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Friday, 18 May 2012

Samsung Series 9 | spec and price

One year in the past, Samsung launched the Collection Samsung Series 9 laptop, and at the time, we might by no means seen a more premium Windows machine. It was thin, gentle, visually putting, and selection elements crammed the svelte machine, together with a snug backlit keyboard, a quick SSD, an aluminum alloy chassis, and an exquisite matte screen. If it weren't for the thirteen-inch laptop's $1,649 price ticket (which admittedly fell to $1,399 after a couple of months), it might need been a roaring success.
As is, it was adequate for samsung nf310 to present the components a second chance. The updated thirteen-inch Sequence 9 is even thinner and lighter than its predecessor - at 12.7mm thick, it may very well be the thinnest of them all - and at 14.7mm thick, the brand-new 15-inch Collection 9 is definitely the slimmest 15-inch laptop around. Is there no finish to how skinny these machines can get before compromises rear their ugly heads? Does that thinness make up for worth tags which are nonetheless fairly excessive to begin with, when the specs (a 1.6GHz Core i5 CPU, 8GB of RAM, integrated graphics) are basically the same?

Right now, I'm reviewing the $1,500 15-inch samsung 9, and keeping these questions at the top of my mind.

If I needed to distill the essence of the new Sequence 9 right down to a single word, it would be "refined." Last yr's model already had a sleek, minimalist design, nevertheless it regarded a bit bit too shiny, a bit of bit too plasticky, and maybe somewhat bit too cheap. This 12 months, the Series 9 by some means manages to concurrently look subdued and sexy. Beautiful expanses of textured matte black aluminum type all the first surfaces, except for a shiny brushed aluminum rim: it runs across the whole base and lid of the machine, forming a fantastically flashy profile that draws consideration to only how skinny Samsung managed to make this PC.

Like the front lip of the Envy 14 Spectre, the matte black base of the Series 9 gently curves inwards, such that the laptop appears to be like even thinner than it really is - like that silver rim is floating on air. The chassis construction can also be prime-notch: just like the MacBook Air, it is an especially stable unibody aluminum frame, with only a slight seam exhibiting where the underside cover was carved out of the block. Additionally like the MacBook Air, the body does are inclined to creak every so often whenever you decide it up, and the matte black surfaces here do decide up fairly a couple of fingerprints. My only major grievance with the design is Samsung's new lid hinge, which is both exhausting to open and just a little wobbly when the screen is upright.

The silver rim also highlights a good port selection. Whilst you'll unfortunately have to accept miniature HDMI, VGA and Ethernet ports, each of which require their own breakout adapters (the far-too-simple-to disconnect Ethernet one is included within the box) you do get one full-dimension USB 2.zero port on the left and two USB 3.zero ports on the suitable, in addition to a intelligent SD card slot that tucks into the underside of the frame below a small spring-loaded door. There's additionally a 3.5mm headset jack on the left, and a spot for the tiny power cord.

The display screen is the place my reward for the Samsung Sequence 9 slows. Let me explain: there's been a trend recently in direction of thin-bezel shows in new laptops. For producers trying to make a fast sale, it makes plenty of sense. Smaller borders across the screen make it look extra desirable, and marketers can boast that they've fit a larger screen right into a thinner, lighter machine than was ever earlier than possible.

The problem is that actual LCD display expertise doesn't seem to have caught up, and the first batch of thin-bezel screens look slighly washed out and have iffy viewing angles in comparison with their counterparts. Samsung's 15-inch display is definitely a superb bit above average, a pleasant matte sunlight-viewable panel with a fairly cheap 1600 x 900 decision and four hundred nits of brightness (that's fairly bright), however vertical viewing angles aren't nice, and the laptop computer's flimsy hinge means they're straightforward to knock out of alignment. Colors are a bit washed out, and whereas the gamut is not nearly as narrow as on the Envy 15, reds do look a very good bit closer to orange and violets to blue than I would hope for. In case you're contemplating the spectrum of Home windows laptops as a whole, it is actually not bad, but a $1,500 premium machine should have a premium display to go together with it.

In the meantime, the Sequence 9's audio system are a joke. They're not fairly as dangerous as those on the 15-inch Acer Timeline Ultra M3 I lately reviewed, however they're not far off: they produce a moderately huge sound discipline, however they're tinny, harsh and crammed with enough static that I found most music and plenty of normal computer sounds unbearable. Pricey laptop computer manufacturers, please take observe: don't home speakers inside thin steel or plastic palmrests, and don't level them down.

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