

Ativ Book 9 Plus, 3200x1800, Haswell, "12 hours" battery - bhauer
http://www.cnet.com/laptops/samsung-ativ-book-9/4505-3121_7-35796875.html

======
MichaelGG
These high end products just make me hope so much that Lenovo launches a great
new set of ThinkPads this year. Something with the specs of a W530 in a 12" or
13" or so frame. Sadly, none of Lenovo current offers have a high-resolution
screen.

~~~
kayoone
Sadly really awesome screens havent been one of Lenovos strengths lately but i
agree, something like this with full Linux support would be awesome!

------
JanezStupar
Al nice and dandy...

But where Is my 15" 1920x1200 Thinkpad?

The fuck is this guys? Currently I am using Asus Zenbook UX32VD and it is
pretty nice (the nicest computer on the market that is), BUT it has no
trackpoint.

I really wish that Lenovo would get their shit together and start offering
sensible displays.

Besides what is the point of these mega high resoltuion displays on 13"
notebooks when either Windows or Linux support is just horrible?

I mean my current machine has 13" with 1920 x 1080 and while it is fine for
me. 3/4 of people just cannot use that kind of resolution.

~~~
gcb0
What do you mean by 3/4 can't use that banal resolution?

on your other point, i used a sgi 24" crt with all the resolutions mentioned
in this thread summed and UNIX/Linux/windows were just fine. And that was the
90s

~~~
JanezStupar
I mean, they cannot see fonts at that banal resolution.

My eyesight is better and I like it a lot. Thats why I could run a 2560 native
resolution on a 15" display.

The screens work fine if you are willing to look at non native resolution
screens.

Also CRTS do not look like crap when on a non native resolution. DPI scaling
in windows and linux just sucks. That much is a fact.

~~~
dvhh
what is the native res of a CRT ?

------
hamidpalo
The product itself looks very interesting, but Samsung is _horrible_ at
product launches. I've just bought the new Haswell Macbook Air and am
interested in possibly returning it and getting the Ativ Book 9 Plus. I
thought that samsung.com would have availability information and more detailed
specs, but it's not even mentioned anywhere. In fact, such information isn't
available anywhere.

~~~
drivebyacct2
This is (very sadly) par for the course for pretty much everyone but Apple.
The same thing happens with any sort of smartphone, any new ultrabooks, etc.
I'm guessing this also comes without a price tag or launch date. "Cool story
Samsung".

~~~
rhizome
Yep. Over the past couple of months I got my mom a new All-In-One Windows
machine, and while I was shopping a Lenovo A520 was by far the front runner.
Listed on Amazon (out of stock), listed on multiple product pages on the
Lenovo website (Lenovo phone sales: "Keep checking back"), and a month or so
later it just disappeared without so much as a wimper. It was launched in
October 2012. Dell deserved my money in the way a hobo who deserves my change
is the one not threatening to hurt me.

------
cjbprime
There's also a Fujitsu Lifebook UH90 with the same resolution in a slightly
more appropriate 14" screen size: [http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/05/fujitsu-
intros-lifebook-u...](http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/05/fujitsu-intros-
lifebook-uh90-ultrabook/)

.. but so far only announced availability in Japan.

~~~
commandar
What's insane to me is that your options are a 3200x1800 screen or 1366x768. I
have a 14" with a 1600x900 panel, and that's at the bare minimum of passable
for me.

The ubiquity of 1366 panels -- even in 15.6 notebooks! -- is beyond
frustrating to me.

~~~
lanna
Have you noticed that display resolution is often not even listed in tech
specs anymore?

~~~
rogerbinns
A pet peeve is not listing the actual resolution but rather some acronym.
Lenovo used to be very guilty of this providing no decoders for HD, FHD, SVGA
and similar nonsense. Now at least they give numbers and say things like "HD
(1366 x 768)" although where I come from 1920x1080 is HD.

------
codezero
Pretty impressive specs and battery life, but every time I see the power
connector for a non-Apple notebook, it makes me kind of mad, MagSafe is really
exceptional and Apple's power adapters are generally tiny and unobtrusive,
pretty important since you use one at least once a day.

