Samsung Series 9 900X3A - A Deadly Assault on Your Senses

Deadly Assault Weapon

Saying that the Samsung Series 9 is a deadly assault weapon, is putting it mildly. This slinky little machine actually assaults us from all sides, it’s sexy black duralumin body assaults our senses, our old preconceptions of what a notebook should look like. Its sky-high-price-for-not-so-fantastic specs assaults our good sense, making us want to fork out more than what we should be paying for a thin-and-sexy notebook. But most importantly, it assaults one's desire to have a MacBook Air, and that's the beauty of the Samsung Series 9.

The Samsung Series 9 that you see here today, is a very good example of what can happen if you have direct access to manufacturing capabilities that span from screen technology, to silicon engineering technologies. One of Samsung’s greatest advantages (or some would say disadvantages) would be that they have a finger in almost every pie.

This allows them to use some of the very best materials for their machines, and also have components that are on par with (or even more than) some of the leading electronic brands out in the market. This allows them to have their products out in the market much earlier than other competitors (who are sometimes their customers as well). The low-voltage Core i5 (1.4GHz) Series 9 was one of those machines, touted as an “Ultra-book” (despite it not sticking with the under US$1000 requirement which was supposed to be one of the characteristics of this term), and it was released way ahead of any other manufacturer.

Sometimes, when you use similar components, you also tend to use similar designs on your machines. The most recent clash we have seen is with Apple accusing Samsung (a supplier of Apple’s) of copying their iPhone and iPad designs, an accusation that Samsung is fighting against fiercely. In their defense, some would say that imitation is the highest form of flattery, and is the way great products are made.



Some would then add that instead of choosing innovation, they chose imitation because they were either lazy or want to save on R&D costs. Each of the arguments has their merits, but for today, we would like you to focus on the 13.3-inch Samsung Series 9, whose shape, build and materials elicit nothing but awe and a strange feeling of déjà vu.

Its ultra-slim profile reminds us much of the Apple MacBook Air, one of this year’s most exciting additions to Apple’s line-up. Thankfully, there are design differentiations to make the Samsung Series 9 unique enough on its own. On the exterior,  the Samsung Series 9’s lid is decked out with a black brushed metal look, which makes it look very attractive, with only a silver Samsung logo, breaking the sea of black duralumin calm. Duralumin is the kind of material that fighter jet engines are made of and is supposed to be extremely strong and light (inspired by Samsung’s aerospace history perhaps?).

A raw silver line runs along the edges of the machine, making it look like an ordinary folder when closed. This designer look is something which we like very much, but because of the duralumin material used, there should be a "dangerous weapon warning" that comes along with the notebook. The Duralumin is so hard, we feel that if the notebook was casually swung at someone with the edges pointing out, it could cause some hurt. So no worries here about the durability of the machine (worry instead about assault charges).

Another design aspect which we like (and was first seen on an early MacBook Air) is the flip to open ports on the left and right of the machine. On the left, we have the USB 3.0 port, a mini RJ45 port, and a mini-HDMI port. On the right, hides the microSD card reader (perhaps it was to complement smartphones), the mic/audio jack, and a USB 2.0 port.

Another feature which we particularly like, are the speakers found on the sides of the machine. Our experience from testing found them to be relatively loud and clear, certainly not something you would generally expect on a machine this small and slim. We've had plenty of experience with slim notebooks that can only muster a disappointing audio experience and we're glad  the Samsung Series 9 breaks this 'tradition'. After all, this is one of the more important aspects that would make or break an ultra-portable to also carry the mantle of being a slim multimedia notebook.

Killer Looks

Open the very sleek and sexy (yes as long as they are slim with curves, they are sleek and sexy) Series 9 up, and you will be greeted with even more black. The palm rest itself is covered with the same material as the lid, but unlike the MacBook Air, the edges are curved so that the metal wouldn’t cut into your skin too much causing discomfort. Brownie points for Samsung's consideration of consumer well-being there.

The beautiful matte black chiclet keys however are sitting on a kind of piano black plastic material, which surprisingly didn’t introduce much flex to the slightly recessed keyboard, allowing it to be fairly robust. The keys themselves are quite shallow, but have good bounce for that important tactile feel while typing. They are also back-lit, so that typing in the dark will not be a problem either.

The screen is also surrounded by a glossy black bezel, and trust us when we say it is not fingerprint friendly. So if you have an aversion towards ugly fingerprints, you’d do well to keep your fingers well away from the screen. Basically the same advice we would give when dealing with any notebook.

And surprise, surprise! There is a matte (1366x768 pixels resolution, anti-glare) screen on this little beauty. We haven’t seen a matte screen on a consumer machine since... a long time ago, and we think it is a refreshing change (that is also easy on the eyes). The 400 nits LED lit screen on the Series 9 is also extremely bright, good for when working under the afternoon sun (we don’t want to know why though). But when working in a dark room, be sure to turn it a couple of notches down, otherwise you’d be semi-blind within an hour.

