FAYAN SALES: Samsung ATIV Book 9 Review

Pros

Incredibly Thin Form Factor
Long Battery Life
High Quality Touchpad

Cons

Expensive
No Touch-Display

Build and Design

It's hard to talk about the Samsung ATIV Book 9 and not mention its eye-catching design. With a meticulous array of slants and curves the Samsung Series 9 is a thing of beauty. Despite being one of the more attractive notebooks on the market the Samsung Series 9 manages to never feel over the top. Most likely that's due to the machine's mineral ash black aluminum chassis. The simplistic color provides a wonderful counterbalance to the machine's sleek design to create a clean business-friendly aesthetic.

Measuring in at 12.35" x 8.6" x 0.51" and weighing in at 2.56 lbs. the Samsung Series 9 is almost weightless. While transporting the device to and from work in addition to my normal work-notebook, I barely noticed the added weight of the device. Additionally, the notebook feels even lighter than its listed weight thanks to the ergonomic design of the chassis. The inward slants along the bottom chassis form perfectly to your hand, allowing the device to be comfortably held with just one hand. Admittedly the device is not as portable as most tablets, but the Samsung Series 9 is still extremely portable and its performance capabilities far outweigh that of the average tablet.

In spite of its petite form factor the Samsung ATIV Book 9 offers solid durability. The chassis barely flexed at all, even when substantial pressure was applied. The display fared just as well, only giving slightly to pressure with no noticeable rippling occurring on screen. I'd still be hesitant to believe that the Samsung Series 9 could survive serious impact or a fall, but the device can easily hold up to the normal wear and tear of travel.

Its miniscule form factor and durable build quality make the Samsung ATIV Book 9 the ideal portable notebook.

Ports and Features

The Samsung Series 9 is actually extremely clever about its port layout, offering a strong level of connectivity despite its limited surface area. The notebook manages to do this with the use of multiple dongles. Unfortunately doing so adds an additional burden on the consumer, especially since some of the dongles do not come with device. However, it's better than the alternative, which is no connectivity at all.

The left side of device offers a power jack, chargeable USB 3.0 port, Micro HDMI port, and a LAN Dongle (which comes with the device). The Right side offers a 3-in-1 Multi Card Slot, Int. Mic, VGA Dongle (does not come with the device), a Headphone/Mic Combo jack, and a USB 2.0 port.

The offering is still rather slim compared to some devices; but considering that the Samsung Series 9 is only working with a few inches on both sides of the device, it manages to fit in a considerable amount within that tight space. It's unfortunate that Samsung didn't decide to include the VGA dongle given the steep price of the device.

Display and Sound

The Samsung Series 9 offers an excellent 13.3" LED SuperBright Plus full HD display. Despite its limited size the 1920 x 1080 resolution of the screen provides more than enough surface area to easily accommodate multiple programs. Additionally, the display reads exceptionally well providing a clear image with robust color contrast.

Perhaps even more impressive though are the generous viewing angles that the display offers. On the horizontal axis the display holds up extremely well with noticeable image distortion even at 180 degrees. The same can be said of the vertical axis as well. Regardless of the angle the image on the screen remains just as clear and visible as if you were looking at it from head on.

The only downside to the display is its lack of touch controls. Given the cost of the device, it would seem a given that the Samsung Series 9 would offer a touch-enabled display, especially given how vital touch controls have become to the Windows 8 experience. Likely the company opted to go without in order to keep the Samsung ATIV Book 9 as slim as possible. The touch-enabled display is simply a concession that must be made in order to achieve the thin form factor that this device offers. While it doesn't make up for the lack of touch-controls the device at least offers an extremely high quality touchpad.

Despite its small size the Samsung Series 9 manages to offer boisterous sound through its two speakers, which are located on the bottom back edge of the chassis connecting to the display. The speakers are able to easily fill a modest sized room with audio comfortably. More importantly the speakers provide clear crisp audio quality, with no noticeable distortions even at 100 percent capacity. Admittedly, the speakers lack the added bass and treble that serious audiophiles will want, but that's true for the majority of notebooks on the market.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Similar to just about everything else on this device, the Samsung Series 9 offers both a high-quality keyboard and touchpad. The notebook is equipped with a Chiclet style keyboard. The squared keys offer a glossy finish that is smooth to touch and easily grips the finger pads for added traction. Key compression while fairly limited is still far greater than expected for a device with a 0.51" thickness. Any shortcomings that the compression incurs are easily remedied by the tactile responsive push back each keystroke. The result is a precise typing experience that never feels compromised given the limited key depth.

