in (2) has a driver list for clean install of Win8, though (again) there are bound to be a few differences for your model (Haswell, no discrete GPU).

I prefer clean installs myself, but it really depends on experience level, as these are quite different from good old XP, Vista and Win7 installations of the past. If you are not familiar with UEFI/GPT, you should read some first, this post may be a good starting point. Of course you need Win8 install media (which are not publicly available for download).

Personally I would wait a few weeks doing a clean install until Win 8.1 is released and Samsung has updated it's drivers and Settings. The current versions are not fully compatible with Win 8.1. For those who do not have Win 8 install media, Microsoft will probably provide an ISO download option when you update to 8.1.

 

1. I haven't seen one of the QHD displays but the resolving power of the human eye means that you would need to sit very close to get the benefit of the extra detail. The two questions you should ask yourself about the display are (a) do you want a glossy screen with its related reflection problems and (b) do you want a touchscreen?

2. The AB9+ SSD uses the M.2 (gumstick) format and they are currently hard to find in the retail chain. It won't be too difficult to do the swap if/when you can find one. See the internal photo in this review.

3. Haswell uses a little less power: The Haswell low power CPUs are rated at 15W while the Ivy Bridge ones are 17W (and Haswell includes a bit more of the supporting electronics). But it seems that driving the QHD display probably uses more power than for an FHD display. You can compare the CPU performance using the notebookcheck benchmark list. At the moment the i5-4200U is at #124, the i7-3517U is at #103 and the i7-3537U is at #98. However, it will be difficult to detect the difference in real life unless you run programs which need hours of CPU time.

John

 

I spend some weeks deciding between the 900X3E and the new AB9+, here is what i found:

pro 900X3E:
- it is 230gramms leighter
- it has a matte display
- it is about 350 $/€ cheaper, depending on where you look

pro AB9+:
- it has a touch screen
- it has 275 PPI compared to 165 PPI on the 900X3E
- it has 50% more GPU performance (still not a gaming laptop)
- it has a slightly lower palm rest

In the end i went for the AB9+ which i will hopefully receive on Monday. But if you don't care about touchscreen, PPI and GPU power, the 900X3E is the better deal.

 

I've got the NP900X3E-K01US AB9 FHD with 256 liteon SSD. I highly recommend this machine. The refreshed i7 2.0 is stupid fast and the liteon SSD just flys. It is crazy light at only 2.56 lbs and I get around 6 hours battery life. Its runs cool and really never notice the fan at all.. very quiet machine. The FHD matte screen is the best part. Its the best screen I have ever seen. No glare and the resolution is perfect for this size and is very bright and looks great in any lighting conditions. The device simply works as it should with no wifi issues, fast boots (less then 9 seconds). I don't miss not having touch at all being the touch pad works so well. I also use a MS sculpt mouse that works perfect with this device. After using this as my daily machine for over 2 months I can honestly say I don't have any complaints. Not even one. Amazing machine and worth every penny (1500 dollars at amazon).

I bought two accessories that I highly recommend: SAMSUNG ATIV Book 9 NP900X3E-K01US Nano Silver Keyboard Skin Protector

This keyboard cover has a perfect fit and keeps oils off the keys. Plus it makes it quieter to type on. Did not think i would think much about a keyboard cover but its so good it looks factory installed and i hardly notice its there.

The other is the case made by Samsung themselves.. Amazon.com: Samsung Electronics 13-Inch Leather Ultrabook Sleeve (AA-BS3N13B/US): Computers & Accessories

Same ash black color and very elegant leather. When you open the flap it has Samsung stamped onto the leather. Add the 3 year square trade drops and spills warranty and i'm over 1700 dollars. But its money well spent. No regrets. Zero. The quad resolution AB9 plus seems just over the top. And giving up the beautiful FHD matte for gloss makes it a deal killer in my book. At any rate, anyone who buys the NP900X3E-K01US AB9 FHD will not be disappointed.

