Series 9 is supposed to be Samsung's premium line of ultrabook. However, pressure from aggressive competitors, such as Asus and Acer, has prompted Samsung to release the X3D as a bargain model of the Series 9 ultrabook line. Key differences between x3d and x3c (the true premium ultrabook) are as follow:
Chassis material: magnesium alloy vs aluminum (edge to x3c)
Weight: 2.49lbs vs 2.55lbs (edge to x3d)
Chassis color: silver vs black/charcoal
cpu: 2nd gen i5 vs 3rd gen i5 (benchmark score 2300 vs 3000, so 30% performance advantage to x3c. 3rd gen Ivy bridge i5 uses 22nm manufacturing process based on 3D tri-gate transistors where as the 2nd gen Sandy bridge i5 uses 32nm manufacturing process based on planar double gate transistors. The newer 22nm manufacturing processor enables 3rd gen i5 cpu to have better energy efficiency and less heat production).
battery life: 7.7 hours vs 8.2 hours (because of the newer 3rd gen i5 has higher energy efficiency)
integrated GPU: HD3000 vs HD4000 (30% performance difference, edge to x3c)
Bottom line; choose x3d if you just want a bargain ultra portable laptop for web browsing and general office work. If you have more money to spend, then x3c is a better premium ultrabook. I chose x3d because I wanted a bargain ultrabook with matte high resolution screen, sturdy chassis, quiet fans, and ultra portability.
Update 11/28: I woke up this morning and notice the body was cold, so definitely is metal, not plastic. The SSD is Sandisk U100, I've run some benchmark and it doesn't perform that well, is not slow but is not the fastest one. Maybe I'll upgrade when prices come down. I made a backup of the recovery partition using the pre installed Samsung backup software and then deleted that partition, it gave me an extra 20gb of free space. I'm bumping the rating to 4 1/2 stars.
-The screen is beautiful, very bright and good color reproduction.
-Wi-fi signal is strong and I haven't experienced dropped connection.
-I haven't used the touchpad that long because I always use a mouse but I tested and it works better that others I've used.
-The keyboard is accurate and it feels nice to the touch, the backlight is soft, you can barely see it with lights on. I wish it was brighter.
-There's a little to none noise fan, it gets a little hot on the bottom.
-Speakers sound surprisingly good for such a thin machine.
-I can't comment on battery life yet but I think I can squeeze +6 hours from it.
Performance: Before purchasing I knew that the processor was the previous generation (sandy bridge), but reading online I found out that the speed gain between generations is 15% for the CPU and 30% for the GPU, since I don't play games it doesn't bother me but you should keep in mind that the graphics are better on the new generation. Windows experience index score are:
-Processor 6.4
-Memory 5.9
-Graphics 3.8 * 4.3
-Gaming graphics 5.1 * 5.9
-Hard disk 7.5
Just to compare I'm currently using a Vizio thin and light with an Ivy bridge i3-3217U processor 1.8 Ghz and the scores are:
-Processor 6.3
-Memory 5.9
-Graphics 5.3
-Gaming graphics 6.4
-Hard disk 7.4
Overall I'm happy with the performance and the looks. I got it for $800, I don't think I would pay more than that.
Update: I've run the test again after I played with the graphics card settings and got better results. The new score is next to the old one so you can compare.
Buy Samsung Series 9 NP900X3D-A01US 13.3-Inch Premium Ultrabook (Silver) Now
Well, I've had this laptop for about a week now and so this review will only cover initial impressions and performance for..well...only a week.
To start, I opened the box to find the laptop box was very sturdy and impressive. The laptop inside was packed very well and packaging was very aesthetically pleasing. It seemed to me that Samsung took some pride when packaging this product.
Included inside the box was the laptop, the charger (which is small compared to other laptop chargers, it makes It easy to pack and carry), some instructions and warranty info and an adapter for the mini Ethernet plug.
After allowing the laptop to charge, reading the instructions and googling how to use windows 8, I booted up the laptop. Power up was incredibly fast. After setting up everything I restarted the laptop and I am pretty sure it gets to the password screen in about 4-5 seconds from button press. Once I log in I can instantly use the internet. The scroll function seems to lag a bit immediately after log in but is normal after about 1 sec.
I have read other posts about this being the "new" series 9 and why it was rated 1.4 GHz and the sandy bridge and this not being metal blah blah..
well I bough this knowing all those things and honestly...if you can def. tell the difference between a 1.4 and 1.7 GHz and sandy bridge vs the ivy bridge then hats off to you.
