Samsung Ativ Q

When Samsung first released the Series 9 in 2011, it quickly became one of our favorite laptops of the year. Then, once Intel threw its marketing weight behind Ultrabooks, it became our favorite Ultra. But the Series 9 was born in the Windows 7 era, and it became harder and harder to recommend as touchscreens became the standard. Now, though, we have the ATIV Book 9 Plus, the first truly flagship-level Ultrabook Samsung has released since Windows 8 came out.

As you'd expect, it trades in the Series 9's matte, anti-glare display for a touchscreen. What's more, though, Samsung also cranked up the resolution, retiring that old 1,600 x 900 panel in favor of a 3,200 x 1,800 one. And, of course, it steps up to a newer Haswell processor, which promises not just faster performance, but also longer battery life (not that endurance was a problem on the original). So is it still our favorite Ultrabook? Pretty much.

Look and feel

We've met Samsung's laptop design team. It's led by some lovely, humble people, but we suspect that deep down, they know the same thing we know: that last year's Series 9 Ultrabook was a near-perfect product. So, content to let perfect dogs lie, the company more or less kept the same blueprint when it sat down to design this year's ATIV Book 9 Plus. This time around, it measures 0.54 inch thick, making it only a hair thicker than last year's model, which measured 0.5 inch (and which didn't have a touchscreen, we might add).

It also has generally the same shape, with a profile that tapers drastically toward the front, but widens near the hinge to make room for the various ports (two USB 3.0, micro-HDMI, mini-VGA, a headphone jack and a hidden SD slot). In the box, you'll find an Ethernet adapter as well. The machine is also comfortable to hold, and we're not even referring to the weight (more on that in a moment). Though the edges here look sharp, they're actually quite blunt, so it won't hurt to press your palms into them when you're carrying this thing with two hands.

The overall build quality is the same too. Like its predecessor, the ATIV Book 9 Plus is made of smooth aluminum, except the color, billed as "Mineral Ash Black," has a slightly bluish tint in some light, whereas last year's was a plain black affair. Between that and the subtle flourishes (a thin metal band around the trackpad, just one button on the keyboard deck), the entire machine has an understated, but still expensive feel to it. The only problem is -- and we complained about this last year -- is that despite having a matte finish, the aluminum picks up fingerprints quickly. Make sure to have a cloth in your desk drawer so that you can give the machine a rubdown every once in a while.

All told, almost everything that feels different about the ATIV Book 9 Plus has to do with the addition of that touchscreen. There's the glossy screen, of course, which used to have a matte, anti-glare finish. And of course, there's the weight. Without a touchscreen, the old Series 9 weighed 2.55 pounds -- an astonishing spec, even for an Ultrabook. Thanks largely to the touchscreen, though, this new model comes in at 3.06 pounds. Now, before we get carried away, even that's pretty respectable for a touchscreen, 13-inch Ultrabook. But it does feel a lot heavier than we remember the Series 9 feeling. And besides, there are plenty of touchscreen ultraportables that manage to be even lighter than this.

There's one other change, and this one we can't blame on the touchscreen. In addition to adding its new SideSync software to Windows 8, Samsung slapped some conspicuous "SideSync" and "HomeSync Lite" branding on the device itself, over on the right side of the palm rest. What's annoying is that it's painted onto the aluminum, so it's there, staring back at you whether you like it or not. We would have much preferred a sticker we could peel off.

Keyboard and trackpad

Just like the rest of the design, the keyboard is basically the same as on the last-gen Series 9. Once again, the buttons are well-spaced, with a pretty aquamarine backlight glowing from underneath. Be warned, though: they're also flat and shallow, with minimal travel. Don't get us wrong; they're still reasonably easy to type on, but we did suffer more dropped letters than on some other Ultrabooks we've tested recently. Type too quickly and you might have to go bak back and re-type a letter that didn't register the first time around.

One of the first things we noticed when we initially unboxed the ATIV Book 9 Plus is that the trackpad is much more reliable than the one we tested on the Series 9. The cursor actually went where it was supposed to, and multi-touch gestures like two-finger scrolls and pinch-to-zoom were also easy to pull off. After a little more time with the machine, we did notice that the pad has a bit more friction than we'd like. To the machine's credit, the cursor never went rogue and ended up on some random, unintended part of the page; we did suffer a bit of drag, though. There were also a few times when the trackpad mistook two-finger scrolls for a swipe in from the left, which caused us to inadvertently switch from one app to another. That was definitely more annoying than the slightly stubborn cursor.

