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

Remember that Settings (Win8) and Easy Settings (Win7) make BIOS calls to activate proprietary hardware features. That may not be the case in Linux. If you check the Windows System log while in Silent Mode, you will see entries to the effect that CPU performance was throttled by firmware.

The way Silent Mode affects fans in Windows is solely by means of Passive System cooling policy in the power profile. And of course by keeping the CPU itself slower and cooler.

 

Thanks for explanation! I'm glad I don't have to suffer this useless feature... uhm restriction

 

LOL

I actually do find it convenient to be able to toggle between power frugal and normal mode with a single keystroke. But I also wish it would have worked ONLY through the profile, since that would have left me 100% in control of what Silent Mode does (by tweaking the profile).

 

There is some UK stock of the NP900X3G. 12 available as I type this.

John

 

11 now! (got the email too)

Delivery tomorrow!

Thanks John.

 

Hi John,

Thanks for that, I've also found it slightly cheaper at LambdaTek - is there any benefit of purchasing from More Computers? Do you expect the price to drop anytime soon?

How does the NP900X3G compare with the new Dell XPS 13's? I'm considering getting a refurbished XPS13 - 8GB ram / i7 4500U / 256GB SSD which is around £850?

Thanks

 

Wow. Is that really how expensive this new laptop is going to be? 1200 pounds equates to roughly $2200 Australian dollars which seems exorbitant for an i5 laptop.

If that is the case, i might just get the np900x3f which would be $1200 cheaper

 

I'd tend to buy from wherever is cheapest.

The NP900X3G has a non-glossy display (I'm not sure about the Dell but it's probably glossy). The Samsung has two fans which helps to keep it cool and quiet. The Dell has a bigger battery. Make a list of what features you want and check how each notebook delivers those features.

UK pricing is high compared to, say, Germany but since swapping a keyboard is no longer easy Samsung UK's marketing people don't have to worry so much about stock from other countries encroaching on their margins.

I would look very hard at the X3F. I doubt if Haswell offers enough to justify paying a lot more compared to an X3F at a discounted price. My nearly 2 year old X3B doesn't feel outdated.

John

 

I'd agree, except the 8GB RAM is a first for the 13" S9. The XPS13 has a glossy touch screen so really should be compared to the AB9+.

 

glad it's finally on sale in the UK. looking fwd to some of the UK owners' reviews here.

 

Hello, this computer sounds great, but does anyone know if there will be a version with a i7 processor?

 

There has been an i7 version of the Ativ Book 9 in the past.
Since for the last generation the i7 version was published before the predecessor of the i5 version that now is the 900X3G and since the 900X3G has been on the market for almost two months now, I would sadly guess the i7 version has been discontinued.
ATIV Book 9 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

there's an i7/8/256 version for numerous countries, read the thread which contains specific information with links to online retailers.

 

So what's the expected release date?

 

i7 tends to have more impact on the price tag than on performance. A CPU speed difference of 25% isn't noticeable without running benchmarks.

Samsung tend to wait until Intel's chip prices reduce so they can buy the i7 at the previous price of the i5.

Where are you? The NP900X3G is currently available in several countries in Europe and Asia.

John

 

Hi,

A version with the i7 processor is on the way, or at least it is in Italy.
I have checked availability of the X3G with i5 and discussing with an Italian retailer, Systemax-misco, I was informed that the version with i5,8gb,256gb SSD is no more available for ordering, stocks are not refurbished, because it will be substituted by the version with i7.

Cheers,

Pietro

 

Hello,

that sounds weird....i just ordered the i5/128gb model for 999 euros from "notebook.de" (german shop), which is about 1372 dollar.
i can't find any informations besides this forum what so ever.
do you know what price difference there will be between the i5/i7, because if it will be substitued completely maybe for the same price...?

would appreciate any quick info

thanks

 

If I were you man I will take what you got now,becuase Samsung is moving out of notebook business and every new model is :"maybe will come ,maybe wont,probably not".Samsung already draw out of Croatia,Slovenia,Srbija and a lot of other countries.
This i5 model is great.You can always change to bigger SSD and for a lot cheaper price then what Samsung will charge you.

 

Yeah, of course
I planend to replace the msata later anyway.
but what realy bothers me, is if 2 weeks later i could have the i7 one for same price.

 

Doubtful. There's typically a large premium for the i7 version at launch. And with 8GB in the i5 and upgradable msata, I don't think it's worth it. About 6 months later the price will drop. That's what I'm waiting for, if it ever gets to the US.

 

The hardware I would check when comparing the specs is the RAM. If there's only 4GB then it might, depending on usage pattern, be a bigger constraint than an 1i CPU.

