Looking to buy a Samsung Series 9 NP900X3E- help needed

Hi,


Im looking to buy a Samsung Series 9 NP900X3E, however im totally confused by all the various models there are for this particular laptop

I was looking through the Series 9 laptops, which i have my heart set on buying- but when looking through i saw various ones like 900x3c or d etc. Then when finding the 900x3E model then i found things such as the 'A01' or 'A03' models. So as you may tell im totally confused on them.

Basically what im looking for is a core i7 with a 256GB SSD and ive read that the RAM is soldered into the machine, but ive also read that a new version of the series 9 is/has been released that allows you to upgrade the RAM.


So if anyone could help in assisting me with the following questions it would be much appreciated; Which model is the latest one? Which model best suits my needs? which is the best one? and finally if theres a new version of this model coming out anytime soon (in which case i may aswell wait for that)?


If anyone could help i would appreciate it so much! thank you:hi2:

 

The X3E is the latest version with the FHD screen. The A x after that denotes the sub-model. The RAM is soldered on and is 4Gb. No upgradability.

Dunno about which market you're in, but I believe it's the A01 for an i7 with a 256Gb SSD.

 

Hello,

I have quite studied and I have just made a purchase so I can perhaps provide a few details.

First, the naming of Samsung is super confusing. Here is what I have found. In USA, NP900X3E-A02US=128GB, NP900X3E-A03US=256GB and there is no trace of 512GB. While in UK, NP900X3E-A01UK=256GB, NP900X3E-A03UK=512GB and there is no trace of 128GB. All are 4GB RAM. As of end of April 2013, only NP900X3E-A02US is available at Amazon or J&R. I have bought it at J&R and I have just received it. My take is that native 256GB should be available soon. I'm more skeptical about 512GB. It will be very expensive and it's not referenced anywhere in US. I have asked Samsung support and they said that it won't be available in 512GB but the support guy was kind of flaky.

A few remarks:
- I have just opened the box of NP900X3E-A02US. Beautiful design. Super light. Perhaps, only touchscreen is missing. I know that it's not a tablet but still would be good to have it.

- I don't like Windows 8 but I respect. In Windows, the disk is noted as capacity ~ 98GB (because of recovery) and there is only 60GB left... In any case, I will install Ubuntu. Ubuntu 12.04.2 USB key chain boots after removing the "secure boot" in the bios. So Linux is working.

- I have also opened the back of the computer. Pretty easy. You don't have to remove the rubbers which I was fearing - I didn't want to scratch anything. Still have the protection paper ;-) Anyway, there are just 8 screws to remove. I have found the mSSD on the left. I didn't remove it but it's definitely removable. I will replace the 128GB by a much bigger capacity and use the 128GB on my old laptop. On Google, you have a few options at $500 for a mSSD >> 400GB. And price of NP900X3E-A03US - NP900X3E-A02US = $500 !!!! Ridiculous. Samsung is doing like Apple, overpricing storage. Much better to buy the smallest capacity and upgrade yourself the mSSD. It's just screws...

- I have NOT found the RAM on the motherboard, it might be on the other side... I didn't look a lot. I didn't want to damage anything. But in the bios there are two lines: slot 1 - 4GB, slot 2 - empty, so I doubt very much that RAM is soldered. I might upgrade later.

Here are all the links during my pre-purchase study:
Samsung NP900X3E Series 9 13.3-inch Full HD 256GB SSD LED Notebook - OVERVIEW
Samsung 900X3E 13.3-inch Laptop (Black) - (Intel Core i7 3517U 1.9GHz Processor, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD, LAN, WLAN, BT, Webcam, Integrated Graphics, Windows 8): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Samsung NP900X3E Series 9 13.3-inch Full HD 512GB SSD LED Notebook - OVERVIEW
Samsung 900X3E 13.3-inch Laptop (Black) - (Intel Core i7 3517U 1.9GHz Processor, 4GB RAM, 512GB SSD, LAN, WLAN, BT, Webcam, Integrated Graphics, Windows 8): Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories

Series 9 13.3
Amazon.com: Samsung Series 9 NP900X3E-A02US 13.3-Inch Full HD 1080p Premium Ultrabook: Computers & Accessories
Samsung NP900X3E-A02 Series 9 13.3" Ultrabook in PC Ultrabooks | JR.com (where I bought mine)

Samsung Series 9 Notebook (NP900X3E) | Samsung Notebooks

 

The RAM chips are soldered. They are under the chrome protective cover where the thermals meet up.

How do you like the screen?

 

Pretty good screen. 1080p obviously: it was my main purchase criteria. The intel Ubuntu driver seems a little bit buggy - there are some lines that are not refreshed but it was a very old USB key chain. I will investigate once I have reinstalled with an up-to-date Linux version.