I know this does not answer your questions but I thought I would raise the AB9 option for you one more time. It's a tried and trued machine where Samsung fixed many of the trackpad and wifi issues that plagued the earlier generations. Sometimes when you buy the last generation of a model you get something very stable where all the bugs have been worked out and everything just works as it should. This is how I feel about the AB9. The AB9 plus is in its first alteration stage. Not to say that Samsung may fix all the issues that some have mentioned. The AB9 is already a truly finished and polished product.

The most troubling issue with the plus is that scaling does not work 100 percent of the time. There are some apps that have that tiny unreadable text. This is what I have read. Even on my FHD I have some applications, like my winamp player that will not scale. Luckily, at 1080P its still readable and usuable. But quad resolution seems unreasonable for a 13 inch.

I was just looking at a movie yesterday (mad mad mad world). That movie was originally filmed in 70 mm film and the copy I viewed was 1080P on my AB 9 FHD. The colors and saturation was mind blowing. I could not believe how good it looked. So rich and realistic and the black levels were incredible. It does not get any better then this.

 

Thank you all very much, this helps a lot. Comparing PPIs had made me uncertain for a while, but in the end I was persuaded that AB9 is going to fit me better out of these two great machines. By the way, @HI DesertNM, I haven't even thought about keyboard protector, definitely will take a look at it.

 

Just a shame they haven't put the haswell 8GB board in the AB9. Along with better wifi, that would be the perfect non-touch ultrabook. Dropping the 15" model is also mind-boggling.

 

If you look in the AB9 accessory section I took a picture of my AB9 with the Kb Cover: http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/659271-series-9-accessories-17.html

 

I think I figure out what causes the flickering display issue. If you look at the settings in the Intel Graphics HD Control panel, there are some interesting options under the Power/On Battery section. I turned off the Panel Self Refresh setting and my flickering seems to have gone away.

 

Thank you for sharing that fix. It would be great if others can confirm it on their units, particularly running with it a few days.

 

Long time reader, first time poster here. I received by Book 9+ about a week ago and while I'm impressed with the hardware, the display colors are pretty bad. Yellows in particular look dull, with an orange tinge that I cannot resolve. I've tried everything from loading Samsung's color profiles, tweaking color on Intel's crap shoot driver tool, running the windows color calibration tool, importing a spider ICC calibration from a review site - and nothing - this display is either faulty (spatial resolution works fine, other colors are good) or it just looks bad. I really really wanted to like this machine - the build quality is just great, but the display cannot be overcome. While it's "livable" - Samsung would do well to up the 4GB ram and 128GB SSD upsizing options ASAP. I work in the medical imaging business and like to trade stocks - which requires memory hungry apps - and I could certainly notice the Samsung struggle. Tried the Vaio Z for a day and as much as I'm concerned about the build quality, I am extremely happy with the display, ram (8GB) and PCIe SSD (256GB). Colors are just wonderful and losing resolution is an easy price to pay when windows scaling sucks so bad and the colors are simply incredible. Best of luck, hope your experience is/was better than mine!

 

So i finally got my AB9+, did some updates and then when the machine finally was about to finish to install 48 updates for Windows it suddenly turned off and now the notebook won't start when pressing the power button.
Is there a way to do some kind of reset or anything i can try to get it booting again?

 

Thanks for the fix, too. I'll give this a shot.

 

No, sorry I have not found any solution. I still get this all the time, very annoying. I dont even know what kind of thing this ALS Tunning is. Maybe to download it on the computer itself and then install it would work, but from where should I download?

 

That's too bad when you get a nice new piece of gear like this

First try and hold the power button down for five seconds to force a full shutdown. Then see if you can turn it back on. You may have already tried that.

If that doesn't work, you can unplug the charger, then disconnect the battery with a paperclip through the little hole in the bottom, THEN press and hold the power button for 5 seconds.

