Samsung 9 Series laptop (ZX310 / 900X3A) unveiled

Thors, no kidding! Costco is the last place I'd look for a premium laptop like this! But I checked out almost every retailer's site - and nothing can come close to the no-questions-asked policies, return period and support (and lower price). I had to jump on it immediately!

 

I'm curious - what type of carrying case or sleeve did you get? I'd like to make sure this baby is well protected from Day 1.

Or anyone else out there pick up an awesome sleeve?

Thanks!

 

First Impressions:

Just received mine today from CircuitCity (ordered through Amazon) if you can believe that.

Overall design is very nice. Thin, light, very sturdy, easy to type on lap.

Screen is gorgeous as I had hoped. Very bright and easy to see even on 70 to 80% brightness. Top of the line - along with the size and weight.

Have not ground through battery yet, but I suspect 4 hours in normal use with brightness set 3/4 and wi-fi on, etc. I'm sure you could turn setting way down and get 5 hours out of it if you really needed endurance. I have no idea how you would get more than that though.

Keyboard is fine. Not used to the chicklet keys, but they seem fine to me. Just enough force required to depress keys, not mushy at all.

Achilles heel, in my opinion, is the trackpad. It is horrendous. Worst I have ever used on a notebook. Causes all kinds of trouble when typing and web surfing. First it is not smooth - almost kind of rubbery. This means your finger catches on it all the time. The driver/software for it is a complete mess (at least I hope it's the driver). I had to disable many of the 'features' just to make it usuable.

Most people use a laptop trackpad "2 handed". If you are right handed (as am I), you move the mouse with your left index finger and then rest your left thumb on the lower part of the trackpad (where on most laptops the mouse buttons sit below the trackpad). Because Samsung went with the Apple minimalist design of no buttons, your fingers end up in the wrong positions all the time and the trackpad thinks you have 2 fingers on it - and all sorts of strange behaviors result. Yes, you can change around the 'sensitive' areas some, but it is very tricky.

Even with that aside, the vertical scrolling is completely messed up. Sometimes the machine recognized you want to vertically scoll and other times it doesn't even when you swipe over and over.

Finally, and this is the weirdest, there is a definite pause sometimes lasting a second or two after using the trackpad/mouse where the computer just sits there unusable. It's like you have to wait for the CPU to catch up like you were using some computer from 1990. Must be a bug.

The AC adapter is pretty neat in that the wall plug is small and the cord is the smallest I have ever seen on a computer AC adapter before. Problem is that it is so short, you have to be a few feet from the wall plug to use it.

Overall speed of the SSD has gotten much attention. It seems fine to me. However, the computer wakes from its closed lid state the same as my other Windows 7 computers (which all wake from sleep immediately). Now, I guess I am not in real sleep here - some sort of hibernation and it does wake from hibernation a little faster than other notebooks wake from Win 7 hibernation, but it will not totally knock your socks off. Does not have the immediate 'on' that the MBA does. Still it's hard to bicker over 4 to 5 seconds.

There it is. The only real disappoint is the trackpad. You can make it work for sure, but it's very funky. Not a deal breaker in my opinion. Hope that some driver update can fix some of this; however, possible some of it is hardware issue as well.

 

Achilles heel, in my opinion, is the trackpad. It is horrendous. Worst I have ever used on a notebook. Causes all kinds of trouble when typing and web surfing. First it is not smooth - almost kind of rubbery. This means your finger catches on it all the time. The driver/software for it is a complete mess (at least I hope it's the driver). I had to disable many of the 'features' just to make it usuable.
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Thanks for your review! Your experience with the trackpad makes me wonder if I could live with that. I can only type with 2 fingers, so my palms usually don't rest on the laptop - but still, this could be a huge problem! Please report back when you manage to adjust to it ...

 

That is my major qualm about the series 9 is the trackpad. It is manageable to use, but sometimes it gets wonky... Thinking about getting a mini bluetooth mouse.

