It‘s very interesting how the tech world changes, and how it changes the way we use our devices. And I say that purposefully as the plural ““ device(s). Even though many tablets and even smartphones tend to portray an idea that the only things we‘ll ever need are those said devices, it is just not true ““ yet. Everyone still needs a laptop or PC to do a lot of things on a day to day basis.
Samsung thinks it has an idea to lure those Galaxy users to buy their laptops. The Ativ Book 9 Lite is a very thin and even lighter laptop that connects seamlessly with your Galaxy smartphone. The Ativ Book 9 Lite comes with Samsung‘s SideSync and HomeSync built in, so you can be constantly connected to both your laptop and your phone.
The much more affordable Book 9 Lite borrows several design elements from its more expensive sibling (Ativ Book 9 Plus), with a similar slim silhouette and touch screen. So it this you solution to a “˜cheaper‘ ultrabook, or should you steer clear.
Design and Build
The Ativ Book 9 Lite tries to offer the visual appeal of a top of the line ultrabook at a fraction of the price. This laptop is all plastic, and you can sense its build quality when holding it in your hand. Even though it is remarkably light, you can feel that it has had an impact on the overall quality of the outer shell.
If you try to compare it to its sibling, you immediately wish that you hadn‘t. The Book 9 Lite features a 13.3-inch display with 1,366 x 768 resolution, extremely far from the high resolution screen of the Book 9 Plus. The screen is actually fuzzy and sometimes pale, due to the the appalling viewing angles.
For Samsung to cut the price, corners have been cut. Instead of metal, it’s made of plastic. And not a nice plastic ““ very much like the glossy plastic you find on their smartphones. While it might work for some on phones, on a laptop that costs R10,000 it‘s not acceptable.
The hinges feel cheap as well ““ I was sometimes afraid I would break it if I give it a proper test. Unfortunately, the keyboard and trackpad are also subpar. The keys don‘t give any tactile feedback, and if you don‘t look at your fingers while typing, it‘s very easy to mistype without knowing as you don‘t feel much from the keys. The trackpad is large, seamless, and erratic. I‘ll just leave it there ““ you really won‘t like it. You would need to buy a mouse in all likelihood.
Battery
This is another disappointing aspect of this laptop, as the battery fades quickly, especially when watching videos. Unfortunately, we think it‘s down to the AMD processor ““ more on this later.
With heavy use, the battery would only last about 4 hours. In this day and age, for a laptop of this price, it just isn‘t nearly good enough. If other companies can deliver laptops that are even thinner with a battery life of around 10 hours, it just doesn‘t cut it in our eyes. The extra thickness is supposed to accommodate for the lower specs, but it should still deliver.
Performance
This laptop comes with 4GB of RAM and a 128BG solid state drive (SSD). As mentioned before, it comes with an AMD processor instead of the ubiquitous Intel Core i3/i5/i7 you’d normally expect. If you’re multitasking, pushing heavy graphics-based tasks, or editing video, this laptop will disappoint. I find it hard to accept the performance drop at this price.
According to Samsung, it has an “X4 Quad Core,” with a clock speed of 1.4GHz. The X4 is actually an AMD product, designed for Samsung. Even in graphics testing, where AMD usually shines, the Book 9 Lite came up short, with gaming graphics not at all what you would expect from the companies chips.
Conclusion
For an everyday, solid computing experience in a stylish, thin body, the Ativ Book 9 Lite will do well enough from some, but not for us. Not at this price point at least. It’s nothing special in the world of Windows 8 touch laptops, which is a shame, because so many recent Samsung ultrabooks have been very well received.
Even among other entry-level ultrabooks and desktop replacements, the Book 9 Lite has frustratingly slow performance. The Samsung Ativ Book 9 Lite is a budget laptop disguised as a premium machine, but the lack of an Intel Core processor and second-rate hardware makes this laptop hard to recommend.
So, we won‘t“¦
