For years I've been looking for a 15" PC laptop less than 1" thick, under 4 pounds, with an SD card reader, backlit keyboard, and matte metallic finish at a reasonable price. There have been several machines that came close the Vizio CT15 (no SD card reader or backlit keyboard), the Sony VAIO T Series (too heavy), the Dell Inspiron 15z (thick, heavy, plastic body), and of course previous iterations of the Samsung Series 9 (too expensive) but the NP900X4D-A05US is the only one I've found that met all my criteria. It was worth the wait.External hardware: A+
This machine is beautiful. Any thinner and you'd be able to shave with it. The silver magnesium chassis is a major upgrade over the previous Ash Black versions since it doesn't show fingerprints or dust. Keyboard travel is surprisingly good, and not at all shallow as I had originally expected for being in such a thin frame. The keyboard backlight is subtle yet very effective and build quality is fantastic. I remember seeing a YouTube video of the NP900X3D not having the magnet that holds the lid closed, but that has been fixed in the NP900X4D. The Elan trackpad is smooth as butter with the newest driver installed...I've even read a few posts from people with the same trackpad on laptops from other manufacturers who install the Samsung drivers because they are so good. There are lots of gestures and settings that can be tweaked though, so if you're coming from a non-multitouch trackpad there may be a little learning curve.
Internal hardware: B+
For my needs (and the needs of most people not doing 3D rendering/MATLAB/etc.) the i5 Ivy Bridge processor/4GB RAM/128 GB SSD is way more than adequate...but there are several laptops on the market with those specs that are cheaper. In this case you're paying a premium for the design. Both the RAM and SSD are upgradeable though so once SSD prices come down, making upgrades should be fairly easy.
Software out of the box: D-
I won't go into this too much since I kept the factory state for about 5 minutes, but let's just say that you'll want to do a reformat and clean install of Windows 8 (see comments for how to do this.) The amount of bloatware is overwhelming, and out of the box you're only left with ~66GB of free space on a 128GB SSD. But I guess that's the case for just about every OEM Windows machine these days.
Software after reformat/clean install: A+
I remember when computers took almost two minutes to boot up. The NP900X4D does it in 4.08 seconds! By doing a clean install of Windows 8 and removing the recovery partitions, free space increases to ~100GB, and everything works much, much faster.
Bottom line: Internally, the NP900X4D-A05US is pretty average by current standards, but it is still blazing fast for everything but the most processor-intensive tasks. In terms of design, there is not a better looking machine on the market, period. The price seems to fluctuate frequently daily (I bought mine at $899.99) so if it's higher than that, I'd suggest keeping an eye on the page as it will probably come back down.
Pros:
The matte screen helps reduce light reflections significantly.
The hard drive is ULTRA fast.
Boot time ranges between 10-15 Seconds.
Battery lasts, and lasts, and lasts, and lasts.....
The touchpad is very big.
The brightness is superb.
The keyboard is nicely spaced out.
Samsung includes some really useful "settings" software as one of the Function keys.
There are two USB 3.0 ports.
Did I mention how light it is? (I got so used to the weight of it, I almost dropped my friend's 13 inch MacBook Pro when I was handling it)
It is very quiet especially when the quiet option is checked off.
Cons:
There is A LOT of bloatware. (I suggest "refreshing" the Windows 8 and using the Samsung Software Update to ONLY install necessary DRIVERS and select software)
The hard drive of 128 GB comes with only ~95GB available. (They really tried to make this laptop dummy-proof and you can recover from practically any problem)
The seams of the two panels right below the screen are not flush and you can clearly see that they're not perfectly matched.
The laptop feels cheap (but then again, so light!) and easily breakable (I haven't tested that, nor do I plan on testing it; however, I can bend the keyboard portion a bit!).
The speakers-the two tiny speakers-are located on the bottom (if you hold it on your lap or on your bed, sound is muffled).
The camera just plain SUCKS.
OVERALL: I love this laptop! If you can get past the "plasticky" feel of it (and trust me, you will), and the horrible camera, everything else is fixable.
My advice: DO NOT INSTALL INTELLIMEMMORY!!!!!!!
This is a new piece of software that catches your programs and lets them roam around in the RAM. Even after force-closing all open programs, the computer was still using ~95% of the RAM and was INSANELY slow.
Would I buy it again? YES. Maybe in black this time, though.
Would I recommend it? YES.
Buy Samsung Series 9 NP900X4D-A05US 15-Inch Premium Ultrabook (Silver) Now
Design: Great design. It's eye catching, but if you're an avid iProduct hater, then you might resent it's uncanny resemblance to the Macbook line of products....no seriously. The fans being on the bottom is a HUGE take away (1 star). This automatically warrants the user needing a deskpad, laptop stand, or something to that effect when laying in bed.Performance: OOB (out of box) performance and response is amazing. It's quick to turn on. Button clicks, program responses, they're all basically instantaneous.
Battery: Battery life is respectable. I've ran with this on max brightness and I got a solid 6 hours. Granted, running applications such as Adobe Photoshop or AutoCAD will change all that.
CONS!!!
This is OOB functionality, when connected to WiFi, the computer fails to load websites successfully on the first try sometimes. Day three, I would say it was doing it about 50% of the time. Lost another star there.
I'm returning the product because of the wifi issue.
Read Best Reviews of Samsung Series 9 NP900X4D-A05US 15-Inch Premium Ultrabook (Silver) Here
I purchased two Series 9 laptops. Could not get the first one to run, spent 8 hours working on it and finally gave up and sent it back. The 2nd one has wireless connection issues and after a week of torture trying to use it I am sending it back as well. It will work for about 10 or 15 minutes and then I get a message telling me that the wireless connection is gone. This happens at home and at my work location. I tried adjusting the power saving settings per suggestions on the Samsung website but still having problems. I will NEVER buy a Samsung notebook again, they should stick to TVs.Want Samsung Series 9 NP900X4D-A05US 15-Inch Premium Ultrabook (Silver) Discount?
With a couple upgrades, this ultrabook becomes an incredible machine. It is easy to make the upgrades yourself. I did it with very little technical knowledge.RAM Upgrade to 16 GB (I recommend Crucial model CT2KIT102464BF160B)
SSD Upgrade to 256 GB (I recommend Crucial model CT256M4SSD3)
I make those recommendations because the RAM I mentioned has been tested with this model and found to be very stable, and the SSD I mentioned is double the capacity and MUCH faster than the default SSD that Samsung puts in there (look at the specs and reviews).
With those upgrades, you have great performance on the thinnest and lightest 15" laptop available.
As others have mentioned, the vertical viewing angle of this laptop's screen is not very wide, but the horizontal viewing angle is very wide. Take this into consideration if you need to have someone standing up see the screen at the same time as you're sitting down looking at it.
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