900x3E or ATIV book 9 plus , opinions please

HI,

I am an 900x3b windows 7 user for the last 1 year and love the machine, I was thinking of upgrading but cant decide between the 900x3e and Ativ book 9 plus. I have to make a blind purchase from US and a relative of mine (who is coming in a month) would bring it. As I cant experience or swap them so some input is needed from you friends for arriving at the right decision.

1. How much battery life improvement in "percentage" can I expect by upgrading from 900x3b to 900x3E, and or ativ book 9 plus?

2. How much is the improvement in user experience by upgrading to either ones from X3b?

3. Is it worth upgrading to windows 8 from a windows7 for future? and from x3b to any one of these models ? or should I just upgrade my ssd of x3b and wait for another year for significant improvements in specs and windows 8?

4. How good is the resolution jump from 1600 to 3200 , or is 1600 to FHD of x3e is good enough?

5. I love the matte screen on 900x3b, and I know FHD of x3e would be lovely, but cant disregard the plus's glossy one because of its touch and higher resolution, How negative is the thicker profile of the plus and its glossiness?

6. 128 ssd is not good enough, I am going for an additional 256 gb and would replace it here , kindly suggest a reliable cheap option available in usa at this time. I am not really pushed about bench marks but reliability must be considered.

7. Is touch interface of windows 8 combined with touch screen is really useful or gimmicky?

I frequently travel and use the machine for emails , browsing and some multimedia entertainment (No games),

Thanks

siki

 

The Book 9 Plus uses an M.2 SSD which is currently hard to find as a separate unit whereas there is good availability of the mSATA SSDs for the X3B. If your current SSD is the Sandisk U100 then you are likely to notice improved performance.

Personally, I have difficulty in seeing the benefit of the innumerable extra pixels of the Book 9 Plus display which will be used at arm's length.

What is the design capacity and current capacity of the battery in your X3B? If there is noticeable wear then you could also invest in the higher capacity X3C battery (44Whr as opposed to 39Whr) which will give you a little more run time. However, the 9+ will give you longer run time with potential to exceed 7 hours.

John

 

I have an X3B as well. I fail to see enough value in upgrading to the X3E/F. The screen may be better, but the X3B's is already very good as far as matte goes. It still doesn't have 8GB, which is available in the AB9+, though you may not need it. John is right to suggest replacing the battery on your X3B with the X3C's or newer, it seems the X3B batteries were often defective (I've had two lemons). You can check your wear using hwinfo. With the same battery, I expect run times would be no more than 10% different between the Sandy and Ivy chipsets and probably less.

The AB9+ will give you the latest and greatest (as defined by Intel/Samsung) but it comes at the cost of gloss and an extra 1/2 lb weight. I would only consider making those compromises for a more attractive price (on the i7/8GB model) as I think there is high markup on these high res touch screens ATM. Haswell plus it's larger battery will give you significantly longer run times though, particularly with multimedia. You might also want to see what shows up at CES, as it is baffling that Samsung only has a single haswell notebook.

I just purchased a no-frills 240GB msata for my X3B, will review in that thread when I get it installed: http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/672173-series-9-owners-third-party-msata-upgrades.html

 

People on the forum reported some battery flaws on the X3B - how is yours?
AB9p will give you a longer runtime than X3E as it has a bigger battery plus Haswell advanced powersaving. But you pay the price in form of size (in every dimension) and weight (20%!).

If you are happy why upgrade either? Windows 7 will get extended support until 2020 SSD upgrade sounds good though. Available upto 512GB.

You only benefit from 3200 if you work with the adequate high res content. Otherwise you might find things look to small and scale it back down.
Ask yourself if you want to have 4x the resolution you are currently working on.
FHD on 13.3" is awesome - I have it running at native resolution w/o any scaling overhaed.

To me an absolute no go.

Can't comment on 256GB models, but why not go directly to 480GB / 512GB? So far I'm happy running a 512GB Samsung PM841 Series

Gimmicky on a traditional clam shell notebook imho.

Your X3B will continue to do those tasks with ease

 

John , Thanks for a quick reply, My x3b battery has a design capacity of 40256 mWa, and is presently down to 37000 with an indicative wear of 8.1%, and ssd is not a sandisk unit but a Samsung MZMPC128hfbu-000.

At present , I am thinking of an x3e rather than 940, and , holding out with my x3b is a logical suggestion from you, but you know John, we Men, want to play with new toys sometimes

Oled !

I appreciate your detailed reply.

siki

 

If your eyes are young and have good reading vision then an X3E with the FHD panel would give you some extra display real estate along with a little more speed and battery time. If, however, you discover the default settings make the text too small and you apply 125% display scaling then the extra real estate (and a bit more) has gone.

If supplies of the X3E are reasonably good in your area then it might be prudent to sit on your money until CES (about a month away) when we can expect Samsung to reveal any new notebooks. This might include whether they are willing to ignore Intel's edict that Haswell Ultrabooks should have touchscreens (or maybe Samsung is now waiting for Broadwell?).

John

 

so, can I expect a 20% improvement on battery life with x3e? or would that be eaten by FHD and i7?


Is it going to be a resolution improvemen only, or is the screen of x3e better to look at than x3b? (eye candy)


would it be an upgrade from windows 7 to 8 or otherwise?
(I remember x3c's with windows 7 been selling for a price premium than the ones with windows 8 till the availability lasted)


siki

 

oled,

what do you mean by above? what I understand is x3e is in same chaises and has same weight and footprint of x3b, am I wrong?
off course x3g is thicker and weighs more.

siki

 

The i7 shouldn't hit the battery life unless you use maximum turbo speed. The higher resolution panel might take a bit more power. Did you check for any comments in the X3E / X3F thread (which may also comment on the display quality?

The X3E will come with Windows 8 (and is theoretically upgradable to 8.1). However, opinions vary about whether either of these represent an improvement on Windows 7.

John

 

Doh, it looks like I have to correct myself. I was referring to samsung.com/uk - see X3B vs X3E
Comparing now with other country sites it seems their info is wrong. Sorry

 

Almost everybody is ignoring it: ThinkPad X240, Vaio Pro, Toshiba Z30, Fujitsu U904
Maybe they are only allowed because at least a touchscreen version exists. Anyway dumbest idea ever intel...