Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus - NP940X3G

True, I wont tell you what you should want. If there is a 8GB version I may consider that one myself...so certainly I do not think it is too much. However, I would not be disappointed at all if I have to go with 4GB. Certainly more is better, but I feel it is complaining on a high level.

Personally I am quite sure that a 8GB version will be there - the Series 9 had variations with 128GB and 256GB storage. And as far as I can see there is no 256GB model for pre-order yet. I doubt that this high-end machine only comes in a single configuration 128/4GB. With the 256GB offers the 8GB is likely to make it into some higher priced models as well.

 

Don't forget that the 730/740 offer expandable RAM in a package that's not much bigger.

Two possible reasons for only 4GB in the 9 Plus at this stage are:

(i) Samsung is using the DDP (dual channel) RAM package which might not yet be available in 8GB (X3B/C/D used a 4GB DDP package but the X3E uses a single channel 4GB module. Integrated graphics using single channel RAM might struggle with the very high resolution display.

(ii) Samsung is deliberately selling low spec units with high prices for the early purchasers to maximise the margins.

John

 

Right there with you, I don't want to pay extra for an i7 and I can always upgrade storage later. But I doubt there will be an 8GB, i5 option from Samsung (they'll probably make you get an i7 and at least 256GB) but you never know. It's nice that Sony allows you to customize. Unfortunately, neither has a matte haswell option in the US for the moment. So it's moot for me.

They must not have the RAM ready yet. I can't see them passing up the chance to sell an i7, 8GB, 512GB, 3200x1800 for $$$$$ margins. Not that the margin on the i5 will be tight in any way.

 

Searched google for NP940X3G-K01US, came up with this

 

Interesting find. I do the same for NP940X3G-K01DE and I find this which is 300euro more expensive than the US model.

 

Both Engadget and PCmag reported during Samsung's press release that it will come out with up to 8GB of memory.

 

Also watch out for NP940X3G-K02US and NP940X3G-K03US (in SW Update's database).

Also watch out for NP940X3G-K03DE (in SW Update's database).

John

 

If Adorama has it listed for 1399 then the real price must be 1299 or less in the US once it is finally released.

 

This release date was now changed to August 17th.

 

And the Ativ Book Lite has moved from the 19th to .... the 17th.

John

 

Has anyone heard any rumours about Samsung producing a non-touch matte screen Haswell ATIV 9 Plus - like the old version? Really don't want a touch shiny screen for a business orientated laptop. Just want the same as the previous version with an updated CPU and 8GB ram. Everything else can remain the same!

Can anyone recommend an alternative to the ATIV9 that has Haswell and a matte screen?

Thanks

 

There are none. Intel requires touch with Haswell ultrabooks and touch usually means not matte because of the fingerprint nightmare that creates on a matte screen. It will be interesting to see what Lenovo does with the X1 carbon touch though..currently is sort of matte and touch but not yet Haswell.

 

Lenovo is calling the T440s an Ultrabook and it has a non-touch option. So, if they can do it then why not Samsung?

However, nothing is imminent for the Book 9 Plus, unlike the AMD powered Ativ Book Lite which is coming very soon with both touch and non-touch versions. Perhaps that model will guide Samsung on what users want.

John

 

Its all very frustrating having to wait and find out what they plan to do

 

It's not clear Samsung has as much business sense, but hopefully they'll take their head out of the sand.

 

Apple has released the MacBook Air with Haswell - that doesn't have touch.

 

The air uses OSX not windows. The air is glossy not matte. The air does not have a hi resolution like the older ativ book 9. Now having said that the air does use one of the best TN panels out there and it uses a 1440X900 resolution which is also the nicer 16:10 aspect ratio. With the current mess that W8 has created with focusing on touch and wi com digitizers etc.. it is making it more impractical and harder to find good desktop productivity ultrabooks. I will say one thing, the last generation ativ book 9 13" samsung with its 1080P matte screen is the nicest screen have ever seen. I played with one briefly at BB. The other plus is it's considerable lighter, almost a half pound lighter then the plus. IMO a better system with one huge Achilles heal.. battery life. The older one will probably get you around 5.5 hours with the ivy bridge.
In the US amazon store you can get the 1080P ativ book 9 with 256GB storage 4GB ram and i7 for around 1500 dollars. It weights only 2.6 pounds. I'm with you, this would be perfection if they dropped a haswell in it. Some might prefer W7 but W8 will be tolerable IMO with 8.1
Samsung better get a clue and drop a haswell in the book 9 plus with matte option (non touch) before apple gets smart and offers a retina on the air. If not, its my belief the air will clean house and dig into windows ultraportable market share.

