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.
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".
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.
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
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.
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 :(
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.
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.
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..)
It's a taste thing. My day job is working on a big android distro, and it's too hard to manage dealing with multiple build boxes with remote work. So I bought a quad-core laptop (Vaio Z, sadly just recently discontinued) and love it. The box itself is ultrabook-sized, but Sony makes an extra batter that clips right on the bottom, adding some weight but getting back the battery life you lose with the bigger CPU. I find I actually prefer the laptop with the extra battery attached.
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.
"Same shit as everyone else." I bet around about, oh, November, we'll see real panels, and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if the Windows integrators have been holding out until people are starved for better resolutions. 300PPI starting coming out, what, almost 2 years ago? It's a Christmas racket.
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.
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?
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.
Such a device would necessarily need to make some engineering compromises (thermal and layout issues). It would also have a tiny market. As such, the price would also be rather high.
For example this is pretty much what the Vaio Z was. A very thin and light (17mm, 1.15kg) laptop with a high-res screen (1920*1080), a real CPU (up to quad core mobile i7, not a ULV chip), and a 7670M GPU.
There were just two catches: the GPU was housed in the (tiny) external docking station, and the laptop + dock cost something like $3000. Unsurprisingly, it looks like Sony killed the whole external GPU concept in this years refresh.
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.
depending on what you need for game dev there are a couple, but they are bulky thats right. But its also necessary i guess because they need to have proper cooling.
I have been game developing on a 2011 macbook pro (unity3d engine) for some time and ditched it fairly quickly because the constant fan noise was just unbearable for me and my co-workers.
I guess bulk isn't too much of a problem, I'd just at least like a nice interface (keyboard, touchpad, screen). All the gaming laptops I can find fall short in that regard.
what about HPs Elitebooks, Lenovo W Series or Dells Latitude/Precision ? They are pricey but offer alot of performance, good cooling and decent GPU options.
Also the new Macbook Pros (Retina) should be alot less noisy because of some special fan design (see Reviews and youtube).
And battery life :) I know I cannot expect top battery life in this case, but I would like something more than the abismal stuff they sell now. I guess the game dev niche is too small to cater too for laptop makers. And probably too hard as well; you need to do everything even better (not just different) than normal dev laptops.
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.
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?
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).
Thanks for linking that - that's an amazing machine for the quoted price. I really wish Lenovo made something like this with a Thinkpad-style keyboard and pointer. Everything else seems perfect, assuming battery life and decent build quality.
Two hard drives is a little misleading - it's a tiny mSATA drive slot plus a regular SATA slot.
Battery life is about the least meaningful spec there is, and it's insanely difficult to calculate. That and it's a small company so I'd imagine that'll just open up liability.
They do list the battery as 53.28Wh however. Let's do some back-of-the-envelope.
At 2.0GHz the 4750HQ TDP is 47W. Chipset TDP is 2.7W. SSDs are damn near negligible (typically a few mW idle, less than 1W when active, but they sleep/wake very very fast so they're mostly always idle). I couldn't find a datasheet on their panel, so I'm going to guess the display consumes around 5W at full brightness. RAM maxed out will cost around 3-6W.
Assuming awful power management (or just running the thing full bore), you're looking at a worst case of somewhere around 45m to 1h. Assuming decent power management (5W idle with screen on at less than full brightness) and occasional spikes due to light use you're looking at 8-10h, or 6-8h just to be safe if I was way off about the display. If you're really worried about it, the extra battery is very well priced at $95.
Edit: Nevermind - see a comment above that lists 3-4h of battery life.
I realize that the estimates aren't hard numbers, but if (e.g.) Apple estimates that the MacBook Air has 11 hours of battery life, I expect not to generally get 1 hour of battery life.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
Yeah, I have a working touchscreen in Linux and it doesn't seem to actually be good for anything. Well, maybe it has made me become a bit more careful about touching my screen, lest my window lose focus or something...
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.
Same here. Been a looking time Thinkpad used. I was planning to get one of them Retina MBPs when they are updated and released later this year. I am still waiting too see what Lenovo will offer that can replace my aging Thinkpad W500.
I've been wanting these awesome screens for a while now.
Lenovo is still selling higher end netbooks with 1024x768 screens. This resolution is from 1998!
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.
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.
They may have patented it, but that doesn't prevent others from innovating along a similar path. I am pretty disappointed with non-Apple power adapters across the board, and while magnetic adapters may seem great, there must be something that is between standard DC cylindrical male->female or chunky rubberized proprietary plug and MagSafe and I just don't see that from anyone else.
Granted, I am not looking very much, but when I see a new hot system, I do consider it, and I haven't seen anything that caught my eye :/
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.
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.
Windows doesn't support vector art for its UI elements. So aside from a few crude scaling options, as DPI goes up, the size of widgets, fonts, icons, etc go down. The surface pro draws complaints because the UI elements are too small to hit with the mouse easily. This is going to be far worse. It will be interesting to see how the reviews go with it.
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.
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
I'm also a Thinkpad fan and the displays really disappoint me. With my most recent purchase I had to switch from 15" to 14" because the changes to 16:9 and humungous bezels would have made the 15" too large. Thankfully they haven't started using glossy screens which would be the final straw. I look at a lot of text (yes in Linux) so resolution matters.
My desktop has two 1920x1200 displays. I think I got amongst the last monitors sold as 16:10.
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.
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.
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.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 77.4 ms ] threadI 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.
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.
.. but so far only announced availability in Japan.
The ubiquity of 1366 panels -- even in 15.6 notebooks! -- is beyond frustrating to me.
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?
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.
For example this is pretty much what the Vaio Z was. A very thin and light (17mm, 1.15kg) laptop with a high-res screen (1920*1080), a real CPU (up to quad core mobile i7, not a ULV chip), and a 7670M GPU.
There were just two catches: the GPU was housed in the (tiny) external docking station, and the laptop + dock cost something like $3000. Unsurprisingly, it looks like Sony killed the whole external GPU concept in this years refresh.
But the great thing is they have that indie developer discount! I think I can get one for like $1000.
I have been game developing on a 2011 macbook pro (unity3d engine) for some time and ditched it fairly quickly because the constant fan noise was just unbearable for me and my co-workers.
https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/galu1
Two hard drives is a little misleading - it's a tiny mSATA drive slot plus a regular SATA slot.
They do list the battery as 53.28Wh however. Let's do some back-of-the-envelope.
At 2.0GHz the 4750HQ TDP is 47W. Chipset TDP is 2.7W. SSDs are damn near negligible (typically a few mW idle, less than 1W when active, but they sleep/wake very very fast so they're mostly always idle). I couldn't find a datasheet on their panel, so I'm going to guess the display consumes around 5W at full brightness. RAM maxed out will cost around 3-6W.
Assuming awful power management (or just running the thing full bore), you're looking at a worst case of somewhere around 45m to 1h. Assuming decent power management (5W idle with screen on at less than full brightness) and occasional spikes due to light use you're looking at 8-10h, or 6-8h just to be safe if I was way off about the display. If you're really worried about it, the extra battery is very well priced at $95.
Edit: Nevermind - see a comment above that lists 3-4h of battery life.
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?
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.
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.
They also don't license it, which is why you don't see it anywhere else.
Granted, I am not looking very much, but when I see a new hot system, I do consider it, and I haven't seen anything that caught my eye :/
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.
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.
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
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.
My desktop has two 1920x1200 displays. I think I got amongst the last monitors sold as 16:10.
... and where is my 27" 270+ DPI desktop display?
It's not like you require much investment. You can buy pieces from everywhere.
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.