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

hi all.
Samsung AB9+ is finally released in Turkey. but there is only NP940X3G-K01 model. so shall i wait till i7 releases or just buy i5 model.
K01 price is 1502$ in Turkey. i think there is a price cut so it is not expensive according to EU price lists.
but with my lenovo u300s the worst thing was storage capacity. i had first bought a zenbook the toppest version but because of its common errors i was returned it to store and after weeks decided u300s. when i did get it backlit keyboards were released with new models
it is working well. but my dad took it. i will give it him as a gift and will buy myself AB9+ and realy want i7 version.

what was the thing made me wait AB9+ was long battery life announcement.
it was said that 12hrs
now its written on articles as 11 hrs and it is very nice.
backlit keyboard
weight, screen resolution, haswell processor and 4400+ gpu is what i was expecting. as i will use it for my business works, i will also play games and watch movies during my flights or bus traveling.
it is also thin like others.
At first years of samsung notebooks i did not trust its quality. but after started to use and advise other friends to buy samsung mobile devices, i decided to give a chance with an ultrabook that i dreamed. BTW i did not earn much the price of AB9+ is my three months salary nearly.


Overall what is your reviews about AB9+ pros and cons?

 

Do you guys think the 4gb ram is too low? The price isn't bad especially compared with the Zenbook Infinity, but Asus might have my money for their i5 model since it does have 8gb of ram. I like the gorilla glass, but that's totally subjective..

Also, is the fan always on? Or does it turn off when nothing intensive is running?

 

I have been using this ultrabook for about a month now, and I don't think the ram is an issue. You have to remember that this is not like the older laptops with physical drives struggling to swap in and out of ram to manage resources. You have a fast SSD that can do this at the blink of an eye ( if it can manage to load the entire OS into ram in 5sec from a cold boot, it can swap over a few megabytes). I'm an engineering student and run tons of web sites, excel spread sheets, autocad, matlab, etc... and this computer has no issues doing that. So as long as you are not trying to run Crysis on this thing, youll be fine.

The only limitation I see is in the 128gig ssd, since about half of it is taken up by the OS and recovery.

The fans stay off 90% of the time and the laptop runs on passive cooling. Battery life is fantastic and last me all day with everything I need to do.

 

Is anyone experiencing battery life issues since upgrading to WIndows 8.1 Pro Preview? I downloaded all of the applicable Samsung drivers and settings applications, have every Windows and Samsung setting set to maximum power saving and have "Eco Mode" on.

After a full charge, I unplug and the quoted battery life remaining at 100% is 2 hours 54 minutes. Any ideas on how to fix this?

 

You can tell I haven't been here in a while...Going to leave my sig so people can have a laugh.

 

Maybe try running the battery calibration program in the bios?

 

Is $400 more worth it for 8gb of ram and 256gb SSD?

Amazon.com: ASUS Zenbook UX301LA-DH51T 13.3-Inch Touchscreen Laptop (Blue): Computers & Accessories

 

I wonder whether some process is broken and is continuously loading the CPU. Look at the CPU utilization in the Processes list in Task Manager. 25% utilization means something is running continuously. also look at Task Manager's Performance tab. On light usage the total CPU utilization should be less than 5% (with the occasional spike).

Also install BatteryBar which will show up the battery drain rate. 3 hours run time means 15 to 20W power drain. Is that what Battery Bar shows (it uses mW so that's 15,000 to 20,000mW). Note that the read-out is only updated when the battery charge drops one per cent.

If the CPU utilization and power drain are low then we need to check the battery's health. Run HWiNFO and look at the battery wear in the power properties.

I would refrain from doing that unless there is significant battery wear.

John

 

Now with 8.1 released, how do you guys feel about it?

I dislike the big mouse cursor, but being able to go 4k is pretty nice.

 

I just upgraded from 8 to 8.1 and it seems to have messed up some of my settings specifically SW update. When I click on it now it tells me to save setup files but i'm pretty sure I already have all of them updated before the upgrade. I just want to get past that screen so that when I click on the SW update it shows me what I need to upgrade (the usual screen) but it won't allow me to do it without downloading everything. Is there anyway to set it up like how it was before 8.1?

More problems:
1) My mouse settings (not reversed scrolling, etc.) will not save upon restarting my computer. I have to change the settings back each time I start up my laptop. Does this happen to anyone else?

2) Does anyone have a problem of not being able to move icons on the desktop? Anytime I drag something I get a circle with a line across it saying I can't move it. I do have fences installed but it never caused a problem until the upgrade.

