Strong and sexy: Samsung’s Series 9 laptop reviewed

While other manufacturers of thin and light laptops are trying to come up with a more clone-like set of aesthetic values, Samsung has come up with something different, really thinning out the shape and making the laptop as slim and flat with a 6mm eye drawing line (when closed) that actually comes out to be 12.9mm thick when the line ends at the back.

It’s actually an illusion, as the eye is drawn with shiny metal along the side to make you think it’s insanely thin, even if the chassis is as thick as the rest of the case, as everything is beveled to the bottom.

The material used in the construction is different from every other computer out there, with Samsung sticking to the duralumin material it used in the first Series 9 laptop. This material is a metal made from aluminium, manganese, magnesium, and copper, and is used to build aeroplanes with, so if you’ve flown, chances are that you’ve sat in something the Series 9 is made from.

The screen is one area where every manufacturer could learn a thing or two, with a wonderfully bright and clear display showing 900p, or 1600×900 resolution, as close to 1080p as you can get on a 13 inch screen without hurting your eyes. Angles are also excellent, with damn near close to 178 degree points of view for showing perfect colouring.

There’s no washed out images or inverted colours; it’s one of the nicest panels we’ve ever seen.

It’s also insanely bright. We kept the screen brightness smack dab in the middle, and it was perfect for our eyes, but there is so much brightness to offer. Switching it up all the way was like looking into a light-bulb. We’re sure it can’t light up your room, but it will definitely make a good attempt at it.

And we love the matte screen, a feature we haven’t seen on many laptops in the past few year. The lack of a glossy screen makes using the computer pleasant in any brightly lit room, and feels easier on the eyes all around.

We had no major problems with performance, and the third gen Intel Core chip handled most of the things we threw at it, including browsing with several tabs, writing this review in Scrivener, and other day-to-day activities.

Switching the computer on, you’ll find some of the fastest speeds around, with an instant on from sleep (closing the lid) coming in at most three seconds, with no lag when it loads, and roughly 15 seconds from off to Windows 7 being usable. There’s a catch to this, mind you, as while Windows 7 loads from powered down in a quarter of a minute, the drivers for the multitouch gestures on the trackpad won’t load until around the 55 second mark.

When they do start working, though, you’ll find that Samsung has managed to come through with the mouse, as well as the keyboard, with the latter of these providing a solid enough typing experience that is close to the strong keyboard we see on Apple’s notebooks, even if the keyboard isn’t quite as soft. We didn’t lose any keystrokes when typing this review, although we did note that the click sound is slightly louder and high pitched than other laptops we’ve used.

The inclusion of backlit keys was a nice one, although they’re a little different from what we’ve seen in the past, with the backlighting coming through the numbers and letters, not from the outside of the keys. It’s not quite the same style of backlighting we’re used to, with the outlines of the keys less visible in the dark than on competing notebooks.

You probably won’t have any problems finding the right keys to press, mind you, especially with the insanely bright screen found in the Series 9, but it’s worth noting that the backlit keys are nowhere near as bright as on other laptops.

Over on the mouse side of things, the 4.5 inch trackpad is smooth, quick to respond, and even has support for quite a few multitouch gestures Windows can take advantage of. You can pinch to zoom, scroll page up and page down with three fingers, and switch apps by sticking four fingers down on the trackpad and dragging down.

Overall, Samsung’s implementation of multitouch is one of the best we’ve seen on a computer outside of Apple to date once the drivers have loaded.

While the mouse is one giant button, it can be a little difficult to click into place depending on where you push down. We’d say to push the button down close to the bottom of trackpad, as that seems to be the best tactile area, but you can always touch lightly on the trackpad for a proper single left-click, while the bottom right part of the button does act as a right click. Meanwhile two fingers dragging up and down the trackpad work as a middle scroll wheel.