
Samsung Notebook Series 9 (NP900X3A-A01AU) ultraportable laptop
Samsung Notebook Series 9 review: A 13.3in ultraportable that you'll fall in love with
Pros
- Excellent built quality and design
- Fast SSD
- Excellent screen
Cons
- Wi-Fi adapter is not dual-band
- Ambient light sensor is sometimes erratic
- HDMI adapter isn't supplied
Bottom Line
The Samsung Series 9 has strong build quality, a sleek design and many great features that make it comfortable to use. It's high price tag definitely makes it a luxury item, but if you want excellent mobility and usability in the same package, it's hard to beat.
-
Price
$ 2,499.00 (AUD)
The Samsung Series 9 notebook is one of the thinnest and lightest 13.3in notebooks on the Australian market to feature a Second Generation Intel Core i5 CPU. It's beautifully designed and crafted and it feels very comfortable to use, whether you're typing at a desk or on your lap. With a price tag of $2499, it's not cheap, but it's definitely worth it if you want superb mobility and build quality as well as very decent performance for office and multimedia tasks.
Build quality
The Series 9 is constructed out of Duralium (a type of light and strong aluminium alloy that's also used to construct aircraft frames). It weighs around 1.3kg and it feels solidly built. The screen's lid has a little bit of flexibility, but only minimal puddling can be seen on the screen when you stress it. While the Series 9 has a sealed design (which makes it very hard for an end user to service it), its base consists of two parts that are held together by screws. This means that movement isn't completely absent and sometimes when you pick up the notebook it will make a little clicking noise as the two parts come together slightly — this was particularly noticeable on the left side of the unit. That nitpick aside, it's still a very strong chassis design.
The balance of the notebook is excellent. You can lift the lid using one finger while the notebook is resting on a hard, flat surface. The hinges are very smooth and they hold the lid in place even when the notebook is subjected to a lot of up and down motion (while commuting, for example). We did notice a very small amount a play in the hinges though — they felt a little loose when moving the screen upward — but it wasn't problematic.
A cooling fan is present in the chassis and its vent is underneath the base. It's not an optimal location for vent holes; if you use the Series 9 on your lap or on any other surface that blocks these vents for a long period of time, the base has the potential to get uncomfortably warm — not as uncomfortable as the Toshiba Portege R700 though, which runs a full-blown Core i5 CPU rather than a low voltage model. For the most part though, the Series 9 runs very cool. If all you'll be doing is typing a document or browsing a Web page while resting it on your lap, then you probably won't be bothered by much warmth from the chassis.
Screen quality
The 1366x768-resolution screen is one of the better ones we've seen on a laptop to date. It has a matte finish, so it's not susceptible to reflections, and its contrast and brightness are excellent, making it perfect for viewing photographs. It's so bright, you can relatively easily use the Series 9 to type out a document or read a Web page when sitting outside on a sunny day, but by the same token it can be uncomfortable to use in a dark environment.
To keep the screen brightness comfortable, an ambient light sensor sits just above the keyboard and it can automatically adjust the brightness depending on the lighting conditions in your environment. However, it didn't always work perfectly: we sometimes had to disable and re-enable the Adaptive Brightness setting in the Samsung Control Centre software in order for it to detect the proper brightness level. It was also very sensitive: switching on a corner light in an otherwise dark room made the screen a lot brighter than it should have.
Keyboard and touchpad
We love the Series 9's keyboard, which has sturdy, full-sized keys that give almost perfect responsiveness. There is a white backlight under the keyboard, and it has eight levels of adjustment. The first three levels are very subtle and only just illuminate the keys; it's nice to have so much control over this feature.
The touchpad that resides on the Series 9's 90mm deep palmrest is one of the best we have ever used. It is large (98x68mm) and highly responsive to basic movements and multi-finger gestures, and its texture is soft and smooth. In our tests, we could easily scroll long Web pages using a two-finger gesture — it wasn't frustrating like it can be on laptops with smaller touchpads. The page didn't move too fast or too slow and we didn't ever have trouble with the gesture not being recognised. Likewise, using a three-finger gesture to flick back and forth between Web pages was a simple task.
The buttons for left- and right-click operations are located underneath the touchpad itself, which is what allows the touchpad to be so big and comfortable. It's similar to the touchpad found on some HP notebooks (such as the AMD Fusion-based Pavilion dm1), but much easier to use — you can easily left-click and drag using only one hand. The only fault that we found with the touchpad was that sometimes we had to press the right button twice in order for it to work, and this was usually because we pressed slightly too high on the initial click.
Brand Post

Most Popular Reviews
- 1 Miofive 4K Dash Cam review: This friendly road watcher is ‘here for you!’
- 2 Dell U3223QE review: A winning debut for an IPS Black monitor
- 3 Asus TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A review: This 4K monitor plays nice with consoles
- 4 Firewalla Gold review: Powerful home network security in a tiny box
- 5 Asus ROG Zephyrus S17 review: This gaming laptop oozes luxurious power
Latest News Articles
- The Razer Blade 15’s 240Hz OLED panel pushes laptop displays to new frontiers
- Intel’s first Arc laptops arrive in the U.S. with shockingly high prices
- Up to 100 Lenovo laptops are a security risk — what now?
- Google accidentally broke some Chromebook cameras. Here’s how to fix it
- HP’s Spectre x360 16 is a unique 2-in-1 laptop with a huge OLED screen
Resources
Business Centre
The latest business news, reviews, features and whitepapers

Videos
Watch our video news and reviews from around the world

Guides
Comprehensive buying guides, features, and step-by-step articles

PCW Evaluation Team
Pedro Peixoto
Aruba Instant On AP11D

Set up is effortless.
Cate Bacon
Aruba Instant On AP11D

The strength of the Aruba Instant On AP11D is that the design and feature set support the modern, flexible, and mobile way of working.
Dr Prabigya Shiwakoti
Aruba Instant On AP11D

Aruba backs the AP11D up with a two-year warranty and 24/7 phone support.
Tom Pope
Dynabook Portégé X30L-G

Ultimately this laptop has achieved everything I would hope for in a laptop for work, while fitting that into a form factor and weight that is remarkable.
Tom Sellers
MSI P65

This smart laptop was enjoyable to use and great to work on – creating content was super simple.
Lolita Wang
MSI GT76

It really doesn’t get more “gaming laptop” than this.
Featured Content
- 100 Great PC Games You Should Play Before You Die
- Best Click Frenzy mobile and Internet plan deals
- Microsoft’s iconic browser Internet Explorer is being killed off in June
- Which flagship TV is best? Sony 4K HDR Bravia 2016 versus LG 4K HDR OLED 2016
- 10 Blu-ray movies / Best looking Blu-ray movies