Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus review
When Samsung first released the
Series 9
in 2011, it quickly became one of our favorite laptops of the year.
Then, once Intel threw its marketing weight behind Ultrabooks, it became
our favorite Ultra.
But the Series 9 was born in the Windows 7 era, and it became harder
and harder to recommend as touchscreens became the standard. Now,
though, we have the
ATIV Book 9 Plus, the first truly flagship-level Ultrabook Samsung has released since Windows 8 came out.
As you'd expect, it trades in the Series 9's matte, anti-glare
display for a touchscreen. What's more, though, Samsung also cranked up
the resolution, retiring that old 1,600 x 900 panel in favor of a 3,200 x
1,800 one. And, of course, it steps up to a newer Haswell processor,
which promises not just faster performance, but also longer battery life
(not that endurance was a problem on the original). So is it still our
favorite Ultrabook? Pretty much.
Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus review
See all photos
19 Photos
Look and feel
We've met Samsung's laptop design team. It's led by some lovely,
humble people, but we suspect that deep down, they know the same thing
we know: that last year's Series 9 Ultrabook was a near-perfect product.
So, content to let perfect dogs lie, the company more or less kept the
same blueprint when it sat down to design this year's ATIV Book 9 Plus.
This time around, it measures 0.54 inch thick, making it only a hair
thicker than last year's model, which measured 0.5 inch (and which
didn't have a touchscreen, we might add).
It also has generally the same shape, with a profile that tapers
drastically toward the front, but widens near the hinge to make room for
the various ports (two USB 3.0, micro-HDMI, mini-VGA, a headphone jack
and a hidden SD slot). In the box, you'll find an Ethernet adapter as
well. The machine is also comfortable to hold, and we're not even
referring to the weight (more on that in a moment). Though the edges
here look sharp, they're actually quite blunt, so it won't hurt to press
your palms into them when you're carrying this thing with two hands.
The overall build quality is the same too. Like its predecessor, the
ATIV Book 9 Plus is made of smooth aluminum, except the color, billed as
"Mineral Ash Black," has a slightly bluish tint in some light, whereas
last year's was a plain black affair. Between that and the subtle
flourishes (a thin metal band around the trackpad, just one button on
the keyboard deck), the entire machine has an understated, but still
expensive feel to it. The only problem is -- and we complained about
this last year -- is that despite having a matte finish, the aluminum
picks up fingerprints quickly. Make sure to have a cloth in your desk
drawer so that you can give the machine a rubdown every once in a while.
All told, almost everything that feels different about the ATIV Book 9
Plus has to do with the addition of that touchscreen. There's the
glossy screen, of course, which used to have a matte, anti-glare finish.
And of course, there's the weight. Without a touchscreen, the old
Series 9 weighed 2.55 pounds -- an astonishing spec, even for an
Ultrabook. Thanks largely to the touchscreen, though, this new model
comes in at 3.06 pounds. Now, before we get carried away, even that's
pretty respectable for a touchscreen, 13-inch Ultrabook. But it does
feel a lot heavier than we remember the Series 9 feeling. And besides,
there are plenty of touchscreen ultraportables that manage to be even
lighter than this.
There's one other change, and this one we can't blame on the
touchscreen. In addition to adding its new SideSync software to Windows
8, Samsung slapped some conspicuous "SideSync" and "HomeSync Lite"
branding on the device itself, over on the right side of the palm rest.
What's annoying is that it's painted onto the aluminum, so it's there,
staring back at you whether you like it or not. We would have much
preferred a sticker we could peel off.
Keyboard and trackpad
Just like the rest of the design, the keyboard is basically the same
as on the last-gen Series 9. Once again, the buttons are well-spaced,
with a pretty aquamarine backlight glowing from underneath. Be warned,
though: they're also flat and shallow, with minimal travel. Don't get us
wrong; they're still reasonably easy to type on, but we did suffer more
dropped letters than on some other Ultrabooks we've tested recently.
Type too quickly and you might have to go
bak back and re-type a letter that didn't register the first time around.