Display and sound

Even if you decided to downgrade the resolution to 1080p, you'd be left with a fantastic screen.

Adding a touchscreen to the Series 9 was clearly something of a compromise for Samsung: not only did it add noticeably to the weight, but it also meant Sammy had to move from a matte, anti-glare screen to a glossy one. Still, if you're under the impression Samsung swapped in a pedestrian display, we'll correct you now. With this generation, the company made 3,200 x 1,800 resolution standard -- a dramatic improvement over last year's model, which topped out at 1,600 x 900. We won't waste your time describing how it's noticeably sharper than the original, but we will add that it looks even sharper than a typical 1080p screen; yes, your eyes can probably tell the difference.

That increased acuity works great for certain desktop apps, like Word, and it also brings out the best in the colorful Windows Start Screen. That said, we'll make the same caveat we make any other time we review a laptop with a super-high-res screen: not all content has been optimized to look good on displays this sharp. With YouTube, for instance, videos look strange at full-screen, with the scrubber and buttons at the bottom all scaled way down. The effect is so terrible, it's funny.

Even if you decided to downgrade to 1080p, though, you'd be left with a fantastic screen. Though it's naturally more reflective than the matte panel that shipped on last year's model, there really are very few light artifacts here. At half-brightness, I could barely see my reflection in the screen while I typed; at full brightness, I couldn't see it at all. Speaking of the sort, the 350-nit brightness rating helps contribute to some great viewing angles from the side -- with the brightness turned all the way up, you should have no problem crowding around the laptop and watching a movie from slightly off to the side. What's nice is that the vertical viewing angles are great even at lower brightness settings. So, even if you're working on an airplane and want to conserve battery life by dimming the backlight, you'll still enjoy good contrast with the lid dipped forward.

We honestly weren't expecting much in terms of sound: most Ultrabooks deliver tolerable quality at best and besides, Samsung hasn't exactly been making a big deal of the ATIV Book 9 Plus' audio chops. That may have been a mistake, though: the sound here is not just surprisingly loud, but surprisingly rich too. Most of the time, we had the volume set well below the median mark -- maybe at level 30 or 40 out of 100. What's more, the volume stays loud even when you place the laptop on a soft surface like a couch or a bed; the speakers' placement on the bottom side doesn't muffle sound as we feared it would. Really, the only reason we avoided the top setting is that it makes for an uncomfortably loud system when it's just you chilling by yourself in the home office. If you do crank the volume all the way up, though, you'll only have to suffer a minimal amount of distortion.

At lower volumes, it's even better -- dare I say, the best sound I've heard yet on an Ultrabook. Over an afternoon of listening to Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Simon and Garfunkel, Dusty Springfield, The Temptations and others, I often felt as if I were rediscovering my favorite songs; piano notes and drum beats pushed through the dual two-watt speakers more forcefully than I'm used to on other machines. In fact -- and no, I'm not trying to troll here -- I didn't want to go back to my MacBook Air for music-listening after trying out the speakers here.

Performance and battery life

The ATIV Book 9 Plus is available in just one configuration, and it rocks generally the same components as other Ultrabooks we've tested recently: a dual-core, Haswell-series Intel Core i5-4200U processor clocked at 1.6GHz, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. Accordingly, then, its benchmark scores land in the same ballpark as other machines with the same processor, including the Sony VAIO Pro 13, and the new Acer Aspire S7-392.

The one area where the ATIV Book 9 Plus falls short is in I/O speeds. All told, the Toshiba-made SSD (you read that right) notched average reads of 547 MB/s, with writes hovering around 508 MB/s. To be clear, we're not saying those speeds are slow. It's just that we've recently tested a string of machines that managed to hit or exceed speeds of 1GB per second, even on the write test, which is always harder. (Note: the Acer Aspire S7 has a RAID 0 setup, which has tradeoffs of its own, so we'll concede that's not a totally fair comparison.) At any rate, as we said, these speeds would have once been very impressive, but we can no longer say the Series 9 is a leader in this area. Which is surprising, since Samsung makes some of the fastest SSDs on the market. Maybe the company should have stuck to its own components here?

