Samsung 9 Series laptop (ZX310 / 900X3A) unveiled

Yep, see that now. I bet that's why Beach camera raised their price from what it had been listed recently. They sell through Amazon and there's is in stock while Amazon does not have it in stock. I guess they figure some people will pay at 150$ premium to get it while they have it in stock. Interesting stuff.

 

I hope this is some kind of joke.... amazon has the best customer service in the world. Not to mention you are buying directly from amazon....

 

cnet's review is out.

finally a more accurate battery measurement, using nits for screen brightness rather than % ... shame engadget for doing their battery life tests by using brightness %. this is the kind of battery test i personally wanted to see.

cnet said during their video battery drain, the 9 series achieved almost half an hour more than the current MBA, in case anyone was interested.

if you're interested in how cnet tests battery life:
How we test: Laptops - CNET Reviews

if you want the review:
Samsung Series 9 NP900X3A Review - Watch CNET's Video Review

 

I have one question about this laptop that reviews never seem to cover. How is the sound from the speakers? Does it favour high tones or can you hear bass properly? I'm not expecting hi-fidelity, but so long as laptop speakers give a 'true', full range sound I'm happy. I'm using a toshiba now with harman kardon speakers and I've not seen anything else come close, if this does I'll consider a purchase.

 

I *really* wish this unit were a bit less expensive...

 

Beachcamera bumped the price up to $1899 now. Thats just insane, I can't believe people are actually paying such a premium for this laptop.

 

Wow... just because they are the only retailer that have it available... we should boycott Beachcamera for a few days and probably other retails will have it.

 

No kidding, that is almost like you are buying it off the black/gray market. I'll be boycotting them for life (although I have to admit I have never purchased from them before).

Of note, as I wait for my preorder from Amazon, I just noticed that Dynamism has pushed back the expected ship date for all models of the Series 9 to April 20. Looks like we have a long way to go. I will continue to debate the merits of a maxed out MBA running Parallels and Windows. I have noticed that some of the reviews that have done comparisons show that the MBA is really not that much slower with most computer tasks (I assume because the series 9 has chosen to go with the ULV Sandy Bridge). Plus, the MBA does have a low level graphic chip on it which runs much better than the ULV Sandy Bridge for 3D.

 

There was someone on this forum a few pages back that was willing to drive 14 hours round trip for this laptop that I don't think he'd even handled in person before. So... yeah.

 

I checked out this laptop (13 inch) yesterday in a microsft store and I loved it. Screen, build quality, overall snappyness are all out of this world. They were selling it for 1599 though which I think is kind of expensive. Do we have any any internal pictures of it ? I'm just wondering if battery and ssd are replaceable incase they go bad in the future.

 

They keep changing the date which force me to cancel the pre-order. This is like the 5th time already. It's not worth it to go with them.

I just got the laptop from them shipped. I paid a total of $1686.96 with overnight shipping. I bought it when one of the members posted here saying it's in stock at $1649. I can't beleive that they raise the price to $1,899.00 just to profit since they are the only one who have it in stock at this time. I feel sorry for whoever pays that amount. It's interesting that they have the A02 model for $1,799.00 pre-order which includes wimax and win7 ultimate but yet they are charging more for the model that doesn't have this.

I was the person who was going to drive round trip to pick it up. Luckily I have family member visiting us so they only live about 35 minutes away from the best buy at fresno, ca and they brought it down here with them. I actually don't mind taking a small road trip. Any excuse to get the hell out of las vegas is good. I was also going to do some shopping in california anyways so it wouldn't be a wasted trip just for a laptop.

I did play with the system at CES for a good amount of time and this is the laptop I wanted.

I just hope that this system doesn't have the green/blue pixalated distortion like the one I just returned yesterday at best buy. Buying it from Beach Camera save me $50 which is money back in my pocket.

What's interesting is that best buy stores is still sticking by the story that this item is completly discontinued and not available but what's funny is that the fresno store has some in stock for pickup.

 

I was going to pull the trigger last night from buydig.com on ebay. They listed it at $1,649.00 price. Also by going through ebay you get cashback and yesterday was double cashback day. Also you can get ebates before you checkout on ebay.

Price would have been around $1550 total

 

what kept you from pulling the trigger?