John

 

OK, I skimmed through the thread but could not find any i7/8GB/256GB/1.1 kg. Would you care to help me?

 

honestly i realy don't care if i5 or i7 beacuse it will be my study notebook and bit of programming device,
i like the fact that there are 8 gb of ram, because in my case i will get more profit of it.
i am searching for an ultrabook that is verily light and slim and is affordable too.
for about 999 euro i haven't found any better solution for me and mac os isn't really an option for me...

 

Would you then please take a photo of the internals. Thanks!

 

By the way, is the OS Windows 8.1 and not 8.1 Pro?

 

depends on your configuration, only the 256gb
version gets you 8.1pro afaik.

 

In Switzerland there are three configurations available.
K01 and K02 both come with i5-4200U/8GB/256GB but while K01 comes with a regular Win 8.1, K02 comes with Win 8.1 Pro.
K03 seems to be the version that is refered to as K02 in other countries and comes with i5-4200U/8GB/128GB and Win 8.1.
Samsung ATIV Book 9 NP900X3G-K01CH - SPEZIFIKATIONEN | SAMSUNG
Samsung ATIV Book 9 NP900X3G-K02CH - SPEZIFIKATIONEN | SAMSUNG
Samsung ATIV Book 9 NP900X3G-K03CH - SPEZIFIKATIONEN | SAMSUNG

I will report if my German K02 i5-4200U/8GB/128GB comes with Win 8.1 or 8.1 Pro as soon as I receive the exchange unit.

 

My German K01 (256GB) comes with Win 8.1 without Pro.

 

There is no automatic correlation between the specifications of the version numbers sold in different countries. Each country marketing office orders the specifications it thinks it can sell from the list of options offered by the factory.

If there is a limited range of factory options then there is increased likelihood that versions numbers in different countries will have the same specifications but this is by coincidence, not by design.

John

 

My K02DE runs Win 8.1 as well.

The front left edge of the touchpad of the exchange unit too is embedded slightly deeper into the chassis than the other three edges, I now guess it's the way this notebook is build in general.

 

if it really annoys you can try to fix it,
if you get access to the touchpad from down below.
i myself fixed a loosely acer s3 touchpad recently, very easy.
and it seems to be a serial problem too.

by the way, how is the keyboard. is it comfortable to type?

 

I won't take the notebook apart to fix it.
It's not unbearable, as an engineer I am just a little disappointed this seems to be the standard build quality in "premium" electronics.

I like the keyboard, but I have always liked notebook keyboards with little stroke.
It's not silent but I wouldn't call it loud either, I already do not make a lot of typos anymore.

 

I'm very impressed by this laptop. It seems impossibly thin and light, and looks lovely! Only two annoyances so far:

- "Natural" scrolling with the touchpad, and no way to invert it. Quite frustrating, but i'm starting to get used to it. I'm amazed there isn't (as far as I can tell) an option anywhere to invert it to "normal" scrolling
- The side of the laptop is a matte black, rather than the matte-silver finish pictured on various websites, and the box it came it! I don't really mind this too much, but I think I do prefer the silver finish.

 

I think the "secret" ETDAniConf control panel will do it for you. Note that you will have to trick it into showing all its options. See this post for details.

 

Awesome, that sorted that. Thanks!

 

Guess I need the help of the pros.

I tried some rounds of League of Legends and had the feeling the fps and overall feel was rather bad.
I have also tried to play a round of Bloons Tower Defense 5 and while even the first levels are very laggy the CPU clock is locked to 0,76GHz.

Silent Mode is set to Auto
Eco Mode is turned Off
Windows Power Profile is an adjusted "Balanced" profile

What am I doing wrong?

 

Silent mode set to off

 

This made all the difference, thank you so much.
Before at 1366x768 and lowest settings I got 30fps in LoL, after I turned Silent Mode to Off I had almost 200.
I didn't know "Auto" would throttle the CPU that massively.

 

The way Silent Mode is presented in Settings is not the most logical (in my opinion): Silent Mode is either ON or OFF (toggled with Fn-F11). When ON, you can choose from two operating modes (chosen in Settings): LOW (constantly slowly spinning fan) or AUTO (turns fan on/off as needed). Regardless of whether AUTO or LOW is chosen, the CPU is still capped at a very slow speed during Silent Mode, and the power profile is switched to Power Saver, using Passive System Cooling Policy (which slows the CPU down to keep it cool, and only turns on fan if still needed after that).

The post here has links that explain more about Samsung Power Management and Silent Mode.

 

I don't get why Settings doesn't switch back to the Windows Power Profile Maximum Performance when I turn off both Silent Mode and Eco Mode.
Overall the only advantage I get out of Settings over the Windows Power Profiles is that it can turn off bluetooth?

