Samsung NP930X5J / NP940X5J ATIV Book 9 (2014) 15.6" Haswell announced Jan 6, 2014

Got it, thank you. Sounds like Amtel is indeed the touchscreen, while the touchpad is some new creation -- for which Samsung forgot to include a driver.

 

A new BIOS (PO4AED) is available though SWUpdate. I haven't updated yet...

 

Got my NP930X5J about two weeks ago and continue to enjoy it, a lot. I followed Huberth's lead and installed a Crucial 550/512 in slot 2 (super easy) and am now monitoring battery life. Will probably remove hyberfil.sys but have no other plans for changes in the short term except to use it and probably tweak the SSDs (anyone using Samsung's Disc Magic for this?). Might also dual boot with Ubuntu 14.04.

I still have some time to return the 930 if want to go with the touch screen, but I have no real cause to do that except that I always seem to want the option I don't currently have. Hard to imagine the battery life would be better on a 940 (touch), but I have no real data to show that would be the case.

 

Hi guys,

Any chance that this Amazon preorder ship before 29?
I need a laptop by 05/27.

 

Has anyone tried the new BIOS yet?

.

 

Looks like you'll have to go first

 

Let us know your power consumption.

With the (power-hungry) Crucial M550 my average power draw is about 13-15 Watts.
Since Installing the M550 I have not seen it go below 10 Watts .
(Before installing the M550 I used to get 5.5 Watts)

 

New BIOS successfully installed without any problems so far.

As for the Atmel touchpad driver, see below for the only information I can find, in the SW Updater.



I was told by Samsung Customer Service to delete existing driver, then restart before running the SW Updater again. Ok, but what driver to delete?
Is it one of these, or.....?

 

Thank you for taking the plunge and reporting back about the BIOS.

I think the driver you have in SW Update (Styremattedriver) is the small mxtBootBridge driver I found as well yesterday. I wonder if that is really a complete driver.

To delete it, I would go to the Programs and Features control panel where you should have an uninstall entry. Deleting it in Device Manager can be messy if you don't uninstall it in Programs and Features first.

 

Uninstalled the driver through the Program Control panel, restarted the computer, ran the SW Updater, but no, just the same situation....

 

I don't think it's the M550 that's power hungry. I swapped my SSD1 for the M550 512gb (ie total of 1 SSD installed afterwards) and my best case power consumption was slightly less than with the original Samsung 256gb SSD.

On a seperate issue, I applied the BIOS update as my trackpad is awful under Windows 7 Ult, but saw no improvement. I still have a trackpad that doesn't move the pointer until my finger has moved about 5mm, but still registers click when not expected with the lightest of touches.

 

Hmmm. It could be some of my settings then. Any advice?

PS: My system just froze (probably because i limited the page file to 2GB). When I re-booted it changed the boot-order and booted with the Samsung SSD,
I increased the page file to 8GB (I keep many chrome tabs open and often run on 96% memory used), installed the new BIOS and also switched the boot order back.

 

Anyone receive any shipping updates from Amazon or Adorama?

 

The BIOS update does not show up through the software available at Download Center: Download Software, Firmware, Drivers & Manuals | Samsung (I uninstalled the original windows that came with the notebook, so I don't have access to the preloaded samsung SW Update that you're showing in your pictures), I wonder if that application and the one from the site show the same drivers and updates. At first the one from the site seems to be missing the one for the BIOS, I've checked the notebook version for different contries and both versions of windows and coudn't find it there. Does anyone know how to get it?

 

You can get SW Update here (the link is on the download tab here).

John

 

Thanks, but that's exactly the SW Update that I mentioned, in which the BIOS update is not available (it doesn't seem to be, at least for the time being). I've checked it again and it is still not there, so I wonder if the preloaded version of SW Update has access to more/newer stuff.

 

Same May 29th showing through Amazon. Samsung's US site is now selling (pre-order 10-14 business days) both touchscreen versions, $1,499.99 ATIV Book 9 (2014 Edition) and $1,899.99 ATIV Book 9 (2014 Edition)

 

I always recommend that you use Samsung's stand-alone BIOS Update program to check for BIOS updates.

