Samsung Series 9 NP900X1A-A01US 11.6-Inch Laptop (Black)

by Samsung

• Intel Core i3 Processor 1.33GHz
• 2GB DDR3 RAM
• 64GB Solid-State Hard Drive
• 11.6-Inch Screen
• Windows 7 Home Premium

Product Description

Amazon.com

Designed with mobility in mind, Samsung's durable, ultra premium, lightweight Series 9 laptop (model NP900X1A-A01US) offers mobile professionals and power users a sophisticated laptop equally suited for work and entertainment. Featuring a minimalist look that is both simple and sophisticated, it's highlighted by a dramatic enclosure made of super-strong duralumin. This Series 9 laptop also includes a brilliant 11.6-inch LED display with HD resolution, 64 GB Solid State Drive (SSD), 2 GB of system memory, and built-in 4G WIMAX capabilities (for optional on-the-go wireless connectivity).

Made from durable, lightweight duralumin
(see larger image).

Burn through the hottest new digital media, content creation and advanced 3D gaming with the breakthrough performance of the ultra-low voltage Intel Core i3 UM processor--with 4-way multitasking processor power to work on four tasks simultaneously. The advanced micro-architecture powers smart performance while you get significantly faster performance by harnessing both speed and efficiency by using less energy.

This Series 9 comes pre-installed with the Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium operating system. You'll also experience new ways to deliver your best work with Office Starter 2010 (learn more below).

Key Features

Duralumin, the New Definition of Lightweight

The Series 9 laptop features the dramatic duralumin enclosure complete with arching curves and remarkable durability. Typically found in advanced aircrafts and offers construction quality, duralumin is twice the strength of aluminum, despite being light in weight--and helps keep the Series 9 laptop under 3 pounds.

The naturally flowing design takes cues from the sleek styling and sophisticated beauty of a premium sports car. The silhouette evokes thoughts of speed and performance with an ultra-thin 0.65 inch profile. Additionally, the naturally flowing arch maximizes the laptop's ergonomic appeal, making it easier to use and a natural fit for the human grip. Elegant from every angle, the Series 9 also includes backlit keyboard, a brilliant LCD display screen and a large multi-touch SuperButton clickpad.

See Vivid Content, Wherever You Go

If you live for the latest HD movies and games, then Samsung's SuperBright screen, with 340nit brightness, will transform your mobile experience. You can enjoy HD movies, games and other favorite media even when viewing in direct sunlight with no annoying reflections.

Powerful Processing

The 11.6-inch Series 9 has a state-of-the-art Intel Core i3 processor with Hyper-Threading Technology. This uses the processor resources more efficiently, enabling multiple threads to run on each core. It will enable better graphics and allow you to run demanding applications, simultaneously.

64 GB Solid State Drive

A 64 GB solid state drive (SSD) provides plenty of storage, lower power consumption and improved performance with less noise and heat output. The chance of losing data is also decreased due to the SDD having no moving parts. And it boots up 60 percent faster than a hard disk drive (HDD). You'll get less power usage, faster data access and higher reliability.

Power Back up in 3 Seconds with Fast Start

You no longer have to shut down your Samsung computer, just close its lid and it goes into a special powerless sleep mode. When you open the lid your computer comes back to life in 3 seconds and you are exactly at the same place as when you shut the lid. Fast Start saves your data and system configurations to your hard drive and PC memory. So, when you power it back on it is just like you left it.

Longer Battery Life and Life Span

The Series 9 delivers mobility and freedom with its power efficient performance and extensive battery life of up to 7 hours. Its advanced Lithium-Polymer battery and Samsung's innovation PowerPlus charging technology make the battery lifespan last up to three times longer than the typical notebook battery so you can keep going, without worrying how much battery life is left.

Intuitive Navigation

Samsung's new multi-touch clickpad is stylish, user-friendly and convenient. It features a glass coating and image sensor, which means no more cursors disappearing or jumping around on the screen. This intelligent multi-touch gesture pad, which is located in the center of the palm rest, features 21 types of gesture support such as pinch, swipe, and rotate, and also has advanced 3D image sensing for intuitive navigation.

