The 2012 Samsung Series 9 13.3" (NP900X3B)

[admiez]

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.

[laidback]

@oldghost

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

[narcemea]

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.

[admiez]

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.

[dejacky]

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?

[Thors.Hammer]

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

[narcemea]

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.

[shelleyevans]

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

[Thors.Hammer]

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

[xzybit]

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.