John

 

Just to confirm: Did you do a fresh installation of Windows 7 with only the M550 in your X5J? I'm trying to figure out the differences between your approach and Huberth's.

John

 

I pre-ordered the NP940X5J with the i7. It is a lot of money for a laptop, but I have paid more for one in the past. I am still having second thoughts. I have a week to change my mind before it is scheduled to ship. It will be replacing a two and a half year old ASUS Zenbook that I will give to my daughter who is in college. I travel a lot and have a 6-7 pound work laptop plus a lot of other work related cables and accessories. I need something light like the Zenbook for my personal laptop to keep the weight of the bag down. I want to try a touchscreen with Windows 8, but tablets don't work well for me. Do you guys feel this will end up being an orphaned product without support if Samsung pulls out of the Windows laptop business?

 

Yes John. It was a fresh install of Win 7 Ult, followed by adding all the Samsung Drivers and necessary utilities.

 

Samsung appear to be implementing a phased withdrawal and are no longer introducing new models in some countries. It remains to be seen whether they completely withdraw from notebook production, or continue with the more profitable models (and possibly sell off the slimmed down notebook department as they did with hard drives) or continue with contract manufacturing for others. Their software / driver support (never the best) already tends to stop once models are no longer in production but I would hope they would leave a good supply of spare parts should they shut down the factory.

Thanks.

John

 

Thanks John! My intention is to leave Windows 8.1 on it for the life of the computer (I won't keep it for more than four years). If I really hate Windows 8, I would probably downgrade it to 7. I assume that it ships with working drivers for 8.1.

Tom

 

NP930X5J (non-touch) ships with Win8.1 in some countries and Win7 in others (such as USA). Drivers are available for both through SW Update (Samsung's channel for providing drivers and other supporting software). It stands to reason that NP940X5J (touch) can work with Win7 as well -- although no Win7 drivers are provided for it in SW Update, and Samsung may not officially support it, and touchscreen support may be lacking. But NP930X5J drivers could be downloaded for manual installation.

 

I am anxiously awaiting this to be available here in Canada.
Most likely it will be offered by BestBuy / Future Shop.
My only beef is that they chose to put such a small 256GB SSD into it.
Even the new Dell XPS15 comes with a 512GB SSD - which in and of itself - in my opinion - is small in this day and age of digital storage.
If you were to buy a 512GB SSD separately vs a 256GB SSD, the price difference is not huge - so why doesn't Samsung just take that leap at the start - and spare its customers the hassle and misery of finding a larger ssd to install in the second slot ?
I'll have to go and buy another m2 SSD and use it for my "my documents/media files" - and use the original 256GB SSD as the boot/os drive.
What a waste and added expense.

 

I would prefer a 512GB SSD drive also, but it is not available. My ASUS has a 256GB drive and I am nearly out of space on it, but I can clean a few items off of it. I know I can barely fit on a 256GB drive, so it will work for now and I will upgrade it soon.

 

Too bad the Toshiba HG5D Series SATA M.2 SSD (512GB) is not available at any retail store:
Toshiba HG5D Series SATA M.2 SSD Review (512GB) - Amazing Performance in a SATA M.2 SSD | The SSD Review

HG5d Series

 

I feel like the 930x5j is already orphaned. I own the 2013 and 2012 versions which are IMO much much more polished. Like other users, the trackpad is terrible (clicking on other buttons/pages while trying to type is infuriating). The battery life is not as reviewed or initially advertised, it's bigger and heavier than prior years. I notice no difference in performance.

If I could do it again, I would order last years 900x4 and be much happier...

Perhaps this is Samsungs dropping the PC laptop market effect. After all, what do you do with your PC department when the last model ships?...

