Samsung Series 9 NP900X3C-A01US 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Ash Black)

I want and still do love this laptop from a design perspective. The quality control is troubling though.

Problems with the first laptop:

1) Screen had extreme back-light bleed through on the edges, especially the top right corner. Before asking for an exchange I went to a local store to see how the screen looked and it didn't exhibit the back-light bleed problem.

2) Laptop got very hot so I opened it up to see what was happening. The right fan vent was completely blocked by a plastic tab when the fan was installed so even though it was running, it wasn't bringing cold air into the machine.

3) While opening the laptop to inspect fan, I noticed that the battery was missing all of it's screws to hold it securely in place. It wasn't even assembled correctly.

Problem with second laptop:

1) Screen bleed problem was resolved, but not there it had a very obvious dead/stuck pixel on the screen. I expect the screen to not have bad pixels when paying for a $1300 laptop.

Problems with third laptop:

1) Screen is perfect, no back-light bleed or bad pixels.

2) Track pad is horrible, very loose and makes clicking noises when just swiping finger across it, not even pressing it for the left/right "click".

3) Right fan has a much more audible clicking noise than the previous 900x3c's I returned.

4) Question mark key on keyboard has paint missing/scratched so backlight shines through in a slit on the edge of it.

5) After a few days, computer would no longer boot, called Samsung and it turns out to be a hardware, not ssd problem so they recommended another replacement.

That was the last replacement Amazon would allow me to get, now I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I would really love this laptop if the quality control issues were resolved. I feel like I could assemble the good qualities of 3 laptops myself to get 1 good one that's up to par.

-----Update ------

I received my new 900x3c and it has none of the issues the previous three had. Maybe I was extremely unlucky with the previous ones or there was a bad batch? Now that I have one that is working to specs here's my review.

Design:

The laptop is extremely thin and looks very sharp. I've used it in a few public settings and get a lot of compliments and small talk about it from random people that want to hold and feel it. I believe the design is better than the macbook air and very solid with no creeks as I hold it or move the screen.

Screen:

The screen has great viewing angles from above and from the sides, has very rich color, and can be turned up very bright. I have no dead pixels and the screen backlight is very uniform and the resolution is great.

Keyboard and Trackpad:

The keys are slightly on the stiff side, with expected limited travel, but not a deal breaker and still great to type on. The backlight is a nice shade of blue/green and the brightness can be adjusted.

The trackpad is nice and large, supports multi-touch and is very nice no complaints.

Hard Drive:

The hard drive is on the small side, but upgradeable. I wish Samsung had included a 256 gig one instead of the 128 gig one. I have already upgraded the drive to the MyDigitalSSD 256GB SMART SATA III (6G) SandForce mSATA Solid State Drive which is extremely fast and I highly recommend it. It took about 10 minutes for me to removed the old SSD and install the new one.

RAM:

This is the only area that regret about the laptop. 4GB of RAM is ok, but not ideal, especially in a few years. I think I'll be able to get by and I haven't run short on memory yet, but really think Samsung should have included 8GB. The RAM is also not upgradeable in the 900x3c and is soldered to the motherboard.

Battery Life:

I seem to be getting between 5 and 6 hours of battery life on a full charge with light web usage. I would prefer a little more, but this seems acceptable. The battery is user upgradeable and is held in place by 4 screws visible once the bottom of the laptop is removed. This will come in handy in a couple years as the battery life starts to fade.

Wireless Signal Strength:

No issues with the wireless signal strength. It seems to perform well and has as much if not more signal strength than any other laptop I've used.

Heat/Noise:

The only time the bottom of the laptop got pretty warm was when playing Diablo III. The laptop has two fans and they are very quiet. Even at full speed, it's much quieter than a macbook air or pro. The fans don't come on at all during normal/light usage such as web surfing/emailing/word document editing and the laptop regulates temperature very well.

Speed/Performance:

The laptop is very quick for an ultra book. It can do a cold boot in about 10 seconds and wakes up from sleep in about 1 to 2 seconds. Graphic performance is very good too, for an ultrabook. No issues playing HD videos. I even loaded Diablo III and it runs very smooth with all high settings and a resolution of 1600 x 900. That's the only game I've tried so far.

Windows Experience Index:

Processor: 6.9

Memory (RAM): 5.9

Graphics: 6.4

Gaming graphics: 6.4

Primary Hard Disk: 7.4 for the original one... 7.9 when I upgraded to the MyDigitalSSD

Let me know if you have any questions and I'd be happy to answer.

Pros

----------

1. Amazingly thin.

2. First rate build quality. Solid as a rock. No flexes anywhere.

3. Fast.

4. Beautiful matte screen with very high brightness.

Cons

--------

1. Touchpad ruins it. I have the latest elan driver and have tried all the trick in the world but this touchpad can't even handle single finger cursor movement correctly. It will either a) stop responding for fractions of a second b) jump all over the place c) activate the left click even when you are just moving the cursor with one finger d) make you want to puke all over the place knowing a $1000 laptop performs like this and how everything else is perfect. You literally cannot use the touchpad for anything meaningful unless you have a bottle of aspirin nearby.

2. Gets very warm at the palm area during charging phase.

Overview

-------------

As much as I love everything else about this laptop the defective touchpad is making me want to return this item and I hereby highly discourage anyone from buying this computer until they either fix it or issue a recall. This is like buying a 300hp car with a defective steering wheel and it's unacceptable.

