“Imagine if a laptop ate the Macbook Air for Lunch” – Samsung Series 9

My favorite line I have heard all day, “Imagine if a laptop ate the Macbook Air for Lunch”. I have sized down. But I owe it to Apple to teach me the way of what a computer should be. After the purchase of my Macbook Air, I feel that I cannot ever go out and buy a laptop over 5 lbs. I have even sacrificed 16GB of RAM to get there.

If you read my post from yesterday, you would know that I have been in the market for a new laptop, more specifically, a Premiere Ultrabook. So, I found it! I had the opportunity to check this out in the store, check out its competition, and do all of the research. At the end of the day, my decision was to focus on strong performance, and lean the needle towards something very similar, if not better than what Apple has made with the Macbook Air. Weight and how thin the device was, played an extremely important factor. At the same time, I didn’t want to lose any performance. In-fact, I wanted an upgrade.

Did not even consider:

Acer Aspire – When I hear the name Acer, I cringe. Blame the many years I have experienced this company. Everything from Acer screams, Stay Away!! But the Aspire admittedly did draw a little bit of attention. The Aspire is sleek, looks real good, but still holds the Acer name. Therefore, I kept my blinders up and dismissed.
Dell Insipiron – I played with this one in Best Buy. In my opinion, it is just too much for the masses. The rounded corners and flashy buttons have no real benefit. The 20mm height is at the upper side. The battery life is most likely a lie. Too many bad experiences with Dell. I feel like someone is trying to hide their weight.
Dell XPS – Many of the same concerns with the Inspiron. These are around 23mm thick, which put it over specs. Track pad issues and quickly degrading hardware performance. Flashy exterior, yet not sturdy. Pass.
Fujitsu Lifebook – Been there done that! I do not need another tablet / laptop combo. This increases the size and doesn’t provide any extra real use. The reason, because it increased the size. If I am going to consider a multi-purpose, I will look at the ASUS Taichi, which has two screens on the lid, one inside and one outside. Now that’s something to gain my attention.
HP Envy – HAAAA!! Excuse me, was that outloud? When you look up Ultrabook, “Buy it Now” on eBay and list from Lowest Price to Highest, this is what you find. PASS!
Lenovo IdeaPad – Interesting. I saw this stocked at Best Buy and Staples. It’s too curvy. I don’t know why Dell and the IdeaPad are attempting to add curves to hide their weight issues. Please, stop it, we can all see how bulky you are.
Macbook Pro – At 24mm height and 4.5 lbs, the MBP is almost an Ultrabook by specification. It’s a beautiful machine. Do you want to spend $2.5k – $3k? As soon as you load Parallels to get Windows back, your battery drops in half and so does your hard drive space.

The finalists:

Asus Zenbook – I have been watching this guy for a while. I’ve always been an ASUS fan. They try a lot of new things and they fail at a lot of new things as well. The Zenbook caught on, because they held it to the utmost of standards. Power, Power, Power, Size, Size, Size.
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 – I rather liked this build. I don’t mind the traditional business looking machine like all the ThinkPads are out there. I called them “ugly” in yesterday’s post. It’s true. But what these ThinkPad’s do is pack Power, behind that exterior ugliness. And I quite like that!
Samsung Series 7 – The major reason I liked and brought this series into the finalists was because they are rumored to release a 13 inch and 15 inch 16GB RAM with an i7 that is truely an Ultrabook. The catch is, they haven’t yet. Even the Singapore release still only has 8GB. Plus, these are a bit bigger than the Series 9.
Sony Vaio T Series – The Vaio series has been one of my Dad’s favorite for more than a decade. I agree. They are quality computers / laptops and they demand the price for it. If you are good, you can find a deal on eBay. For this particular hunt, I found these to still be too “boxy” not so much an Ultrabook, rather one that falls into the specification. But very powerful!

The decision:

Samsung Series 9 NP900X4C-A03US

The goal of the Samsung Series 9 line is to create as thin laptops and aesthetically beautiful design as possible at as high performance as possible, with extremely long battery life. That goal is why I decided to go for this line. Everything about it screams experimental. i7 Ivy Bridge ultra power friendly and ultra powerful, with 8GB of DDR3 RAM, with 256GB SSD, this guy screams, and will stay on for 10 hours, providing a 15 inch screen and weighs only 3.5 lbs, which makes you wonder if you might break it. This is a quality machine.

If there is any resemblance to the Galaxy Series and the Series 9, we might have ourselves a real winner for some time. I am happy to place you next to my Macbook Air to see if one might eat the other. Just as I did with my Samsung Captivate and iPhone 3Gs.