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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kleos44 - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
If you are on a budget why would you spend $1100 on a notebook that has a dated display? There will be dozens of choices of horrible display laptops that last for 12 hours in the next few months. And they will cost half as much.kleos44 - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
The battery life is (maybe) 12 hours because the screen is probably an IGZO display. They are reputed to draw significantly less power than current displays.1d107 - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
In response to: Still, 1600x900 is better than rMBP 1440x900.To keep the same physical height, a 1600x900 screen needs to be 14.4" diagonal, not 13.3". With the same diagonal, 13.3" 16x9 screen has 7.5% less physical height, which makes similarly rendered letters harder to read. Or, with the same physically-sized letters, you get 7.5% fewer vertical lines of text.
The Office Ribbon can be positioned only at the top and it eats a lot of vertical space. The browsers have tabs, menus, etc., too. Document authoring and text reading convenience got sacrificed for not having horizontal black bars when watching widescreen movies.
13.3" 16:10 = 11.2 x 7.05 (MBA)
14.4" 16:10 = 12.5 x 7.06 (to keep the same physical height)
13.3" 16:9 = 11.5 x 6.52 (ATIV - 7.5% less physical height, only 2.7% more physical width)
(7.05 - 6.52) / 7.05 = 7.5%
(11.5 - 11.2) / 11.2 = 2.7%
http://www.silisoftware.com/tools/screen.php was used to calculate screen dimensions.
FwFred - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
Very nice. I too would have liked 16:10 and GT3, but let's be honest nothing is going to meet my exact preferences. I think the GPU would spend most of its time in games @ 16x9.teiglin - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
Just makes me cry because if I want 16:10 I have to go Apple. Basically it will depend on pricing between this, Zenbook Infinity, and Haswell rMBP. While I do love the Series 9's industrial design, the rMBP and Zenbook will almost certainly have 28W GT3e SKUs, so despite the slightly higher res, Samsung will have to have a compelling story on both price and battery life (certainly 12hr claim is impressive).pixelstuff - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
Me too. Wishing there were some decent 16:10 Windows machines now days.Also, who made the Chromebook Pixel. If they would offer that with a Windows installation (and decent HDD and RAM) I would try the 3:2 ratio. Anything taller than 16:9 has to be an improvement.
coolhardware - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
Wow, this is the type of display I was hoping refreshed MacBook Air models would have :-)As far as I can tell, this Samsung laptop is now in the #1 spot on the pixel density leaderboard:
http://pixensity.com/list/laptop/
with HP, Fujitsu and Google Pixel following closely behind and the 13" MBPr coming in 5th or so... of course pixel density isn't everything but it sure doesn't hurt.
Any word when Anandtech will have one of these bad boys to review? Definitely exciting times in the laptop arena! :-)
p1esk - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
It's going to be a tough choice between Acer S7, Asus Infinity and this one. Unless Apple updates rMBP 13" in the next 3 month.Connoisseur - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
Unless this laptop has a ridiculously better body, screen or trackpad, the zenbook infinity seems to be a much better deal. For a 13.3" screen, I'd imagine a 2560x1440 would be more than sufficient to get the retina effect. Toss in the fact that the zenbook has a much more powerful integrated gpu (5100) and I don't understand what Samsung is doing...piroroadkill - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
I disagree that 2560x1440 is enough.I want a 1600x900 screen at 13" at least. That's what I have right now, it's absolutely perfect, although it's 13.1" (Vaio Z) not 13.3". So that doubled up is 3200x1800.