UPDATED 9/13/2012. After several days of testing the touchpad issue has been isolated in more detail. If you divide the touchpad into regions horizontally from left to right: 0 to 49% equals good area, 50 to 70% equals bad area, 71 to 100% equals good area. What I mean is that the area from the middle to slightly right of it has absolutely terrible touch responses resulting in false clicks and astray pointers.

UPDATED 10/9/2012. Rating has been lowered to 1 star from 2 after my Samsung RMA experience. First of all Samsung repairs are outsourced to Intelisol in Teaxas. Getting the RMA/repair ticket was painless enough once you get the proper link to it and Samsung does have a pretty decent online tracking service for this. However, after getting the machine back, I was beyond angry. The repair was supposed to fix the defective touchpad which many others have experienced. Well, they did fix the touchpad but they also broke quite a bit of stuff. 1) The repair person forced open the case, looks like they had zero training, and broken one of the latch that secures the battery to the chassis. The battery now no longer is securely bound to the case and if you shake the laptop you can hear it. 2) They used the WRONG/larger screw upon refitting the back cover and as result, stripping one of the back cover screw holes so now a proper screw won't fit that case hole. 3) When they put the case back, they mis-routed the WIFI antenna wires and instead of using the guide fittings specifically for the WIFI antenna, they just put it under the battery. Well, you might ask how I discovered all the repair snafus. I open the machine because part of some shrinkwrap was screwed into the backcase! All in all, Samsung's repair service is 100% garbage. The machine is now back to their outsourced Intelisol repair facility for a second time and let's how this turns out.

UPDATED 11/3/2012. Machine finally back from Intelisol for the second time and everything is properly fixed this time. Just to make sure, I opened the back to verify everything. The mSSD is secured with a mounting plate with two screws but there is only one screw there. Emailed Intelisol and their "official" explanation is that some mSSD configurations for this model only uses one screw out of two. So who do you believe? The engineers designed a mounting plate with two screws for nothing I guess. Look at the timing between my first RMA request on 9/13 and this final report and you can judge for yourself how badly Samsung needs to clean up the RMA process. Lastly, they told us not to open the back cover since it voids the warranty. If we didn't open up the machine after the first RMA, we would never have confirmed their shoddy repair service.

Buy Samsung Series 9 NP900X3C-A01US 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Ash Black) Now

I feel like most people are extremely critical about any laptop on the market other than Apple. Had a Macbook Pro the last two years but wanted to return to PCs so it'd be easier to work on the road/home. Definitely also considered the air before buying this but honestly thought the air couldn't compare to this (though I admit I'm always gonna be a PC fan so not sure if it's a fair fight).

Not sure about the quality control issues the other guys here are talking about sounds awful...but I received my samsung laptop and have been playing around with it for like a week now with no issues. Trackpad is really responsive, keyboard is better/easier to type on than other ultrabooks I've tried like Asus's zenbook and overall haven't had any issues with startup or processing (easy to use and fast). In terms of designplease go in store and see it yourself. Much improved from the previous series 9 (glad I waited) no wifi issues and design is sleaker/more expensive looking material. And so thin/light!

Read Best Reviews of Samsung Series 9 NP900X3C-A01US 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Ash Black) Here

Bought the Samsung Series 9 13.3" from the Microsoft Store a couple days ago and felt compelled to write a positive review for it.

Highlights:

The *matte* screen in high resolution rocks, and is long overdue in a laptop of this type (side by side this is significantly brighter and crisper than my 2012 Air).

Trackpad Samsung includes support for two finger swipe to go back, forward, and gravity scroll, three finger swipe to explorer view, four finger to view all windows, etc. Recommended that you disable tap to select, however, this is 2nd best trackpad in the business.

Cool "Silent Mode" feature, which disables fans for silent use

With Ivy Bridge and SSD, it is fast enough to develop and virtualize on (tested with 2GB RAM VM with Server 2008 + SharePoint 2010 + SQL + Visual Studio 2010).

Obvious pros:

For the size, the footprint of the laptop is the most compact I have seen, and feels great on a lap or desk.

The frame is strong, scary thin, and light.

Windows 7, Office 2010, and iTunes flies on this thing as expected.

Wake from sleep in 1-2 seconds, resume from hibernate in 10 seconds, from cold boot in 20 seconds

Less obvious cons:

Non-upgradeable RAM even if not upgradeable, an 8GB would been an obvious choice here

Non-Samsung SSD although the laptop is fast, if you're going to be doing development work on it, you'll eventually want more.

Cooling fans are a little louder than I'd hoped for not wind turbine loud, but they do hum at an audible level for heavier tasks

As a take-away, this is a top tier UltraBook with substance, style and speed. As an owner of several competing ultra-portables, this one wins my vote for first place.

Want Samsung Series 9 NP900X3C-A01US 13.3-Inch Ultrabook (Ash Black) Discount?

With the new ivy bridge and intel HD4000 graphics, this is the best ultrabook on the market. Period.

However, there's one thing buyers should knowthis NP900X3C is using Sandisk SSD. Not Samsung SSD like NP900X3B.

You won't feel the difference very much in everyday use but the benchmark numbers show the Samsung SSD is far superior than Sandisk.

Save 9% Off