The 2012 Samsung Series 9 13.3" (NP900X3B)

this is making me more and more excited about getting this laptop! although I probably want to wait until ivy bridge refresh...

 

Oh man.... the testing I've done since Saturday. I've tested with:

• A 2GB Sandisk Cruzer Micro
• A Sandisk microSD card reader with an 8GB class-2 card in it
• A PNY 8GB micro slide attache

I've used all of those in both ports, with and without quick boot enabled, with and without UEFI enabled, and so on. I also tried a basic Linux boot CD, and it still skips right to Windows. Why? Who knows. But if I can't install Linux on this, it's effectively useless, and I'm retuning it, and I don't even care if I have to pay a restocking fee. I'd 'rather it be bad hardware than Samsung deliberately ignoring any non Microsoft bootloader.

Except, one of the USB keys contained an official Windows USB flash image, and that didn't work either. So I'm more inclined to say my hardware is faulty. It's either that, or a 3-year-old NC10 has a more capable booting system than a brand new Series 9. Somehow I doubt it.

 

Samsung Series 9 review | Samsung Series 9 Ultrabook review | Laptops | Reviews | PC Pro

 

Desperately hoping that's dodgy hardware as I'm planning on doing the same.

 

– but now the spotlight falls on to the real deal: its no-expenses-spared refresh of the Series 9.

?????

no large SSD, 4Gb RAM max, some concern over SSD specs and not using their own flagship pm830 SSD, poor battery life, faulty hardware.

seems to me samsung spared far too much expense!lol!

 

I know that there are issues with trying to boot using USB 3.0 but one of the ports should be USB 2.0.

If you insert the flash drive and then press Esc at the BIOS screen, what boot devices are offered?

John

 

Sorry to hear. It may be hardware. I have my hands on two of these Series 9, and can confirm that they both are able to boot from usb.

 

Have you, perchance, tried booting any flavour of Linux on it?

 

I have not tried booting Linux. I can try later tonight, but I rarely use Linux, so I don't know what you would want me to check out.

 

I'm not ordering one without 8GB ram

 

Just knowing it boots Ubuntu 11.10 or 12.04 and mostly works would be great to hear

 

So I ordered from Best Buy... should be here Thursday. Can't beat their return policy of 30 days and no restocking fee if it doesn't work out. It better be nice to be $400 more!!

I've still got the XPS 13, will make a call after I compare both. I really do like the XPS 13 minus the fan. It has been like a small vacuum on all the time now. For those of you that have already received the new S9, can you comment on fan noise?

 

Lots of us are looking forward to it.

 

Fan is very quiet. It kicked on a couple times while I was screwing around and while it was audible, it wasn't distracting.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

 

Are you in silent mode? I noticed the other morning when running an uploader for my Synology NAS (creates thumbnails) that the fan has a really annoying tick as described before. I realised that in Silent Mode it completely goes as it stops the fans, but in Normal Mode the fan is really annoying. Doesnt bother me as I dont use the S9 for anything intensive so can leave it on Silent Mode, but I am a bit shocked at the obvious oversight on the spec of the fan and/or chasis around the fan

 

Mine has been super quite - almost impossible to tell that there is a fan.

 

I am sold. It seems it really beats the Z sans the Media dock. Just waiting for Ivy and 8gb and I getting one! Gorgeous, light, silent and fast. What else do you need?

 

The UK model is blue?

 

Samsung MZMPC128HBFU-000

 

8GB RAM and 256GB SSD are what's holding me back... And many others, so it seems. The 128GB doesn't even make sense unless they designed it 2 years ago and haven't adapted the current market.

 

Tell me about it - I've got the 128. Installed:

Office Pro 2010
SQL Server Dev 2008
Visual Studio 2010
IBM RAD 8
DB2 Workbench
+10GB of other stuff

I've only go 30GB left. The C drive actually comes short 30GB I guess to hibernation and recovery partition. I'm not really all that nervous though. I get itchy when my 500GB drive on my MBP is before 150GB but I guess if you don't expect to store everything on the 128 - it's not bad especially since you don't have to worry about the SSD slowing down when filled at or near capacity.

** Gotta say I love how fast it charges. <2 hours about to get to 95%!

 

OK folks, just ignore anything I've said about booting. My unit is clearly some kind of lemon. I can't even boot from the recovery CD.

But since I have a broken laptop anyway, how have people been with the touchpad? Mine doesn't click consistently. In fact, when the right click does work (which is like 10-20% of the time), sometimes it gets... stuck, so that every subsequent tap is magically transformed into a right click.

I'm hoping that's not normal, and won't be a "feature" in my replacement.

 

Just got a US version from Amazon last night. Haven't had a lot of time to play with it, but like it so far. Was wondering if anyone knew if there was a way to reverse the swype directions of the trackpad. Having gotten used to a tablet, where swyping moves the contents on the screen the same direction as your fingers, this opposite direction is counterintuitive to me at the moment. The basic set-up functions in the Control Panel do not give this option.

