Review: Samsung Series 9 notebook

All of us who are gadget freaks always get tempted by any device that is slimmer than what we own at the moment, even though the functionalities offered by the new one might not cover all our needs.

 

About Samsung Series 9 Notebook

Samsung's new Series 9 notebook however, also has the performance to go with the looks. It comes in an all-black duralumin (an alloy used in airplane construction, twice the strength of aluminum), is lightweight (1.3kg) and durable. On the left side is a USB 2.0 port, microSD card slot, 3.5mm audio port and on the right side is a USB 3.0 port, mini HDMI and a proprietary port to connect the Ethernet adapter (the only adapter in the box). The ports are hidden under pull down covers much like the ones on the first gen Apple MacBook Air. The notebook has a 13.3-inch widescreen display with a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels.

Pros:

- Samsung's Superbright Plus technology in it makes the display stand out with vivid colors, pin-sharp clarity and super-high brightness levels which are the highest.

-  It also has a backlit chicklet-style keyboard with the function keys doubling up as keys for adjusting brightness, volume and switching between various power modes.

- It comes with keys with dual functions like the Wi-Fi /F12 key and function lock that have blue LED indicators to show that they are active, which is very helpful.

- Right below the keyboard is the touchpad with integrated mouse buttons -a responsive affair with multi-touch capability. The keyboard and touchpad are very comfortable, though the design and style is directly lifted from Apple's MacBook.

- It supports second generation Intel Core i5 1.4Ghz processor , Intel HD 3000 graphics and 4GB of RAM (up to 8GB RAM is supported).

- It does away with a standard notebook hard drive in favour of a 128GB SSD drive (for speed, spacesaving and weight saving) and comes preloaded with Windows 7 Home Premium. It scored 4.7 on the Windows Experience Index with the lowest score for graphics performance.

- Perfect for day-to-day work - browsing, working on documents, music, videos and playing online games.

- Closing the lid puts it into sleep mode where no power is consumed, thus extending battery life. Also, thanks to the SSD and Samsung's 'Fast Start' technology, it takes just about 3 seconds to be fully functional from sleep mode.

Con:

- High price

- Actual Battery life of 5.5 hours as compared to the 7 hours claim.

- Because of its slim design it doesn't have any optical drive and sports very less number of ports.

Overall verdict: A truly impressive design with good performance and functionalities. However, the high cost may keep it limited amongst the luxury users only.

Rating: 4/5

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