That said, the machine feels plenty fast in real-world use. Not only did I write my review on this laptop, but I wasted plenty of time on it too, keeping open tabs for Gmail, YouTube, Pandora and lots and lots of web searches. Switching from one app to another was easy, as was toggling between all those open tabs in Internet Explorer. At first, we thought the machine was in danger of overheating, as the bottom side and upper keyboard area got warm just six minutes into a YouTube video. The good news is that though it gets warm quickly, it doesn't get any hotter after that. Even after hours of use, complete with non-stop media streaming, the bottom stayed fairly lukewarm -- definitely cool enough to comfortably rest on my lap.

It's a similar story with fan noise. The ATIV Book 9 Plus pipes up quickly -- heck, it sometimes makes noise when it's sitting idle. But that noise never rises above a quiet sigh. In fact, we didn't even notice it until we paused Pandora and started to work without any background noise.

Normally, when a company rates a laptop for a certain amount of battery life, we just assume we'll get a bit less runtime, especially since our tests involve taxing conditions (WiFi on, brightness at 65 percent, video looping off the local disk). In this case, though, Samsung seems to have given a conservative estimate: though it promises up to 7.5 hours of use, we actually managed eight hours and 44 minutes in our video rundown. As you'll see in the table above, that's a respectable showing for a Haswell machine. In fact, the Sony VAIO Pro 13 was only 20 minutes off in the same test.

Software and warranty

For all the apps it loads onto its new Galaxy phones, Samsung actually went easy with the bloatware on the ATIV Book 9 Plus. Here, we've got Bitcasa cloud storage, iHeartRadio, Netflix, a trial of Norton Internet Security and Adobe Photoshop Elements 11. As for Samsung apps, it's just S Player+, SPhotoStudio and Music Hub, all of which are basically exactly what they sound like.

HomeSync Lite lets you download and upload content between your PC and mobile devices. In total, you can add up to five user accounts, with six devices per user. The catch, though, is that you'll need the Samsung Link app installed on your phone and, uh, it's only available on Samsung handsets. So if you're using a Moto X, you can keep on trucking to the next section. Also -- and maybe this goes without saying -- you need to refrain from deleting HomeSync from your computer, even if it looks like bloatware; without the app installed on your PC, you can't use the service on your mobile devices either. SideSync, meanwhile, is for transferring files between your PC and Samsung phone, which you can do using either a cable or over a wireless connection.

The ATIV Book 9 Plus comes with a one-year warranty.

Configuration options and the competition

To reiterate: the ATIV Book 9 Plus is sold in just one configuration in the US: a $1,400 model with a 1.6GHz Core i5-4200U processor, 4GB of RAM, integrated Intel HD 4400 graphics, a 3,200 x 1,800 screen and a 128GB SSD.

As you've probably gathered by now, we're rather fond of the ATIV Book 9 Plus, and would highly recommend it to anyone shopping around for a premium Ultrabook. That said, it's not the only excellent option out there. Below, you'll find a rundown of the competition. There's a lot to cover, so to keep things simple, we'll go in alphabetical order:

• We've already mentioned the Acer Aspire S7 several times in this review. As the successor to the original S7, which came out last year, this new model steps up to Haswell processors and a larger battery capacity, leading to a serious improvement in runtime. Even then, it doesn't last quite as long as the ATIV Book 9 Plus in our tests, but its endurance (7.5 hours) is still more than acceptable. At 2.87 pounds, it's one of the lightest touchscreen, 13-inch Ultrabooks we know of, and it rivals the ATIV Book 9 Plus in thinness too. Its screen is lower-res, at 1080p, but in terms of overall quality (viewing angles, colors, et cetera) it's one of the best we've seen.


• Longtime Windows users won't give Apple's MacBook Air a second look, but it's worth calling out for folks who are OS-agnostic. With this year's refresh, Apple mainly just swapped in Haswell processors and PCIe SSDs, with no changes to the exterior. That's not a bad thing, per se -- we still dig the unibody aluminum chassis and comfortable keyboard -- but the resolution is still stuck at 1,440 x 900 on the 13-inch version. The only thing excusing the mediocre screen is the battery life, which topped out at nearly 13 hours in our video rundown, with the next-best performer trailing hours behind.


