The 2012 Samsung Series 9 13.3" (NP900X3B)

Could someone please post an image of the touchpad with the chrome border? None of the official images seem to show a chrome border, so I need to see what I will be getting (buying from the US) before I order one!

 

What irks me is that the boneheads in Samsung Marketing STILL haven't posted proper specifications, SKUS, pictures, etc. at Series 9 Notebooks | Samsung.

What the heck? The units are shipping in the retail USA channel. Little things like chrome bezels add up.

As I indicated in the 15" thread, Samsung has a LOT to prove. The don't have a direct selling model. They don't offer extended warranties and service. They don't have retail outlets like Apple where you can go talk to a "genius" about your WIFI problems. Their marketing sucks.

They need to make up all of this on the hardware. They are asking premium prices and I'm not sure their ecosystem supports that premium.

 

Samsung itself does not warrant the price, for sure. But I would have bought this laptop from almost any manufacturer. It's a great machine.

Brief update: the crome border is not huge - it's barely noticable about 2mm wide; doesn't bother me much.

The touch pad (ELAN) has some driver issues. I went to alter the settings and the control panel for the touch pad errored out every time. The settings seemed to have been saved though (except 2 finger scroll doesn't work).

The touch pad also isn't quite as solid as Apple's - it has a little vibration on the up stroke of a click; I think I'll be tapping to click because that might urk me.

 

@planius: Sounds like this is what everyone is getting.

@narcemea: Thanks for all of your updates, although I can't say they are overly cheering. It will help me get my expectations in line for when mine arrives. I guess if light weight is what I'm after, that's what I'll need to focus on.

 

I am quickly losing my interest in this laptop. It appears it has its issues. BTW, this laptop is now not showing on amazon.

 

Lol sorry for all the negative comments. I've just trying to give people a view of what to expect. Honestly, I like the laptop quite a bit and some of my issue just comes for having been in a 100% Apple ecosystem for 7 years now other than my work computers. I'm used to stuff being unified. Not having to worry about this driver not being all that great and that part not quite working as well as the rest. I think there is something to be said about having full or near full control over your product. The bits and pieces otherwise don't always add up to as great a sum.

But as I said before, the laptop is the bet available now, but for those who can wait for IB - I would advise 100% to wait. I may even end up selling it as soon as something better comes along. And for me better is only battery life, all the other stuff is nit-picking and I can deal with it all. Even my Apples over the years have had various things I could complain on. Come to think of it, of the 5 Apple laptops my wife and I have owned, only 2 we 100% problem free. Though none of them ever failed.

 

Now that is just wierd. Did they already sell through all of the Sandy Bridge models and dump the catalog listing in anticipation of Ivy Bridge models?

What a soap opera.

 

I doubt it. Probably just a glitch. You probably won't see an Ivy Bridge model until June or later.

 

Maybe too many returns.. My touch stopped registering clicks after I did a windows update. Not cool. Keyboard only now. Till morning.

 

I did a Windows Update for everything and my TouchPad was still fine.

 

It's just wishful thinking. I doubt it too. I can't imagine Amazon switching from one model to the next inside 30 days. Talk about returns.

 

The Ivy Bridge speculation may be triggered by the hint that an IB 15" S9 (NP900X4C-A01UK) may appear in the UK within a few weeks. It looks as if the SB version of that model may be skipped.

John

 

Seen this?
Samsung Notebook Series 9 - OVERVIEW | SAMSUNG

(Samsung, UK)

 

Several swedish webshops recently (today? ) listed the Ivy Bridge version of the laptop - the 900x3c-B01SE. It's supposed to be available march 23rd. If this is true, I'm truly happy to live in Sweden, and the rest of the world can suck it. Didn't think the Ivy bridge would come to Sweden first of all. Sorry if you can't read the language... :


www.webshop.k-e.se/products/Datorer...oclick&utm_term=NP900X3C-B01SE/i5-3317UM 13.3
- NP900X3C-B01SE/i5-3317UM 13.3" 1600X900 / NP900X3C-B01SE / Samsung / Samsung / Brbara / Datorer / Produkter / Elgiganten Business Online

www.shop.pcaddon.se/products/Datore...C-B01SE-i5-3317UM-13-3-1600X900?prodid=745528

 

Had to do a full restore to get the trackpad to work again.

 

There's something universal about trash talk. Your language is perfectly readable. Suck it back.

 

Same model listed in Finnish shops now

 

Well, at least we know full restore works.

