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Samsung has twice refined its flagship Samsung Series 9 since it first launched early last year, but one thing has stayed constant throughout – the 13in display. That finally changes with this latest model, which bumps screen size up to 15in while maintaining the same incredibly thin proportions that made the original so desirable.
At just 15mm thick and weighing just 1.7kg, the Series 9 is one of the thinnest and lightest 15in laptops ever. Built from a combination of tough yet lightweight metals, it has a droplet-shaped wedge design that leaves enough room for two USB3 ports, a Mini VGA port and a multi-format card reader on one side of the laptop, and one USB port, Micro HDMI, a 3.5mm headset jack and a proprietary Ethernet port on the other, while still keeping the main body as thin as possible. It’s virtually identical to the smaller 13in version, save for the larger screen.
The laptop’s display has a 400nit, 1,600×900 panel that’s not only incredibly bright, but a welcome step up in resolution compared to the screens on budget 15in laptops. A matte finish helps keep light reflections to a minimum, and the screen’s colour accuracy is superb, although viewing angles are still distinctly average. Thankfully, there’s a huge range of tilt, so we never struggled to find a screen angle that suited us.
A pair of down-firing speakers in the underside of the chassis produce surprisingly capable audio, as long as you sit the laptop on a solid surface. Samsung’s SoundAlive equaliser settings let you choose from a range of different bass- and treble-boosting effects, but our test tracks still sounded clean and crisp at the default setting. There’s even a hint of bass, although it’s no replacement for a pair of headphones or dedicated speakers.
A full-size, Chiclet-style black keyboard continues the colour scheme set out by the metallic chassis, with a blue-tinged LED illuminating each key from underneath. It’s not quite as bright as a white backlight, which limits its usefulness in anything other than complete darkness, although we appreciate its inclusion over a non-backlit model. Unfortunately, we immediately noticed how shallow the keys were when typing – a consequence of the incredibly thin dimensions. They spring back quickly but the lack of travel takes some getting used to. Thankfully, the all-in-one touchpad is much more effective. We aren’t usually fans of all-in-one designs, but everything worked perfectly – including multi-touch gestures.
Inside, the Intel Core i5-3317U processor is a dual-core, low-voltage model running at 1.7GHz. Thanks to Hyper-threading, Windows sees four separate cores, and Turbo Boost can increase the clock speed to 2.6GHz for certain applications. All this led to a score of 49 overall in our multimedia benchmarks, so this ultra-portable laptop has enough power for some intensive tasks. With its 8GB of RAM, multitasking won’t be a problem either. Samsung has improved the already fast 128GB SATA3 SSD with its own boot optimisations, making it incredibly fast when powering on from standby. We could reach the Windows desktop in less than ten seconds, and resume from sleep in less than two.
Intel’s Ivy Bridge processors are significantly more capable than their Sandy Bridge predecessors in games. The Intel HD 4000 graphics built into the Series 9’s Core i5-3317U processor could only manage a fairly jerky 19.7fps in our Dirt 3 test, so anti-aliasing is asking a little too much from the chip, but disable AA and you’ll get reasonably playable frame rates at 720p, even in modern titles.
We were impressed with how well the Series 9 did in our light-use battery test – despite the large screen, it still managed to last almost seven hours away from the mains. This is what we would expect from a 13in laptop, so to see this kind of battery life in a 15in model is a great result.
At £1,200, the Series 9 certainly isn’t cheap, but considering there are no 15in ultraportables that are as thin or light as this, it’s a reasonable premium to pay. If you need the extra screen space and a more spacious keyboard than a 13in laptop will give you, yet still want something portable, there are very few alternatives available right now. However, for most people a 13in model will be better value.