 

There are only 2 things stopping me from "pulling the trigger" on the ZX310.

1) The price. It's simply VERY expensive, regardless of how good it might be.

2) Only 128 GB of storage. I know it's an SSD, but I prefer to keep everything on my laptop and 128 GB just ain't enough.

If not for these two things, I'd be in!

 

I bought it at 1649.99 as well. Got my tracking today and it says it will be at my door at 3PM tomorrow. I can't wait!!

also on beach camera it says 1 year warranty. that's incorrect right? samsung offers 3 year manufacture warranty.

 

I suggest making a full backup image with acronis true image and then deleting the restore partition. That's about 20 gig additional space that you can get back. Plenty of open source software that will allow to merge both partitions.

 

Yes, review sites are stating that it comes with a 3 year international warranty ... which may be part of why its 'expensive'.

Though not much can be said about how good Samsung's notebook warranties are. We'll just have to wait and see.

 

I think I am returning my zx310 to BestBuy. The sound has suddenly decided to not work. I connected headphones and do get sound from headphones..but no sound through speakers.

I tried drivers, reloaded etc. same deal.

I dont haev any 3rd party software loaded on htis machine other than Microsft Office. No games etc.

Just suddenly no sound.

Friday is my 14th day for teh BestBuys Warranty so I am going to take advantage.

 

Have you tried a factory recovery?

 

Pulled the trigger and ordered from Amazon. As i don't have a laptop currently and am not doing any hardcore gaming on my laptop, this is perfect for me. Thank you tax refund!

 

I wonder how Beach Camera gets a dozen of these things to charge over retail and Amazon has none?

 

Looking for some dual-monitor support from your 900X3A?

Sunix USB 3.0 is first video card of its kind

This USB 3.0 external video card, should get you ultra-low latency output with the added USB3 bandwidth. USB2 cards already work quite well, so I would expect that this would be perfect for multiple display support.

As always, be safe: review first, purchase second.

 

Anybody has inside pictures of the laptop ? I'm just wondering if battery is replaceable incase it goes bad.

 

Also knowing if the SSD is user-upgradeable and if it voids your warranty would help

 

does the macbook air 13" sleeve fit?

 

I just got this laptop today, and I have to say this laptop is by far, the most beautiful laptop I have seen (and I buy and resell many laptops).

First of all, to answer some questions, the battery life on this thing is subpar. I am getting 4-5 hours full charge which means in a year or so this might just be down to 3-4 hours. The battery is internal so there is no way to replace the battery.

Although this laptop is dangerously thin, it doesn't seem as thin as the macbook air. This is probably because the macbook air is somewhat of a triangle shape, thus making it seem thinner. It's not that big of a deal though.

The bottom of the laptop, as indicated in some reviews, feels like it is made of plastic. I would describe it as a very rough plastic and a mix between a feel of plastic and aluminum. The "duralumin" feels just like alluminum and not only looks nice but feels nice.

The screen is bright. Very, very bright. Matte is nice but of course all depends on preference. The chiklet keyboard is okay. The clickpad is okay and the clicks are nice, but its not very easy to work and gets used to using. It is VERY big though compared to other laptops.

The laptop does NOT allow you to customize the SSD and the ram without taking apart the laptop. This might require you to remove the keyboard or unscrew the back and even then it might be soldiered in because of the size of this laptop. I will wait until some youtube videos come out of the dismantaling of this thing.

Overall, I am very very satisfied with this laptop. I will probably put up a review on youtube as I don't see any customer reviews.

 

What does your normal usage look like? If you use the web a lot, what kind of sites do you normally go to? Heavy javascript sites? Heavy flash sites?

 

its normal use. I'm not sitting here loading the same intense programs over and over to berate samsung ! With heavy use installing programs and stuff it is bringing it down to 3 hours and 20 minutes.

The battery as indicated by many reviews is not as impressive as samsung states (7 hours?). Obviously, turning brightness down, wifi off, etc etc makes it so that it lasts a lot longer.