 

My thoughts after using the new 13" 9 series for a day. (coming from a 2010 Vaio Z)
Things I like:
-Screen is everything I hoped for. Bright, excellent colors, great viewing angels. No complaints here at all.
-Touchpad is pretty much perfect on mine. No crashing when trying to adjust settings. 2-finger scrolling works great as does right-edge scrolling. The very slim chrome boarder looks fine and does not bother me at all.
-Backlight keyboard is greenish/blue tint and not very bright, but gets the job done. The brightness can be adjusted or turned off.
-Windows takes about 10 seconds to load from a cold boot. This blows me away.
-Sound quality is great. The speakers get really loud...something I was not expecting.
Concerns for me: (some things I knew before I purchased)
-Lack of USB ports
-Processor and memory. I hate that I cannot upgrade the ram. I'm often running at 35-40% after booting. Processor seems to get pegged at 100% relatively easy. I'm not sure if this is due to power settings or what, but I will have to explore. I don't see this as a huge concern as I do not do anything that intensive on my laptop. 1080p videos and everything play fine.
-SSD. As mentioned, a lot of hard drive space is used. I think out of the box I had 69gb remaining. This does not bother me much personally, but I can see it being an issue for others.
-SD card slot. When there is a card in the slot, it sticks out from the edge by about 1/16 of an inch. Not a big deal to me, but just noting it.

Overall, it seems to be a great laptop. Seems less powered and more limited then my Vaio Z which I should have expected. I will probably end up keeping this though.

 

Does anybody know if in the US the Series 9 is available at the stores??
or it can only be bought online?
If there are stores selling them which are these?

 

Here are some pics of the screen ( which is GREAT )
and the backlit keyboard ( which I find to be a bit too faint for my tastes.
Also the Chrome trackpad bezel. Which isn't horrible, but it is distracting and I believe
unnecessary

Note that the Keyboard backlighting is on "High" for both notebooks.

And maybe I have extra oily fingers, but the Samsung Trackpad is a fingerprint magnet

 

Looks like they reduced the battery capacity from 47whr (original S9) to 40whr in order make the laptop lighter and smaller footprint. That is like 15% reduction in battery capacity

Thats probably why Samsung is quoting 6hrs of battery life for the new S9 as opposed to 7hrs of the older S9

I will have to stick with my 50whr 2011 macbook air

 

Yeah hopefully I wont have to use it too often. Can't remember the last time I had to do a restore to get my computer to work. Some driver file got screwed after the windows update because the trackpad worked at the login screen and stopped registering clicks immediately after log in.

Glad you got a good one, mate. Want to trade?

Do you have the ELAN trackpad? I'm hesitant to try updates again since I dont know which one exactly screwed me.

 

With the ELAN trackpad, I did a full windows update without any issues. If you did have driver issues with the trackpad, you would always reinstall just the trackpad driver via the Samsung software manager program. In the software manager program, there are also some windows critical updates that may need to be installed (not sure what they do though).

 

Yes, I have the ELAN trackpad
Driver Version: ETDWare PS/2-X64 10.7.5.5_WHQL if thats any help.

 

Problem with re-installing just the driver when the trackpad doesn't work is that the software for the driver is not keyboard friendly. I acutally tried that first, but couldn't select the trackpad driver. Then I went back to my first restore point - no joy there. That's when I figured I'd just do restore.

 

You may need to uninstall the trackpad driver first before you can install it again... anyhow, glad the restore worked.

 

Yeah, but without ability to click, I couldn't actually execute the install. Anyway, I'm going through my installs one by one now and rebooting each time. Hopefully if it happens again I'll know what caused it.

 

A mouse

 

Yeah, but mine is all packed away in a suitcase, since the restore only took 10 minutes, figured it'd be faster. Good news, just installed updates again, skipping the unnecessary ones. Trackpad still works. Scrolling though isn't enabled ... I'm afraid to try.

 

I received mine on Friday night from Amazon. Coming from a 2010 Vaio Z I wish the keyboard keys had more cushion, especially for the larger keys like Space, Tab, Shift, etc. The back-lighting is not very bright but it is good enough. The blue led underneath the F12/WiFi key is too bright in my opinion. The speakers are much louder than expected, or maybe I was just used to the ones from the Vaio. The screen is very good with its matte finish and wide viewing angles. Just wished it could change brightness in smaller increments. The auto-dimming feature is quite noticeable when it starts to constantly change brightness under some circumstances. It didn't come with an adapter for the VGA output, or to full-size HDMI, bummer.
Issues:
The touch-pad had issues at first as the settings utility kept crashing. It was solved by uninstalling it and installing the drivers again from the Samsung Software Manager. It is quite decent now.
The on-screen display for volume, brightness, etc. changes only started showing up after a couple of reboots, after the touch-pad issue was solved and the thing to optimize boot time was run.
There needs to be a way to disable the 3D Audio splash graphic and sound when one goes to the Audio section of Samsung's Easy Settings tool.

