NP900X3G - Successor to the ATIV Book 9 (not Lite or Plus) with Haswell

or even better..some videos?

 

In the review from notebookcheck is a picture of the backlight bleeding: http://www.notebookcheck.com/fileadmin/Notebooks/Samsung/ATIV_Book_9_900X3G-K01DE/Clouding.png

Note that the effect is exagerated on camera, but as a 900X3E owner i have the same backlight bleeding, it seems to be a feature of the display type and bezel combination.

 

Jeez. That is ridiculous. Looks like I might have to start looking at the AB9+, Zenbook 301/302 or Acer S7

 

On your 900X3E, under what conditions will you see such backlight bleed?.. Start-up screen only? Or on any type of all black content like movie letterbox viewing?

 

On my X3G is something like that, visible only during startup. After 2 months i can say i am very happy with this PC, excluding the super stupid position of the cooling system (on the bottom surface): you can use it only on hard surfaces, otherwise it will overheat soon

 

In day to day use it's only noticeable when watching movies with dark scenes at the lower side. It was annoying at first but i got used to it faster than i expected.

 

Are you saying the X3G overheats on soft surfaces like a pillow? If so, how is that possible if it's cooling on the bottom?

 

The air inlet vents are on the bottom and the fans blow the hot air out the back.

Putting the computer on a soft surface restricts the flow of air to the inlets so the notebook effectively suffocates (but under light usage it can probably survive). The airflow problem also exists to a lesser extent when used in laptop mode. Unfortunately, there's not many other options for inlet air vents. One possibility would be on the sloping edges of the base but this might result in structural weakness.

John

 

Exactly. Kind of annoying. I've noticed the macbook has a smart cooling system: air inlet vents are located in the upper edge of the keyboard, just below the screen when it's opened. It doesn't overheat on soft sourfaces and it doesn't not ruin design.

 

I'm wondering if this really is an issue since on X3E predecessor there is no overheating. It gets a little warmer which makes the fans spin faster - thats it. The fans still circulate air, even if it's mainly from inside the chassis. Here is how I tested:

 

The screen of the machine I kept has zero bleeding.
I highly suggest people to actually try the machine out instead of looking at pictures and judging by reviews which obviously got a lot of things wrong.

btw, BIOS update P04ADU is available.

 

so it is not by design but a quality control problem. i would advise everyone to swap the device so often until you have a good screen. this way samsung will learn how to quality control a "premium product".

 

Two questions:
1. Does the screen on the NP900X3G tilt all the way back 180 degrees like the Plus model? If not, how far back does it tilt?
2. Am very concerned about the screen bleed. This would be a deal breaker for me. Is it just the luck of the draw as to whether this will be an issue? I don't want to have to keep on returning a laptop due to screen bleed issues, so want to determine what is the likelihood of this being an issue?

 

The chassis appears to be identical to the previous Series / Book 9 so based on my NP900X3B the display will tilt back about 45° from the vertical at which point the bottom of the screen is resting on plastic cover for the hinge / WiFi antenna.

Notebookcheck have just published the English version of their review of this notebook and this photo shows the screen tilted back. It's a shame that the reviewer didn't make comparisons with the X3B/C/D/E.

I would note that the backlight bleed often looks worse on a photo than in actual usable, particularly of the photo is of a black boot screen. One way to make comparisons is to take a similar photograph of the display of whatever computer you are currently using.

John

 

151°, measured from the center of the axis.

My 900x3g has also display bleeding, but not as much as the test picture shows and it does not bother me.

If I press the display frame, the bleeding is more, it's the same effect as some televisions show if the frame screws are too fixed.

 

I've had a NP900x3g for about a week now, and the screen is the one disappointment. Otherwise, it's a great laptop (though expensive). It runs Ubuntu 14.04 very nicely, and I'm sure it will make a good development laptop. But the screen....

I'm comparing the x3g screen with a 2 year old x3c. The big differences are brightness and color correctness. Here's a photo of the two laptops in a dark room:





The one on the right is the x3g, and as you can see the white is actually quite bluish. Also the screen is dimmer, even set to full brightness.