~~~
pyre
Even though 'MagSafe' wasn't necessarily an Apple invention (things like deep
fryers had magnetic 'break-away' cords), I believe that Apple patented the
'magnetic power connector' \+ computer combination.

~~~
dangrossman
All Microsoft Surface tablets have a magnetic power connector.

~~~
Alphasite_
Both companies cross licence all patents iirc.

------
johnbender
One unfortunate trend that I hadn't previously associated with Windows' focus
on touch is the default inclusion of touchscreens on PC laptops.

It doesn't seem to be causing much of an issue with the battery life, size, or
resolution in this case but as a Linux user I don't need or want the
touchscreen especially if it costs more as a consequence.

~~~
tass
Not just a trend, it's a requirement for anything marketed as an Ultrabook™.

~~~
smalley
I believe the marketing guidelines only require the touch screen if your
design uses 4th generation core processors. You can still market new designs
for Ultrabooks using 3rd generation parts if you really want

------
ineedtosleep
Honestly, those specs, especially the resolution, are useless if the screen is
glossy and has no matte option.

~~~
benjamincburns
I came here to say just that. I'm a retina MBP owner. I'd dump it in a
heartbeat for something powerful with long battery life, high DPI _matte_
screen, and decent enough Ubuntu support. Are manufacturers missing out, or
are we just a really tiny market?

~~~
kleiba
Seconded. If any manufacturer intends to give a "developer notebook" a go, a
matte screen would be the first thing on my wish list.

~~~
darwinism
System76 just launched a Linux friendly Ultrabook with 1080p IPS matte
display, 16 GB ram, 2 hard drives, quad core cpu (8 hyperthreads) and Intel
Iris Pro gfx (> Intel HD 5000).

[https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/galu1](https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/galu1)

~~~
benjamincburns
I see this is your first comment. You're getting off to a great start, because
I can't tell you how awesomely helpful that link is. Back in December I went
on a quest to find the perfect laptop. I often do embedded stuff that takes me
outside. That, and sometimes I just look outside and say "wait, why am I in
here again? Park!"

I wanted something with good Linux support that could run a VM or two, have a
long battery life, and be readable outdoors. I spent an embarrassing number of
hours looking. In the end it came down to the Samsung Series 9 or the 13"
rMBP. The rMBP despite its glossiness is mostly readable outdoors on full
brightness, and I liked its ergonomics better.

Do you by any chance work for system76? If not, do you at least own one of
their laptops? Can you speak to build quality, battery life, sunlight
readability, or keyboard ergonomics?

~~~
etioyuahgdhjdkg
I ordered one of these things the other day, after quite a bit of research.

Basically, the "catch" with these laptops is an abysmal 3-4 hour battery life.
If you're never more than 4 hours away from an outlet, it's perfect for
development.

~~~
benjamincburns
Have you verified that yet? What setup did you choose?

~~~
etioyuahgdhjdkg
I got the galago pro ultrabook. Had a back-and-forth with a guy on their
engineering team and he said approximately "a solid 3 hours, generally 3-3.5
hours. But dealing with pre-release machines, not the ones that will be
actually shipped out. Hopefully this will be higher with the actual ones." The
one I ordered has a 240 GB intel SSD and 16 GB of RAM, but I don't think that
really matters. It's the power-hungry Iris and the really nice display that
kill it.

------
gcb0
This thread makes me regret to be a code money. Would love to be more business
savvy and start a highend notebook startup.

It's not like you require much investment. You can buy pieces from everywhere.

~~~
pyre
Sure you can source parts, but this isn't a lego set. If you're looking to
build and sell and Ultrabook, then you have to do a bunch of design (case,
motherboard, etc), and manufacturing as well.

~~~
gcb0
motherboards are all standard nowadays.

70% of the devices out there are using intel's reference designs. they just
route somethings differently. But after you fine one with the routing you
want, i bet you can order them from acer or whoever and just add the better
components and be done with.

the only thing you'd really have to customize is the power circuitry. but
that's easy and cheap. And then the case, of course. but that's also easy.

------
hartror
I have a 15" Samsung Series 9 i7 for work. This machine looks amazing but the
i5 is saddening, i7 + SSD makes compile times etc amazing and I can't give
than up for a nicer screen :(

~~~
jclulow
So this is somewhat OT, but: how much compiling do you actually _do_ in-situ
on your laptop?