Here are a few pictures.










Protective plastic still attached.

 

@oldghost

Thanks for posting those pictures. The backlit keyboard seems nonexistent!

 

Keyboard really isn't that bad. I think the color is what makes it a little harder to se. But fact is, it works perfectly in the dark. Just bright enough to make out the keys but not blinding like my mbp.

 

It is better than what it looks like in that picture. I think it is enough light at its maximum setting, just not blinding bright.

This picture is closer to what it looks like in real life.


A picture can make it look much dimmer or brighter than what it is.

 

Admiez,

thanks for your feedback and pictures . I've found tweaking windows power settings helps extend battery "on time" on laptops / notebooks. For example, if one were simply using/building macro-enabled Microsoft Spreadsheets w/ graphs (on USB thumb drive), how much battery time do you think can be achieved with these Power Settings on Battery?:

1. screen brightness: 40%
2. limit cpu to 30% "maximum processor state"
3. Wireless internet disabled
4. No keyboard backlight
5. Disabling any hardware that isn't necessary for the above usage

Also, from those previous macbook air comparison pictures is it just me or does it appear like the macbook air has better vertical viewing angles from the picture?

 

Your keyboard backlighting looks more intense than oldghost's. Might be the cameras but there does appear to be a difference.

 

Looks about the same as mine. Thing is if you look at it in medium to low light it seems pretty weak. if you look at it in the dark or light in which you'd otherwise not see the keys clearly, it's more than adequate.

@iso - trackpad still working well. Gonna have to pick up a fast SD card though installing VS 2010 and SQL server 2008 and my available disk space is um... not so much.

 

Thanks all, for all of your updates and photos. Look forward to comparing notes.

 

Thanks for the observations and pics. I have no concerns with the backlighting. It will meet my needs.

 

The keyboard backlighting looks better in those pics, looks nice and subtle.

I went to Best Buy again tonight to see if they had one on display by chance and they still had the old one.

After testing it out again, I remembered the trackpad is horrible.

Can somebody please tell me if you can do this:

Move the cursor with a finger from your right hand, for example move it to the start button, and click the left mouse button with a finger from your left hand without removing your right hand finger?

The above is impossible on the previous S9, you either have to lift your pointer finger to click with the other hand, or you have to tap to click with your pointer finger. I usually use two hands on a trackpad, but the old S9 can't handle it.

 

thanks admiez. when you compare your Zs screen with the S9 screen, which one is winning the competition?

 

Boy it looks good...
Despite all the small problems I'm still sold! Partially because anything is an upgrade for my HP Pavilion dv5 and especially because the HDD just broke... I've been following all these details about the S9 for weeks now and the fact that my laptop just died is message saying that I should get the S9 right now!

But did anyone here with an S9 buy it from the store or all these S9s only available online? (I'm talking about the 13" one only)

 

Seems like everyone stateside is ordering online.

 

** Something a little weird - It's like this laptop is self-aware (or that's what I choose to believe instead thinking something is wrong). This is my third day with it. When I first turned it on the FN key didn't activate the functions on the F-row. I used F-lock. After rebooting a couple of times it did and hasn't stopped since.

5 minutes ago two finger scrolling started to work. I didn't change anything specific to the touchpad either. I only installed SQL Server SP1. I hope I didn't f my touchpad again.

 

But is it available at the stores?

 

None that I know of - at least not in NYC.

 

Thats a pity...I've got friends going the US so I was wondering if they could pick it up for me at a store but if thats the case...
Hopefully they will make it available at the stores very soon.

 

You can do site to store at Best Buy. Says 3-5days.

 

Could anyone with this machine please check the LCD panel id/serial number and connection type? I have a Vaio SA and want to see if the Samsung panel could be an alternative screen replacement
The panel id is usually easy to find in the Intel graphics control panel as shown in this example picture:

 

I'll be buying this laptop in a few days, but what irks me the most is how they decreased the number of years of their warranty from 3 years to 1 year. I'll still be buying squaretrade ADH warranty, but I'm disappointed Samsung believes on their premium line laptop for only 1 year.

I'm also disappointed by its lack of information on their main website. Samsung makes quality products alright, but their marketing department seriously needs some organization.