 

Vaio 13 Pro (except north American models)

 

Thought that had touch/glossy screen?

 

As stated, non-touch option is not offered in USA. Eg. check out the UK web site at VAIO® Pro | Choose your VAIO® Pro | Sony and the Pro 13 mentions "touch screen option available" (interestingly, it depends on the colour you choose).

 

It looks like the Sony has some wifi and fan issues. Not sure I want to progress with that one. Cmon Samsung give a non-touch matte Haswelll ATIV9

 

They already do.. you mean you want Samsung to make a ativ book 9 plus with matte

I know. Samsung has the worst naming for their ultraportables. I'm still hoping they do. One of the big drawbacks is the newer plus gained almost half a pound of weight. That's not cool.

 

Seems the release of the 9 Plus will be around the Windows 8.1 release date. This would make sense if Windows 8.1 has improved scaling options to handle the high resolution of the 9 Plus.

More shops are listing the 9 Plus now...for an almost ridiculous price.

http://geizhals.at/eu/samsung-ativ-book-9-plus-940x3g-np940x3g-k01de-a965435.html

 

Mad money. I just want them to sell a matte non-touch version of the 9 plus. I am guessing so do a load of people. Whether Samsung are listening is another matter.

 

Why is Adorama the only US site to list the ATIV Book 9 Plus at this time? Do they have an exclusive? And do they really have the machine in stock or are they just jumping the gun?

 

I think I go this time to the Sony counterpart... only I need to know if it's upgradable (and not a SKU option) after I bought one, cause on my country they only sell with 4GB of RAM and on other countries can be configurable up to 8GB.
I will be missing the 15" (but not the lack of FHD) and the possibility to connect a RJ45 cable...

 

Nobody has it yet. The sites that are listing it are just trying to get advance sales by listing it first.

 

If your talking about the Sony Pro 13 it has soldered ram and PCI SSD. So no, it can't be upgraded at all, including the SSD.
I'm hearing too many conflicting reports about wifi issues and fan noise, heat with the Sony. Plus the excessive flex it has using carbon fiber. I may just end up picking up the 2.6 pound ivy bridge ativ book nine with that beautiful 1080 matte screen. I'm thinking Samsung will cave into MS wishes and kill off the non touch screen series 9. I'll wait until release and see what they do. The non touch should be available for a while. But let me emphasize how much better the matte screen is. Its crazy good. Color saturation, contrast etc. The best my eyes have ever seen. When at best buy when I went over to the ativ book nine and immediately knew this screen was at a much higher level and literally blew everything out of the water in the store.

 

Amazon UK still think they will get stock on 17th. However, while SW Update lists the model it doesn't have any drivers or software.

It looks like you've built a good case for getting the Ivy Bridge non-touch version instead of a heavier notebook with an unusably high resolution display.

John

 

There will be a matte haswell option in both 13 and 15" varieties. I am completely confident and have no data to back me up.

But it may be a long wait.

 

If it's a long wait it won't be Haswell and then all bets may be off anyway.

 

Is that single channel DDR?..and this brings back another question that I still don't understand, what is the difference between the X3E and X3F? Somebody said one is thicker or looks different but it must be more than that.

 

Interesting how Song goes down a pound in weight (2.3) while adding touch and a high res display and Samsung goes up a half pound.

 

Hold both in-hand and it's obvious where the weight goes. The Sony is a quality machine, but it's hard to overstate just how bendy it is. Series 9 machines, on the other hand, feel like you're holding Captain America's shield. All things being equal, it's pretty clear that most of the extra weight is just build quality.