I mostly look, these days, for the best possible portable pane-of-glass I can
get that allows me to do all my work on "real" computers -- in the cloud and
in our office lab. I'd much rather have epic battery life for my web browser
and terminals than have more cores in the thing I carry around.

~~~
theck01
If you're running a linux distro that requires compiling packages from source
(Gentoo comes to mind), then you could conceivably be compiling a lot of
things often.

~~~
jlgreco
Eh, that sort of thing was already reasonable a few years ago and open source
software hasn't really gotten much bigger since then. Some projects have
actually gotten smaller. (Browsers are the glaring exception. I don't envy
anyone building their own firefox or chromium these days..)

------
rbanffy
Anyone wants to test how well it runs Linux?

~~~
D9u
Barring any UEFI issues the hardware should run most unix-like systems without
much trouble, but the article doesn't really list any set of hardware
specifications.

I'm sure that the CPU will run unix-like systems, but I have no idea about the
graphics & networking, so you probably want to note which adapters work with
your preferred OS.

My Atheros WiFi card runs well on everything I've tried, with the exception of
OpenBSD 5.3 - it boots but no WiFi - what good is a netbook without WiFi?

------
zmmmmm
The version that runs Android is actually more interesting than this to me. A
dual Android / Windows notebook could be an Android developer's dream if the
setup works right. Not to mention, seamlessly flipping to Android when on the
go, but still with all my Windows files available sounds pretty nice.

------
lifeformed
Seems like theres all these amazing laptops now for all kinds of developers
_except_ those that need GPU power (game devs) :(

There's no such thing as a laptop with a good GPU that isn't ugly and bulky,
and that doesn't have a nice hi-res IPS screen, and have a good keyboard and
touchpad.

~~~
lotso
What about the Razer Edge? [http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-
blade](http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade)

~~~
lifeformed
I've looked at that, and it's probably the closest thing there is. I just wish
it had a higher res screen (1080p isn't that impressive for a 17" screen), and
I wish it had room for another HDD (I've got a lot of music production
software which takes up hundreds of gigs). Also, I'd prefer a top of the line
GPU, like a 780M; the 765M falls a little short. Lastly, I definitely need
more than 8GB of ram, but I'm sure I could add that in myself (I hope).

But the great thing is they have that indie developer discount! I think I can
get one for like $1000.

------
rhizome
It sounds like the reviewer had, what, less than a minute with the machine?

~~~
joenathan
That's what you call a first look, not a review.

~~~
rhizome
It's what I call a press release with hints that they got to touch it, and
that touching it resulted in no additional information.

~~~
joenathan
What do you expect? The product is only just being announced, once review
units are shipped out you'll get a review, this is just an early look at
what's to come.

~~~
rhizome
The title says, "hands on."

------
rayiner
Is the screen IGZO?

------
mtgx
I wouldn't expect to actually _use_ that resolution, and Windows most likely
doesn't support it very well either. The way it's used is probably just like
the Macbook Retina. The effective resolution will be 1600x900, but the screen
will be much sharper.

~~~
barista
What do you mean windows doesn't support it?

~~~
spartango
Windows 8 does support high resolution screens, but unfortunately it has poor
DPI scaling features. This means that instead of crisper text and contours,
you get smaller text and touch/click targets. While this does give you a nice,
big workspace, it can be hard to see things.

When you do increase the DPI through Windows settings, applications start to
have issues rendering text appropriately, and often UI targets don't scale
with the text.

------
barista
Samsung has put out some very appealing hardware in recent times. I won't be
surprised if they pressurize other PC makers just like they did in case of
android

~~~
commandar
They've put out a lot of hardware that's sold well, but I've been pretty
underwhelmed by the build quality of the Galaxy line, personally.

I really had high hopes for Vizio breaking into the PC market. I've had one of
their thin and lights for about a year now, and have been very, very happy
with it, but I'm not sure they've sold well enough to have an actual impact on
the market.

It's easily the best-built PC I've ever owned; in fact, in terms of build
quality, I'd rank it above the pre-unibody Macbook Pro I used to have. Only
knock I have against it is the mediocre touchpad they used in the first run of
machines, but it's my understanding that they're using Synaptic now.