If that doesn't work either, you can do the same procedure (unplug, disconnect battery) and leave it for 48 hours -- as described in the bricking thread. But if it comes to that, on a brand new machine like this, I would contact the store (or Samsung) for a replacement.

I really hope it works out...

 

Thank you for the tips, it seems the AB9+ does not have a hole on the bottom where you can reset the battery, or am i just missing it?

 

I looked on mine and I didn't see a hole. There may be a reset under the cover.

But first, is your B9+ posting? Can you get into the bios?

 

Yeah, that's surprising. I wonder if there is another battery disconnect mechanism. I'm afraid I am out of bullets here

 

Nope, pushing the power button does nothing, no LED is turning on. Kind of shortsighted that Samsung builds a machine with a non-removable battery and then doesn't offer a way to reset the battery.

 

Usually on machines without a reset hole, pressing and holding the power button for 15 seconds will initiate a battery disconnect. Unplug from AC before doing this. Then plug it back into the charger and press the power button (no need to hold it 15 seconds this time) to boot.

 

Hello, would you know what is upgradeable on this laptop? ssd hopefully?
Also, how is it in a bright room or even outdoors? I was deciding between this or the vaio pro 13 or yoga pro 2 which was pretty bad in sunlight from a review I saw. How is the fan noise? The one reason stopping me from going towards the vaio pro 13. And finally, would this be the best choice of what I mentioned?

 

aixnj , I cover those things in my written and video reviews on MobileTechReview.

On another note, I think I saw some folks wondering what ALS Tuning is. It's Ambient Light Sensor Tuning, so the manufacturer (in this case Samsung) can tweak ambient light adjustments to the display.

 

I'm not sure if this is the right place for this, but I got my AB9+ a few weeks ago. Recently, I have noticed that when the display times out and I wake the computer back up, the screen will flicker on and off for 5 or 6 seconds. It does not happen every time, but I just want to make sure the unit is not defective.

I have the latest Intel graphics drivers installed, as well as all the other available updates, but I wanted to see if this is a known issue.

 

I mean no offense by this, but a lot of posts in this very thread discuss the topic you are asking about.

 

Hello Johnny, welcome to NBR.

As leftbrain mentioned, there has been quite a bit of discussion about screen flicker already. If you look back just over the last day or two, member lagos posted what may be a possible fix. You should be able to find it easy enough. We need a few more confirmations, and over a few days, but it sounds promising.

 

I'm really bothered by the 4gb ram limit. My uses in no specific order. Netflix, youtube, browsing, watching streams, coding with visual studio and other ide's, connecting to work through a vpn and using remote desktop which I have a few telnet sessions at work which probably wont affect the laptops ram. I may also want to run virutal box to install linux. I'm not really a gamer but like watching stream media. With all this being said do you guys think I would be ok or should I wait for a 8gb ram version? This is the only thing holding me back. I'm not too crazy about the touch screen but I know that samsung has the better responisve trackpads that work nicely with windows 8 gestures. For example past week I've been playing with a few laptops in stores and the first gesture I try is the app switch where you swipe from the left edge of the trackpad onto the track pad to switch apps and almost all failed at this except the one samsung I played with. Can anyone confirm the trackpad recognizes all gestures including the 3 finger swipe left to go back in browser?

 

3 finger swipe left to go back in browser works well in IE and Chrome.

 

Do you have these applications running on your current computer? If so, you can use Task Manager to estimate what the memory usage is likely to be. You can run a lot in 4GB because, if necessary, the system will also use the virtual memory on the SSD. However, there is a performance penalty associated with this (but much less than if you had a HDD).

John

 

I tried this and pushed the button up to a minute, but nothing changed. I guess the motherboard is damaged. Anyways the machine is going back.

The SSD (which uses a M2.Sata format that is not yet widely available for customers) and the WIFI module are exchangeable. The brightness of the display is OK for indoor use, but i had to put the display on maximum brightness to completely stop any glare indoors (with adaptive brightness off). So i think all touchscreen laptops will be bad for usage in sunlight. (But that is also true for many but the brightest matte displays!)