Also, there's another issue that's hard to see in the photo. Around the edges and especially the lower left and right corners, the x3g screen is dimmer and looks a bit smudgy. The x3c screen is very consistent.

Has anyone else seen these problems (the blue tint and the corner smudges)? I suppose it's possible that this is a defective screen.

I do see some display bleeding. There some glowing patches on the lower edge when a window with a black background (a terminal for example) is aligned to the bottom of the screen. But it's only noticeable in very low ambient light, which I don't care about.

 

Samsung's PLS panel used in the X3B / C / D was a very good product with a very bright (400 nit) backlight. However, it lost out to the trend to higher resolution panels (not something I necessarily agree with given that display scaling in Windows + applications is sometimes less than perfect).

Notebookcheck commented on the display including the uneven backlighting. However, they found the brightness to be around 350 nit which should be plenty. Your relatively dim display on the X3G may be the result of the ambient light sensor at work. Check in Settings (Fn+F1) if you can disable it although there are other ways.

Colour balance is a different issue and can be fixed in software. You can try tweaking the settings in the graphics control panel although the ideal method is to use a monitor calibrator such as the Datacolor Spyder.

John

 

I'd like to intall Ubuntu linux as well: how is battery consumption? Drivers Avaiability? I don't agree with criticisms on the screen: there's just a bit of bleeding on start up, but colors and visibility are very good. Avaiable brightness is more then you will probabily need, especially considering the matt screen.

 

It's really a shame that this NP900X3G is coming in with problems. I would trade my 9+ because of the problems with my Touchpad.

 

Driver availability seems fine, almost everything works out of the box. I've only had the laptop for a week and installation of Ubuntu 14.04 was a piece of cake - I was expecting a problem to pop up but nothing did. Currently dual booting with the pre-installed Windows 8 installation; Ubuntu installed in UEFI mode and grub allows me to select the OS to boot as per usual (I'd heard that it wouldn't). The installer didn't detect Windows and wanted to install over the top but I simply told it to create the primary ext4 partition in the unallocated space I'd cleared out and it all sorted itself out.

Suspend/Resume on lid close/open seems to work, where it apparently didn't in earlier Ubuntu revisions (It has failed once - not sure if that will become a regular occurrence yet).

Only things not working out the box appears to be the keyboard backlight, power/fan, and wifi function keys. Not done anything about these yet but you can control the CPU performance mode by sending a command to the device and with a bit of fiddling I think the buttons are fixable.

Battery performance in Linux seems comparable to Windows although I don't have any numbers. Using powertop you can see what wattage is drawn from the battery - disabling the ethernet port / bluetooth and various other bits and pieces seems to make a considerable difference.

All in all it seems a very decent laptop. It's my first Series 9 so I don't have any qualms over a change in build quality. The screen is very good - I almost bought the Dell XPS 13 but now glad I went with this matt screen.

Only quibbles so far are that the keys are a little rattly, and the touchpad doesn't quite respond correctly - Ubuntu seems pretty customisable in this respect so maybe tweaking it will help (for example palm detection not on by defaut)

 

Hello Shikyu, welcome to NBR. And thank you for sharing your experience with this dual-boot installation. Sounds like a good job.

I believe other Linux users here have Fn-keys and Samsung power management working, using a Samsung driver. If you search for relevant posts from member oled, there may be some useful info there.

 

Do you have wake from sleep/hibernation on lid open working in W8 as well?

 

I remember we discussed this some time ago in the Settings thread, and somehow my experiences with Samsung Fast Start (lid open wake-up) didn't apply to you. But as a general response, here is my experience, based on my older Series 7:

Different Settings versions vary in their implementation of Samsung Fast Start: Whereas Easy Settings (for Win7) allowed the user to enable/disable Fast Start depending on preference, Settings (for Win8) has it hard coded as enabled (in some versions) and disabled (in other versions).