• It's not out yet, but ASUS' Zenbook UX301 is worth adding to your shortlist. With a 2,560 x 1,440 screen, it's one of a few Ultrabooks to push the envelope beyond 1080p -- and that list gets even shorter if you include only machines that are based on Haswell. In addition to the stunning IPS screen, the UX301 has a durable (and also beautiful) Gorilla Glass 3 lid. Thanks in part to that glass armor, the machine will weigh almost as much as the ATIV Book 9 Plus (3.04 pounds, to be exact). In exchange for the "heft," though, you at least get some promising performance: a Core i7 CPU, paired with optional discrete NVIDIA graphics.


• We already liked the Dell XPS 12 for its sturdy build quality, attractive design and comfortable keyboard, and now it's even better: Dell recently refreshed it with Haswell CPUs, a bigger battery and an NFC sensor. The screen resolution is still the same, at 1,920 x 1,080, but then again, so is the price: at $1,200 with a 128GB SSD, it's a tad cheaper than other systems carrying similar specs.


• Here's another one you might want to wait on. The Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro is the successor to the original Yoga 13, and in addition to being both thinner and lighter, it brings a much-sharper 3,200 x 1,800, 350-nit screen -- yep, just like on the ATIV Book 9 Plus. And at 3.06 pounds, it weighs the same as Samsung's offering too. And, as with the ASUS UX301, though, it's likely to be more configurable. Most importantly, however, the starting price is $1,100, which is considerably less expensive than what the Samsungs and Acers of the marketplace are selling.


• Though we only did a full review of the 11-inch Sony VAIO Pro 11, we did spend some time benchmarking the 13-inch version, the Sony VAIO Pro 13 (see its results in the benchmark table in the performance section further up the page). With Haswell processors and PCIe SSDs, it manages to offer long battery life and transfer speeds in excess of 1GB per second. And, in the grand tradition of Sony's earlier Z-series laptops, it has a carbon fiber build that allows it to be remarkably lightweight -- just 2.34 pounds in this case. That's easily the lightest 13-inch touchscreen laptop on the market (maybe even the lightest 13-inch Ultrabook, period).


• We're mainly including the Toshiba Kirabook on this list so that you know to stay away. With a 2,560 x 1,440 screen, the Kirabook was one of the first Ultrabooks to ship with something better than a 1080p screen. Still, Toshiba made the mistake of releasing it before Haswell came out, and to this day, it's stuck with last-gen Ivy Bridge processors. That's a real shame, given the lofty $1,600 starting price, and you're going to miss out on battery life because of it too. Oh, and adding insult to injury, that starting price doesn't even include a touchscreen. As if!

Wrap-up

Samsung already had the best Ultrabook on the market, and it's managed to stay on top in 2013, even as its competitors have improved battery life and performance on their own models. Like its predecessor, the ATIV Book 9 Plus is impressively thin, with an understated design and sturdy build quality. And thanks to a sharp 3,200 x 1,800, low-glare screen and a current Haswell processor, it rises to the top in terms of both display quality and performance. Even the battery life, which isn't technically best in class, is still very good. It's a solid enough package that we can forgive its few flaws (the painted-on branding and the comparatively slow disk speeds). So, while there are some other excellent, similarly priced options out there, the ATIV Book 9 Plus is a fantastic option in its own right.

According to reports, Microsoft Corp has asked HTC Corp to add Windows Phone as second operating system option on the latter’s smartphones, specifically those operating on Google Inc’s Android OS. Terry Myerson, Microsoft’s OS chief, would reportedly fly to Taiwan sometime this month to convince HTC’s executives to agree to the proposal.

The giant software firm seems determined to entice the smartphone maker to integrate Windows Phone into some of its products. Microsoft is reportedly sweetening the offer by volunteering to waive the licensing fees that it normally charges handset manufacturers to use its OS into their devices. According to sources, HTC is yet to agree to that proposal.

HTC and Windows Phone

It could be recalled that HTC has already released a number of devices that run on Microsoft’s Windows Phone. Among those were HTC 8X, HTC 8S, and HTC 8XT. But according to insiders, HTC realized that it may not be able to sustain using Windows Phone because it would be costly to do so. Besides, those Windows Phone-based HTC devices also generated limited returns.

Because of cost constraints, HTC is reportedly not planning to develop another device running on Windows Phone. The company is believed to be focused today on its flagship smartphone, HTC One that is running on free Google Android OS.