You can also rejoice for the very large trackpad (another feature we’ve seen before elsewhere) on the Samsung Series 9. This is by far the most functional feature that Samsung has implemented for its customers. Like the machine the Series 9 draws inspiration from, the trackpad is a large single piece, but it feels like plastic instead of glass. It is completely clickable, and there are no visible boundaries that separate the left-right buttons or the scrolling area. One of the downsides of having such a large trackpad however, is the unconscious interaction between the ball of your palm and trackpad. While there's no dedicated key to switch off the trackpad, that option is still available as part of a function key.

Performance and Benchmarking

The Samsung Series 9 runs on a low voltage Intel Core i5-2537M, 1.4GHz processor which is good for a number of reasons. Performance-wise, this choice of processor isn’t exactly going to make the machine run like a F1 car, but regular office programs, light photo and video editing wouldn’t pose much of a problem. Coupled with a 128GB SSD, that helps tremendously in the speed department to complement the processing platform. As a comparison, we selected the Apple MacBook Air (tests were run in a Windows environment using BootCamp) which the Series 9 is closely modeled after in terms of looks and specs, and one other somewhat similarly configured business machine, the Lenovo ThinkPad X1. As you can see from the specifications below, the comparison notebooks have higher speed processors and would likely outrun the Samsung Series 9. More details to follow in our test results below.

PCMark Vantage

Just as we surmised earlier, out actual testing found that the MacBook Air (MBA) and ThinkPad X1 both performed better than the Series 9. This performance edge of the Series 9 can simply be explained by looking at the components they sport. The MBA has a larger SSD drive than either the ThinkPad, or the Series 9, thus allowing for a larger I/O throughput which no doubt contributed to its higher HDD scores. This is already not factoring in the different controller and flash chips used in all the SSDs that would further affect this outcome. Graphics performance wise, although they were using the same Graphics accelerator, the MBA also had newer drivers (from the Apple servers), while the Samsung Series 9 or Thinkpad X1 were limited to older drivers thanks to lack of prompt manufacturer support. Additionally, the graphics engine on the Intel Core i5-2537M is slower than the other two processor SKUs and that accounted for the difference again.

Lastly but the most influential aspect is the clock speeds of the processors across all three notebooks. As found in the detailed performance analysis of the MacBook Air, despite its processor's low base clock speeds, its normal thermal design power of the chip allows it to hit higher turbo clock speeds and thus match up well against the Lenovo X1's higher-end processor that might not have been turbo boosting as much. For Samsung to meet its sexy notebook design, they had to settle for an ultra low voltage processor that could meet the designed power requirements, which limited its overall performance potential. And unfortunately, coupled with the lower clocked graphics engine and smaller SSD size, the overall performance standing is lower than the compared two notebooks.

The Samsung Series 9 is still the lighter machine however, but we'll touch more on mobility on the next page. Clearly, the point to understand here is the form over raw performance that Samsung chose for its Series 9 notebook. In normal usage, outside of benchmarking, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference since all three notebooks are running on an SSD, general usage is snappy too.

3DMark06

In our 3DMark06 tests, the MacBook Air overwhelmed the Samsung Series 9 significantly, with scores almost double that of the hapless Series 9. As mentioned in our MBA review, the updated graphics drivers and other custom driver on the MBA play a large part towards the final scores, even ousting the Lenovo X1. Of course not to forget that the 3DMark score also consists of the CPU quotient, which the beautiful Series 9 is unfortunately at a disadvantage again. Hopefully, future iterations of the Samsung Series 9 (should they see fit to continue this series) will better its raw performance when the next generation Ivy Bridge processors appear on the market to replace the current Sandy Bridge processors.

Far Cry 2

The one true test of a machine’s gaming performance is to see if it can churn out frames fast enough. Sadly, the Series 9 falters badly here, whether in Medium or Very High quality settings of Far Cry 2. But remember, if you’re looking for a gaming capable machine, you are looking at the wrong notebook segment - unless of course you only do hardcore 'farming' on Facebook at a cafe, in which case it will do just fine with web games. The ultra-thin and light Samsung Series 9 is not at all targeted at traditional gamers. It is actually targeted at business users who constantly need to travel about and so require something light, sturdy and fast.

Battery Performance and Portability Index

This is the part where we basically tell you how the notebook performs in terms of battery life. We can’t actually disassemble the unit because the battery is integrated into the notebook. What we do know about integrated batteries however, is that they are easier to redesign and fit into the interior of the notebook, making sure space is optimized and maximize the amount of charge it can hold. Now let’s go check out how the Samsung Series 9 fares against the two other comparable machines.

Battery Life

The Samsung Series 9 didn’t perform as good as we hoped it would, hanging tough for almost 200 minutes before giving up. It must be noted that all three machines don’t feature optical drives, and thus the machines were tested using a looped video file playing off the SSD, so no extra power was needed to be routed to optical drives. Prior tests that we have done on the MacBook Air can actually explain why the MBA performed much better in the battery tests. But basically, it has everything to do with electrical power consumption, which dictates how long your battery lasts.