 

I heard that the Book 9 (not plus) has a slow sd card reader. Can anyone comment on the speed on the AB9+, using a High Performance SDXC card?

 

I have a Sandisk 64GB class 10 micro SD card in a miniSD reader in my Ativ Book 9 Plus and read and write speeds are exactly the same as any other machine I use. The 32GB Sandisk regular SD card I have is a 45mb/s card and I get those speeds consistently. I have not tried a 90mb/s card.

 

Thanks, what about all other gestures like switcher

Its definitely in the 3gbs of ram usage area but thats a desktop. I guess I should just be ok.

Are you replacing or just returning? Not happy with this machine? If you turn off the adaptive brightness will this put more strain on battery life? I hope not. I'm most likely picking one up after work

 

So, I installed Windows 7 x64 on the Primary partition just to see how it would look and there don't seem to be any drivers up for it. Any way to get the media buttons, wifi, and other stuff working? Or should I just stick it out till Windows 8.1.... :/

 

Dear owners, does the battery-life last significantly longer if I lower the resolution to 1080P vs 1800P? IE, like for watching non-4K movies.

 

So I think I did find a solution, what I did was I downloaded the ALS Tunning Upgrade via the Samsung Software upgrade and I downloaded it to my desktop, then I open up a command prompt as admin and ran the bat file, and it was installed. I hope others might have some help from this also

 

No it won't help battery life. The panel is 3200 x 1800 pixels, regardless of whatever resolution you set windows to.

The main reason higher ppi displays consume more power is because their light output efficiency is lower. To achieve that 300 nit display brightness that we all want, the LCD backlighting must then be cranked up brighter than lower ppi displays.

 

I'm not sure if everyone saw this from the other thread, but I posted pics comparing, side-by-side, the AB9, the AB9+, and the MacBook Air -> http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...-book-9-plus-haswell-new-125.html#post9375297

To note a few things, I agree with the sentiments regarding how great a machine the AB9 is - it really is nearly perfect. The keyboard is so nice, almost as good as any Thinkpad. The form-factor is amazing - it is so light it makes the Air feel bulky (just due to the weight distribution of the Air, mostly). And the hinge is so well-designed that it allows opening of the lid with one thumb while the machine is laying flat on most surfaces without sliding - that's truly a well-engineered aspect. I am a long-time Thninkpad user and a big proponent of matte displays and the AB9 has one of the best, as well.

There are a few drawbacks of the AB9 that I experienced, though: The screen was difficult for me to keep clean, as oil from the keys would transfer to the screen while closed and leave key-shaped marks. Since the AB9+ has a glass display, it's easy to clean and I don't get oil marks from the keys, anyway - perhaps because the keyboard is much shallower an the glass display allows for less flex. I also somehow experienced a tiny, but deep, scratch on my AB9 display without any recollection of any impact besides my fingers. It made me have concern over the durability of that screen as I have never scratched any of my laptop screens over the last decade, much of that time spent traveling in the semiconductor sales field. Also, while the AB9 keyboard is better than the AB9+ because of the increased travel, the light leakage through the front of the keys from the keyboard backlight at a normal viewing angle is really bad - actually making it look really cheap-looking, unfortunately. Another problem I had with the AB9 is very poor WiFi performance - it was almost unusable with the factory Samsung drivers, but even with updated Intel drivers, I had connectivity problems. I am sure others have dealt with this better that I was able to, but it was a problem I noticed that I never had with the AB9+.

The drawbacks for me of the AB9+ are that the heaver lid owing to the touchscreen panel and the hinge redesign for 180 degree opening makes one finger opening almost impossible, without at least lifting nearly the whole front of the machine off the table and experiencing it smacking back down. It's a minor usability issue, but one that I appreciated so much with the AB9+. The placement of the touchpad on the AB9+ is also a poor design choice, as it is would be much better lined up with the spacebar, as it was on the AB9. The bluer color of the AB9+ case also is not as nice as the almost black AB9, but it's hard to even tell without side-by-side comparison.

