Samsung 9 Series laptop (ZX310 / 900X3A) unveiled

The body is entirely sealed. So, no easy access to the HD, memory, battery, etc. I think if you open the laptop's body your warranty is void.

What you see is what you get.

 

No User-replaceable battery (talk about Unpleasantly-Apple-similar!) No swap out/replace anything.
NO Trim on SSD!!

Unbelievable.

and B***hCamera/Buydig (both Edison NJ identical) up to $2399, while Many others still under $1600... including Costco at $1549.

Wake me under 1000. This is a Fancy Netbook.
In fact, If I put an SSD on my ASUS 1015PN (ION Graphics) it will be faster and still 1/3 the price.
And I can put on new batteries any time and have W7 TRIM with an 80gb Intel X25, or 90GB Mushkin/Vertex; or any 128gb.
-

 

Can you not make stuff up? How can it be faster? And we don't know if it does or does not support TRIM. Someone with the laptop can quickly check. If they can assemble it, I am 100% sure there is a way to disassemble it and replace parts, like iphones, mba. The market for this laptop is not, the poor.

 

It seems that you keep bashing the system but you don't own one. I know the price is high but I enjoy my purchase with no regret. My option was between the samsung 9 or the MBA and i'm glad that we have a choice now. I didn't want the MBA and when I saw this at CES it was the highlight compared to all the other laptops. It had a lot of media attention and I think it also won an award at CES.

How can you say that the battery, ram or ssd can't be replaced? It might void the warranty but who the hell is going to know unless your stupid enough to tell samsung that you open it up? The system can be open and i'm sure the ram and ssd can be replaced. I'm just waiting for a pro to release a guide on how to do it. I'm sure 3rd party vendors will have batteries available like the MBA.

Also this system is not a NETBOOK by all means. Try running vmware on a netbook and report back. netbooks have low end cpu and small screen sizes.

 

TRIM is supported. Verified with (2) applications.

CrystalDiskInfo and Intel SSD Toolbox.

 

Interesting post by the individual who found the Samsung 9 'underwhelming' - and gave some reasons why. I pretty much see only one reason to get this computer - it is the thinnest and lightest native Windows PC available with non-netbook specs. That's the selling point for me. If I wanted a notebook that is faster, cheaper, better for gaming, has more ports, has more storage - the choices seem endless. If a half a pound to a pound of weight, or some added depth are not an issue, I assume you'd never get this computer.

I want to slip this in my backback when I go to work and have it be as light as it can be and take up the least amount of space, and am willing to pay the premium for that. And, I want a machine that feels 'capable' when I am using it for general computing. The screen, USB 3, SSD, new intel class CPU all seem good.

Hope it lives up.

 

I agree with everything you said. I needed something light, fast and with a 13" screen which is a perfect size for me.


Also it comes with 3 years warranty which I'm assuming will cover the battery replacement issue if it arises. Try adding that to dell laptop and see how much it adds up.

 

This is awesome.

Please let us know what type of life that you get with tweaks. I fully intend to install Ubuntu on this machine, and would like to know how to tweak it to maximize battery life.

Do you think the additional consumption over windows has something to do with the HD 3000 GPU?

 

Maybe I am not looking at the right place, but some of you said this laptop is available for 1549.99 dollars at costco. Really? Because it's not available online and I went to my local costco today and they were like nope.

Anyone can help me with this?

Do you know what the sku/item number is at costco?

Is this something new that I have to wait couple of weeks until costco gets it?

Thanks for your help in advance.

 

Costco SKU# from my receipt is 572020. They list it as a NP900X3A LT. Price was $1,549.99, plus tax. I bought it at the Costco in San Diego.

Hope that helps.

 

Maybe you have a different warranty from mine. Mine says the battery is only covered for the first year. Samsung says that it considers the battery as a consumable, even though other parts are covered for 3 years for manufacturing defects.

I believe that Costco will double the full warranty for 2 years, although I'm not absolutely certain of whether that extension covers the battery, as well. You also get 90 days to return the unit for a full refund if it malfunctions and Costco provides free technical support, which seems better than the official Samsung support.

I guess that I, too, would find the Samsung impressive if we didn't have a year-old Sony Z in the family. The Z is roughly the same weight, although a bit thicker in width. There's no comparison with the speed or the screen.

Don't get me wrong. The Samsung Series 9 is a nice, adequate laptop and if it were $500 cheaper, I'd be a whole lot more impressed with it. Not sure that it is worth $1550, however, but YMMV.

I'm glad that you are happy with your purchase.

 

Great! Thanks for letting us know. I never heard back from Samsung.