I guarantee most people won't be able to tell the difference unless they were told. Regardless,this laptop is incredibly fast.
Also, this laptop is metal just not titanium or steel or whatever else people expect magnesium to feel like -it is as advertised on the Samsung website.
Granted...this is my first experience with an SSD and windows 8.
What I like:
Keyboard backlighting: It is not white, my wife owns a MacBook pro and the white keyboard backlight is just too bright for me. The series 9 has more of a green hue...almost like glow in the dark. Not to mention most laptops don't even offer a backlit option.
Light weight: I took it to school and halfway to my next class my backpack felt so light I thought I had forgotten it!
Design: This laptop is simply beautiful...I couldn't ask for a better looking laptop!
Functionality: This is a very fast laptop, so far It seems very durable and the programs seem to run without bugs and/or errors
Battery life: The notification indicator is grossly inaccurate. At full charge it told me I had maybe 4 hours...that is a far cry from the claimed 9 hours. After extensive testing this can produce power upwards to 9 hours or more. The screen is still very visible in broad daylight under the lower contrast setting. After doing a multitude of tasks to include up to 3 hours of watching online shows and videos...battery life lasted for about 2.5 days with moderate to high usage. To me that means maybe a cumulative total of 3.5 to 4 hours of usage a day.
Windows 8: So far so good, no serious bugs and it is much much faster than windows 7.
Not a lot of bloat ware: Samsung does have a few pre-installed Samsung software, but it is nothing like what HP normally pre-installs in their computers.
~~~~~~~~~
What I don't like:
The mouse interface: this mouse/track pad is a pale comparison to what Apple has mastered. The mouse was glitch when I first got it...Once I changed the sensitivity and interface settings to my liking, everything became much better.
Body: When I first closed the screen I noticed that the top of the screen did not mate flush with the base of the front of the laptop. After investigating why, I can make it close flush by applying light pressure on the Samsung logo after I have closed the laptop. I don't know why mine does this, however the problem was solved and the gripe does not reflect the laptop's performance. Additionally, I found a simple fix to this problem so that is why I still rated it 5 stars.
Better instructions: I was looking at all the different things on my keyboard and I noticed that there is a silent mode button on F11 key. I would have liked it if they added a quick "what the hell is this?" guide. I had to look up silent mode and eco mode and all that jazz manually.
Over all I am very pleased with my purchase and product. I knew what I wanted to buy and I got everything I expected from this laptop. Also, I suggest looking up a windows 8 tutorial before this laptop is used.
Before this I used to own a HDD with windows7
Read Best Reviews of Samsung Series 9 NP900X3D-A01US 13.3-Inch Premium Ultrabook (Silver) Here
I used this exact model from work for two weeks last month.
Got a note from amazon that it was 7 bills on sale and decided to add my thoughts on my three weeks experience on this budget downgraded Samsung 9.
Firstly it is a good looking machine. It is a light machine. Sadly those are the sole positives compared to the competition or for that matter the proper series 9 machines. Now I dislike apple and its fanboys, so I wont call this a "knock off" of the air, but I will call it it a PALE budget knock off of Samsung's own proper series 9 ultra. Essentially you are buying the ultra case: well actually this case looks at first glace to be the same as the other series 9's but is actually a very flimsy magnesium instead and nowhere near as nice as the normal series 9.
First of all Samsung is cutting a serious corner by using the old second generation i5 processor instead of the third generation i5 one used in laptops today. For perspective typcially 4 and 5 hundred dollar i5 laptops today with third generation models. That is not just some tiny increment. It is actually three factors that are considerably worse in the second generation compared to current i5's. a) battery life. Yes battery life is directly affected by processor generations. Both the processing and the inboard video processing on the older i5s are much less energy efficient. We are not talking about the efficiency of a light bulb here, but of a ultralight laptop with a tiny battery (4 cell). The low energy inefficiency of the processor and video on the NP900X3D-A01US is why the claimed nine hour battery life is real world abysmal 3.5 to 4 hours even with everything tweaked.
The second gen processor is also slower for normal tasks, and much much slower for light to moderate video intensive tasks.
Battery: unless you absolutely need an utraportable be aware that battery life is generally pretty poor in this class. And the NP900X3D-A01US is pretty low within the ultrabook class.