If HTC would agree to Microsoft’s proposal, both companies would still figure out how to make a hybrid OS with Android and Windows Phone work. However, it would not be a fresh approach as it has already been common in the tablet-laptop hybrid market.

For instance, at the recent IFA trade show held in Berlin, Germany, Taiwanese PC maker Asus launched its Transformer Book Trio. The laptop-tablet runs on both Windows 8 as well as Android 4.2. Before that, Samsung Electronics unveiled its Samsung Ativ Q that also operates on both PC and mobile OS.

Microsoft is obviously aiming to ride on Android’s popularity so it could bolster its Windows Phone platform. The company has been struggling to make gains in a tight mobile OS market, which is currently dominated by Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. Windows Phone is believed to be obtaining strength in Europe but it is yet to show any potential to even be a worthy competitor to the two more popular mobile OS.

Last week, we looked a whole lot of reasons why the Samsung Galaxy S4 could be considered better than Apple’s iPhone 5S. And just like we promised, this week we’ll be going over 25+ reasons why the opposite can be true. Now, just to clear things up, we’re in no way saying one phone is better than the other for everybody. That’s impossible and will never happen. Instead, we’re merely looking at the individual advantages of each device relative to one another. With that out of the way, let’s dive right into the list!

1. Better build quality


2. Display has better outdoor visibility


3. Easier one handed use


4. Getting all of Apple’s and some of Google’s ecosystem = best of both worlds


5. Faster updates straight from Apple


6. Dedicated vibrate switch


7. Fingerprint scanner


8. 120 FPS slow-motion at 720p


9. Faster and longer lasting burst shot mode


10. Dual LED flash


11. Reversible charging port


12. Battery fully charges faster


13. AirDrop is more convenient and faster


14. Privacy settings


15. Guided access (for kids)


16. Restrict certain apps and content (for kids)


17. Better resale value


18. No carrier bloatware pre-installed


19. Selected text can be read aloud


20. Access Siri even when the screen was off


21. Quick access to camera even when passcode enabled


22. Tap to the top of any list in any app


23. Automatic video compression when e-mailing videos


24. Better app selection with exclusives and sometimes better versions of non-exclusive apps


25. Faster and smoother performance overall


26. Displays the battery level of Bluetooth accessories in notification bar


27. iMessage works seamlessly with SMS


28. Slightly wider angled cameras


29. Browser fully caches web pages so you can go back and forth without reloading


30. More internal storage space available on equal models


31. M7 co-processor uses less battery with peripherals


32. Built-in emoji keyboard (without having to switch whole keyboard)


33. Apple store customer service


34. Multiple notification styles (banners and badges)


35. Safari aggregates links from social media


36. Phonetic names for contacts

There you have, that is our ever-evolving list of reasons why the iPhone 5S could be considered better than the Galaxy S4. If you have any “reasons” that aren’t in the list above, feel free to leave a comment down below and we’ll add it (and give you credit)!

About David Rahimi

David Rahimi is the editor-in-chief at PhoneBuff.com. Ever since he got his first smartphone, he has been obsessed with mobile technology and all that it has to offer. Other interests include business, investing, and neuroscience.

The widespread of Android continues into the laptop segment as another manufacturer, Lenovo, has designed a notebook to run solely on Google’s mobile platform. Called the A10, this system falls in the convertible category and it is being touted as an affordable and ultra-portable companion.

The A10 laptop falls in the same segment as the Ativ Q from Samsung, the SlateBook x2 from HP and the Transformer Book T100 by Asus, albeit it isn’t as powerful as its competition. Lenovo highlights that the device is powered by a RK3188 chipset that has a quad core Cortex A9 running at 1.6GHz and Mali-400 MP graphics. The notebook features a dual mode convertible design which is made possible by a rotating screen.

Under the lid, the company has fitted a 10.1-inch 1366 x 768p screen with 10-point touch input. The display can be turned by up to 300 degrees and a stable hinge has been placed to keep it steady in stand mode. There’s an integrated 0.3MP webcam as well. In laptop mode, you’ll be presented with a full-size AccuType keyboard and a multi-touch trackpad.