 

Actually, you know, this laptop grows on you. It's a very cute little machine.

Still disappointed with its somewhat anemic speed, but I think I will keep it after all. This Samsung has its charm.

 

This is what I got from the samsung support chat related to battery warranty...

 

what they are saying is YOU can upgrade up to 8 gigs ram. But they don't customize machines themselves.

 

But there's nothing in the User Manual explaining how to do it. The RAM slots may be under the keyboard or it may be necessary to remove the base.

John

 

That is fine and exactly what I want to do myself. Just waiting for a guide on how to do it properly and the confirmation that you can upgrade memory is what I wanted to hear. Glad it wasn't soldered.

I think you can remove the bottom panel. I was half way on the sytem that I returned due to bad pixels. I stop since I didn't want to cause any damage. As soon as someone has the guts to try it we will know how difficult it is. Would like to see some inside pictures.

 

Perhaps you have a different warranty than I do. Different countries might have different warranties. Here's the opening paragraph of mine. Sadly, it says the battery is only covered for 1 year.

 

I brought that up and they said that the product pages are still being updated. My warranty only shows 12 month and that's when they told me not to go off by what they have on the pages. I say give a few weeks to see if it updates or changes.

 

thanks latinracer! info much appreciated!

 

That would be great if the printed warranty is wrong. Thanks for letting me know.

 

Yay ! According to some tests I saw it can run Left4Dead at maximum settings with around ~70fps, but it feels great to have it confirmed from someone who has tried it here. Thanks for the information about TRIM too!

Still waiting for 900X3A to arrive in Sweden...

 

whats your steam tag. Maybe we can hit some games up. l4d is addicting. lol

 

From an Amazon commenter:

I figured out how to upgrade the RAM. It's not explained anywhere and probably voids the warrantly, but it worked. You have to remove 10 screws from the bottom plate (which is all one piece-- there's not small door for the memory). After removing the screws, the bottom plate is still snapped shut. Use a plastic knife or something that won't scratch the metal and pop the entire bottom plate off by going around the entire edge. Then the inside is exposed. The RAM slots (2) are in the middle, pretty clear if you know what you're looking for. Replace with whatever you want and then pop the bottom plate back on and put all the screws back in.

 

now if he can confirm if the SSD is upgradable... also does the bios read 8gb of ram?

 

That seems easy enough. If somene opens there, please take a picture of what's inside. Still waiting on mine to come in. Also,has anyone found a mini PCIe ssd/sata 128gb or greater online?

 

Wall Street Journal review:
Walt Mossberg: Samsung's Series 9 Is a Solid, Beautiful, but Pricey MacBook Air Competitor - WSJ.com

 

There was another article in forum that if both the Samsung and the MBA had the same brightness (nit), the Samsung battery life does indeed lasts longer than the air.

"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."

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...top-zx310-900x3a-unveiled-46.html#post7311747

 

On February 17th I ordered the 900X3A-A02 from Provantage. They showed stock expected for today - 4/6/11 - on their Web site, but nothing arrived. What is the issue with the A02 version versus the A03, which seems to have been available for 2 weeks or so? Does anyone have an idea?

 

I'm the Amazon commenter quoted here. I posted a blog entry with a lot of photos of the process. I hope that explains everything. The BIOS does show the entire 8GB after upgrade. I can't see any evidence of the solid state drive, but maybe I'm missing it. Anyway, have a look. Let me know if you have any issue accessing the post.

 

There is a mini-card SSD format. Perhaps the card to the left of the fan which looks like a wireless card but has no antennae connections.

John

 

Anyone know if there's a docking station available for this machine?

I find them to be very convenient, and I see Sony's got one for the SB.

 

Got mine last night from circuit city and played around with it. The sticker on the screen says 3 years.

 

Great tutorial, clebio. Are you selling the stick of RAM you removed? Please PM me.

Thanks!

-Peter

 

Thank you!!! I knew the ram and ssd could be replaced. We just need a 256ssd mini sata to be available.

What type of memory did you purchase? Has it increase any heat since the upgraded? Notice any perfomance change?

 

The SSD is a mini PCIe ssd/sata and I think it is left of the fan. I can't find any manufacturer's that make a 256GB yet. Samsung carries the 128GB (not for sale online), and Super Talent has a 128GB too, but not sure if compatible.

 

Thanks for the pics and the writeup!

I'm glad to see that ssd and ram are not soldered to the motherboard. Now the last question is battery removable ?

 

Great blog - thanks!

What memory did you get and where did you buy it?

