Samsung Series 9 15-inch (NP900X4C-A02US)

product 0.3

• Pros

  Equipped with solid-state drive. Long battery life.

• Cons

  Expensive. Limited free storage space. VGA and HDMI dongles not included. Ethernet dongle is proprietary.

• Bottom Line

  Samsung's updated Series 9 ultrabook gives you multimedia power and battery life, but its high price and prefilled SSD may turn you off.

The Samsung Series 9 15-inch (NP900X4C-A02US) is a high-powered ultrabook with a large screen, very good battery life, and a thin portable shell. It's good for travelling artists or power users who want to compute untethered without waiting for a hard drive to spin up. Ultimately, however, there are better options out there for the money. Design and Features
The new NP900X4C is essentially a processor update of the Samsung Series 9 15-inch (NP900X4B-A02US) we looked at last spring. It has the same 0.6-by-14-by-9.3-inch (HWD) measurements, and weighs the same (3.6 pounds). The system has a travel weight of 4.3 pounds with the AC adapter, which makes it slightly lighter than the Apple MacBook Pro 15-inch (Retina Display) on its own (4.4 pounds). It's an ultrabook with desktop replacement dimensions, thanks to its 15-inch screen. That screen is bright, with a decent if underwhelming 1,600-by-900 resolution that's fine for viewing 720p HD content. But 15-inch laptops are aimed at people who want to display more information on their screens, like photographers and Web developers, and the 1,600-by-900 resolution may be too small for that. After all, the high-end ultrabook Editors' Choice?winning Asus Zenbook Prime UX32VD-DB71 has a 13-inch 1,920-by-1,080-resolution (1080p) screen in a much smaller package. Ultimately it's in the middle: better than the 1,366-by-768 resolution found on most systems, but you really want a higher-resolution screen to match the physically larger screen. There's a puzzling set of I/O ports on this Samsung Series 9. The two USB 3.0 ports and single USB 2.0 port (with smartphone and tablet charging capabilities) are welcome. But the system comes with several micronized ports, like the proprietary Gigabit Ethernet port (with included dongle), and micro HDMI and mini VGA ports (both of which are missing dongles). The chassis is thick enough to support full-size HDMI and Ethernet, but it seems that Samsung went with the miniature ports to help support the system's tapered design. We'd rather see a full-size HDMI port and, if needed, we'd rather see a USB 3.0?to?Ethernet dongle to give the user more flexibility. The system also has a SD card slot, audio port, and a microphone on the side panels. The NP900X4C's 62Wh battery isn't user-replaceable, but as we'll see below, that's not too much of a problem. The system comes with 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, so it will work with dual-band routers (2.4GHz and 5GHz). The one-piece touchpad is easy to use and supports multitouch gestures like two-finger swipes. Most power users will find the 8GB of memory plenty, but the included 128GB solid-state drive (SSD) is a little small?Windows 7, the recovery partition, and all the included programs leave a paltry 53GB free. Considering that Windows 7 is designed to be installable on 20GB SSDs, this small amount of free space is perplexing; perhaps all the included bloatware accounts for the extra space. The system comes with a short 60-day subscription to Norton Internet Security, and Skype, Absolute Data Protect, Kindle reader, and Wild Tangent Games are all preinstalled as well. At least the SSD helps the system to an incredibly quick boot time (10 seconds). Performance The NP900X4C has a third-generation Intel Core i5-3317u processor, which helps it compete with other ultrabook systems. It was able to complete our Handbrake video test in 1 minute 57 seconds and the Adobe Photoshop CS5 test in 4:38. The Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A-R5102F and Asus Zenbook Prime UX31A-DB51 also have Core i5-3317u processors, so they displayed similar multimedia benchmark numbers. That said, the Zenbook Prime UX32VD-DB71 (with a Core i7) and the entry-level desktop replacement Editors' Choice?winning Sony VAIO E15 (SVE15116FXS) (with a faster Core i5) perform better overall. The NP900X4C was decidedly mediocre at gaming tests, thanks to its Intel HD Graphics 4000 integrated graphics, but the 62Wh battery let it last a long time on the MobileMark battery test: just short of 7 hours, ahead of the Zenbook Prime UX32VD (5:26) and the Sony VAIO E15 (4:34) by a wide margin. With good performance and battery life, is the Samsung Series 9 15-inch (NP900X4C-A02US) worthy of the high-end ultrabook title? Unfortunately, the answer is "not quite." Although it is fast thanks to its SSD and Core i5 processor, the 1,600-by-900 screen is a drawback on a $1,500 system. The $1,299 Asus Zenbook Prime has a much higher-resolution screen and better multimedia performance; and the Asus also has a lot more free space on its hard drive, an important factor for the busy photographer who needs to frequently download dozens of images from his camera. If you're not quite as mobile, the heavier but much less expensive Sony VAIO E15 is a better budget buy, thanks to its higher-clocked processor and sub-$750 price tag. And, of course, the MacBook Pro with Retina display is ideal for those who want scads of screen real estate (and have deeper pockets). The NP900X4C isn't bad, it's just there are better, more affordable choices out there.

BENCHMARK TEST RESULTS:

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Samsung Series 9 15-inch (NP900X4C-A02US) with several other laptops side by side.

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