 

Wow. In my experience now during the last 30min, the scaling is worse than before. Everything looks whack. Disappointed...

 

1) happens to me as well.

 

Does anyone know a fix for this issue? It's extremely irritating.

 

On the subject on Win 8.1, please see the sticky thread we just posted about it.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...pgrade-until-samsung-has-updated-drivers.html

Even though there is likely to be some issues unique to individual models (particularly a brand new one like the AB9+) the basic incompatibilities between Win 8.1 and existing Samsung drivers, Settings and SW Update are common to all Samsung models. We're trying to gather experiences and updates about that instead of having it mushroom across all the individual threads (as is currently happening).

 

This affects all of the latest Sammy notebooks. I would restore to factory defaults and wait for samsung to issue updates. This is unacceptable though.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk

 

SWUpdate indeed doesn't work properly: you have to enter your complete model number manually and select updates to download to the folder of your choice (it won't install them for you, you have to do that). I had no problem with the existing drivers installed on my 9 Plus except Bluetooth (I used SWUpdate to download BT driver and that did the trick). Brightness, Fn keys all work. I did make sure I'd downloaded all driver updates using SWUpdate before installing the Windows 8.1 update.

 

have any of you AB9+ owners experienced/noticed accurate color rendering issues on your panel?

there's a big discussion going on in the Yoga 2 Pro thread between new owners of that machine who are having noticeable problems displaying the color yellow, as well as other colors to a lesser effect. the faulty yellows are quite striking and pretty incredible for such a highly touted display.

the Yoga 2 Pro QHD+ panel is the same Samsung panel as used in the AB9+, hence the question here.

 

Why do you say they use the same display? From what I have seen, Yoga uses Sharp's IGZO and 9B+ uses Samsung's PLS.

 

Various Yoga 2 Pro owners have posted that it's this display: SDC (samsung display corporation) 424A

http://forum.notebookreview.com/ide...yoga-2-pro-release-thread-36.html#post9410227

 

Has anyone managed to get chrome to scale correctly? If so, how? For me, the ui elements are extremely small.

 

I have heard there were some changes to both licensing and installation, with Win 8.1.

I would like to install a separately bought win 8.1 Pro CD (full version), instead of the pre-installed version, on my future AB9+ (because I want the rights to transfer the installation, in case I can make use of these rightss in the future).

-> does anyone know if this will work?
-> case 1: AB9+ has 8.1 pro pre-installed (will it then use the motherboard key without asking for a my separately bought key?)
case 2: AB9+ has 8.1 basic pre-installed (will it accept pro and not force me to buy a pro pack?)

Or will this not work? I'd prefer not to have to do tricks to make the installation work, like changing text in configuration files etc.

Thank you!

 

I'm still downloading win 8.1, but I noticed something about sw update. The installed version on my machine was 2.1.17 and the app claimed it was up to date. Then I checked their website and noticed version 2.1.19 was on their site. Maybe it fixes the 8.1 issues?

Windows 8 Upgrade | SUPPORT | SAMSUNG UK

 

oddly chrome doesn't support "retina" type of displays yet.
Firefox and IE do.

I actually ended up using IE on this laptop because of how much faster and smoother it is than both chrome and firefox (never thought id say that in my life).

 

I use Chrome on both the AB9+ and the Y2P. What I did was click on Customize and Control Google Chrome (3 lines in upper right corner) then click on Relaunch Chrome in Desktop Mode (4th option down). The UI is then scaled nicely but in Win 8 on the AB9+ I do still have problems with each page going back to 100% so I often have to zoom on pages individually. Because I have Chrome on all of my laptops, it automatically defaults to desktop mode when I log in and I had to do nothing to the Y2P when I got it home yesterday to make the UI readable in Chrome. On the Y2P in Win 8.1 Chrome text is larger and I don't have to zoom on individual pages.



This is what works for me, hope it works for you too.

 

For those working on Win 8.1, check the the new sticky thread I mentioned a few posts ago. Also check pdagal's post immediately after.

 

I installed W8.1 with very few problems. I did have to reinstall Chrome as it stopped resolving link addresses for some strange reason. I could do a Google Search and it returned results, but clicking on a link would take me to an "Oh, Snap!" page, as would entering a link in the address bar.

Now my problem is that I had pinch-zoom working in Chrome previously, but I cannot get it back. I think I made it work by installing Chrome Beta and then installing Chrome Canary, enabling pinch-zoom through Canary, and then it worked with both Beta and Canary. Anyone else have any success stories with this in mind?