 

The RAM that I put in is a PNY brand 2x4GB package that I got from the local Microcenter. It's DDR3, PC3-8500, MN8192KD3-1066. It seems to work great. I never powered the laptop on before installing it so I can't comment on any change in performance. The original RAM that came installed in my Series 9 laptop is shown here.

Maybe someone here can help me with my issue, now. I always re-install the OS from scratch on my laptops, partly to remove the restore partition that takes up a good 20GB of hard drive, and also to start over without the bloatware.

This works great, you just have to download all the laptop's drivers beforehand ( from here). But the problem that I'm having is that "ACPI Lid" is no longer available to wake the computer (not listed in here:

Code:

powercfg -devicequery wake_from_S3_supported

). So the result is that, when I open the computer, I have to additionally press the power button to wake it from sleep (it doesn't just come on with lid open). It's a small concern, but I'd love to get that feature back.

I suspect there is an "ACPI Lid" driver that the original, out-of-the-box install on this computer has which enables that feature. Unfortunately, that driver is nowhere to be found on Samsung support or the internets. Maybe someone with the original OS can pull it off of their computer and PM it to me? I haven't found a fix yet.

 

I could not find the drivers. I get this popup message...
"no driver files are required or have been loaded for this device"

also thanks for posting the memory info. it's really helpful.

 

Thanks for checking, all the same. That's the same message that I get.

 

Thanks for your great blog post and pics - your effort is much appreciated!

I'm curious with your lid issue...did you contact Samsung's support about the driver? I'd be very interested to see how good the 3 year support/warranty is when the rubber meets the road.

 

I did call Samsung support, but I made the mistake of equating my problem with the Fast Start feature that they advertise, which really isn't the issue. So, I didn't get what I needed, but the support line has been very good so far (I've actually called 2 or 3 times). I might try again soon, when I get around to it.

 

Since this entire thread has helped me a LOT in deciding to pick the Series 9 over the MBA...I thought I'd share some good news for those looking to actually get your hands on one. I've been playing the Amazon pre-order game (LOVE Amazon - GREAT return policies and service), but with no ETA from Amazon...it was a pain in the butt to keep waiting.

And most of the other retailers (when they actually have it in stock) have TERRIBLE satisfaction guarantees and return policies.

Well a few pages back on here, some folks pointed out Costco has it in stock (thank you guys!). Considering only TWO warehouses on the entire east coast have the laptop in stock, I decided to try Costco.com yesterday morning.

And today - it's SHIPPED. 2-Day UPS Air for just $5.95 upgrade (normal UPS Ground is FREE with Costco). So $1549 + $5.95 + tax (wouldn't have this with Amazon, but worth it).

Plus Costco has a *90* day satisfaction return window (yes, they'll refund shipping, and I can drop it at local warehouse)...and they add their own tech support, too.

Thought I'd let the rest of you know Costco is a SWEET option right now, with basically ZERO risk - and they actually have it in stock at a great price!

Hope that helps!

 

Cool - thanks. Please let us know if you do find it out. When I get my system next week, I can hunt around for that driver too possibly....just need to know where to look.

 

Costco? Who would have thunk.

 

Just checking in after playing around with my 900x3a on Ubuntu 11.04 beta 1 for almost a week now.

It is a complete joy to use. I'm getting around 4 - 4:30 hours of battery life using 'powertop' and the Samsung Battery Life Extender (so I leave home everyday at 80% charge). Note that I don't leave my wifi on all the time, as I use it sparingly. For those who use Windows, I got around the same if not slightly more than this in Windows with the same settings.

So far, the two finger multi-touch scrolling support in Ubuntu is great. as is two finger right click. Unfortunately, other gestures are still in the works.

seems like there will eventually be full multitouch support (two finger scrolling, two finger tap to right click, three/four finger flick to do actions). if anyone is interested, I highly suggest waiting for the Ubuntu 11.04 stable release on 4/28 and picking it up/trying it out. It's just such a joy to use on this machine. The multitouch scrolling is worlds better on Ubuntu than on Windows, resulting in an increase in productivity on my side.

 

Also if anyone cares,

There the back hinge area of the laptop does get kind of warm (may be uncomfortable for some) after extended periods of use. If you use the laptop on cloth/fabric/ or something, or leave it on a table for extended periods of time, you may hear the fan going off.

It seems that this is the case because the air enters through the bottom of the laptop and is funneled out of the case on a vent that points upward towards the screen from the hinge. (from a design perspective, this is well hidden, but don't know if they could've allowed for better air flow)

 

Anyone know if there's a docking station for this laptop?

Thanks.

 

This is good to know, thanks! I might dual-boot in the future. Did you try 10.10 at all, or have a sense of whether it would be better (more mature) or worse (not as cutting-edge)?