The processor is nice but not THAT nice. I knew that buying this laptop but some others might not know. The way some reviews put it, they say it is sandy bridge and that samsung has taken the next step in putting these in and they act like the processor is a godsend.... it is definitely really good but not good to the point where it will outperform a PC or anything. A lot better than the intel core 2 duo of course. On the windows scale it gives the following ratings

processor - 5.4
memory (ram) - 5.9
Graphics - 4.7
Gaming graphics - 5.9
primary hard disk - 7.4

I love the SDD and i love fast start. I don't turn this thing off, i just shut the lid and when I open it it turns on in 3 seconds. This laptop does not sleep - when you shut the lid off it cuts the power essentially and burns the image to the hard drive. I wish you could replace the SSD though and you might be able to if you open up the laptop all the way. I would prefer to put an intel v-25 in here or a crucial c300.

The laptop does get a little warm at some times, on parts of the keyboard and the underside.

I definitely recommend doing the backup thing as someone mentioned before. After just turning on the laptop for the first time, I am at 73.2GB free of 99.9GB.

What don't I like about this laptop?
I don't like how all the sites that reviewed this, instead of putting ACTUAL cons all they did was say "this laptop has a hefty price tag!" So ill include what I think about it.
-Keyboard could be better. I would like to have something similar to the macbook air's keyboard but its not too big of a deal
-Hinge is somewhat loose. A little momentum will make the screen move which might bother some people as it feels a little unstable
-Area around the keyboard, the bottom, and the hinge are made of a different material than the duralumin. I wish the whole thing was duralumin but that might have been expensive and heavy to produce. The macbook air is pretty much entirely aluminum body which has a nice feel to it.
-The screen is beautiful and they definitely put a lot of effort into making it bright. Why not make the resolution better?

Still, this laptop is amazing and I will be keeping it for quite a while. Not sure what else can rival this executive level laptop. (of course, besides the macbook air).

 

Are you using it in balanced mode ? What kind of brightness settings ?

 

thanks for your honest criticisms. From handling the laptop at best buy, I know what you're saying about the keyboard/bottom quality. It seems like most laptop manufacturers like to slap aluminum/magnesium/duralumin on the lid and then completely forget about the rest of the laptop, as if it'll never be opened.

And to play devil's advocate for the reviewers, the price really is one of the first things you notice about the series 9. Most laptops in this price range have superior features or performance. This really doesn't. You're paying for the styling.

btw, what cable adapters does it come with? Anything for the ethernet jack or the micro-hdmi?

 

It only comes with a ethernet adapter. no micro hdmi cable is included. Samsung should have included this! Just so you know that the micro hdmi cable cost around $50 bucks at local stores. I had to order my adapter from ebay for just $10 bucks. No way i'm spending a huge markup for just a cable.

 

How is the video playback capabilities especially the hd video?

 

Jchohio, read a review of a sandy bridge processor, that will answer all your questions. The internal graphics on the Samsung 9 will play HD video back just fine.

 

anyone looking to gain more space can use easeus partition which is free for the home version. You can delete the recovery partition and merge with the primary which will gain you 20 GB of space. I suggest you make a full backup with ghost or acronis just in case you need to revert back and use the recovery.

 

That Samsung ZX310 is a thing of beauty. What's the price tag? Me interested in one.

 

You'd better sit down first...

 

I stood up after sitting down just to make sure the chair was firmly in place. No way would I pay close to 2K for that. I saw the price a few pages back after I posted. And someone wanted it so bad as to drive 14 hours to get one. Insanity !

I'll wait for the price on the AMD based MSI ultra-portable that's coming out soon. I've read that Dell is going to be bringing out some new ultra-portables this month. They haven't mentioned price, not a good sign.

 

Just picked up this bad boy from the microsoft store (changed my preorder to microsoft store because they told me they'd get the laptop earlier than amazon). This thing is beautiful.

To anyone who's had this computer for a while, how do you turn on the multitouch functions? I cant two finger scroll or pinch to zoom.

EDIT: nevermind. got it.

 

My views on this laptop.

The Good:
1. Slim Profile
2. Speedy processor
3. Keyboard is way better than I expected
4. Screen is gorgeous
5. Duraluminum is flex free and super sturdy
6. The power button is legit. Once you use it, you'll see how cool it is.
7. I'm not sure why people say the multitouch gestures on the trackpad do not work well. It just works.
8. Aesthetically, this notebook looks like a computer version of Halle Berry. Slim, dark, and beautiful.