I find that Settings versions 2.0.x have Fast Start enabled (ie the computer automatically wakes up from sleep when opening the lid). Newer Settings versions 2.1.x and 2.2.x and 2.3.x have Fast Start disabled (ie the power LED blinks slowly on sleep, and the computer only wakes up after pressing the power button).

Settings versions 2.0.x were not compatible with early Win8.1 releases. But after some of Microsoft's later updates to 8.1, I am able to use any Settings version I like in 8.1, including 2.0.0.55 (which so far has been my favorite, because it still supports Battery Life Extender and ExpressCache) or 2.3.0.17 (which I am currently testing).

Incidentally, I prefer keeping Fast Start disabled (the slowly blinking LED tells me that my computer is sleeping, not powered off) which is one reason to stick with the newer Settings versions. But for those wanting Fast Start enabled you can give 2.0.0.55 a try (available in SW Update under model NP880Z5E-X03CA). Or try version 2.0.0.72, which several members have reported, but which I haven't yet been able to find in SW Update.

 

This is a known Samsung Bug It'll be good to know if Samsung finally has fixed this on newer machines. This bug is at least true for all Ivy Bridge Series 9 models.
On Linux the bug gets triggered by suspending to RAM. It messes up the ACPI system, so various laptop functions like Fn-keys or battery state don't work anymore. This bug also occurs on Windows (see here and here) I don't know though how it gets triggered there.

If that bug occurs you have to disconnect the battery via the pin hole on the bottom to make ACPI work again properly.

While you might alter UDEV or Desktop Environment keymaps to get them running, I highly recommend triggerhappy hotkey daemon It has the advantage to work system wide (console, X, lock screen...) and is highly customizable, so you can let your keys do anything you wish by binding each key a to a command or script.



Btw, you said you have a Linux UEFI installation, is samsung_laptop kernel module loaded? Check

Code:

lsmod | grep samsung_laptop

This module provides access via SABI (Samsung BIOS Interface) which is mandatory to change silent mode, keyboard backlight, usb off charging, etc... W/o that module loaded you miss out basic functions. The lack of that driver could also be the reason why some of your Fn-keys aren't working.

Keep in mind though that earlier Samsung laptops have another even more serious UEFI bug, which causes the machine to brick when samsung_laptop gets loaded on an UEFI installation!

 

Right I remember. I could not get it working. You can confirm that Fast Start does work in W8.1 even though you prefer it disabled? When you say it's disabled in some versions, you mean the toggle is initially set to off, or doesn't appear at all? And no one has Fast Start from hibernation right? Sorry, I've taken this thread off topic.

 

Thank you for asking: Instead of relying on my (increasingly deteriorating) memory, I just now uninstalled Settings version 2.3.0.17 and re-installed version 2.0.0.55 (I still haven't been able to find 2.0.0.72, and SW Update is not offering it to me). And yes, confirmed: Samsung Fast Start now works for me with 2.0.0.55 and Win8.1: When I open the lid, it immediately resumes from sleep, regardless of how I put it to sleep (using the Sleep command or closing the lid).

And no, I have not seen any version of Settings provide a toggle to enable/disable Fast Start -- only in Easy Settings (which should not be installed on Win8.x). Version 2.0.0.55 has Fast Start enabled, while 2.3.0.17 (or any of the newer versions) has it disabled. Again, that's on my older Series 7; it could be different on other models.

I think it is OK you mention this topic here, since it is relevant for owners of this model (and any Samsung model). But now that we have brought it up and covered the basics, we should continue the discussion in the [Easy] Settings thread.

One last thing begs mention, though: After updating or re-installing Settings, always make sure to redo any power settings and Adaptive Brightness tweaks. In particular will the Wireless Adapter Settings be reset to Max Power Saving (on Battery) which can cause disconnects and weak WiFi performance on some WiFi adapters. I set this one to Low Power Saving (or even Max Performance) as described in the WiFi Remedies thread. With some Settings versions, Max Processor State will be reset to 50% (on Battery). And Adaptive Brightness will be re-enabled, preventing manual brightness adjustment and/or reducing the maximum brightness; disable it as described in the posts here and here. These tweaks must be done both in normal mode and Silent Mode, since Windows stores them independently for the Samsung Optimized and Power Saver profiles. These are classic gotchas, which is why I feel compelled to repeat them.