See larger image.

 

See larger image.

Specifications

• 11.6-inch LED-backlit widescreen display with 1366 x 768 resolution and 340-nit high brightness.
• 1.33 GHz ultra-low voltage Intel Core i3-380UM dual-core processor for a fast, responsive PC experience (3 MB L3 cache).
• 64 GB Solid State Drive (SSD)
• 2 GB of installed DDR3 RAM (maximum capacity)
• Intel HD Graphics 3000 delivers built-in performance for casual and mainstream gaming with no extra graphics hardware needed.
• Wireless-N Wi-Fi networking capability provides up to five times the performance and twice the wireless range using 802.11n-compatible routers as you would with 802.11g networks. It's also backward compatible with 802.11b/g networks (commonly found at Wi-Fi hotspots and in older home routers).
• 4G WiMAX network connectivity (requires WiMAX mobile broadband subscription and available coverage; additional charges apply).
• Intel Wireless Display capabilities, enables you to easily stream videos, photos and music from your hard drive, home network, or the internet straight to your HDTV--easily and wirelessly.
• Next-generation Bluetooth 3.0 connectivity provides faster throughput while minimizing on power requirements. It's compatible with new Bluetooth 3.0-enabled devices as well as backward compatible with older Bluetooth-enabled peripherals such as printers and cell phones.
• 1.3-megapixel HD webcam
• Built-in stereo speakers (1.5 W x 2) with HD Audio
• Up to 7 hours of battery life
• Weight: 2.31 pounds
• Dimensions: 11.7 x 7.8 x 0.65 inches (WxDxH)
• Warranty: 1-year international warranty, 24/7 US-based tech support, and two way free standard shipping.

Networking, Connectivity & Expansion

• 1 USB 3.0 port, 1 USB 2.0 port
• HDMI high-definition audio/video output allows a single cable to transmit uncompressed high-definition video to your compatible digital TV or external monitor.
• Microphone input port plus headphone output jack
• MicroSD memory card reader
• Fast Ethernet (10/100)

What's in the Box

Series 9 laptop with 11.6-inch screen (model NP900X1A-A01US), 40 watt AC adapter, rechargeable battery, operating instructions

---

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

The Best Entertainment Experience On Your PC

Windows 7 Home Premium makes it easy to create a home network and share all of your favorite photos, videos, and music. You can even watch, pause, and rewind TV or record it to watch whenever and wherever you want. For the best entertainment experience, choose a PC with Windows 7.

Peek behind open windows to get a quick look at your desktop (see larger image).

Windows 7: Your PC Simplified

Simplifies everyday tasks, works the way you want, and makes new things possible.

• Improved desktop navigation features like Snap, Peek, and Shake, make it easier to manage all of your open windows.
• Creating a home network has never been easier. You can even share files and printers with all the PCs with Windows 7 on the network.
• Find virtually anything on your PC--from documents to songs to email--just by typing a word or two with Windows Search.
• Designed to make your PC sleep and resume quicker.
• Watch, pause, rewind and record TV with Windows Media Center to watch whenever and where ever you want*.

Create, Connect and Share with Windows Live

Windows 7 and Windows Live bring it all together for free. Get the free set of programs that make it simple to create and share amazing photos and movies, organize mail, and stay connected with your closest friends.

• Get 25 GB of free online storage with Windows Live SkyDrive.
• Sync files on your PCs automatically with Windows Live Mesh.
• Share photos during video chats with Windows Live**
• Easily edit photos and combine the best parts of multiple photos into one perfect photo with Photo Fuse.

Windows Live is available for free at download.live.com.

Complete your PC Experience with Microsoft Office 2010

• Microsoft Office Starter 2010 includes reduced functionality versions of Microsoft Word and Excel with advertising. (Note that PowerPoint or Outlook are not included.)
• Purchase Office 2010 today and get the most out of your new PC.