(And, yes, the current non-touch 1080p Samsung machine is lighter, but touch-screens ARE heavier, and so is the larger battery require to run that hi-res+ screen. The extra weight was unavoidable.)

Frankly, I'd say that either is fine -- it's more personal preference than anything objectively good or bad. Personally, I'd rather have a heavier machine that doesn't flex when I type. Sony absolutely nailed the lightness -- it's shocking to pick it up and feel how airy it is -- but the whole thing just feels too wobbly for my tastes. I can easily imagine other people loving it, though.

 

I have been wondering how much more weight the slice battery adds to the Sony Pro 13. I'm thinking it will be over 3 lbs but if it gets 12 hours battery life that is as good as the air 13" and with hi resolution display a step up at that. But yeah, from the review on mobiletechreview that thing is way to flimsy. I think Samsung calls it dura aluminum. Something used in aviation but its damn nice material when you feel and hold it up in person.

 

Yes, it seems that Samsung, for reasons best known to themselves, put single channel RAM into the E and F and this will have some adverse effect on performance, particularly the integrated graphics (but no one has complained about the impact of single channel as opposed to getting the single channel RAM). At this stage we don't know what they are putting in the Book 9 Plus.

I could never properly get to grips with the difference between the E and the F but it's not a lot. There's more discussion in this thread.

John

 

Ok long, but not Broadwell (2015) long. More like years end. I really think intel is holding back on haswell for everything but premium models right now. This allows them to clear out ivy stock with back to school. PC sales this last year were terrible so there's plenty of ivy sitting around.

 

The Sony slice battery brings it up to 2.9 pounds, almost exactly what the MBA weighs on its own. It's admittedly a much less elegant form-factor than the MBA, though -- the battery looks a little awkward.

 

Thanks for that info. I keep going back and forth on what my next ultrabook should be. And for the first time I am seriously looking at buying a Mac air 13". That is a big deal for someone like me being I have never bought any Apple device.. ever. I admit I would never buy any IOS device because of complete lack of control for the user on that OS. But OSX is not so bad as I am learning. Different yes but I can still do what I need to do. Mainly play any video codec, burn BD R discs, have access to newsgroups and using news readers, office. About the only thing I have not found is an OSX version of winamp. Which would suck being I have used that from its inception as a windows application. But I can still use it on the web page interface so its not a complete deal killer but almost.

Another reason I am revisiting the Apple option is I recently fixed my oldest computer, a HP DV6500T running vista. It actually performs well enough as long as I use chrome. There is the long boot time and longer superfetch process of vista but its does ok once the old spinning drive settles down. I bought this back around 2007 and it has a decent LG piece of glass but more importantly the older 16:10 aspect ratio. At the time I thought it was beautiful but now I see its not as bright as my Toshiba's LED panel. Now of course the IPS stuff even does better. So the panel is dated but the aspect ratio is something I sorely miss. As some remember around 2009 the panel manufacturers told us that 16:9 is superior and perfect for watching movies etc... I say BS. The real reason as some remember was they could cut more panels from a sheet and make more money, less waste. Hardware OEMS had little say and there went our vertical space.

I again went to BB yesterday and played with the MB air 13" and immediately went over to the Samsung display and played with the Ativ book 9 FHD. What I noticed was yes, the higher resolution of the samsung was nicer but the display look scrunched up. Lets face it, 16:10 probably works better for most users over 90 percent of the time. So you have black bars on top/bottom when viewing 16:9 videos. That never bothered anyone before the change. I never heard anyone complain about it other then the propaganda from the oems that it would be better for us.. again I say BS.

So maybe Apple has been right all along with their aspect ratios. Both the MB pro and air still have 16:10. I used to laugh at Ipads with their 4:3 But at least with the 4:3 you can use it in portrait mode without it feeling top heavy and overly long to the point it does not seem natural. Thus with android, they usually are used in landscape. 4:3 is more natural for a tablet. The only real deal killer is the hopeless IOS. No way would I give up that much control. But Apple nailed it for the 4:3 they chose.