Edit: Oops, I forgot: No, I've never seen Fast Start (lid open wake-up) from hibernation, only from sleep. Maybe when using Intel Rapid Start, I don't know that.

And something else I forgot: After re-installing Settings, it sometimes takes two reboots (not just one) before it fully kicks in. When I tested Fast Start now, after re-installing 2.0.0.55, it didn't work at first, but after a second reboot it did.

 

I have been looking to get a UK model (NP900X3G-K01UK) of this laptop and nowhere seems to have it in stock and all the retailers claim it is never coming into stock. Does anyone know where in the UK I can get one of these now or if I should give up.

 

More Computers have had stock for the past few weeks. Did they run out?

John

 

Even German models (usually widely available) seem to be out of stock currently.

 

Seems like a supply and demand issue. They are all waiting for stock to come in from Samsung. I have placed an order with Insight who "Order on Request" and talked to them about it and they will keep me informed. I will post here if I find anything out. Obviously a popular laptop.

 

Hi fellas. I'm undecided between 2 ultrabooks.

Samsung NP940X3G-K01
Samsung NP900X3G-K02

The thing I like about 900X3G is, the matte screen and it's slightly lighter then 940X3G. But I mostly used glossy screens, I wonder if 900X3G's screen is worse then 940X3G? I mean 940X3G has better colors, more sharp lines? (1920x1080 res)

Also, I don't think I will use 3200x1800 res in a 13" ulrabook so 1920x1080 is perfect for me. Are you happy with this ultrabook? Do you thnk it's better then 940XG? Thanks.

This is my first post in forum btw (now reading provious pages, i'm at page-29 so far, lol)

Is it true 900X3G has light bleeding problems?

 

Hello Yngwie, welcome to NBR.

See my thoughts here comparing the NP940X3G and NP940X5J (15.6-inch AB9).

NP940X3G is the Ativ Book 9 Plus: super high-res, but glossy touch screen, adding a little more weight. I would NOT choose that unless you actually want that 3200x1800 screen (personally I would, but I am not you).

If you are going to run 1920x1080 anyway, AND you also prefer a matte display, AND you don't need touch, I think the NP900X3G-K02 sounds closer to your needs. It also has 8GB RAM vs 4GB on the NP940X3G-K01.

I don't own this model myself. There has been some mention of light bleed in this thread, but that is true of any laptop discussion thread I have ever seen. You can Google site:notebookreview.com/samsung NP900X3G light bleed to zoom in on posts about this -- or just use the Search Thread feature.

 

Thanks for the reply Dannemand. Do you know when 9 Plus NP940x was released and when NP900x was released? Np900x is released in 2014, correct? I mean it's not 9 Series Plus but still a new technology.
I can say I'm %90 decided about NP900x3g. the only thing makes me hmmmmm is the screen issue. I wish I could compare np900 and np940's screens. you know some matte screens have poor display, image looks soft, a little bit blurry. but don't know how is situation in NP900. You know samsung makes great screens maybe samsung's matte screen is good as glossy.

and one more question about chasis. NP900's chasis, body is same as NP940? Or NP940 is better quality?

 

NP940X3G was released August 2013 (IIRC) while NP900X3G was released early 2014. NP900X3G is predominantly a Haswell refresh of the highly regarded classic Series 9 / Ativ Book 9 (NP900X3A-NP900X3F models) while NP940X3G is a new design.

The AB9+ is a bit heaver and bulkier than the AB9. You can read more about it in the AB9+ Owners Lounge.