One of the first things we noticed when we initially unboxed the ATIV
Book 9 Plus is that the trackpad is much more reliable than the one we
tested on the Series 9. The cursor actually went where it was supposed
to, and multi-touch gestures like two-finger scrolls and pinch-to-zoom
were also easy to pull off. After a little more time with the machine,
we did notice that the pad has a bit more friction than we'd like. To
the machine's credit, the cursor never went rogue and ended up on some
random, unintended part of the page; we did suffer a bit of drag,
though. There were also a few times when the trackpad mistook two-finger
scrolls for a swipe in from the left, which caused us to inadvertently
switch from one app to another. That was definitely more annoying than
the slightly stubborn cursor.
Display and sound
Even if you decided to downgrade the resolution to 1080p, you'd be left with a fantastic screen.
Adding a touchscreen to the Series 9 was clearly something of a
compromise for Samsung: not only did it add noticeably to the weight,
but it also meant Sammy had to move from a matte, anti-glare screen to a
glossy one. Still, if you're under the impression Samsung swapped in a
pedestrian display, we'll correct you now. With this generation, the
company made 3,200 x 1,800 resolution standard -- a dramatic improvement
over last year's model, which topped out at 1,600 x 900. We won't waste
your time describing how it's noticeably sharper than the original, but
we will add that it looks even sharper than a typical 1080p screen;
yes, your eyes can probably tell the difference.
That increased acuity works great for certain desktop apps, like
Word, and it also brings out the best in the colorful Windows Start
Screen. That said, we'll make the same caveat we make any other time we
review a laptop with a super-high-res screen: not all content has been
optimized to look good on displays this sharp. With YouTube, for
instance, videos look strange at full-screen, with the scrubber and
buttons at the bottom all scaled way down. The effect is so terrible,
it's funny.
Even if you decided to downgrade to 1080p, though, you'd be left with
a fantastic screen. Though it's naturally more reflective than the
matte panel that shipped on last year's model, there really are very few
light artifacts here. At half-brightness, I could barely see my
reflection in the screen while I typed; at full brightness, I couldn't
see it at all. Speaking of the sort, the 350-nit brightness rating helps
contribute to some great viewing angles from the side -- with the
brightness turned all the way up, you should have no problem crowding
around the laptop and watching a movie from slightly off to the side.
What's nice is that the vertical viewing angles are great even at lower
brightness settings. So, even if you're working on an airplane and want
to conserve battery life by dimming the backlight, you'll still enjoy
good contrast with the lid dipped forward.
We honestly weren't expecting much in terms of sound: most Ultrabooks
deliver tolerable quality at best and besides, Samsung hasn't exactly
been making a big deal of the ATIV Book 9 Plus' audio chops. That may
have been a mistake, though: the sound here is not just surprisingly
loud, but surprisingly rich too. Most of the time, we had the volume set
well below the median mark -- maybe at level 30 or 40 out of 100.
What's more, the volume stays loud even when you place the laptop on a
soft surface like a couch or a bed; the speakers' placement on the
bottom side doesn't muffle sound as we feared it would. Really, the only
reason we avoided the top setting is that it makes for an uncomfortably
loud system when it's just you chilling by yourself in the home office.
If you do crank the volume all the way up, though, you'll only have to
suffer a minimal amount of distortion.
At lower volumes, it's even better -- dare I say, the best sound I've
heard yet on an Ultrabook. Over an afternoon of listening to Eric
Clapton, Jeff Beck, Simon and Garfunkel, Dusty Springfield, The
Temptations and others, I often felt as if I were rediscovering my
favorite songs; piano notes and drum beats pushed through the dual
two-watt speakers more forcefully than I'm used to on other machines. In
fact -- and no, I'm not trying to troll here -- I didn't want to go
back to my MacBook Air for music-listening after trying out the speakers
here.
