Samsung's ATIV Book 9 Plus: 3200 x 1800 Display in an Ultrabook
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 20, 2013 7:46 PM EST
Earlier tonight Samsung introduced a convertible featuring a 13.3-inch 3200 x 1800 display that runs both Windows 8 and Android. If the convertible form factor is a little too weird for you, Samsung also introduced an Ultrabook with the very same display.
Like many of the Ultrabooks announced in Taipei, the ATIV Book 9 Plus is a marriage of MacBook Air and rMBP. You get a form factor that's very similar to the 13-inch MBA, but with a display that's clearly aimed at the more expensive rMBP. Where the ATIV Book 9 Plus falls in pricing will be very interesting to see.
Internally, there's a familiar refrain: Core i5-4200U (Haswell ULT), DDR3L and an SSD. Like the ATIV Q, the SSD in this case is one of Samsung's own - the MZNTD128HAGM, a 6Gbps SATA M.2 drive. The machine ships with an integrated 55Wh battery and weighs 1.39 kg. Samsung claims up to 12 hours of battery life.
The notebook looked good in person. I'm a fan of the hidden SD card reader with spring loaded door. Just like we saw with the ATIV Q, the ATIV Book 9 Plus was running Windows 8 but I fully expect that it's meant for Windows 8.1's improved handling of high DPI displays.
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bji - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
Upscaling from 1600x900 to 3200x1800 would hardly look "sharp". I can't even imagine how un-sharp 800x450 scaled up to 3200x1800 would look.blackbrrd - Saturday, June 22, 2013 - link
You completely missed my point. My point being that 1600x900 on a 3200x1800 screen looks just as good as 1600x900 on a 1600x900 screen. This is not the case for 1366x768 on a 1920x1080 screen.Alketi - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
It works because this isn't a gaming machine. I'm more interested to see if you can really get 12 hours of battery life out of it.Alfinch - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
As a rule I knock a third off any official battery life given for a product. It's a rule that works for a worrying number of devices, but you never know, Haswell might make all the difference.xdrol - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
It has 11% more pixels than the 15 inch rMBP, with a 25% better GPU (at least).Emyr - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
No, the 15" rMBP has a discrete nvidia chip. I think you mean the 13" rMBP which has an Intel HD4000 GPU. This Samsung has 1.4X the pixels of the rMBP and a slightly more powerful Intel HD4400 GPU. Many are waiting for the Haswell 13" rMBP as the current rev. struggled with graphics performance if you recall Anand's review last year.inighthawki - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
Yeah but the graphics kernel and desktop composition in Windows is lightyears ahead of what is in OSX. I highly doubt haswell will have trouble composing the screen even at this resolution. Haswell should be capable of driving 4K displays with ease.bji - Saturday, June 22, 2013 - link
Evidence? I don't believe your statement but I guess we'll know when high resolution Haswell based laptops are tested.madmilk - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
Very well for typical 2D applications, I would assume. My ancient computer from early 2006 (Athlon 64 X2 4200+, 2GB DDR, 7600GT) ran Windows 7 Beta (with Aero) very smoothly at 2560x1600.ShieTar - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
Same here. Even my old Notebook with an nVidia 440 Go never had a problem to feed the 2560x1600 resolution.