So I'm leaning heavily towards the mac now. 16:10 is something I no longer want to give up. It feels natural. It should never have been changed. And I don't know what others feel but for an ultrabook, W8 modern look is really upsetting to me. The only one that really appeals is the ativ book 9 with matte and its a bit of a pain not having touch on the UI. Is it just me or do others feel a repulsion when they go to Costco and see a line up of notebooks flashing W8 tiles? W7 phones bombed along with mango etc..MS should have got a clue right there and then that nobody cares for that UI. I'm leaning towards OSX now because I want to continue to use a desktop OS and want to return to 16:10. I'm almost made up my mind now that modern UI has no place or makes any sense on a notebook/desktop. I've been trying to convince myself that W8 will be ok.. maybe 8.1 will fix it. But my gut tells me MS lost its way. The TN panel on the mac is actually very good. I think I can live with 1440/900. Especially since its 16:10

Also, with all the hoop la about how good the newer Ativ book 9 track pads are, and how mac like etc.. and good gesture support .... I have to say that its still miles away from the airs when I compared the two. The airs track pad is simply fluid and buttery smooth. I've never used anything on the PC side remotely that good. Sorry for this long post but what your witnessing is a long time Windows supporter about to cross the line. I can't believe MS screwed up the PC so badly. And more importantly, i thought I'd never see the day that Macs would be competitive price wise with higher end PC ultraportables. I used to be easy in the past I'd just say, hell no its not worth 300-400 more etc.. I can't say that anymore. Apple is starting to be price conscious and offer decent value. Less and less reason for me to make excuses for MS.

 

I absolutely agree about the Apple trackpad. Even the best PC trackpad doesn't come close. That said, note that it's more the drivers than the hardware -- when you put Windows on a Macbook, the trackpad takes a noticeable dip in quality.

And, bear in mind that high-end PC ultraportables (and laptops in general) have always been more expensive than Apple laptops. It took some effort to spec out even the most expensive Macbook to reach the standard price of a high-end Vaio. What's happening now is that the $2500 high-end PC laptops have dropped in price to the $1500 to $2000 range, and suddenly they're getting considered by people who would never have even looked at them before. The flagship Vaio now starts at $1250 -- that's a significant drop.

All that said, if the current MBA had a touchscreen, I'd have already bought one. I'm stuck with the Windows environment (and I actually prefer it anyway), but I'm not putting W8 on a non-touchscreen machine.

 

I'm assuming only to run windows 8 on that? Because with the track pad that Apple has, I don't see the need for touch with OSX. But then again, OSX does not support touch so I guess I answered my own question.

 

I was waiting for the Air with a High-res screen, but when it never came I bought the MBPr 13" just cause I could, and I´m not realy impressed. The trackpad is 10/10, the best I ever used, but the one on my 900x3c and 900x4c is almost as good. I´d say 9/10. The 13" retina is suffering from a lot of lag and stutters, so it might not be fair to compare them. I bet everything is much smoother on the Air. But I´m always demanding the absolute best whenever I buy anything from Apple, so I´m always a bit disapointed. It´s cool toue to see that there are computers out there that is as good, since Apple often sets the standard for me!

A lot of stores claimed that it would deliver the 9 + on 12 of July. Now it´s the 17th, and then in the end it will be.....?

Anyways, I´m realy psyched about this machine, and realy enyoing Windows 8, even thou 8.1 did´t realy work on the 900x3c this time around. I wonder if Asus will get the Zenbook infinity on the market before Samsung get the 9 + on the shelfs?

 

I said explicitly in my post that I'd put W8 on it, right after the part you quoted...

That said, a good touchpad doesn't replace a touchscreen. Each can do the work of the other, but they're not even remotely the same thing. I can think of plenty of tablet apps that would be pretty terrible if you had to use a touchpad with it. Apple wants your touch device and you typing device to be different devices, which is fine I suppose, but I really don't see a reason for it myself. If a laptop can have a touchscreen in addition to everything else that a laptop would already have, there's nothing to lose by that and many applications are undoubtedly better for it.