The bad
1. Wifi is spotty, for some reason my home network keeps disconnecting on me. My neighbor's connection works fairly well for me. (gotta get this resolved)
2. Limited hard drive space.
3. This beezy attracts fingerprints like no other. Every little piece is coated with fingerprints except the trackpad. Even the keys attract weird fingerprints.
4. The plastic feel to the bottom. Its a major let down because I was expecting something like the unibody design of apple. I know that comparing this laptop to the macbook air is like comparing apples to oranges, but apple does have some of the best form factor designs on the market.

Overall, I like this laptop. Is it worth $1599?...maybe. Its refreshing to use an ultraportable notebook with windows instead of osx.

If you guys have any questions about the laptop, I'd be happy to answer them.

 

Just saw this in Hong Kong selling at about US$1800+. Too expensive for something not having discrete graphix. And tho the design when lid is closed is nice, the keyboard area looks plain. And yes, fingerprint magnet.

 

Thanks for your impressions jimhalpert27. Once I saw pictures of that laptop, right away I said to myself, fingerprint magnet. I own a Lian-Li black brushed aluminum desktop case. Even though they are striking they attract fingerprints and oils from the skin and it is a pain to get them out too.

No discreet graphics as they previous poster mentioned? Shame really for the price.

 

I have an A02 on order with provantage - should ship next week ...

The WiFi being spotty scares me: does it have good reach? You mentioned that you could get your neighbor's network ...

Have you tried the screen outdoors? Is it really viewable in full sun light?

Does the lower screen resolution (compared to MBA) bother you in any way?

How much of the hard drive is actually available?

Thanks!

 

I wish Samsung included Thunderbolt for future compatibility. This laptop was on my wishlist, but I may have to wait for 2nd gen.

 

You might want to try to upgrade the firmware for your router if your laptop works well with other routers. Strangely, not all wifi cards work well with different routers, especially new wifi cards and older routers. I have an Intel 6200 AGN that works well with all routers except this one Netgear but I don't own that router so I can't update it.

 

How so? The 9 Series is clearly a direct competitor to the Air. You could not make a more apt comparison.

Why? Discrete graphics would lower battery life and dissipate more heat, and for no appreciable gain, given this laptop's intended use.

 

How are the speakers? Do you get a full range of tones? I read that this has a subwoofer, but I almost can't believe it.

 

A nice review on the Best Buy page:

http://reviews.bestbuy.com/3545a/22...ry-black-reviews/reviews.htm?reviewID=4508165

 

I am not so sure about that. Just because the only real similarity is thinnest, doesn't mean they are apples to apples. The 9 series has a lot of similarity to other laptops too if you compare like that.. such as the Vaio Y series with both 13.3 and 11.6 inches, more comparable processors to the 9, etc. It's processor power is closer to real laptops not ulraportables like the air's. I think it is somewhere more in between. Plus, I don't really think it is a competitor to the mba's at all because the only people who buy them are fanboys. Most stick to the mbp or mb if they gonna switch over.

 

Comparing this laptop to a macbook air is just not apt. Those videos that compared the bootup time and resume time were ridiculous. Windows 7 and OSX are way too different. Also, I think it would be more appropriate to compare the 9 series to the macbook air when they receive their refresh later this year.

The speakers are decent. Music sounds just okay, it sounds a little filtered but its bearable. I really liked my altec speakers on my old hp dv6, and perhaps they spoiled me a little too much.

Thanks for the advice isosunrise. I probably will update the firmware on the pos time warner router. I'm able to connect to my neighbor's wifi because their router is physically closer to my bedroom. The router in my house is far from me, but my trusty HP never had issues holding a connection.

The lower screen resolution bums me out a little. I really wish they could have thrown a 1600 x 900 panel. But this seems to be the norm for 13 inch laptops that are not made by sony or apple.

I have not tried this laptop outdoors, but I have used it right behind an open window. The matte screen lives up to its expectations. Everything is clearly visible.

I think someone else answered your last question earlier in this thread nagyg. There is initially 76 gigs free on the hard drive

 

I said the same thing earlier about how it is pointless to compare windows 7 to OSX and someone flamed me for being a fanboy .