 

Prophetically, after I posted this message, Samsung SW update notified me of 4 updates: bluetooth, Intel storage, Bios, and trackpad (ver 1.7.0.0). I now have the latest updates and as of this message and using for 5 minutes there is continued aberrant selection of random screens or buttons while typing - but perhaps less so? no, unfortunately, not...
HOWEVER, now the two finger scroll no longer works and I had to set the boot section in BIOS to boot the computer after update. The trackpad is also much less responsive. So, from bad to worse... Definitely not a polished product for me or worth the $2K. A disappointment and waste of time. Perhaps in a few weeks/months they'll work out the bugs...
Just had another aberrant 'click', I'm going back to my trusty 900x3b.

Hope Samsung takes the 930x5j back and I hope I save someone else some time & trouble...

 

I don't use the touchpad. I have a Logitech Anywhere MX mouse that I love. I will probably just disable the touchpad, so that won't be much of a negative to me. I am in IT, but have avoided Windows 8 to date. I work on the network side, but more than occasionally I have to support friends and relatives with their computers, so I thought I would give Windows 8 a try. I am getting the touch screen model to get the full Windows 8 experience.

 

Thanks for your information about the updates. Just wondering, after installing the new trackpad version; do you have the possibilites to adjust the settings in a separate Control panel pane in settings? This have been missing so far....

 

Hi John Ratsey

Sorry to ask you again but is there any updates about Portuguese versions of this laptops? Samsung is taking to long to release it on new markets....

 

There's nothing in the SW Update database for either Portugal or Spain and, given the reports that Samsung has stopped selling new models of notebooks in some of the countries with lower sales, I wouldn't be too optimistic about this model officially reaching your country. Would the Italian version be of interest (but be forewarned that it is missing the second SSD slot)?

Also, while the UK version has been in the SW Update database for some time, there's no indication that stock is about to arrive. It's as if all the remaining Samsung notebook production has been assigned to one corner of their factory.

John

 

No specific touchpad settings that I can find in Control Panel - only the Mouse settings. Seems odd that Samsung wouldn't let users adjust trackpad settings when the updated driver clearly can affect the trackpad sensitivity.

I can use the system with a bluetooth mouse & keyboard without problem.

Interestingly, the touchpad driver is listed as I2C:

 

ok many thanks for the update! I think that i need to start thinking in other notebook.

 

Excuse me if this was covered but is the trackpad issue also present on the touch versions?

 

Hi all,
Two updates:

1)I just updated bios and trackpad due to prompt by SWupdate. I otherwise haven't really had the hood open on this thing at all, since nearly all I know about laptops I learned from reading this forum. With the updates, everything seems to work fine, but I am still unable to find setting for the trackpad anywhere in particular, although the mouse settings will allow me to increase or decrease the scale of movement on the pad, (ie, how many inches of trackpad does it take to cross the screen), although nothing about sensitivity. The issue is getting less noticeable, but I suspect I have trained myself not to put my palm down on the pad as much.

2)I watched a movie last night; streamed from Amazon.com, out the HDMI port into a TV, with the Samsung screen set to "projector only" (ie, screen on laptop is off.)
a)For people doing battery things, streaming a 110min movie from Amazon with the screen off brought the battery from just under full to 70%.

b)It was jittery. And there were skips. And the soundtrack wasn't quite synced up, so the speaking looked a touch weird. Is this a function of my internet, the HDMI drivers, or the processor? I'm really hoping it's the net connection; I would hate to think this thing couldn't handle pushing A/V over HDMI. Any thoughts on how to investigate that?

 

Windows Resource Monitor would tell you if you maxed out the CPU and also lets you track Network activity. You can check your connection speed at Speedtest.net by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

 

Which power plan? If the CPU was running at minimum speed then there might be some performance issues. HWiNFO has a useful animated CPU speed display.

However, I would suspect the internet connection. Can you store a movie on your SSD then play it from there?

John

 

What are the main difference bettween NP930X5J and NP940X5J?

 

NP940=touchscreen, NP930=non-touch.

The submodel code (after X5J) can cover many other differences, including CPU, RAM, storage size and OS. On some other Samsung models it even affects whether there is a discrete GPU, and if so which one.