* Additional hardware may be required. Not available in all countries. (See windows.microsoft.com/products/windows-7/system-requirements/ for more information.)
** Requires a compatible microphone, speakers or headset, webcam, and broadband connection.

Product Description

Samsung 9 Series 11.6W 900X1A-A01 Premium Notebook

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

104 of 106 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars The jury is still out - but so far I'm impressed May 23, 2011

By Paul D. Mulner

Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm coming to this laptop from an 11" Macbook Air. I'm a PC person at heart but I couldn't resist the MBA's form-factor when it was the only thing on the market. Now that Samsung has produced a legitimate competitor, I jumped at the opportunity to return to a Windows environment. I have spent very little time with the laptop so far so I reserve the right to add to or modify this review as I learn more. There are initially more negatives than positives in my review, but the positives I mention are, for me, very important. The negatives I list are mostly nit-picks.

Here are my initial thoughts:

Positive:
[*]Size, weight, build quality feels equal to the MBA. The material is certainly different but it feels just as solid and just as sleek. I find the color of the metal more appealing than the bright aluminum.
[*]Matte screen. I don't know why so few companies still offer matte screens. Everyone I hear talk about them prefers them to the glossy ones. This screen is fantastic. Sharp text, good colors, and excellent (best I've ever seen) brightness.
[*]The keyboard and trackpad are comfortable to use. The position of your wrists is always going to be a challenge on a notebook this small. I had gotten used to it on the MBA and feel no difference here. The keyboard backlight is a plus.
[*]Speed. It's not as fast as my desktop, nor should it be. It's fast enough for everything I want to do on it. The SSD helps a great deal and boot time and wake from sleep time is excellent.
[*] USB 3.0 port

Negative:
[*] No real home, end, page up, and page down keys. I use them a lot and they're functions of the arrows on this keyboard layout.
[*] No two-finger tap to click for right click. You have to physically press the touchpad down with two fingers to get a right click. You only need to tap the touchpad with one finger for a left click.
[*] Very large (3-prong) end cord on the power adapter. It doesn't fit easily in many tight places. Fortunately, it is removable, so I bought a mickey-mouse style cable that's more reasonably sized.
[*] Heat. My MBA never got warm on my legs - ever. When this thing is really working it gets quite warm on the bottom. On the MBA you hardly ever (never?) heard a fan running. On this you hear it regularly.
[*] Only two USB ports and they're on opposite sides. Some devices (which want to draw power via USB) need 2 ports on the same side.
[*] No external light indicating charging or battery status. On the MBA you could look right on the end of the A/C adapter to verify that the computer was charging/fully charged. The Samsung has to be opened to make sure the plug is working. How hard would it be to put an LED on the adapter?

Still unknown:
[*] Battery life. It's just too early to tell.
[*] Speed over time. How will it run after having 6 months of "stuff" installed on it?

------UPDATE 5/25----------
I have now taken the bottom cover off just to look around. It seems that you can access the SSD and replace it if you wish. You cannot do anything about the RAM. The SSD, wireless card, and battery seem to be the only parts that can easily be replaced by a user.
------UPDATE 5/25----------

------Update5/27-----------
Some battery recharging statistics. The computer was in use (bright screen, wifi) while charging.

Started at 10% battery remaining.
36 minutes later was at 40% remaining.
30 minutes later was at 90% remaining.
------Update5/27-----------

------Update 5/30----------
I haven't done any really specific battery-life testing - I don't have the time. But it seems to last as long as my Macbook Air's battery did. I keep the screen brightness very high, always have wireless on, and even reconfigured the power settings to give me more processing power when on battery than the default allows. In other words: I do everything wrong when it comes to maximizing battery life. Even so I get between 2.5-3 hours. I'm sure that if I used the custom battery settings they suggest I'd be getting double that. As I said, this equals my experience with the MBA.

