Samsung Series 6. New owner impressions.

So I just received a Ativ Book 6, which I purchased from the Microsoft store for $989(student discount, plus office 365 for free). And I wanted to make a quick post about a question I had that I couldn't find the answer to. It has the exact same lcd as the Ativ Book 8, the AUO9003. I also went and took a look at the Ativ Book 8 at best buy, and indeed it is identical(the screen). Also I was happy to find that the 8GB of ram is all soldered on the motherboard, leaving a free slot for an additional 8GB. I'm really happy with this machine. I'm running PCMARK 7 now, I'll post the results as soon as it's complete.

 

So after working out some issues with the silent mode(I initially got a score in the 2200's in PcMark7 with it enabled) I finally got a PC Mark 7 score of 3428. Which is about what I was expecting, of course the HDD was the bottleneck. I'll be picking up an SSD next week. I'll post new benchmark scores when I get them. Oh and I got about 4:30 of battery life today doing school work(mostly word, and powerpoint, with some web browsing) This was with wifi on and the screen on medium brightness. I understand that the Ativ Book 8 has a much better battery, but for $989 + Office(which I would have needed anyway) I can't ask for more. I'm using the $211 that I saved Vs. the Ativ Book 8 to buy the SSD. Like I said above, I just wanted this to have the same high quality screen as the Ativ Book 8, which as mentioned above I can confirm it does.

 

Keep it up. I'm interested because I'm willing to give this one another shot (I had problems with the ones from Best Buy) at under $1000. I figured with the savings, if I need more battery life, I could just buy an external battery for $100-$150 and carry that around. An extra lb on a plane isn't going to bother me really. Plus the external battery can be used for tablets, phones, etc as well.

When you pick it up with one hand, is there noticeable flexing at the bottom? (maybe this is a bad thing to do? Not really sure) Also, is there a spot at the bottom that seems to be wearing out much quicker than the rest (I saw that on the best buy model, in store and on the two I had that had other problems). You haven't had it for much time, so I'm not sure if you'd see it or not. I'm assuming the bottom is painted onto dark plastic, so it wouldn't really should much to begin with.

 

No, it doesn't flex. And I don't see anything wearing out on the bottom plastic portion. But even if that were to happen, I doubt it would happen in the first year. I don't use it on my lap, it's always on a desk so I don't foresee that being a problem.

One neat thing about buying this from the Microsoft store is that it includes "Microsoft Signature" which means it comes with a clean copy of WIn 8. The only thing I would describe as bloat was a metro tile for Skype. Not a single 3rd party program was here, except for SW update and a Samsung help program.

 

I much prefer a lean installation too, and would personally lose that Help program (I assume it's Support Center).

OTOH if it's not already there, you want to install Samsung Settings, in order to enable Fn-keys (beyond the few handled by Windows), power management and other Samsung features. The thread linked below describes that:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/729139-settings-easy-settings-what-you-need-know.html