For the record I was comparing an AB9 I picked up on sale at $999 vs an AB9+ I bought at $1225, and I factored in that price differential when making my decision. What won me over was the better battery life and seemingly better performance of even the i5 AB9+ over the i7 AB9, and while I prefer a matte screen, the glossy AB9+ panel is so good and the AB9 matte panel would not stay clean for me. The AB9 key light leakage also really bothered me, fwiw. And note the colors and cispness of the displays in those pics side-by-side. The AB9 display is fantastic as I've said, but the AB9+ is better in every way, save the glare you might experience especially outside in sunlight. But it won over even this longtime matte fanatic. Ideally, I wanted to keep both - the AB9 for its perfect usability, and the AB9+ for touchscreen and better features and performance.

One thing to consider with regrds the AB9+ is that my Mac-owner friends now demand that I pull up videos and music on my AB9+ because the audio and video quality is so much better than on their higher-priced machines.

 

FYI, the AB9+ User Manual for W8.1 is available online...

Direct link to English version: http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/content/UM/201309/20130911090423147/Win8.1_Manual_ENG.pdf

Downloads page: Support - Laptops NP940X3GI | Samsung PCs

 

Well, now one day after I see that the Samsung Sw still nags that I should install it, which I already did manually, and when I try to install it I still get fail -10.. Anyone with some suggestions?

 

I think this has helped in my case as well. I have had a couple of single flickers when waking the machine since turning off panel self refresh, but it does not continue like before. Good find!

 

Have you tried to save the ALS setup file through the Samsung SW Updater utility and running it directly? To do this, launch the Samsung SW Updater, select Save Setup Files, check the ALS Tuning Driver and save it to a location of your choosing. Then run it directly.

 

If you read my earlier post this is what I just did and I ran as admin and the installation worked fine, but still the updater thinks its not installed..

 

Looking for some help here: I've been trying to connect my B9+ with a micro hdmi to hdmi cable to my TV (for a movie) and it doesn't seem to connect. My laptop screen will flash a couple of times and make the windows sound that it connects with something but then I can't get my image to duplicate to the screen. I've tried all the different ports on my tv and none of them work but they do work for everything else. I have a feeling its a setting in the display but I don't know what to mess with to get it working. Can anyone help me with this?

 

What happens when you press Fn-F4? Is your internal LCD set to scale?

I would think you can use both Duplicate mode (forcing both screens to the lowest resolution, which I presume is the TV) and Extend (which will create two display spaces, using the full resolution of each monitor).

Check kitejumping's tests here for reassurance that it should work.

 

This worked for me as well! Thanks!

 

Hello,
I got myself an AB9+ today and everything seems to work fine except the battery percentage/remaining hours. I'm not sure if it's meant to be like this or not (I'm coming from a very old laptop).
The battery percentage/remaining fluctuates quite often - for example, I've set my screen brightness to 60% and watching a video online, then the battery will display something like 86%/2hours 15 mins remaining; however, soon after if I check it again it will go something like 85%/4 hours remaining.
Is this a normal behaviour? or do I have a defective battery or something.
Overall, I find that with wifi turned on and watching videos on the web, the battery will last about 5-6 hrs. Does this seem about right to you?

if this is not normal, is there a way to reset the battery or something?
Thanks for your help!

 

The predicted run time is updated each time the battery charge drops 1% so variations in what is happening in the background can cause significant changes in the predicted time remaining.

If you install BatteryBar then you can easily check the remaining charge level and the battery drain rate. If you make a note of these values and the clock time at, say, 15 minute intervals then you can plot a graph of the battery drain. It should be approximately straight.

The 5 to 6 hours sounds reasonable. If you drop the brightness then you should be able to add another hour or two.

John