One thing that this computer does not do as well as the MBA is conserving battery while sleeping. Sometimes I go 2-3 days without using a laptop. When I'd pull the MBA out of my bag after 2-3 days of no use, the battery would be within 10 (often 5) % of where I left it. Both times I've left the 9 in my bag for a couple of days I've found the battery at 10% when I finally turn it on again.
------Update 5/30----------

----------- Update 6/10 ------------
I've made a few changes to my initial review:
[*]Removed the port doors from the negative list. I actually like the way these work after using them for a while. They won't break unless you're careless with them.
[*]Removed speed from the negative list. The laptop hasn't felt the slightest bit slower than I'd expect. I'm not going to count the 2GB of RAM against it if it doesn't hinder me from doing what I want to do on the computer.

I'm really, really pleased with the computer at this point.
----------- Update 6/10 ------------

----------- Update 7/1 -------------
I still love the laptop, but I've had it long enough to figure out the things that bother me the most in common use.

1) Speed when running Adobe Lightroom. Just about everything else I do on the laptop the speed is fine. Not fast, but fine. But in Lightroom it can be terribly slow rendering previews. I had hoped the SSD and i3 processor could handle it, but the 2GB of RAM is the really limiting factor, I think. It's useable, but frustrating.

2) Battery life when the screen brightness is up. Part of the joy of this laptop is the bright, beautiful screen. So it stinks that if you have the brightness all the way up (and are using wi-fi, etc.) the battery only lasts about 2 hours. Yes, I can put it in power-saving mode and get several more hours, but I'm sacrificing processor speed and, more importantly, screen brightness.
------------ Update 7/1 ------------

------------Update 9/15 --------------
This is my last update. As I've started using a laptop more and more for work I need a bigger screen. I upgraded to a 13" and because of the recent refresh to the Macbook Air (Sandy Bridge) and the good price, I went that direction.

All in all, I was still quite satisfied with the Samsung 9. One of the port covers, an early concern for many, did disassemble under heavy use and needed repair. Other than that I found the computer durable, fast enough, and very stylish. The screen will be missed but I needed more real estate.

36 of 40 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars hardware is great, custom software is trash June 9, 2011

By PG

Amazon Verified Purchase

-- update 3/5/2012 --

I had this same error popping up on a new computer I purchased (dell xps 13 ultrabook), and it seemed strange that Windows 7 would not install. It turns out if you plug an external cd/dvd drive into a usb 3.0 port it wont work; this is because Windows 7 and older os's do not ship with a usb 3.0 driver. So while the drive does work it doesnt work sufficiently to install Windows. So while the error says it cant find the cd/dvd drive its more the problem that the usb port the drive is plugged into isnt fully supported with a driver. MS likely will fix this with Windows 8. The solution is to simply plug your cd/dvd drive into the other usb port which is a usb 2.0 port and it works fine! So apologies to samsung for the harsh criticism regarding the missing driver; however I still feel bloatware should not be included on these machines when you are paying that much upfront.

-- update 3/5/2012 --

I'm coming from a macbook air 11.6 model using Windows under bootcamp. This series 9 is a little thicker in the front than the macbook air, but the back portion of the laptops are the same size. The backlit keys and the feel of the keys on this machine are excellent! The core i3 is blazing fast and boots up instantly - under 7 seconds, whereas windows boots up in about 35 seconds on the macbook air (bootcamp) - attributed likely to poor drivers by apple. The screen quality is excellent, bright display and vivid colors. The touchpad is very responsive and is actually one of the best multitouch touchpads I've used on any Windows laptop - being able to support gestures perfectly that I havent found on other windows laptops. I found the slide out port panels to be very flimsy, in fact they somewhat stick sometimes and feel like they are about to break if you press on them too hard - this is poor design on samsungs part. Samsung should have just let the ports be visible instead of hide them behind poorly made door/panels that likely will break.