The notebook operates on Android 4.2 Jelly Bean and comes with access to Google Play services. The device also houses Wi-Fi and Bluetooth modules as well as 2 USB 2.0 ports, a microUSB slot, a microSD card bay and optional microHDMI output. The A10 weighs under 1kg and it’s 17.3mm at its thickest. You can expect up to 9 hours of video playback on a single charge.

Lenovo hasn’t provided any price or availability details as yet for the A10 laptop and it notes that the information will vary by location.

Windows 8 is beginning to embed itself into the public knowledge and we're getting more and more used to the concept of touchscreen laptops. And that's the exact where the affordable, sub-£500 Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite fits in.

It's name might sound like a bit of a mouthful, and the unwarranted all-caps "ATIV" brand was apparently conceived by taking the Latin word for life - vita - and spelling it backwards. Um, that makes no sense at all. Does that represent death for the latest Samsung laptop, or does the new series bring fresh lift to the Korean manufacturer's line?

New life

The ATIV Book 9 Lite does away with the old Series 3, 5, 7 and 9 models with a fresh lease of life. It's all new. This 13.3-inch laptop might not be made up of the supreme build quality that you'd find in pricier laptops, but we're still fairly fond of the way the Book 9 Lite looks.

The outer shell is a glossy midnight blue finish, with some visual texture that you'll only catch a glimpse of if it catches the light in the right way. Lift the lid and you're presented with a smooth, matte surface containing a full island-style keyboard and trackpad to the front.

Above is the 13.3-inch inch screen which continues the glossy route. Indoors and in the progressively darker UK nights we've not found this to be a problem, but in brighter light - including overhead spots, as we've found - it proves to be a little too reflective. The panel is an LED display, not an IPS panel, so the viewing angles won't always give the most contrastic view to the eye, but we've found the usable angle of view to be very wide. Resolution is a little on the low side at 1366 x 768 pixels, however, which is a bit of a letdown - but not to the point of being bothersome for browsing and all those usual tasks. At greater-than-720p it's still ample enough for watching movies with top and bottom letterbox blackout.

The plasticky finish leaves us feeling a little cold on the one hand, but on the other it's part of the reason that this slim package is lightweight. It's just over 1.5kgs, which is fairly standard in this category. Something a bit pricier like the Lenovo Yoga 13 weighs in at around the same.

READ: Lenovo Yoga 13 review

But as we've nodded to, the Samsung is a slender slab of AMD-powered machine. Closed up and it's just over 1.7cms tall - more short, really - the design carves a near optical illusion taper by the way it pinches in away from the thickest point to look extra thin when viewed from the side.

Lined up across the two sides are a variety of ports: USB 3.0, USB 2.0, micro HDMI, mini VGA, 3.5mm headphone jack, mini Ethernet, and an SD card reader tucked away under a plastic flap. All bases covered then, although for practicality's sake you will need adaptors to use some of the mini ports with success.

Track, touch and type

As with many Windows 8 machines the ATIV Book 9 Lite adopts a touchscreen principle. You can swipe in, drag icons around and do all those touch-enabled things that you may - or may not - want to do. We're still on the fence about touchscreen laptops, but get that some users will want to dirty-up their screens with their fingertips.

But you don't have to touch the screen, that's part of the pleasure of using a laptop. And the island keyboard found in the 9 Lite feels really good in use. It's springy and resistive to just the right point and there's enough separation between keys for it to not prove a mash-up of keys when typing. We've been using it as our go-to machine during the testing period and found our typing was unhinged, despite dropping down from a 15.4-inch to the smaller scale Samsung.

The trackpad, too, has just the right amount of finger-grabbing tactile feel to its finish for a fluid experience. It's easy to fling the cursor around screen, use it for two-finger gestures to scroll up, down or across documents, and the unmarked left and right click positions come naturally in use.

All in all, and considering the price point, we have very few qualms about the ATIV Book 9 Lite in use. It might be a bit plasticky, but that's to be expected, and it doesn't detrimentally impact the device experience.

Performance and power

Under the hood of the Book 9 Lite is a quad-core AMD processor, paired up with AMD Radeon graphics and 4GB of RAM. It might not be Intel, and the "up to 1.4Ghz" might lack the more serious thump that you might hope for, but then this is the "Lite" version of the ATIV model. It's in line with what we expected. We've been browsing, typing, watching movies and doing all that normal day-to-day computer stuff and seen little to no issues with the performance.