Battery Consumption

The low-voltage processor (17W) on the Samsung Series 9 is supposed to help keep the electrical drainage nice and low, but its actual overall power consumption figures scores are anything but low. In fact it came up to be almost twice as high as the other comparable machines. And if you were wondering why it somehow managed to stay alive for as long as the ThinkPad X1 - which has a faster processor, and technically should consume more power - the answer is of course the larger battery that the Samsung sports. It seems almost as if Samsung knew its overall power consumption was somehow poor and managed to squeeze in more battery capacity to compensate it. Perhaps the more established players of the notebook industry had better power optimization tactics put in place?

This wouldn’t be too far fetched if you consider the amount of experience and history behind Lenovo and Apple. What's more, the extremely bright (400-nits) LED back-lit screen which Samsung chose to gift consumers with, could be a contributing power guzzler. That's even with its brightness turned down to 50% for testing, because at 400-nits, 50% would be similar to full brightness on other laptops (like the Toshiba R830 or Acer TravelMate 8481G, just to drop a couple of names).

Portability Index

This portion of the review, is basically a mathematical algorithm that we have come up just to let you know know portable your machine is, and if it’s worth your time to carry it out for use. Elements used are the weight of the machine, volume of the machine and how long it can stay alive (battery life). Note that the figures only make sense if you compare between the same notebook class, such as the thin and light machines we've been testing recently. Of course whether or not you use your notebook to actually be productive, we can’t tell. (We’re still having trouble deciding if watching Game of Thrones on your notebook counts as being productive.)

Anyhow, from the ratios here, you can probably see the portability of the Samsung Series 9 is just slightly behind the MBA running Windows 7, which is expected. Once the MBA goes back to its native OS X Lion, it pulls away, leaving the more expensive Series 9 eating its dust. So as far as ultra-portable Windows machines go, the Samsung Series 9 fared reasonably here, and could even be just the portable notebook you are looking for with its super light 1.3kg weight.

First of its Kind

The 13.3-inch Samsung Series 9 is by far one of the thinnest and sexiest Windows notebooks we have seen in a long time, and equipped with the new Sandy Bridge processors, it could very well be one of the most useful ultra-portables we have seen too. The integrated graphics can’t play PC games very well, but its low-voltage, 1.4GHz Core i5 processor and Intel HD 3000 graphics are capable of rendering movies, web pages with flash and spreadsheets just fine.

Its ultra-slim profile is built to be portable, and could just fly away if you weren’t paying attention, thanks to its very durable and light duralumin body. While it isn’t actually built for enterprise use, we’re sure executives who have to stick with good old Windows would love to get their hands on one of these beauties. Sure it doesn’t have fingerprint scanners (proven to be hacked very easily), or any other fancy new security features, but its portability, durability and usability alone makes up for it several times over. We can't stress just how light it feels in your hands.

However the reason why we would only recommend this to those in the corporate environment however is simply because it’s expensive. Like S$2488 use-only-company-credit-card expensive. The previously reviewed Apple MacBook Air (MBA) has proven that ultra-portable machines with better specs are available at lower price points.

We can however forgive Samsung for now, because the Series 9 is the first Sandy Bridge processor based Windows machine with this particular form factor. If you can recall, the MBA wasn’t exactly very affordable when it first came out anyway. With that in mind, we can safely say the Series 9 is the only ultra thin-and-light notebook available in a Windows flavor right now. However don’t expect this status to stay for too long, because other manufacturers are racing to put more ultrabooks in our hands by year end.

Ultimately, the Samsung Series 9 is a highly desirable machine, and is expensive to manufacture considering the materials used, hence the high price ($2488). It's just too bad because it’s not hard to recommend the Samsung Series 9 notebooks to anyone if price wasn’t involved. While the price is high, it's harder to swallow because you can get the similar specced MacBook Air for almost S$800 less and it performs better too.

Of course, you could always wait for the next couple of iterations, and hope it’s popular enough so that Samsung will manufacture more, thus leading to lower prices. The Series 9 has certainly impressed us with its mix of good design and premium materials. Unfortunately economical factors and choice of materials used make it way too expensive while not being able to squeeze in better performing parts due to design limitations. So if you’ve got some cash to burn, or just need a thin and light Windows machine no matter the cost, then the Samsung Series 9 is without a shadow of doubt, the machine for you. It's not quite the MBA-killer that many had hoped for, but it was close in certain aspects.

A little known fact is that the Samsung Series 9 also comes in a 11.6-inch form factor with a model name of 900X1A. It sports a last generation Core i3-380UM processor to meet its design requirements, but costs nearly a $1000 less than the 13.3-inch model reviewed here (900X3A). It's also lighter at just 1.06kg, so if light weight and sturdy build is what you need, you can check out this variant too.

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