 

I'm still waiting for Amazon to ship my pre-order but when I played with it at Best Buy I was surprised that it didn't wake on lifting the lid. I fooled around with the settings, but the only way I could get it to wake back up was to hit the power button ... so perhaps it's a design "feature" (flaw).

 

Ok, I bit the bullet and canceled my Amazon order. Tired of waiting.

I ordered the laptop from Datavis.com which was $1,549 after $50 off code DATAVIS50 (free shipping, no tax to CA). Sure these guys aren't Amazon so I'm a little worried about possible returns, but I figure Samsung warranties are good, right?

I ordered the ram from Superbiiz.com (formerly EWiz.com, who I've ordered from without issue despite their sketchy looking site). It was $42.56 after tax & free shipping to CA with 10% off code BLOSSOM10 (good til 4/11).

Hope this helps someone!

 

TrueDis, Datavis.com says "Availability: Preorder." Is it really in stock?

 

I just got the following items delivered from amazon and i'm happy with the purchase. The sleeve has a little slack but it fits perfect.

Neoprene Skin Velcro Top Flip Sleeve with Additional Pocket (Black) to Protect the Apple MacBook Air 13.3 Inch Laptop
Amazon.com: Neoprene Skin Velcro Top Flip Sleeve with Additional Pocket (Black) to Protect the Apple MacBook Air 13.3 Inch Laptop: Everything Else

moshi neato Screen Cleaning Kit
Amazon.com: moshi neato Screen Cleaning Kit: Electronics

 

so has anyone figured out what model the lcd panel is on the 13"?

 

If you live near a Microsoft Store they may have them in stock. I was able to get one from the Bellevue WA store tonight.

- Bluepixel

 

Unfortunately, Synaptics drivers for Windows 7 are horrendous. I agree that the trackpad sucks for use with windows, because the multitouch gesture software provided on Windows-based machines is utter crap.

If you are a Windows 7 user, you may want to think twice about adopted a Synaptics Clickpad device like this, if you aren't willing to go through a 'learning curve' to using the clickpad. (note: the Synaptics drivers that comes with the device does allow you to use the clickpad like a traditional touchpad w/ 2 mouse buttons)

On the otherhand, multi-touch gestures and usability with this Synaptics Clickpad in Ubuntu is amazing. So I don't feel comfortable blaming the hardware ... the software is what needs work. It's too bad the majority of Windows 7 users don't care/don't use multi-touch gestures, and Microsoft doesn't seem to be in a rush to make it work at a level that I would consider usable.

 

I haven't tried it with 10.10. From what little research I've done however, there is a multi-touch gesture suite that currently works in 10.10 Maverick being worked on called Touchegg. You can follow the project here:
touchegg - Touchégg - Multitouch gesture recognizer - Google Project Hosting

I would imagine everything to pretty much work out of the box on a 10.10 install except for keyboard backlight toggle support. If not, it shouldn't be hard to fix things up to get them working properly.

Still though, I've been following 11.04 since the Alphas and since then, it has gotten A LOT more stable. I can't see myself using another desktop environment other than the one provided in 11.04. It just helps me work so much quicker and efficiently, especially with multi-touch gestures.

Again the 11.04 release is only a few weeks away ... (4/28)
I would suggest picking that up and dual-booting or even running it native if you can do away with Windows-specific applications.

 

Yo, guys! I just got my Series 9 today!!! Well, I called microsft to cancel my pre-ordered, but it was too late cuz they shipped it already. However......The design IS ****ING FANTASTIC!!!! Love it! But I tried on some games... lag so bad. But other than games, everything looks good! Well.. I don't really like the size of my hard drive and the trackpad - it feels kinda weird and the two finger scroll doesn't work as well as a mac. But other than that, everything looks great. The performance, weight (very very light!!), design and all u know - speed speed speed!!!! : )
It is pretty fast for its size... I'm very impressed - however, I think i'm gona return it and wait for a machine that is truly portable and is able to play games.... (probably a while lol)... btw.. I compared the size to my Alienware M15x, the Alienware M15x screen's thickness is almost the same size as the 9 series! so its about 3-4 times smaller!!!