Now to the bad part - the custom drivers and software samsung includes on this laptop is horrendous. The first problem I encountered was the function keys to toggle wifi, sound, brightness did not work, sometimes they would work sometimes they didnt. The F1 toggle to open the samsung panel is very slow to load (5+ seconds to open), and the wifi toggle on/off when it does work crashes randomly. Then when you can adjust the brightness of the display it never keeps the settings saved, anytime you boot into the laptop (even when plugged in) it goes to the very lowest brightness possible. I tried changing the power profile and that did not change anything, once you reboot it goes back to the dimmest brightness. Top it off when I purchase a $1200 laptop why is samsung putting bloatware like norton, wildtangent and the bing bar on this laptop? samsung if you want to offer a premium product why do you think its okay to trash the laptop on the software side? Some companies simply dont understand all these extra programs are TRASH and should not be put on computers to make a extra few bucks and harm user experience! I've noticed this trend, alot of pc manufacturers will sell a high end product but try to make a few extra dollars bundling these crapware products - either sell something premium with no crapware or keep selling low priced garbage computers with as much crapware you want. You cant charge $1000+ for a laptop and have a crappy software experience. Now most of us who can reformat with a fresh stock copy of Windows this isnt an issue, but most people never do that and samsung shouldnt force crap on people who are paying premium prices. This goes onto my second problem with this laptop...

I figured no big deal - I'll just wipe the harddrive and use stock windows with a reformat. Tried that with a stock windows 7 disc - it wouldnt work (it works on every other computer I have and is a retail copy of Windows 7), also tried with the samsung restore disc; same problem. You get an error message at the beginning of install that says 'a required cd/dvd device driver is missing'. This likely is the driver for the ssd controller. I checked on both of the discs that samsung provides and there is no driver to be found at all, I checked each directory manually to try to locate the driver - nothing and Windows install will not continue until you supply the driver. Called samsung support and they had no resolution other than to ship them the laptop and get a replacement. The point was to get rid of samsungs crapware and poor drivers and use stock windows, not get a replacement laptop with the same problems and unable to use stock windows.

So while the hardware on this laptop is very good, the custom firmware samsung wrote is pathetic and makes this laptop a poor choice compared to the macbook air. I really wanted to get rid of the macbook air and move back to a pure windows computer that is properly optimzied for Windows; but samsung let me down. Samsung has issues with trying to write custom software on their mobile phones and it seems on their laptops - they simply do not know how to write software and should just leave the operating system alone!

With no way to fix all the problems and no way to reformat with a stock Windows install, I have returned this laptop as it is defective. Don't buy this laptop until Samsung can provide the proper drivers so you can install your own copy of Windows without all the bloatware and crappy drivers that samsung wrote.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Never Buy. Soon will be Recalled. September 16, 2011

By Alex

Three obvious problems.

- As everyone else says, wifi connection is horrible.

- When using Skype, serious noise to the recipient. Disconnecting the power line may help, but not always. (After 5 months, it is getting worse and worse. Disconnecting the power line reduces the noise just a little bit.)

- When the power line is connected without ground connection (earth), you could be electrocuted. Of course I am exaggerating, but I am not kidding. Disconnecting the power line always helps.

I bought this pretty laptop in the US and broght it to Samsung headquarters, a newly built beautiful glass-tower at Gangnam District in Seoul Korea for repair. What did I hear from Samsung headquarters?

- They knew about the wifi issue. They will find a solution.

- They knew about the leaking electricity to the surface of laptop, but they insisted that no one would be killed by such a low voltage. They said that any product with metal outfit would have the same problem. Then, why did they use DURALUMIN from the beginning? Didn't they know that many hotels in the world do not have ground connection?

- The noise issue? It was not worth it.

I visited Samsung three times and let their technicians and CS people feel the leaking electric shock. They tested other laptops in their warehouse and felt the same electric shock. They finally admitted that this product has serious defects and said they would consider a worldwide recall. But they still refused refund because I bought it from Amazon. I came back to the States and found out that it was too late for refund.

I am now stuck with this pretty shocker (literally) waiting for a recall. Then today I found out that Samsung reduced the price substantially. Has Samsung decided to get rid of this product from their sight just as HP did? A desperate step before the worldwide recall?