 

It would appear that AB9+ owners have a much smoother ride with Win 8.1 than most other model owners (some of which have almost brick-like issues). Of course it shouldn't be a surprise, given 8.1 was already in test when the AB9+ was released, and it is most likely prepared for 8.1.

 

Hi guys, I have the 2012 13" series 9. (Ivy bridge).

Is it worth the upgrade to this Actiive book?

I was thinking about waiting another year for the next spec upgrade. Perfectly happy with my current one apart from the 4gb ram which is not too bad but would like more.

 

I'm going to repost my experience here incase someone didn't see it in the 8.1 sticky. Right now 8.1 is running perfectly for me with no issues after applying these fixes.

 

Ask yourself these questions:

- Do you want a display with a much higher resolution?
- Do you want a touchscreen?
-Do you want a heavier notebook (although the battery does run a bit longer)?

John

 

I don't want touch screen and I prefer matte screen over gloss anytime of the day. I don't like glossy displays.

I'm perfectly happy with the current matte display.

As for the battery, I'm not too concerned as this is pretty much my desktop replacement so 75% of the time it is plugged in. But longer battery would be nice.

 

Then I think you have answered your own question. Look for a previous model at a good price.

John

 

Originally when the suits at Samsung announced the AB9+ they were blabbing about 12 hour battery life.. just like the just then released mac book air 13" haswell. I knew that was too good to be true, something running with a high resolution screen and a less efficient windows OS. Then slowly Samsung started to adjust those specs. At first 11 hours. Then I think they said around 9 hours. The reality now is you won't get much more then 8 hours. Its still a significant increase but after all the whoop la we are looking at around 25 percent increase in battery life over the previous generation and that is with a larger size battery so one has to wonder how much haswell contributes to battery life. IMO, the gains for haswell on the B9+ are more in the graphics department but I bet in everyday use, I won't see much difference in the i5 AB9 plus over my previous ivy i7 2.0. So IMO, if you enjoy the lighter form factor of the AB9 with matte, I don't consider the battery gains enough to overcome the cons of the scaling issues, glossy screen, and heavier form factor, in particular the heavier lid. The older generation has such a light lid that the whole package is incredibly balanced to carry and hold.

Like many on this forum, simply putting a haswell into the previous FHD matte AB9 would be a very welcome addition. One that most likely will never generate. Again last night at best buy I looked at the AB7 ultra right next to a AB9 matte and its day and night difference. The gloss just looks like crap when compared side to side. Grant you I assume the AB9 plus gloss may not be as bad as the AB7 ultra but nevertheless, gloss is gloss. People should not have to make these compromises when choosing a Book 9 system. Samsung really needs to add a matte option to the newer model and be done with it.

 

Thanks for this info, but I have one question...

When you say "SW Update will now work," does it work perfectly, as in identifying the model # as it did running in Win8? It does not work for me in that sense.

 

My 9 Plus just got a SW Update pushed by Samsung (via the old SW Update). I'm in the US. It returns SW Update to normal functionality.

 

Yes, after right clicking and choosing the compatibility mode, it identifies the laptop correctly on my machine running 8.1.

 

My friend has the older Matt screen version and I have the new AB9 Plus. We compared both side by side during the day time with indoor overhead lighting. My AB9 Plus blew his out of the water. Yes its a glossy screen, but the clarity and brightness of the display were far better than his matte version.

 

Re: Display comparison between AB9 (X3F) and AB9+ (X3G):

The AB9 matte display is very, very good and much better in bright sunlight or next to a window. But I agree that the AB9+ display is overall much better than the AB9 in clarity, color, and contrast - combined with the higher pixel density, I can tolerate the occasional glare issues. Here's a photo I took of the two displays side-by-side:

http://s920.photobucket.com/user/le...30917_102240_zps24e4c427.jpg.html?sort=9&o=14

 

I did not have that same level of success. I have SW Update version 2.1.19.0 installed and it allowed me to update the LAN driver. But it does not recognize the machine model number.

I had no problems with touchpad drivers or erratic behavior, however.

 

does anyone have problems with their AB9plus trackpad glitching? it usually works perfectly fine but there are couple of times where the trackpad just glitches out.
It's not unresponsive but the mouse will be jumpy and clicking will not work. The problem can be fixed by restarting the laptop but I dont want to be doing that every time this problem occurs.

 

I'll note it here and in the Windows 8.1 thread: I've just used SW Update to check for new drivers and there seems to be a full set for Windows Blue for the NP940X3G-K06DE (ie Germany).

That model is evidently a new one as the only Windows option is Blue and a quick comparison of version numbers shows that many have higher numbers.