Performance and battery life
|
PCMark7 |
3DMark06 |
3DMark11 |
ATTO (top disk speeds) |
Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus (1.6GHz Core i5-4200U, Intel HD 4400) |
4,973 |
5,611 |
E1,675 / P867 / X277
|
547 MB/s (reads); 508 MB/s (writes) |
Acer Aspire S7-392 (1.6GHz Intel Core i5-4200U, Intel HD 4400) |
5,108 |
5,158 |
E1,724 / P952 / X298
|
975 MB/s (reads); 1.1GB/s (writes) |
Sony VAIO Pro 13 (1.6GHz Intel Core i5-4200U, Intel HD 4400) |
4,502 |
4,413 |
E1,177 / P636 / X203
|
1.04 GB/s (reads); 479 MB/s (writes) |
Sony VAIO Duo 13 (1.6GHz Core i5-4200U, Intel HD 4400) |
4,440 |
6,047 |
E1,853 / P975 / X297
|
546 MB/s (reads); 139 MB/s (writes) |
Sony VAIO Pro 11 (1.8GHz Core i7-4500U, Intel HD 4400) |
4,634 |
N/A |
E1,067 / P600 / X183
|
558 MB/s (reads); 255 MB/s (writes) |
Dell XPS 12 (1.7GHz Core i5-3317U, Intel HD 4000) |
4,673 |
4,520 |
N/A |
516 MB/s (reads); 263 MB/s (writes) |
The ATIV Book 9 Plus is available in just one configuration,
and it rocks generally the same components as other Ultrabooks we've
tested recently: a dual-core, Haswell-series Intel Core i5-4200U
processor clocked at 1.6GHz, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. Accordingly,
then, its benchmark scores land in the same ballpark as other machines
with the same processor, including the Sony VAIO Pro 13, and the new Acer Aspire S7-392.
The one area where the ATIV Book 9 Plus falls short is in I/O
speeds. All told, the Toshiba-made SSD (you read that right) notched
average reads of 547 MB/s, with writes hovering around 508 MB/s. To be
clear, we're not saying those speeds are slow. It's just that
we've recently tested a string of machines that managed to hit or exceed
speeds of 1GB per second, even on the write test, which is always
harder. (Note: the Acer Aspire S7 has a RAID 0 setup, which has
tradeoffs of its own, so we'll concede that's not a totally fair
comparison.) At any rate, as we said, these speeds would have once been
very impressive, but we can no longer say the Series 9 is a leader in
this area. Which is surprising, since Samsung makes some of the fastest
SSDs on the market. Maybe the company should have stuck to its own
components here?
That said, the machine feels plenty fast in real-world use. Not
only did I write my review on this laptop, but I wasted plenty of time
on it too, keeping open tabs for Gmail, YouTube, Pandora and lots and
lots of web searches. Switching from one app to another was easy, as was
toggling between all those open tabs in Internet Explorer. At first, we
thought the machine was in danger of overheating, as the bottom side
and upper keyboard area got warm just six minutes into a YouTube video.
The good news is that though it gets warm quickly, it doesn't get any
hotter after that. Even after hours of use, complete with non-stop media
streaming, the bottom stayed fairly lukewarm -- definitely cool enough
to comfortably rest on my lap.
It's a similar story with fan noise. The ATIV Book 9 Plus pipes
up quickly -- heck, it sometimes makes noise when it's sitting idle.
But that noise never rises above a quiet sigh. In fact, we didn't even
notice it until we paused Pandora and started to work without any
background noise.
