Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus 2014 - 2 hour battery life brand new

I've come to ask for help with my new ATIV Book 9 Plus. I just bought it, though it is the 2014 Haswell version (model NP940X3G-K04US). The problem is that I'm getting about 2 hours battery life while only web browsing in Chrome. No videos, no heavy uploads/downloads. The fan also runs constantly and the bottom of the laptop stays extremely hot.

I checked the Task Manager and find that CPU usage is around 40% and RAM usage is over 50%, just for a few Chrome tabs. When I close Chrome, CPU usage goes down to around 8%.

Does anybody have similar problems when browsing in Chrome? I will not go back to using Internet Explorer. If it came to that I'd go buy a MacBook Air just for the reliable battery life.

 

Hi and welcome to NBR.
Something doesn't sound right and perhaps you need to check a few things in the Samsung utility or malware scan as that cpu usage is extremely high compared to when I use my browser with a few tabs open.
Your best bet is to post in the thread link below. PS _ I am able to easily pass 2hrs on my machine today I managed at least 3.5hrs.
http://forum.notebookreview.com/thr...-lounge-np940x3g.733030/page-187#post-9983318

Good luck and typing this on my lovely Ativ Book 9+

 

tron2,
Thanks for your reply. Are you happy with 3.5 hours? I would not be. I am doing extremely light computing, and this machine is advertised as having 7-9 hours battery life. I mean this is 2015 and this is a $1200 machine, supposedly one of the best. Even all of the reviewers got all day battery life out of this machine.
http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/samsung-ativ-book-9-plus
http://www.mobiletechreview.com/notebooks/Samsung-ATIV-Book-9-Plus.htm
This thing is a POS. I will be returning and probably going Mac, which is painful to say, but all of these Windows machines are so unreliable.

 

Did you try a different web browser?

Also, what display brightness are you using? At high brightness the display backlight can be using more power than the CPU.

John

 

Well, actually very very happy with it. I am back in library again today so will give you a more accurate outline how long it lasts from start to finish. It says about 6hrs remaining at 90% as I type this. I am using mainly word processing connected to library wifi and listening to music through headphone jack as I work.

I am quite biased and have no products with Apple logo in my household. Some people either love them or loathe them I guess I fall in the latter category.
As for you I am not sure what it is you want from the ultrabook? Is it battery life, screen resolution, brightness, brand name?

I took a punt with the Samsung Ativ Book 9+ and have not even looked back at all. It has performed flawlessly in every field and to that I am extremely grateful. High resolution on a 13'' screen windows operating system, Microsoft word with 3 pages side by side and still able to be view it(my main work requirement) has been pure bliss for me. Along with awesome audio for an ultrabook and superfast haswell webpage processing and ram memory balance have been incredibly impressive.

Before you do return it I suggest you read this post and the links in it explicitly.
You can also try eco mode on and that should dramatically increase your battery life if this is what you prefer/want in your ultrabook; again tweaking is required to find what you want.
Good luck.

 

Your CPU usage is high but when you first open up a machine it does tend to have a lot of activity. You have indexing, WEI testing, updates and a lot of other stuff to get done. Not too sure if Apple is the same way. Once things are all settled out then start hunting for resource hogs even in bloat ware. After a week or so you should be setup, now it could all get done in a day or two but you would have to be aggressive in getting it all worked out.

 

Agreed with TanWare.
I found the Samsung utility is very important to get the most out of this ultrabook.
You need to understand how it does its thing and reaches the advertised results and assimilate it correctly with windows power management. For the average user this may be too laborious.

Good luck.
5hr 30min remaining 80% battery life.
EDIT;2
At 50% battery remaining have been on for about 3.5hrs
So estimated max usage is 7hrs on battery which makes me very
Edit: 3
Confirmed 7hrs on battery Wooot
Edit: 4
Confirmed 8hrs when no multimedia playing and wifi limited use

 

Yes there is a lot, unlike Apple or Linux too you have the first AV scan etc..

 

TANWare, you are right. About 3 days after first using it, it began to run much cooler and battery life improved some. It's still inconsistent so I'm still not sure what to expect, but I'm glad it's improving. Thanks for your input.