The 2012 Samsung Series 9 13.3" (NP900X3B)

[slopokdave]

A few more observations:

Has anyone seen their NP900X3B run at over 2GHz? HWiNFO shows the CPU speed as going to 2GHz once wPrime starts andthen never changing. It is possible that Samsung locked the CPU speed to 2GHz max in order to limit heat and fan noise.

The label on my box said 145/200 and the notebook has February 2012 on the bottom. which suggests that only 200 were shipped to John Lewis and the last few are only getting sold now.

And the Windows CoA is stuck on the top of the PSU. Presumably someone thought it was safer there than on the bottom of the computer.

Amazon.co.uk now lists this notebook as in stock on 13th April for £1,129 as an alternative to John Lewis's £1199 (which includes an extra 2 years warranty and a free Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse).

John

Does the Samsung power plan contribute to this? It's set to limit max cpu performance to 50% on battery....

[John Ratsey]

My post on this subject is at http://forum.notebookreview.com/sams...ml#post8398046

I can see a hint of 2.3GHz if I go to the High Performance power plan but there's no sustained running at faster than 2 GHz even when running single-threaded SuperPi.

Does the Samsung power plan contribute to this? It's set to limit max cpu performance to 50% on battery....

in the Samsung Optimized power plan the speed on battery is locked to 800Mhz so that's only 40% of the 2GHz I'm seeing above. Switch to the High performance plan while on battery and the CPU will go up to 1.6GHz (ie no Turbo mode).

John

[Thors.Hammer]

I can see a hint of 2.3GHz if I go to the High Performance power plan but there's no sustained running at faster than 2 GHz even when running single-threaded SuperPi.

Hitting 2.3 on my machine was pretty rare. They were brief spikes. Certainly not sustained. The pic was just to prove that it got there. The question I was answering at the time was whether turbo boost was using the range. It appears to use the full range.

I didn't attempt to benchmark it doing encoding or something stressful. I have no intention of using an Ultrabook in that manner. I think in the pic I posted I played some youtube videos, hit some heavy flash oriented web sites, and did other normal activities.

I was not on the high performance plan. I believe it was on the Samsung optimized plan.

[lovelaptops]

What has an equally good screen? I was worried that the smaller pixels (relative to my usual 14" 1600 x 900) would give my eyes a hard time but the crispness and good contrast make it among the best.

John

That's very good to know. While I haven't seen it yet, I'm still concerned things might be a tad too small for me.

Have you seen a vaio Z on display at any stores? Their screens are 13.1" with 2 different resolution, depending on the model. Lower end models get 1600x900, while higher end models get full HD 1920x1080. I actually prefer the higher res one, all on a 13.1" screen! But of course I'm still in my twenties, no squinting to read text yet.

If I may chime in, I've been using Sony Vaio Zs for about a year now, having had the 1080p FHD screen for a while and also a 900p version - my preference - for the past 6 months. I have 57 year old eyes and I find most text is readable at both resolutions, though I often zoom in ("nosquint" add-on in Firefox great for this) or set the Windows text at 125% just to give my eyes a rest when I can easily spare the real estate. Bottom line: 13" @ 1600X900 is very workable, even if some will want to zoom in text at times. The way I feel is, the higher the resolution the better, for both screen real estate and, more important to me, superbly crisp images, video and text.

My question to all who have their 900X3B's is: how are the contrast/blacks, color breadth/accuracy and viewing angles on this Sammy screen? Has anyone here previously seen either of the Sony Z screens or, perhaps, the HP Envy 14 with the "Radiance" display (2010 E14, new E14 Spectre) and care to render a gut feel comparison?

I am truly salivating to get this machine but really want 256GB storage. Is it as awesome in the flesh (the whole thing, not just the screen) as it looks in pictures? Do you find it to be fast and snappy for everyday apps - compared to any other SB notebooks/ultrabooks? I'm spoiled by the Z's screens and RAID0 SSDs, but really drooling over the new 900's awesomely sexy lines.

[Thors.Hammer]

lovelaptops,

My advice is to wait. The 13.3" has really good color, contrast, blacks, grays, white, etc. It's the best screen I've seen in a long time. I enjoyed it much more than my MacBook Air (late 2011 model).

The chassis is a classic, too.

I would like a 8GB RAM 256GB SSD 13.3" model but I would settle for 4GB RAM. I won't settle for 128GB of storage on a machine with at least a 3 year life.

Samsung could do serious damage to Apple and the rest of the market. But their warranty and service model is SERIOUSLY flawed. They need to grow up or partner with someone to kick butt.

[lghtwave]

Here are some photos I took. Hope it helps.
I love the display even more than my old vaio Z1.

[ncc1701k]

Here are some photos I took. Hope it helps.
I love the display even more than my old vaio Z1.

woah, dat viewing angle..... is legendary

one random question, how's the backlit keyboard? It looks really dim and greenish in the pic, is it like the really faint backlit keyboard on Z2?

[Ryan]

Their warranty in Korea is top notch....

I don't know why their warranty policy is such mediocre for overseas products.

Koreans choose Samsung for its legendary warranties back in my home country..

Sent from my HTC Flyer P510e using Tapatalk 2 Beta-5

[BigNerd]

Great viewing angles.

Can you check the red reproduction? Seems some LCD displays have problems with red.

[gibs]

Here is an unfortunate message I just received from Samsung support. This is rather unfortunate for me, especially with only 2 USB ports on this thing…

"We are sorry; it is not possible to boot from the SD card. You can only boot in the laptop using a USB flash drive or a disc."