 

What games did you try, incidentally?

 

Has anyone tried the two finger scroll program, its very small, and seems very smooth on my sony and lenovo.

 

If anyone opens their laptop again, can you get the dimensions of the SSD next to the fan? Is it 3*7cm or is it even shorter? Thank-you.

Nevermind, I just took one of clebio's images (thanks for the blog and touristy photos btw!), and calibrated ImageJ with the memory. The SSD is roughly 3x6cm, which is in between the 3x5 and 3x7 cm for other mini pcie ssd/sata! Upgrading the SSD might be challenging.

 

I tried out Bulletstorm and Left 4 dead 2. Bulletstorm lags most of the time. But left 4 dead lags a little. I can adjust the setting to high - but the program itself always shutdown on me when I set it to high- dono y....

 

Not sure, it hasn't shipped yet, but I ordered it late on Friday. It said In Stock when I was checking out...

 

New update --- Touchpad driver ver. 15.2.17.3

 

This is great news!

I'm curious: do you think you would be able to reach 6 hours of battery life from a full charge, and with some process tweaking?

I'm just curious because I do quite a bit of surfing/graphics editing with my lappy, and I was hoping that the 900x3a would have the battery chops to keep up with my workflow.

 

Have you found any update for the Broadcom Wireless N ? The driver looks to be about 9 months old. I tried identifying what ethernet nic driver to download from the broadcom website, but they don't have anything identify the model 4357.

 

Capt'n Corrupt,

In all honesty, I can't give you a straight up guarantee that you can reach 6 hours. What I can do is provide you with some math so you can make your own judgement:

The battery provided with the laptop has around 45-46 watts on a full charge.
(7.3 v * 6.1 aH)

To get 6 hours, you're going to have to limit yourself to using 7.5-7.6 watts per hour. While this is achievable, it might be harder to achieve if you're going to do graphics editing and browsing sites heavy in javascript and flash.

I think on Windows 7, it would be more easily achievable, as I can see Windows machines going at 6.5-8 watts per hour on power-saving mode, lcd brightness at the lowest, keyboard backlight off, bluetooth off, etc.

On ubuntu, with everything unnecessary turned off, it is achievable with a lot of tweaking of various power settings, programs (browsers), etc, but more realistically we're probably looking at it taking 7-10 watts per hour.

I can definitely say that you will easily get at least 4 hours out of this laptop, but again YMMV depending on your usage pattern.

But remember, a huge plus of this laptop is the charger is freaking tiny and light in comparison to other chargers, and barely weighs anything. If you have access to wall outlets at parts of your day, bringing the charger along isn't cumbersome at all.

 

Where did you find these? On Synaptics webside I only see ver 15.2.7?

Also besides that case on amazon has anyone got a different one? I tried an incase for Macbook Pro 13" but it didn't fit and i'm not a fan of their slip over covers.

Thanks!

 

Just canceled my order with Provantage - the availability date kept slipping - and ordered from COSTCO. I will be getting the A03 instead the A02. From what I could see the main difference was W7 HOME instead of PRO - is that correct? Does that really matter for personal use?

 

So is anyone going to try an iATKOS install? This is supposed to have HD3000 Intel graphics, same as the new 13" MBP so it should work. If it scrolls great in Ubuntu maybe it does the same in OSX.

 

just wondering, how long is the full charging time ? Also do you guys think battery is user replaceable ? It is hard to tell from the internal pictures posted.

 

use the samsung update application.

 

Whenever I try to open samsung update it says it's running automatically.

What's wierd is I went into Program Files\Samsung\Samsung Update Plus\Downloads and the touchpad drivers were there in a rar, I don't know how to make it update using the samsung updater but I did it manually by unraring and running the .exe

 

One useful feature of Pro is the ability to install and run the XP Mode virtual PC. This can be useful if you have any ancient (or sometimes no so ancient) programs that refuse to intall and run under 64 bit Windows.