 

Settings is not just a power profile. It is an entire collection of Samsung hardware support drivers and utilities, with Fn-keys (notable Brightness and Keyboard backlight) and power management as the most important. But there are several other components. See the thread linked below for more on that:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/729139-settings-easy-settings-what-you-need-know.html

The power management component was designed with the assumption that you use Samsung Optimized as your default power profile, which is similar to the good old Windows Balanced. When you use Fn-F11 to toggle Silent Mode, it will switch to the Power Saver profile and cap the CPU speed, saving power and thus causing the fans to slow down.

When I first got my Samsung laptop (older Series 7 model) I spent some time being very frustrated about how Settings was implemented (back then Easy Settings for Win7) and airing my complaints here. I have since found ways to tweak it that work pretty well for me -- without constantly fighting Samsung's proprietary ways of doing things. That doesn't mean I would have designed it the same way myself

Again, the link in my last post explaining Samsung power management should give you some idea. Basically, I recommend tweaking Samsung Optimized and Power Saver to get the desired effect, instead of using the normal Windows profiles.

 

A million dollar question.
Would we ever see a inside of 900X3G?
Hey John,is there any chance Notebookreview.com make review of 900X3G?
Do they get laptops for review by random,I mean what they get they review it,or they ask from manufacturers specific sample? Sample they want?

 

Notebookreview only get review models in the US and the NP900X3G hasn't yet arrived there although the specs sheet here was prepared in January 2014 (it's interesting that both the US models listed will have Windows 7 pre-installed).

Perhaps notebookcheck will get hold of this notebook since it is available in Germany. They usually do very thorough reviews including a look inside.

John

 

Interesting. Appears that Samsung is really washing their hands of Win8. As I have stated a few times, I think the cost to laptop vendors of implementing and supporting Win8 (and 8.1) in accordance with Microsoft's demands, must have been exorbitant, and is a main reason why they are backing away from the PC market -- or at least sending that signal to Microsoft.

 

However, the versions of the NP900X3G being shipped in Europe all have Windows 8.1 and I can't see any Windows 7 drivers in SW Update.

Perhaps the plan in the US is to appeal to those who don't want either touchscreens or Windows 8. Perhaps someone somewhere is impeding the plan since the US versions aren't yet in the SW Update database.

I also note with interest that the NP910S5J (which is also non-touchscreen) has both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 entries in the database. HP made the news a few weeks ago by announcing that it was releasing Windows 7 notebooks. It looks like Samsung is following a similar strategy. In times of declining sales they are trying to discover what people want to buy.

John

 

That. And sticking it to Microsoft at the same time -- I would think.

 

hi guys, i have a stupid question: is office already installed on this product? Cause when i launch office a window opens, asking me if i wanna try it. When i click on "try", it opens the browser, sending me to a download page where you can download the office installer. So it's not even on the PC? And what generation is the intel processor?
Cheers

 

Hi,

I'm following this thread for one month already and I'm taking the decision to contribute in it.

I work in a computer company (reseller in Switzerland)that customizes notebook and does powerful computer on demand. We customize all brand of Notebook.

I actually have an "old" Toshiba R830 (Core i7) customized with 1TB HDD, SSD 256GB Samsung 840 (DVD-RW removed), 8GB memory, which is fine for working but with the new anti-virus solution it cannot work anymore when the green/silent mode is activated.
It's also a little bit heavy for travel, I always take 2 batteries for long flight to Asia (12h flight from here).

Recently, I was looking for a replacement unit such as Toshiba's last model Z30, but the resolution is too low and the noise bothers me.
I am so disappointed about the quality of Toshiba screen in recent years. I can't believe Toshiba uses these cheap LCD panel inside their notebook.

So, I started looking for Sony, Samsung, Lenovo, or Asus.
Finally, my choice is the NP900X3G-K02CH (Swiss model, Windows 8.1 Pro, 256GB SSD mSATA, 8GB memory).

I will change right away the SSD with the Samsung 840 1TB mSATA, install a clean and perfect OS configuration Win 8.1 Pro & Updated with the latest drivers from each manufacturer + the update 1 of Windows 8.1.
Windows 7 with 150 update patches is a big NO for me, time to change to a new technology and tools.

I will post photo of the open unit, the delivery is scheduled around March 18.

Chris

 

Welcome tisa!
I'm sure you will start your nbr career by receiving lots of likes and reputation

 

I agree the Toshiba's lose all their appeal due to their poor low res screens. Not even the Z40 comes with FHD. Otherwise I'd consider them. How's built quality? Made in Japan?