The 128GB SSD drive on board makes light work of load times - wake from sleep is near instantaneous. Once switched on we also found that so-called "bloatware" is kept to a minimum. Norton Internet Security is loaded up by default we didn't find it to continually prompt us to do anything - a rare but good thing. Other than that we had one Samsung own-brand prompt which we promptly ticked the "don't show me this again" box and that was that.

However, if you want to step things up a gear for serious photo editing then this isn't the laptop for you. It can chug through things, but not at smooth frame rates or at pace. At under £500 we're not surprised, go up the pricing food chain and you'll be able to access more power.

One of the benefits of this AMD chip set is its apparent low impact on battery life. We've been getting 6-hours from the device no problems, but then we've not been stretching its processing capacity in our day-to-day work lives. Dim the screen, go extra light and we reckon the Lite will last out considerably longer still - up to an alleged 9-hours. But still, in this class the battery performance we've been seeing is more than acceptable. Some upcoming Intel Baytrail machines might see that bettered by some margin, but for the time being we're content with the life per charge from this ATIV.

Verdict

The first ATIV model that we've seen for review breathes fresh life into the Samsung laptop range. The Book 9 Lite is a good looking, albeit fairly plasticky, 13.3-inch offering that's affordable and just as on the money when it comes to all those day-to-day tasks.

The SSD makes it fast to load and wake from sleep, and even if the AMD processor isn't cut out for gaming or hardened editing, we're not surprised - that's not what this machine is all about.

A comfortable typing, tracking and touchscreen experience wrapped up in a portable package. Even if the ATIV Book 9 Lite doesn't quite take our breath away in terms of excitement, for the money it's one of the more favourable laptops out there today. Well worth a look.

Don’t you just love hacks? And by that, I mean it to be of the good kind, not the hacks that make life miserable for everyone in the case of identity theft. Well, here we are with word that some folks over at the XDA-Dev forum have had a fun time messing around with the Windows Phone operating system on the Samsung ATIV S, where they managed to introduce the 3 column live tile home screen that happens to chug along pretty nicely on a display that has 720p resolution.

In order to enable a 3 column live tile home screen on your Samsung ATIV S, all you need to do is to go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINES\Software \ Microsoft \ Shell \ OEM \ Start and change ScreenSize to 1, ensuring that the home screen on your Samsung ATIV S would end up looking like the Nokia Lumia 1520 which is on the verge of a release. For additional detail that would be able to shed more light as well as insight into this particular hack, it would bode you well to head on over to the XDA Developers forum.

Oh yeah, I am also quite sure that you might also want to check out the custom ROM for the Samsung ATIV S while you are at it.

Now that Windows 8.1 is rolling out, PC OEMs are updating their line of laptops, and Samsung is coming up with an updated ATIV Book 9 Plus laptop which now comes with Intel’s 4^th Gen Core i7 processor, and of course, Windows 8.1. Samsung will continue to supply the version powered by a Core i5 CPU so the i7 updates aims the most demanding users who may want the extra horse power for video editing. Serious gaming seems a bit out of the question since the 9+ does not have a discrete GPU, but uses Intel’s integrated 4000HD graphics processor instead.

The theoretical battery life number remains unchanged to 7.5 hours (55.5Wh battery), but we will take a closer look into this when we test that laptop for ourselves.

If you are not familiar with the ATIV Book 9 Plus, it was initially launched in London in June 2013 and is designed to be a powerful ultralight 13.3” at 3.06lbs. The light weight is impressive since the touch-screen is supposed to add some weight to the system. The best part of the laptop is its QHD+ touch display (3200×1800) that is rated with a 350nit brightness.

This version has also gets a maximum of 8GB of memory, which is a big deal for anyone working with big files. Photoshop is probably a popular example of memory-hungry app that everybody knows, but there are certainly others. In theory “unused” system memory is actually used to cache a lot of files, so RAM never goes completely unused a system. In terms of storage, the official specs show a 256GB SSD, and that seems to be the only option at this time.

Samsung is going to take pre-orders right away on Samsung.com and says that users will find this product on the shelves in “early November”. The core i7 version starts at $1799.99 while the current i5 one remains at $1399.99 with 128GB of SSD and 4GB of RAM. For more affordable version, the ATIV Book 9 Lite or the Ativ Book 7 may be of interest.