John

 

Can someone with the Samsung Series 9 and Starcraft 2 tell me if it's playable with Shadowing on Medium, but all else on low? A FPS i in multiplayer is preferable.

(I know that with everything on medium, it is unplayable at 20 FPS)

Thanks!

 

new review, which is very positive on the touchpad:

Samsung Series 9 900X3A Video Review - TrustedReviews

 

For potential UK customers, Micro Anvika say they have stock (at £1,299).

John

 

I may try an iATKOS install after doing some research to make sure that there is a possibility of the system being usable compatibility wise and when I find a free day to back up stuff and try it.

 

Any of the owners here tried the micro-hdmi out yet? Specifically wondering if someone's tried it with a VGA adapter.

In the trustedreviews.com review...

 

still waiting for my micro to hdmi adapter from ebay.

 

This could have been useful. Found out that the A02 is WIMAX ready. Not sure what that means 'tho ...

 

Has anyone else found the wifi to be SUPER weak?! I go more than 20 yards from the wifi source and the signal drops to a bar and then surfing the web becomes a HUGE ordeal (things take forever to load). Thoughts?

 

hI think the laptopmag.com review mentioned something about wifi being below average.

 

Interesting observation. Most notebooks with metal display backs provide a plastic strip at the top of the lid over the antennae so that the wireless signals don't get blocked. This notebook appears to have a solid metal lid which means a triumph of style over function in this respect. Oops.

John

 

Out of the blue, I read your review about the Becase sleeves and figured they'd be excellent for this laptop. Unfortunately, their website is down... Is it moved or something?

Check your PM inbox .

 

That was 4 years ago. I suspect that the business plan didn't quite work out. Since then the neoprene sleeves have become more abundant (there was a time when I made my own out of wet suit material) and the thinner neoprene sleeves are also very light.

John

 

I'm a huge fan of the Zeroshock cases. Anyone know if they are they still in business? The Shinza website looks awfully abandoned.

 

I had been playing around with the wireless settings and looking to update the drivers, but i guess this make sense.

 

This is great information, thank you very much.

I'm surprised that the required voltage is so low for this PC relative to what I'm using. It almost cuts it in half!

I would like to get an idea of the mA consumed with WiFi on vs. off, as well as other things: eg. brightness notches, backlit keyboard, or certain programs being used. In this way, it would be possible to set up a formula to determine laptop power consumption based on certain variables.

I would like to maximize life on this system for those moments when I'm away from the socket.

It *is* nice that the adapter is very diminutive, though.

 

Almost about to bite the bullet here. As of today my personal pros/cons (as a former MSI X-340 and Asus U33Jc user!):

pros:
thin&light!
design
sandy bridge
usb 3.0
great screen
backlit kbd
thin&light!

cons:
non-upgradeable SSD
battery life
hdmi needs 3rd party adapter
only micro SD

decisions, decisions!

 

Listing a few cons that I've been noticing after awhile:

Though horizontal viewing angles are amazing, the vertical viewing angles aren't as amazing (this is common for monitors, screens), so if the screen isn't opened at the right angle with respect to your face position, it is possible for a little color distortion. (fine for most people, might be annoying for people who do graphics or something)

Adapter Con: Though the adapter is small, it is shaped in a way where it may be impossible to plug it into certain sockets that have something blocking the underside of the outlet. for example, if - : is the 3 prongs and if there is something at spot x ...

x - :

it might be impossible to plug it in. (Maybe another adapter solution will come in the future?)

Fingerprints! (Fingerprint magnet! Everyone has realized this I think.) You can wipe them off though, I found that the best for me was wiping the laptop along the grain of the metal. (Don't know if that's just a mental thing though)

 

Biggest flaw for me is the wifi. It really is weak sauce.

 

I'm getting mine tomorrow from COSTCO and the reportedly weak WiFi is a bummer. Is the above comment based on your own experience? My Thinkpad was very good at picking up networks over long distances...

 

I now always travel with one of these: Buy.com - Philips SPS2100WA Power Strip

Grew tired of trying to find an extra outlet near the hotel bed ...