|
Battery life
|
Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus |
8:44 |
MacBook Air (13-inch, 2013) |
12:51 |
Sony VAIO Duo 13 |
9:40 |
Sony VAIO Pro 13 |
8:24 |
Acer Aspire S7-392 |
7:33 |
Acer Iconia W700 |
7:13 |
Sony VAIO Pro 11 |
6:41 |
Dell XPS 14 |
6:18 |
Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga 13 |
5:32 |
Dell XPS 12 (2012) |
5:30 |
ASUS Zenbook Prime UX31A Touch |
5:15 |
Toshiba Kirabook |
5:12 |
Toshiba Satellite U925t |
5:10 |
Lenovo ThinkPad Helix |
5:07 (tablet only) / 7:24 (with dock) |
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon |
5:07 |
Samsung ATIV Book 7 |
5:02 |
ASUS Transformer Book |
5:01 (tablet only) |
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Touch |
5:00 |
MSI Slidebook S20 |
4:34 |
Acer Aspire P3 |
4:33 |
Acer Aspire S7-391 |
4:18 |
ASUS TAICHI 21 |
3:54 |
Microsoft Surface Pro |
3:46 |
Normally, when a company rates a laptop for a certain amount of
battery life, we just assume we'll get a bit less runtime, especially
since our tests involve taxing conditions (WiFi on, brightness at 65
percent, video looping off the local disk). In this case, though,
Samsung seems to have given a conservative estimate: though it promises
up to 7.5 hours of use, we actually managed eight hours and 44 minutes
in our video rundown. As you'll see in the table above, that's a
respectable showing for a Haswell machine. In fact, the Sony VAIO Pro 13
was only 20 minutes off in the same test.
Software and warranty
For all the apps it loads onto its new Galaxy phones, Samsung
actually went easy with the bloatware on the ATIV Book 9 Plus. Here,
we've got Bitcasa cloud storage, iHeartRadio, Netflix, a trial of Norton
Internet Security and Adobe Photoshop Elements 11. As for Samsung apps,
it's just S Player+, SPhotoStudio and Music Hub, all of which are
basically exactly what they sound like.
HomeSync Lite lets you download and upload content between your PC
and mobile devices. In total, you can add up to five user accounts, with
six devices per user. The catch, though, is that you'll need the
Samsung Link app installed on your phone and, uh, it's only available on
Samsung handsets. So if you're using a Moto X, you can keep on trucking
to the next section. Also -- and maybe this goes without saying -- you
need to refrain from deleting HomeSync from your computer, even if it
looks like bloatware; without the app installed on your PC, you can't
use the service on your mobile devices either.
SideSync,
meanwhile, is for transferring files between your PC and Samsung phone,
which you can do using either a cable or over a wireless connection.
The ATIV Book 9 Plus comes with a one-year warranty.
Configuration options and the competition
To reiterate: the ATIV Book 9 Plus is sold in just one
configuration in the US: a $1,400 model with a 1.6GHz Core i5-4200U
processor, 4GB of RAM, integrated Intel HD 4400 graphics, a 3,200 x
1,800 screen and a 128GB SSD.
As you've probably gathered by now, we're rather fond of the ATIV
Book 9 Plus, and would highly recommend it to anyone shopping around for
a premium Ultrabook. That said, it's not the only excellent option out
there. Below, you'll find a rundown of the competition. There's a lot to
cover, so to keep things simple, we'll go in alphabetical order:
- We've already mentioned the Acer Aspire S7 several times in this
review. As the successor to the original S7, which came out last year,
this new model steps up to Haswell processors and a larger battery
capacity, leading to a serious improvement in runtime. Even then, it
doesn't last quite as long as the ATIV Book 9 Plus in our tests, but its
endurance (7.5 hours) is still more than acceptable. At 2.87 pounds,
it's one of the lightest touchscreen, 13-inch Ultrabooks we know of, and
it rivals the ATIV Book 9 Plus in thinness too. Its screen is
lower-res, at 1080p, but in terms of overall quality (viewing angles,
colors, et cetera) it's one of the best we've seen.
- Longtime Windows users won't give Apple's MacBook Air
a second look, but it's worth calling out for folks who are
OS-agnostic. With this year's refresh, Apple mainly just swapped in
Haswell processors and PCIe SSDs, with no changes to the exterior.
That's not a bad thing, per se -- we still dig the unibody aluminum
chassis and comfortable keyboard -- but the resolution is still stuck at
1,440 x 900 on the 13-inch version. The only thing excusing the
mediocre screen is the battery life, which topped out at nearly 13 hours
in our video rundown, with the next-best performer trailing hours
behind.