 

If MBA 2013 was FHD I would have probably pulled the trigger, but alas I am forced to wait for ATiv Book 9+, its going to be a long and painful wait and there are no in-depth reviews out there... I am wondering whether MBA2013 and its TN 900x panel would actually be good enough, but that dreadful PPI.. I am currently using my old Q330 and x768 res is highly annoying, I dont believe x900 would be THAT much different.

I was gonna get MBA 2013 but that TN x900 resoluti on is stopping me.. I am currently on 13' Q330 with a x768 screen its awful.. I wanted a massive upgrade to the screen and x900 is just not enough for my liking, On the other hand, maybe its not that bad ,but again no touch screen either.

 

Went to i store to buy air 13". But after looking again at the MB retina's, the TN panel looked just horrid. I did not remember it looking that bad when I compared them in the daytime. But at night, you can really see the difference. My wife also hated the speakers on the Apple which I have to agree.. they are crap. My Toshiba's Hardon Kardons are much better then the Apples. So I'm back to not knowing again. I agree, its painful waiting. Intel just wants to unload all the ivy crap and nobody's buying. I'm actually considering buying a samsung ativ book 7 ultra and upgrading the SSD to 256. That one has a big battery and will get you a strong 6+ hours on its ivy bridge.

 

There is a lot of difference in real estate between 1366 x 768 and 1600 x 900. If your eyes are fairly good then you can handle x900 without display scaling but your eyes will need to be extremely good (or you end up sitting very close to the screen) to handle x1080 without display scaling. And if you apply 125% scaling to x1080 you get the equivalent of x864. So perhaps you should look a bit harder at the MBA (and the old NP900X3C if there are any remaining).

My eyes are old so maybe I'm biased against this current rush to more pixels (which also substantially increases the GPU load). At the same time I use a phone with a 233 ppi display, but hold it quite close to my eyes.

John

 

And 3200x1800 will necessitate 200% scaling for me. We'll see how it's handled in 8.1. I believe that's what's holding up the plus. I guess worse case scenario you could run it at 1600x900 most of the time. But it's just stupid that it still doesn't have display port for an external screen. Can't wait to get a 30" 4K monitor.

 

This is my fear. In which case, the soonest we're going to see the laptop is October. It's not even being RTMed until late August. I can wait until next month, but I'll buy something else for sure if it goes any later.

I gotta think that Samsung would want it out for the back-to-school season, though. Leaving it until the holidays seems to miss an opportunity.

 

Windows 8 can't scale that monster. If they do release it before 8.1 it may have scaling issues to say the least. From what we know, I think its out of Samsung's hands if they want to release it early. Sounds like they will have to wait for 8.1 Not sure why they are going that high a resolution? 1080P would be good enough IMO. It just sounds too me that this device is maxed out just so Samsung can say we have a higher resolution then the retina and claiming 12 hour battery life as well. 12 hour battery life is not just a number. Its what the air 13" air gets.

I have real doubts about the plus's claim to 12 hours as you probably have figured out. Sony Pro 13 with the slice can barely achieve this at the same weight. The ativ plus will have a heavier case using dura aluminum then the Sony's carbon fiber. Meaning, IMO, less room for a battery. That and the fact that the ativ is driving more pixels? As we know the Sony is lightest/thinnest in the world running haswell and having carbon fiber running a lessor 1080P. Yet with two batteries, and the same weight, Samsung will be claiming the ativ plus driving more pixels and using heavier materials at the same weight form factor will magically hit the 12 hour battery number. It does not add up.

 

Unless the default resolution just undersamples, like the rMBP does. I'd be fine with that -- the retina Macbooks still look lovely, even if they refuse to run their full pixel count in resolution.

So assume you'll get 75% of that figure in actual usage, which works for almost every other battery-life claim on a PC laptop. This will also presumably be Samsung's new screen, which is supposedly 40% more energy-efficient. This could be an eight-hour machine of real usage easily enough, which is fine by me. For people who need to be away from a wall-plug for twelve hours, the MBA is a fantastic machine for that.