 

I have been unsuccessful in trying to make the Crucial M550 SSD work in LPM (Low Power Mode).

peec, when You go to: Device Manager --> "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers " what do you see with your Crucial M550 SSD installed?:

Intel(R) 8 Series SATA AHCI Controller - 9C03

or:

ATA Channel 0
ATA Channel 1
Standard AHCI1.o Serial ATA Controller

or something else?

And what are your settings in Power Manager > Advanced > Hard Disk?

I am trying to replicate your settings without having to re-install Windows 7.

 

What you see there (under IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers in Device Manager and in the Power plan) depends on your SATA driver: Whether you use Microsoft's built-in Windows driver or Intel Rapid Storage.

This is what you see with Microsoft's driver:

And this is what you see with Intel Rapid Storage:

There is actually a third SATA driver included with Intel's chipset package. I did a performance comparison long time ago (posted somewhere) but that was on older chipsets with HDDs.

 

Hi everybody! This is my first post here.

I was waiting for this guy since it was announced, as it almost coincided with when my 15' (the previous one, 3.5 lbs) was stolen in Italy (I am from NYC).

I am a lawyer, and often have to work with two documents (usually word and/or pdf) open simultaneously. It worked for me with 15', and having a very portable (I also ride a motorcycle and carry my laptop in a backpack) notebook with HD 15.6' screen (1600 by 900 was acceptable, but not enjoyable) sounds like a luxury and the best of both worlds. 8GB RAM, 256 SSD, Intel 7 -- all good for me.

Now, first, I got scared that you guys believe Samsung is going to discontinue manufacturing notebooks (or selling them), and may discontinue (or become very poor on) the support. Second, I cannot conclusively determine form the posts here (which in general are tremendously helpful) if the keyboard and track pad are on par with business class notebooks. Third, how good/bad are the screens? I understand there is no matte. Do I understand correctly that the touch version is glossy, while the non-touch is glossy with anti-glare coating. Do you know guys how different they feel/are? Is it possible to use them outside? Finally, I do no understand why the non-touch version is listed for 2k, while the touch version will go for 1.9k? Is it because the non-touch has better software, or something else. While I do not realistically need a touch screen, is there a good reason to choose the non-touch over the touch one for 100 more.

Thanks everybody in advance.

Danie

NB. What other comparable notebooks would you suggest to check before making the decision. Thx.l

 

Check out the MacBookPro Retina. It is 0.5 lbs heavier, is not optimized for Windows and has a screen that does not always scale well.

If you want WIndows 7 or 8 and a 1920x1080 screen there is nothing else that I could find that would come close to the Samsung NP930X5J / NP940X5J as regards to power, lightness, quietness, screen and build quality.

 

In addition to MBPr, Dell XPS15, Lenovo Thinkpad X1C (14"), and possibly some others (ASUS?). The light-weight large-screen laptop category is somewhat limited.

 

I've considered the DellXPS15. You can get it with 16GB RAM and a 512GB SSD, but It weighs 4.4 lbs and I did not want a 3200 x 1800 screen.

I believe the NP930X5J / NP940X5J has no competition. I wish Samsung would do better marketing by positioning it as the lighter Windows alternative to the MacBook Pro.

 

I was just looking at the XPS 15. An FHD display seems to be an option but the one I saw is shipped with a 130W PSU. That's going to be somewhat heavier and more bulky than the 40W PSU needed for the Book 9 (but it will run faster). The XPS 15 is a competitor for the NP870Z5G.

If a size smaller notebook is acceptable then the Dell E7440 might be worth considering. Notebookcheck reported favourably on its FHD panel.

John

 

The Dell E7440 only comes with a 14.0 inch 1366x768 screen.

 

Yeah I know there aren't many choices, just providing some options for the OP. The XPS15 is closer in weight to the AB9 than it is to the AB8. I agree the bulky power supply and shorter battery life are marks against it. I wish Samsung would do a better job on the AB8 to make it competitive. It's unfortunate that samsung upsized the 15" model as well, it was truly in a league of its own when it was at 3.5lbs. HP Elitebook Folio is another lightweight 14".