Just got the NP900X3D a couple days ago from Amazon.Initial impressions: I love it, irritated with a few small items, but it is my new favorite travel computer.
The packaging was great. Three layers of protection: Amazon box with plastic air, Samsung box with foam corners inside, and then a very hard, elegant notebook box with foam inside.
Since I've only had it a few days, I'll keep the review short for now:
Good things:
++ The matte screen is gorgeous. I'm sitting in the kitchen next to an open window with the sunlight pouring in, and it looks just fine. Really good, in fact. My mother-in-law is sitting beside me with an Asus that has a reflective screen. Ouch! The glare from her notebook smacked me in the face. The screen on the Sammy is awesome.
++ Super skinny and light. This is replacing my daily notebook, a lightweight (3.94 lbs) Asus that I thought was very portable. Hah! The Sammy blows it away.
++ Elegant and refined look and feel.
Irritating things:
-Storage space. OMG. Over half is gone on arrival. Do they really need 4 different recovery partitions? One of which consumes 25 GB? At first I was shocked, but I've mellowed a little now. Just a little. I've created a backup image (which is a little tricky to find in Windows 8), and may consider blowing away this build. Or upgrading to a 256 GB drive, like the M4 mSATA from Crucial.
-Wifi and automatic brightness. Neither worked well out of the box. But, after running the Samsung SW Update (all apps, Samsung section), it seems fine now. Thinking about it, most new computers need to be fine-tuned and updated when you get them, so this doesn't bother me too much.
Well, that's my initial impressions. I'm completely new to Windows 8, and at first found it quite strange. But the more I play with it, the more I see advantages. I get both the desktop and an app interface. And there are definitely some cool apps out there. Windows 8 starts out in more of a sharing layout than I personally like, but that's just customization, and we all do that.
Update 5/6/2013:
* Tried it outside on the porch and the screen worked great on a sunny day.
* Installed 10 GB of pictures and MS Office. I'll probably load another 10 GB in music, and then one or two movies. I guess everything will fit fine for now. Maybe I wanted more elbow room than I need.
* Still having intermittent problems with wifi connectivity. It works most the time, but occasionally drops out. My router is in the basement, so it may be that the signal is only fair.
* Registering with Samsung added 3 months to the warranty. I know, a pittance, but better than nothing. Brings it up to 15 months.
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Once you set up the windows 8 look and feel the way you wanted and disable some of the actions of the touchpad, it works great. Bootup from powerup or sleep is sooooo fast. This thing is so thin and yet sturdy. Screen is awesome! Anti-glare screen, awesome, may be the only highend ultrabook with anti-glare screen. I absolutely hate glossy screen. Most windows 8 apps are low quality and very few decent ones. Touchpad works fine for desktop apps, but some windows 8 apps are a little flacky with the touchpad.Recovery saved me a few times. Some old software do not work properly and would not uninstall and will cause repeated pop up error msg in Windows 8. The only way out for me was to use "Recovery" app to bring my system back to the previous state. It works remarkably well. So I would say SSD space allocated for Recovery is a must have if you ever corrupt your system unintentionally.
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LOVE the form of this laptop sleek and lightweight! I like the back lighting of the keyboard. I wish that the volume controls and screen brightness were not controlled by the Fn keys requiring 2 hands to control, though.As others have mentioned, there ARE issues with the wireless adapter and touchpad. If you believe your Windows based laptop should run perfectly out of the box stay away from this laptop. I knew going into this purchase that there were problems and decided to gamble on my being able to address them. I am reasonably comfortable doing this, but not a techie. With the help of the Samsung support, I have reinstalled/updated the drivers for the wireless adapter (x3) and touchpad. The adapter appears to be OK now, the touchpad continues to annoy, refusing to work when the computer is restored from "sleep" mode. Because the reboot is so fast, this is only annoying not unworkable. Also, the default power settings required adjustment and often revert back to default not sure why.
All in all, for me the form of the chassis and other design features make this a great little laptop as a road warrior. The frustration factor of the above, though, does not allow me to recommend this as a "buy" without some reservation.
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I work in IT and havent had to buy a laptop in over 10 years. I really liked the size and specs of this laptop so I ordered it. Within 3 weeks the system board died. I contacted Samsung customer service and they are awful. they are clueless and I had to call back several times to get answers. The part was so back ordered that they said they would issue me a full refund. I heard from some colleagues that this has been happening a lot with SamsungSave 6% Off
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