Are you sure for the RAM? I'm a little bit surprised then by the BIOS settings, i.e. the reference to the 2 "slots". But for sure, I didn't see any slot on the top side of the motherboard. Anyway, 4GB is completely fine unless perhaps if you are doing multiple vmware. But certainly 128GB is a no-go for me!

 

The version numbers are country-specific codes to represent different specifications ordered from the factory. For the X3 series the variables are SSD size and Windows version.

There's some more info on the X3E here (and nearby posts). That UK X3E had a single channel RAM module instead of the dual channel DDP module used in the X3B/C/D. We don't know if it is a temporary change in parts or affects all X3E models.

If you want more RAM look at the slightly fatter NP730U3E / NP740U3E which have one or two SODIMM slots (depending on dedicated graphics / integrated graphics).

John

 

Thanks for all the replies, all the responses have been a huge help :thumbsup:


Looking at it, the NP900X3E-A01UK model seems to impress me the most as i only really need a 256GB SSD.

1 thing i would like to ask though is, ive read about something called 'Haswell' coming to these series 9 laptops. I was just wondering if this model (the NP900X3E-A01UK) has that? Or if the series 9 laptops with Haswell havent come to the market yet.

From what ive read these haswell chips make a big improvement in the laptops so if they are out already, or if they come out soon id rather get those. Any sort of clarification on this would be very much appreciated

thanks

 

Intel Haswell chips have not shipped in ANY notebook that I am aware of. Rumors that Apple will be the first out the door with some in June. But that is a rumor.

I estimate most Haswell notebooks won't be in the channels until Q3. Late Q3. That is my prediction.

 

They may arrive sooner if the info in this thread is correct.

It all depends on (i) how much inventory of current notebooks and CPUs needs to be cleared and (ii) how well Intel has managed to ramp up the new process.

Samsung seem to be limiting supplies of the X3E in the UK so maybe (i) will not be a constraint. Also, expect Haswell to carry a price premium to begin with unless shipped with low-end CPUs (as has been done with the UK X3C and X3D models).

John

 

Hi,

I bought the same laptop, np900x3e, 512GB. Pretty nice machine. I installed linux on it too. I was wondering what this bug is you talk about, because I have something similar on mine and was wondering if it was a hardware or software problem.

I'm seeing horizontal lines that sometimes appear here and there under X. They seem to appear through the whole screen, on lines that have a sharp contrast. (like border of windows, lines with an edit box with a sharp dark border... This doesn't happen under Windows 8. But if the lines are on the screen during a long time, there seem to be some remanescence when rebooting under Windows.

The problem disappears when booting with the nomodeset kernel option, which seems to disable the intel driver and boots with the fbdev driver.

Happend with debian and a boot disk of the last beta of ubuntu. I'd be interested to know if anyone had the same issue and if you found a solution.

Other than that, it's a really neat machine.

Thanks

 

@nabajour https://01.org/linuxgraphics/node/84

@nabajour Another point: the two-finger scrolling touchpad is not working on Linux. The Elantech PS/2 touchpad doesn't seem to work with Synaptics. Have you managed to finer scroll on Linux? I haven't tried on Windows...

Regarding the touchpad: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1166442?comments=all

That doesn't look good. Kind of things that takes MONTHS before getting the fix...

 

That looks exactly like my issue. I was wondering if I had a hardware bug, good to know I'm not the only one, at least... I'll follow on that thread too. Thanks gre

It does work under windows, doesn't under Linux. I haven't tried to configure that more for now, I won't put efforts into that before I get usable graphics...

 

In both cases (graphics, touchpad), it's kernel related I think.

 

@knabajour: So now that we have a fixed graphic driver, did you make any progress on the touchpad? https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+bug/1166442

 

Haven't made any progress on that. I'm learning to use keyboard shortcuts, now

I'll tell you when I get to that. Now, I'm looking what I can do to configure the keys, to control screen brightness, WiFi radio and turn into silent mode. Tell me, did you load the samsung_laptop module? With all the thread on the subject, I haven't determined if it's safe to use with UEFI or not!

 

And I'll answer myself:
mjg59 | Dealing with UEFI non-volatile memory quirks
Seems like it should be a good idea to wait a while to see if that fix is stable and makes it into the kernel...

 

The NP900X3F is already out you know. No Idea what architectural differences there are as they both use 3rd gen i processors.

Amazon.com: Samsung ATIV Book 9 NP900X3F-K01US 13.3-Inch Full HD Premium Ultrabook (Ash Black): Computers & Accessories