Been waiting for the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus to be available with the Intel Core i7 processor? The company has released the Ultrabook at a price of $1,800 with the aforesaid fourth generation Haswell processor as well as 64-bit Windows 8.1 out of the box.

So for the asking price, you get a 13.3-inch 3200 x 1800p capacitive touchscreen display crowned by a 720p HD webcam. On the inside, there’s the Core i7 4500U we’ve already mentioned, Intel Graphics 4400 graphics, 8GB of RAM and a 256GB SSD.

The Intel chipset can clock in at speeds of up to 3GHz on Turbo Boost and helps the battery keep going for up to 7.5 hours of usage. Samsung’s SideSync technology means you can wirelessly connect a Galaxy device to the Book 9 Plus in order to transfer files and such. Another handy addition is HomeSync Lite which lets you turn the Ultrabook into a sort of cloud storage facility.

Say, you click a picture through a gadget synced to the software, it gets uploaded to the PC’s storage space and can be viewed from any other connected device. The left side of the laptop carries the LAN, microHDMI, USB 3.0 and DC-in ports apart from a 3-in-1 card slot. The right side hosts ports for USB 3.0, headphones/mic and VGA (dongle), besides a security lot.

If your budget doesn’t stretch very much, there’s also a $1,400 version of the laptop which was released before this. It features 64-bit Windows 8, an Intel Core i5 4200U processor, a 13.3-inch 3200 x 1800p touch display, 4GB RAM and 128GB SSD memory. Or, you could go for the $730 Ativ Book 9 Lite. The Plus edition with its Core i7 chip is expected to begin shipping in early November.

Samsung Electronics America, Inc. today announced a new configuration of the ATIV Book 9 Plus, the company's flagship ultra-premium laptop. The new model adds Windows 8.1 and an Intel Core i7 processor to the striking design, QHD+ touchscreen and fast performance that the ATIV Book 9 Plus is known for. The laptop is available for pre-sale now exclusively from Samsung.com for an MSRP of $1799.99 and will hit shelves in early November in time for the Holidays.

ATIV Book 9 Plus Features:

Powerful Performance

The new Book 9 Plus configuration adds the power of Windows 8.1 and an Intel Core i7 processor to the already lightning-fast laptop. The Book 9 Plus wakes up in less than one second and boots from cold in less than six seconds, giving consumers instant access to everything they need. Up to 7.5 hours of battery life (MM12) ensure that users can enjoy the Book 9 Plus on cross-country flights or during a busy business day without needing to find a power source.

Premium Screen Quality

The ATIV Book 9 Plus features an incredibly precise 13.3-inch QHD+ (3200 x 1800) scratch-resistant touch-screen display. The screen is 2.8X sharper than full HD and with 350nit SuperBright technology; users will never miss a detail. The panel also tilts back up to 180-degrees and has viewing angles up to 170°, so users can change or share their perspective with just a touch. Additionally, the display locks at approximately 110-degrees to ensure a comfortable touch experience without wobbling.

Striking Design

The ATIV Book 9 Plus delivers on the iconic design legacy of the award-winning Book 9 with a full aluminum body, slim profile and sleek lines. The Book 9 Plus weighs just over 3 pounds and measures just over a half-inch, despite its powerful internal components. The premium and refined aerodynamic frame is sand-blasted to achieve an elegant matte finish, which is accentuated by a sophisticated Mineral Ash Black color.

Ultimate Mobile Convenience

Samsung SideSync is available on the ATIV Book 9 Plus, enabling users to seamlessly switch from working on their PC to their GALAXY smartphone by simply linking the two devices via a USB cable or even over WiFi. When connected through USB or wirelessly, users can effortlessly work across devices, including responding to a text on a mobile phone from the PC keyboard; viewing maps, photos and multimedia from their phone on their PC screen; making edits to files on their phone via their ATIV PC; and even dragging and dropping files from one unit to another. The result is a more unified experience, fewer interruptions to work and everyday life, and the ability to utilize the best features of both devices.

Availability:

The laptop is now available for pre-sale exclusively from Samsung.com for an MSRP of $1799.99 and will hit shelves in early November. The previous ATIV Book 9 Plus model, which features Windows 8 and an Intel Core i5 processor, will remain available for $1,399.99, offering consumers a choice of features and price points. For more information, please visit www.samsung.com.