 

yesterday i got my fourth device and i had 4 dead pixels nest in the center of the screen and also the well known light bleeding. today it went back. never had to exchange a device this often.
now i`m cured with this model and maybe with samsung too. i will stick with my mid 2011 macbook air and will maybe wait for a new dell xps 13 with non glare display.

 

For people who are interested, mine arrived today. Ordered through insight UK. They got hold of one very quick considering all others in the UK said it was not available. I have no problem with dead pixels or light bleed. So far so good!!!

 

Will there be a Dell XPS 13 with matte screen? That would be the perfect laptop.

 

Great! How is the brightness? A previous poster (vjoel) reported the following:

"as you can see the white is actually quite bluish. Also the screen is dimmer, even set to full brightness".

 

Why don't you ask on the Dell forum? There won't be, but maybe the latitude ultrabook will suffice for your needs, still the X3G is arguably the best in its class. Dell does have displayport though (but only usb3 gigabit). It's clear Dell is fully committed to glossy touch screens for their consumer models. If you're looking for a matte touch screen, don't hold your breath, just get a screen filter for the XPS13/AB9+.

 

I have no other similar laptop to compare with but compared to my work laptop screen and my work monitors it seems that white is white.
There is also a colour control setup thing that I have not performed yet so will try that later.
The screen seems pretty bright to me. It has lots of different modes depending on the power saving mode.
By default it tries to dim based on an ambient sensor a bit like my galaxy phone.

However if you hit the brightness up button a couple if times it switches to a mode where it doesn't automatically scale.

So after going up to "full" brightness another couple of presses can unlock an even brighter screen.

 

Thanks for your prompt response. Perhaps the user who reported the brightness "issue" hadn't applied the couple of presses to go up to full brightness. User vjoel - can you please comment on this?

I can probably live with a little light bleeding, but it's really encouraging that you haven't experienced this. Display brightness is more important to me. The official figures in the notebookcheck review indicate a very bright screen.

I think I'm almost ready to make the purchase, perhaps in the next year or so.

 

All laptop vendors seem to have their unique quirks on which they insist, even when they confuse the majority of owners. Controlling brightness and understanding Silent Mode are the rites of passage for owners of Samsung laptops.

Traditionally on Samsung laptops, it has been all about defeating the Adaptive Brightness feature, which would seem to come back no matter how many times users disable it. As long as it is enabled, users are either unable to manually control screen brightness, or they find that the maximum brightness is restricted. Once Adaptive Brightness is thoroughly disabled, brightness can be raised significantly higher.

The problem is (or rather: was) that Adaptive Brightness sometimes had to be disabled in several different places in order to stay dead, as described here and here. AND it has to be disabled both in Normal mode and Silent Mode (more about those in a minute).

Fortunately, more recent version of Samsung Settings (the main control program for Samsung laptops) have improved on this, and provide exactly the feature described by member tomahhunt, where a few extra presses of the Increase Brightness button (Fn-F3) will break through the Adaptive Brightness limit. Some Settings versions will automatically apply enable/disable of Adaptive Brightness in all the necessary places -- while other versions don't have the control at all, and rely on Win8's Charms-Settings-Change PC Settings menu.

This may account for the different experiences of members tomahhunt and vjoel.

For owners of newer Samsung models, more recent versions of Samsung Settings are generally preferred. All Samsung software updates must be found with the SW Update utility (NOT on Samsung's website, which I guess is another rite of passage).

As for the other rite of passage I mentioned, Silent Mode, check this post

 

Thank you very much for your detailed and informative post.

 

I just bought this laptop. I am on the whole satisfied with the machine: the display has some bleeding, but I can notice it only at startup. Also, the pc seems very quiet. The only disappointment till now is the keyboard, although I will probably get used to it.

I have a specific, for some of you maybe silly question. On "This PC", section "Network Locations", I find "[PC]WIN-7CG6BV*****" (the asterisks are other letters/numbers). Can someone explain me what is this?

Anyway thank you very much: this thread really helped me to take a decision to buy!

 

It sounds like this is Windows' showing you its own media streaming server (DLNA). If it matches the computer's network name (look under Control Panel-System) then that's it. Or it could be another PC on your network running media streaming which this PC is detecting.