- It's not out yet, but ASUS' Zenbook UX301
is worth adding to your shortlist. With a 2,560 x 1,440 screen, it's
one of a few Ultrabooks to push the envelope beyond 1080p -- and that
list gets even shorter if you include only machines that are based on
Haswell. In addition to the stunning IPS screen, the UX301 has a durable
(and also beautiful) Gorilla Glass 3 lid. Thanks in part to that glass
armor, the machine will weigh almost as much as the ATIV Book 9 Plus
(3.04 pounds, to be exact). In exchange for the "heft," though, you at
least get some promising performance: a Core i7 CPU, paired with
optional discrete NVIDIA graphics.
- We already liked the Dell XPS 12 for its sturdy build quality, attractive design and comfortable keyboard, and now it's even better: Dell recently refreshed it
with Haswell CPUs, a bigger battery and an NFC sensor. The screen
resolution is still the same, at 1,920 x 1,080, but then again, so is
the price: at $1,200 with a 128GB SSD, it's a tad cheaper than other
systems carrying similar specs.
- Here's another one you might want to wait on. The Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro is the successor to the original Yoga 13,
and in addition to being both thinner and lighter, it brings a
much-sharper 3,200 x 1,800, 350-nit screen -- yep, just like on the ATIV
Book 9 Plus. And at 3.06 pounds, it weighs the same as Samsung's
offering too. And, as with the ASUS UX301, though, it's likely to be
more configurable. Most importantly, however, the starting price is
$1,100, which is considerably less expensive than what the Samsungs and
Acers of the marketplace are selling.
- Though we only did a full review of the 11-inch Sony VAIO Pro 11,
we did spend some time benchmarking the 13-inch version, the Sony VAIO
Pro 13 (see its results in the benchmark table in the performance
section further up the page). With Haswell processors and PCIe SSDs, it
manages to offer long battery life and transfer speeds in excess of 1GB
per second. And, in the grand tradition of Sony's earlier Z-series
laptops, it has a carbon fiber build that allows it to be remarkably
lightweight -- just 2.34 pounds in this case. That's easily the lightest
13-inch touchscreen laptop on the market (maybe even the lightest
13-inch Ultrabook, period).
- We're mainly including the Toshiba Kirabook
on this list so that you know to stay away. With a 2,560 x 1,440
screen, the Kirabook was one of the first Ultrabooks to ship with
something better than a 1080p screen. Still, Toshiba made the mistake of
releasing it before Haswell came out, and to this day, it's stuck with
last-gen Ivy Bridge processors. That's a real shame, given the lofty
$1,600 starting price, and you're going to miss out on battery life
because of it too. Oh, and adding insult to injury, that starting price
doesn't even include a touchscreen. As if!
Wrap-up
Samsung already had the best Ultrabook on the market, and it's
managed to stay on top in 2013, even as its competitors have improved
battery life and performance on their own models. Like its predecessor,
the ATIV Book 9 Plus is impressively thin, with an understated design
and sturdy build quality. And thanks to a sharp 3,200 x 1,800, low-glare
screen and a current Haswell processor, it rises to the top in terms of
both display quality and performance. Even the battery life, which
isn't technically best in class, is still very good. It's a solid enough
package that we can forgive its few flaws (the painted-on branding and
the comparatively slow disk speeds). So, while there are some other
excellent, similarly priced options out there, the ATIV Book 9 Plus is a
fantastic option in its own right.
84
Samsung
ATIV Book 9 Plus
Pros
- Super-thin, well-made
- Gorgeous 3,200 x 1,800 display
- Good battery life, runs cool
- Excellent audio quality
Cons
- Trackpad can still use some fine-tuning
- Relatively slow I/O speeds
- Logos painted onto the device
- One configuration
Conclusion
With the ATIV Book 9 Plus, Samsung can still lay claim to one of
the best Ultrabooks on the market. As ever, it offers an attractive
design and fast performance, but battery life is improved, and the 3,200
x 1,800 display is best in class.