Bought this for the screen and slimness--both of which are great. Only reason I may return it is for want of a larger hard drive, and possibly because of its average to low battery life. For the money I know I'm getting a high quality, svelte machine, but just wish it had everything. Unfortunately, there's nothing out right now that's better, aside from perhaps the Macbook Air with Windows on it. Hmmm.

 

Does anyone know about greenteky.com ??
They have Np900X3B for $938 but I have never heard of such site.
It says they have 5 in stock... should I give it a try with CC??

 

Unfortunately my right click sucks, too. I have stopped using it, in favor of a two finger tap which works without fail. I should see if I am able to boot from USB (or CD) as maybe I have a similarly dysfunctional model. Actually, will try, just won't get around to it too soon.

My trackpad otherwise works great, aside from the mental effort I need to put into it as eluded to above. I did find that scrolling in IE and Firefox was smoother/faster than it was in Chrome for some reason (enough to stop using Chrome as my default browser).

One other qualm, the webcam is pretty dark in low light, even with "low light compensation" on. Haven't tried it in normal light though.

 

i just tried, it's very sketchy. they didn't ask for a creditcard during checkout, instead it said they will send an email asking for an amazon instant transfer, and once that is processed they will "ship" the item.. the website has no contact info, whole thing screams scam

 

What software is installed by default? Is microsoft office already in it?

 

lol. That's very fishy. Thanks for trying out.
Yeah, $938 is too good to be true...

 

I'm agree.

Furthermore, the domain was registered less than a month ago, there are no contact details and the payment method through amazon checkout is strange.

 

Thanks, those are great speeds.


Also, regarding using Silent Mode --- I have a Series 7 Chronos which has the same toggle for Silent Mode, and I've observed that, while it does indeed either shut the fan off (and only run it when its absolutely necessary), or always run it at the absolute lowest speed (choosing either of these two modes is configurable by the user in Easy Settings), it actually clocks the whole processor down by engaging the Power Saving power profile... so be aware of this when using silent mode but wondering why your machine feels slower, depending on what you're doing at the time.

 

Keep in mind I am a Linux newbie...
I booted Ubuntu 11.10 from a CD just fine.
Works: display (1600x900), sound, trackpad, keyboard, wifi, battery percentage correct... that's all I checked

My fans are very quiet, even when not in silent mode.

Initially, the trackpad was a little too sensitive for me. After changing the drag/drop setting to 'release after finger lift,' it has been almost perfect. I usually click on the bottom right, and that always works.

 

Awesome to hear. Ta for checking!

 

and i may still have been down if the payment method actually was through amazon checkout. can always do a chargeback on the credit card if it never shows up.., but after actually reading what it said, not at 4am, they want you to purchase an amazon gift card for the total amount and send it to them in a PDF ( http://greenteky.com/checkout.html) no chargebacks on that. stay away.

 

Wow. Either that or they are seriously trying to stay away from the "official books" of running a business.

 

So is the RAM upgradeable to 8GB or not? I cannot find any information on this point.

 

I'm guessing not. They'll probably have a new SKU with more RAM and a bigger SSD.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

 

i'm saying 100% no from the internal pictures posted up earlier in this thread. you can see the 4gb soldered to the board and no space/slots at all for any more.

 

Apparently I have a defective unit as well. I am having the exact same booting problems you are having. Cannot boot from recovery disk or Windows DVD or Linux CD or USB flash drive

 

Interesting. Did you disable quick booting in the BIOS, as well as change the boot order? If so we may have found another problem that can appear in these laptops. What's the list so far?

1. Some laptops have grinding fan noise.
2. Click pads don't always work right. Included drivers are faulty.
3. Some report problems controlling sleep with the laptop lid. 4. Some can't boot from USB devices.

And this is just stuff we found in the first few days. Looks like Samsung hired the same quality control guys that handle Microsoft's XBOX.

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

 

Yep, tried everything that was mentioned here. It's funny even when you disable the internal hard drive in the BIOS, it still boots from it.

 

What brought you guys to trying to boot up from the recovery/windows disk? Had to format/reinstall?

 

If only it were that simple. My laptop would not boot from a USB device I normally use for system diagnostics, so I tried a Linux USB device, then an official Windows one, then I tried a Linux boot CD, then finally the included restore disc.

None of them booted. No matter what I changed in the BIOS. That's definitely not normal. For someone who likes to tinker, that's a death knell. If it were normal, I would have returned the laptop and grudgingly waited for the UX31 refresh. So, it's great to know I just had a bad laptop.

So people, if you can't boot from USB, and fast BIOS boot is disabled, you have a bad laptop. My replacement does *not* have this problem, so I like the new Series 9 once more.

Incidentally, the click pad on my replacement is also much better. It actually does something when I right-click, now. Amazing!

Sent from my SPH-D710 using Tapatalk

 

Haha, my second one is also much better (first one won't sleep). I wonder if the first batch had issues and now they have it all worked out. I am very happy with my (second) SS9.