I believe Microsoft enables Media Streaming (again, DLNA server) by default on networks designated as Private Networks, but not on Public Networks (sensibly). In previous Windows versions you were able to easily change the Network between Home, Work and Public (in Control Panel-Network and Sharing). But as far as I can tell, Microsoft removed that functionality in Win8.x -- for reasons I could never understand.

You CAN however change Media Streaming options (and disable it) under Control Panel-Network and Sharing-Advanced sharing settings.

If that's not what you're seeing, I don't know what else it could be.

 

Hi everybody!
My machine was shipped with win 8.1 pro. As I am not so expert, i'd like to ask you something about a clean install (without all the useless apps) of the OS (again win 8.1).

First of all (and most important): is it advisable? Or do I risk to do something stupid?

Second: What about the warranty? I read somewhere in this thread that, in any case, I should create a backup of the original system with the original system. May one use simply Samsung recovery for this? Or do I need something more sophisticated and a mystery for me (like Factory Image backup)?

Third: Does "PC settings" > "Update and Recovery" > "Recovery" > "Remove everything and reinstall windows" give me a clean install? Or does it give me the same system with all junk as the original?

Forgive my imprecise language
Thank you in advance!

 

[/I]

I have done it already following the instructions of another user of this forum. If you look for my posts you will find everything u need!!

 

I couldn´t resist and bought the 900x3g a second time, this time with "only" 128gb ssd.
the light bleedings is visible but, by far less visible in comparison to the one i returned.

still having problems to connect a Note8 and a note2 to the usb-ports, minimal movement of the cabel and the connection is gone! two different cables. no connection problems with my old dell laptop. I think its a software bug, maybe because devices a rooted? Someone observed something similar? connecting as camera-devices works fine.

 

Hello thranduil. I got a a little late to this party, but welcome to NBR.

Although it varies from one model to the next, Samsung is usually not as bad as some vendors when it comes to bloat. But there are some unnecessary items, and you can start by uninstalling them using the Programs and Features control panel. Other than hardware drivers, the only items from Samsung that are strictly necessary, are Settings (Fn-keys, keyboard backlight, power management etc) and SW Update (the only way to get Samsung driver updates, but otherwise not strictly required). If you are in doubt whether an item listed in Programs and Features is a Samsung item, open SW Update and see if it is listed there.

One member reported in late 2012 that the Refresh feature in Windows 8.x would clean out bloatware -- but others later reported that it leaves the same bloat as a factory installation. I haven't been able to test myself, since mine came with Win7 pre-installed.

As for a clean-install, member Perrype already referred to his report, which can be found here. I would recommend that anybody reads up a bit first on the subjects of UEFI and GPT ( here and here) before performing a clean install on any computer pre-installed with with Win8.x, as there are some significant differences from the good old days of Win7.

Perrype also mentions a factory image backup of you Recovery, which I would recommend as well. Follow the first two steps in this post.

Oh, and I had no problems understanding your English

 

@Dannemand and @Perrype: Thank you so much to both of you!

I have another (unrelated) question though.

I am having some problem with the ethernet connection: The first days the connection worked properly. Then the following happened: The cable (with adapter) being inserted (indeed, it remained plugged in from the prevoius session, when it did work), the connection started "blinking". I can see that on my modem the led blinks for a moment about once a second, and from the network panel of the laptop the connection continuously appears and disappears with the same frequency. Even more strangely, without touching anything, the connection establishes after some time and remains up for a variable amount of time, then the same problem presents.

Searching for a solution, Windows says that (1) there is no cable connected, if I am in a "blinking" phase (2) no problem, if in that moment the connection works. Hence, I initially thought that the problem was in the port (or the adapter), but since the problem does not present always (today, for example, everything seems fine), I am in doubt.

Did anybody face similar issues? Any explanation different from a defective port? (the drivers are up to date, and the modem, as well as the cable, work perfectly with other devices)