Screen: The specs on the screen attracted me. Matte and a bump in resolution over the 768 norm. Yet the visual experience is lower than the average 768. Angle viewing is poor, contrast is poor and the screen is generally quite dull. I have seen dozens of standard res (768) that are real world much better than this screen.
HDD: it has a 120 ssd. Frankly real world I have found ultras using hybrids (dual ssd+conventional) are much better for laptops. 120 is pretty small even after moving recovery partitions. After you put in full office, you only have room for half dozen 1080 mkvs. There are 500, 750 and even 1TB +24 or 32flash hybrid systems that are 99% as fast in current ultrabooks and give you much more room and have the benefit of better durability and dependability. Yes it is a dirty secret, but nonetheless a fact, that even with TRIM enabled SSDs, today's SSD are more error prone and data loss prone than conventional or hybrid 2.5 HDDs.
Connectivity and networking: It is pretty hard to find a $1000 list (even with a 700 street) laptop with only single band N. In hotels, office, or really nowadays anywhere but extremely sparse suburbs and rural areas you will suffer with only 3.5 Ghz. And it will get worse as more devices pack households ever day that passes. Your speeds will constantly be old G speeds. Think you swap that card out? Think again. You will have to toss Bluetooth since there are only two leads and you will never -ever thread a third antenna up the screen case. Even wired is a crackpot scheme. You need to use their dongle (unlike an Air).
Case: this is a "metal" case like the standard Samsung 9, but it is not the same metal. They flog "magnesium" like it is equivalent or better, but trust me it is not. The feel of this compared to other aluminum Samsung 9s is noticeably flimsy. It is a metal that has the look and feel of plastic!
I am not down on this that much. If you need a LOW power laptop to look pretty at meetings despite actually being a a very low spec machine, go for it. But dont think you are getting a deal for seven hundred bucks. You are not. The competition in standard ultrabooks like this due to innovative touch screen devices coming on the market is making these dinosaurs, and the conventional designs are all seeing prices slashed. Samsung isn't so much slashing as they are slashing the specs by slipping in this old processor they are probably getting from Intel for next to nothing these days. It is still 7 bills and that is a lot of change give the plummet in laptop prices.
Other notes. I opened the case. As I said wifi swap to the triple lead dual band+BT is impossible due to the screen half build. Memory is not soldered so upgrade is possible. Processor is not upgradable. and unlike most you cannot get an msata hybrid in their either you will have to swap up the whole drive.
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This machine is just as well built (if not better) than the previous Series 9. Personally, I preferred the darker color and polished edges that the previous model had but that is purely subjective. This unit is rock solid and the touchpad is excellent almost identical to my previous computer, a MacBook Pro which had the best touch-pad I've ever used.
It does have the older gen Intel chipset, but it's still lightning fast for browsing the web and general office use -absolutely worth the savings!
The body is absolutely metal. For its size, this laptop is (very nearly) as solid feeling as the MacBook Air.
Windows 8 on the other hand, is a total horror on any laptop or desktop computer. After a good 5 hours of work, I was able to fix it by removing all of the pre-installed garbage, correcting the power settings, and installing ClassicShell from sourceforge (free).
The only cons I can think of are the following:
The metal unibody seems to be painted rather than anodized or polished (I could be wrong)
The build quality is not quite as good as a mac, but it's just about as close as you can get right now
The SSD is extremely poor (one of the slowest ones available) the SanDisk U100. Keep in mind, it is still much much faster than a regular mechanical HDD.
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When I sold computers in the 80's, I used to tell customers do the following: Make a big cross on a piece of paper. Mark the First box APPLICATION, the Second box PRICE, the Third box FEATURES and the Fourth Box I Forget (Hey, the 80's were 30 years ago and I've killed off half my brain cells since then in partying!!!). Under APPLICATION, I wrote BUSINESS COMPUTER (hvy typing, business powerpoint graphics presentations, hvy internet surfing) and Music Downloads). Under Price I went C-H-E-A-P (sub $600.00) as I had recently lost my job through my whistleblowing efforts. Under Features, I demanded a GOOD touchType keyboard as the 'deal killer' (NO CHICKLET KeyBoard for me!!!), a 15.6" LED Screen, 4GB Ram (DDR3's) 320GB HD and an INTEL Core i5 processor (because I wanted a system I could use, abuse and throw away after FIVE YEARS). I left the Fourth Box Blank (although I could have put SOFTWARE as in WIN 7 64bit OPSYS) in memorium to my dead brain cells.