The generously sized touchpad easily matches the experience put forth by the keyboard. The touchpad is devoid of mouse buttons and instead employs multi-touch controls for various mouse-clicks, with a single finger compression counting as a left-click and two fingers counting as a right-click.

Equipped with ELAN drivers the touchpad performs extremely well reading multi-finger gestures accurately with little to no lag. The touchpad also offers adjustable features allowing users to customize scroll speed, double click speed, and point speed. Users can also disable and enable multi-finger gestures, including a few ingenious additions such as the four finger upward swipe which returns users to desktop. The addition of these simple gestures makes maneuvering in and out of Windows 8 far more palatable, and is a godsend given the device's lack of a touch-enabled display.

Our review unit of the Samsung ATIV Book 9includes the following specifications:

Windows 8 (64-bit)
13.3" LED Full HD Display 1920 x 1080 (300 nits)
1.9 GHz i7-3517U Processor
Intel HD Graphics 4000
4GB DDR3 RAM
256 GB SSD
Intel Centrino Advanced-N 6235 802.11 a/b/g/n
4-Cell Lithium Polymer Battery
Dimensions: 12.35" x 8.6" x0.51"
Weight: 2.56 lbs.
MSRP: $1,900

Equipped with and 1.9 GHz Intel i7-3517U processor and integrated graphics the Samsung ATIV Book 9 offers an impressive amount of performance in its condensed package. The machine proves more than up to the task when it comes to basic word and web functions. The notebook is also able to tackle more strenuous office functions such as complicated Excel tables with relative ease.

With 4GB of RAM the Samsung Series 9 can easily juggle multiple programs with no noticeable drop in performance. Data retrieval and boot-up speeds are also lighting fast thanks to the machines 256 GB SSD. Any application can be instantly loaded and running with a matter of a few seconds.

Easily the most notable weak point for the device in terms of performance comes from its integrated Intel HD graphics 4000. Lacking a dedicated GPU unit the Samsun Series 9 is somewhat limited in its ability to tackle graphic intensive functions, such as 1080p video editing or newer visually demanding video games.

Honestly the lack of a dedicated GPU comes as no surprise. Similar to the lack of a touch-display the GPU is another concession that has to me made in order to keep the Samsung ATIV Book 9 as slim as possible. While other notebooks within this price range might offer more impressive specs and performance, that's not the aim of the Samsung Series 9. Instead the device focuses on cramming as much performance as possible into its 0.51" frame, which it manages to do exceedingly well.

wPrime processor comparisons (lower score means better performance):

PCMark 7 is a newer benchmark and measures overall systems performance (higher scores mean better performance):

3DMark 11 is a benchmark that measures overall graphic card performance for gaming (higher scores mean better performance):

Crystal DiskMark storage drive performance test:

Heat and Noise

The Samsung Series 9 offers two fans with the vent located on the bottom side of the chassis. The fans do an admirable job keeping the device cool, and are able to do so with minimal noise. The device does heat up a bit when pushed to capacity, but the fans refrain the device from becoming audible even in those conditions. While the positioning of the vent is peculiar (likely due to space constraints), the heat produced by the machine is miniscule enough that it can be comfortably used as a laptop, even when heat is emanating out of the vent.

Battery Life

To test battery life, we used our new PowerMark benchmark in balanced mode. The test consists of a combination of automated web browsing, word processing, gaming and video playback workloads. The test is far more strenuous than our previous test, measuring the machine under a litany of scenarios to better simulate real life use. With the test being far more demanding the scores are understandably lower than our previous benchmark.

In our test the Samsung ATIV Book 9 ran for 5 hours and 55 minutes before shutting down after reaching the 5 percent battery reserve limit. Running just short of 6 hours the Samsung Series 9 provides considerable battery life that is sure to hold up to the task of travel. The strong battery life of the Samsung Series 9 only helps to further solidify the device as an exemplary portable notebook.

Conclusion

It's hard to find many faults with the Samsung ATIV Book 9, as the ultrabook manages to do most things fairly well. The most serious issue that can be raised against the device is its cost. While many of the features of this device are fantastic, many consumers may expect more for its $2,000 price point.

However, the Samsung ATIV Book 9 isn't for those consumers. This notebook isn't designed to offer you considerable bang for your buck. Sure the 1.9 GHz processor and 256 GB SSD allow this machine to perform most functions admirably, but the notebook falls short of many comparably priced devices on the market.

Instead the Samsung ATIV Book 9 focuses on one very specific function. To offer as much performance in as small a form factor as possible. With its durable and incredibly thin design and long lasting the battery the Samsung ATIV Book 9 is ideal for travel. Users who don't mind spending a bit extra will find this luxury travel device an absolute pleasure to use.

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