 

I see.... not something I would need to do (the system diag), however, booting from USB for recovery is definitely something that could be needed. It's never foreseen, of course.

I get mine tomorrow, overnight shipping from Best Buy was only $15. Their new return policy of 30 days, no restocking fees, on EVERYTHING, is most excellent. I have nothing to lose to see if I like it better than my XPS 13.

 

Time to check in with my thoughts about this computer (which arrived late yesterday). So far I am very, very happy. This is saying something, after trying out and returning four other contenders, including a macbook air, which has undeniable hardware/software advantages, and which I tried very hard to like enough to keep.

This one is all the things that have been reported by others so far: thin, light, shockingly sturdy and pretty, fast enough for a person like myself who never does cpu intensive stuff like games or high level graphics work. It is crazy, marvelous quiet (the xps 13 left my house because of fan noise)-- all day today I was installing and reinstalling and uninstalling various programs, and most of the time the fan wasn't even on. When it was, I could barely hear it. That wasn't even true for the MBA, which could, on rare occasion, get going like a hair dryer.

The keyboard is not quite as wonderful as the MBA, and neither is the track pad, but they sure are wonderful for a Windows based computer. I've got smooth, reliable two-finger scrolling, two finger right click, well functioning clicks, both right and left, haven't really played with advanced touch gestures yet. I haven't missed any keystrokes, nor have I had any unexpected double characters. The screen is phenomenal-- most especially the lack of reflection, which is a killer for me, but with the added bonus of great viewing angles and resolution.

I used the enclosed recovery cd to do a clean install of Windows, and have a couple of related tips: as others said, you need to disable fastboot in the bios in order to boot from cd/dvd. You also need to make sure that you are not using the usb3 port, which will throw a "missing driver" error once you start installing windows. I reformatted the HDD to reclaim the recovery partition, so before I did, I used the Samsung Recovery Software to make a DVD backup of the drivers/Samsung software, just in case, and it's a good thing I did: when I installed all the drivers I had downloaded from the website, I suddenly ran into all the bad touchpad problems others had complained about-- a touchpad that wouldn't click, a configuration program that crashed whenever I tried to customize. I tried deleting and re-installing and still got errors. What finally worked for me was to uninstall the driver, delete the touchpad software, and use the recovery dvd I had made, which installed easy software (a program I wasn't planning to use). From easy software, I installed the trackpad driver, and from that point on it worked. No idea why.

Most important point, for me: I have been looking for this Windows laptop for almost two years, since the first MBA, and I'm shocked to say I think I have found it.

 

Excellent. If you don't mind me asking, after you reconfigured the drive, are you using a single partition of about 119GB? How much did the OS, drivers and core apps and software from Samsung consume?

In other words, how much free space did you have before installing any applications like Office and copying your personal data?

One other thing, if you have a good camera, could you take a few pics? I am interested in the color of the US shipping production units.

Thanks,

Thor

 

One single 119GB partition, and I have 95.4GB free before installing any other software (I didn't reformat until this afternoon, so haven't had a chance to install anything yet!).

 

One more question for the very happy shelleyevans:

How do you feel about 1600x900 on a 13.3" screen? I personally don't think I'd be able to handle it (I seriously think I'd need a 15" screen for that resolution) but I'm curious to hear what others think about it.

Oh, also: any other comparisons you can make to the Dell?

Thanks!

 

Yep, exactly as expected. I am also curious about the screen resolution. Do you plan to run at 100% DPI or higher?

Pics or it didn't happen.

 

I'm very surprised by how well the high resolution is working for me-- it's not what I was looking for, and I was worried about my aging eyes. Initially I had the fonts set to 150%, which gave me bigger fonts, easier to see, than 125% on my 12.1 inch Asus screen. But it's so easy to see on this screen (brightness? resolution?) that I ended up going back to 125%. We'll see what I end up living with-- tonight, tired and in the dark, I am wearing my reading glasses, and I prefer not to when I can. Either way, I will end up with text I can easily read.

I really, really liked the Dell, but for me there is no comparison-- the noise was a deal breaker, and this one doesn't make any noise. ANY. NONE. (Can you tell how shocked I am?) (And it doesn't even seem to be overheating.)(Remind me I said that in a year when it's a door stop.)

I also really wanted a super crazy light and thin laptop, and, as thin and light as the Dell was, it wasn't quite thin and light enough to do the trick-- too close in weight and size to my Asus 12.1 inch. This one is a show-stopper. My husband, who thinks I have gone mad on this topic (don't get him started on my four failed attempts), actually was shocked when he saw it, and went so far as to pick it up, saying, "how did they get a computer in this thing?"

The Dell, it turns out, isn't a fair comparison if you were after what I was after (see above). That's why I paid the big bucks. It was, however, such a nice computer, that I felt a little wistful sending it back, as if I were being unreasonable.