So maybe these will get the NP940X3G working better with Windows 8.1. I would presume that the -K06DE has just been put into production.

John

 

Have a question. When I upgraded to 8.1, it prompted me to sign in to my Microsoft exchange account. I signed in, and now my login account for the computer is my exchange account. Not exactly sure how that happened. Is there anyway to change it back? I did not want to enter my full password every time the laptop falls asleep.

One other thing, my laptop is not remembering my touchpad settings. I saw the fix earlier in the thread about exporting the driver from SW-Update, but not sure how to do that. I see a lot of other drivers to export, but can't find the touchpad one. I upgraded SW-Update prior to installing 8.1.

Thanks for any help.

 

First - here is a good explanation of instructions for setting up a local account for Windows 8.1, rather than using the default MS account. How to setup local account in Windows 8.1

Second, when you run SW Update, you should see a button "Save Setup Files", then a list of drivers, one being "Touchpad Driver". Select just that one (if all are selected, it will take a long time), then run it from Windows Explorer to reinstall it.

I hope that helps.

 

Thank you for your help. The first worked perfectly. The second, I only see 4 options for saving setup files, and touchpad driver is not one of them. Not sure what that means.

 

Can you specify what 4 options you see there? Can you do an "Update" successfully through SW Update? Also, how many tiles do you have under "All Software" in SW Update?

 

In SW Update use Find Model > Germany > Series 9 > NP940X3G-K06DE > Windows Blue and then select all the new drivers / software that you want and Export them.

John

 

I'm more concerned about the fact that jk1982's SW Update is not listing drivers it should see as installed and I speculate that could easily be fixed by reinstalling SW Update.

Also worth noting is that the German K06DE model lists SW Update v2.1.17.10 for Win 8.1 "Blue" while the K01US lists SW Update v2.1.19.0 for 8.1 "Blue" and v2.1.17.10 for Win 8. That said, I was just prompted to download and install SW Update v2.1.20.0

More importantly, the "updated" 8.1 touchpad driver for the German K06DE actually strips out 3-finger and 4-finger settings that the Win8 K01US driver has - so I don't necessarily recommend installing all the drivers for that new German model.

 

Now that I installed SW Update v2.1.20.0, I think I understand where you are - this new version only sees 4 driver setup files. I suggest rolling back to an older version of SW Update. In your current SW Update, select Find Model and since it won't find our model, select another button that says Find Model > United States > NP940X3G-K01US. Under Win 8, you can find SW Update v2.1.17.10, as well as all the other drivers. Under Windows Blue, you can find SW Update v2.1.19.0. Either has worked fine for me, other than not recognizing the model number. Once you save that SW Update installer, uninstall your current SW Update through Programs and then install the version you saved. You should have access to all of the drivers you need at that point. Installing SW Update v2.1.17.10 will prompt an update to v2.1.19.0, but again, I have not found a noticeable difference between these two.

I don't know why Samsung is putting us through such a driver/updater nightmare. I realize a major Windows release is a serious endeavor for PC manufacturers, but I never had craziness like this with my IBM/Lenovo machines. I can't say that Samsung is managing this well at all.
.

 

Thanks for pointing this out. Situation normal: Something gets fixed and something else gets broken.

We don't know whether 8.1 created some unusually challenging compatibility issues for Samsung or whether fixing 8.1 for the existing models is having to fight over resources for getting 8.1 working on the new models that we hope they will be announcing anytime soon. Perhaps Samsung thought what I thought: That 8.1 was some tweaks to the user interface when, in reality, it includes some more fundamental changes.

John

 

Now I am in a mess with my touchpad. After installing the K06DE touchpad driver (11.7.18.2) I lost 3-finger and 4-finger swipe settings in Touchpad Control. I rolled back to the K01US touchpad driver (11.7.15.3) and got the old Control interface back, but lost all multi-touch capability and advanced features on my touchpad regardless of settings. All I can do is point, click, drag, and so on - no 2-finger scroll, 3-finger swipe, edge swipe, pinch-zoom, etc. I uninstalled all touchpad drivers and reinstalled 11.7.15.3 with the same results - I cannot get it back to normal, so any advice is welcome.

I can install 11.7.18.2 and get the other controls back, but I am still sacrificing 3-finger and 4-finger unless I can use the super secret Elan ETDAniConf settings to enable those. This is very frustrating.

Proceed with caution if you are considering the drivers from the German K06DE machine! I also installed its updated Graphics driver with no noticeable problems, but this seemingly-irreversible Trackpad issue will keep me from tinkering with any of those other driver updates.