Samsung Notebook 9 Pro review: This versatile portable 15 inches makes some compromises

You buy a large, heavy notebook of 15.6 inches, so you can get the real work done faster, which means stout quad-core processor and discrete graphics.The Samsung Notebook 9 Pro packages in those, then adds the perfect 4K Ultra HD touchscreen and 10 Gbps USB 3.1 port for connection type C. Price $ 1,500 MSRP (you can buy at Best Buy), the price is the same as laptops that have fewer opportunities, competing technology. It's a hell of a deal.

Room to work

Notebook Pro 9 has the classic look of Samsung laptop with a black anodized aluminum housing and polished aluminum accents. At 4.5 pounds, this 15.6-inch laptop looks solid, but a bit slippery, too, you'll need to keep a good grip on it. Our review unit was also excessively rigid hinge that I had to set in motion to achieve a maximum viewing angle of 140 degrees, which made their discovery during the most dangerous walk.While the laptop is 9 Pro is great at 14.75 x 9.75 inches, it's also surprisingly thin. I measured the spots on the body ranged from 17 mm to 18 mm, similar to the perimeter of the Apple 2014 vintage MacBook Pro 15 Dell XPS 15 is not so great or so deep, but it is thicker than 19 mm to 20


More impressive is the attractive display of this laptop. Samsung did not provide detailed specifications, but it is the company itself. You get a 4K Ultra HD (3840x2160) 15.6-inch panel with a touch of 10 full points. very light anti-glare coating reduces reflections. The screen is designed to 350 nits, but I measured it a little more than about 380 nits dead in our device. Backlighting is even more than his contemporaries as Dell XPS 15 and HP Spectre x360 15T. Backlit keys makes use of PWM, which strobes decreases the brightness of the backlight for those who are sensitive to fluctuations in the screen at low brightness levels.Samsung also includes some graphic-configuration utility, such as HDR (High Dynamic Range). The HDR probably exaggerates the effect, but it helps the shadows without blowing highlights in images.It must be said that while the high-resolution images look thanks resolution much sharper the panel 4K UHD instead of 1920x1080 cost-conscious screen, you really need to get close to the screen to see it. However, the screen size and resolution make it ideal for working with spreadsheets and other situations when you need to see a lot of items on the screen.

Ports

 

Laptop 9 Pro has a full size HDMI port, an entry for headset combined, three USB 3.0 Type A ports, a Kensington lock port and USB 3.1 Type C. From what I can tell, the port is USB-C is full 10Gbps USB 3.1, but its application is strange. In most laptops with a USB type C, you have a USB 3.1 full-speed 10Gbps or slower 5Gbps (sometimes also called USB 3.0) -or you get 3.0 Thunderbolt port, which also supports 10 Gbps USB 3.1. In this notebook, Samsung uses Intel Thunderbolt controller from 3, but includes only USB support.
 Why the company will do this, I'm not sure. If lazy Samsung integrate more expensive Intel Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt controller 3, why not give us full?You receive at least USB 3.1 data transfer rate of 10 Gbit in the end though. Using a USB SanDisk Extreme memory 900, I measured data transmission rate in the range of 600 Mbps to read and write through the door. This was slightly lower than 700MBps I've seen in other notebooks with the full implementation of Thunderbolt 3, but it is definitely better than being stuck at 400 Mbps USB 3.0 only for laptops. 

Under the hood

Inside the notebook 9 Pro is an Intel Core i7-6700HQ quad-core, graphics GeForce GTX 950M with 2GB GDDR5 with Lite-On M2 SATA SSD and 8GB DDR3 memory / RAM 1866 in two SO-DIMM slots. This last option is the head scratcher, because most of the competition moved to DDR4 Skylake for large laptops. But at the same time in a generation memory technology looks bad on paper, when you are actually comparing DDR4 / 2133 compared with DDR3 / 1866, there is little difference in substance during use.Even regarding the performance fanatics is the choice of unit M2 SATA. Typical units M2 through a PCIe interface to hit 1.5Gbps reading speed compared to 548MBps I saw the Lite-On SSD Notebook 9 Pro. Speed ​​writing are fairly equal, while (at least according to Crystal Disk Mark 5.1.2 ) at a rate in the range of 300 Mbps.

Performance

Most people assume that the same part of the notebook gives the same performance as notebook B. However, the performance of music producers based on many factors, including the amount of heat a given system will tolerate, and the maximum temperature is allowed to get to the laptop.This part, in the final analysis stickiest notebook 9 Pro. Yes, it would be easy to crush the hollow skulls of any dual-core notebook, but being a great quad-machine means that it actually competes with other quad-core laptops. As you will see, can not quite equal to trade blows with them.First Maxon Cinebench R15 that. This 3D rendering test is a test processor, which thrives on the processing cores. 9 Notebook Pro is easy to say goodbye to dual cores, including the vaunted Microsoft Surface Book. The problem is the difference between the Samsung Notebook 9 Pro software (formerly known as the Book 9 Pro and still identified in our schedule) and the Dell XPS 15. Both use the same Intel Core i7 processor, but the performance is slower on Samsung for because of their lower frequencies. 

The good news for laptops Pro 9 is that the clock speed a bit slower not add up to much in the long workloads. Our Handbrake 0.9.9 transcodes test 1920x1080 with 30GB MKV in a lower resolution, using the MP4 profile Android tablets. The dual-core laptop, this test takes several hours, but the quad-core to make quick work of it, including 9 Pro laptop with its low frequency global clock. Dell XPS 15 even faster, though.

The real problem is the graphics performance. Notebook Pro 9 has the Nvidia GeForce GTX 950M discrete graphics chips in it. On paper, it's not unlike the GeForce GTX 960m, Dell uses in its XPS 15. Both have the same memory capacity and the number of CUDA cores. a GTX clock frequency 960m is also about 20 percent faster. The difference in performance, however, close to 25 percent.

Apparently, Samsung has decided to keep the fan noise on a laptop 9 Pro as unobtrusive as possible. Under load graphics, the XPS 15 fans get loud. 9 Pro notebooks do, but just know that this is a consequence of occasional stuttering in the GPU, which is already slower than the Dell from the get go.

This is not related to the type of memory used. GeForce GTX 950M comes with the ability to use much slower DDR3 or GDDR5 RAM is much faster, but Samsung intelligently choose the latter.

So why are more performance drop than expected in? I decided to push two laptops with the load of heavy graphics, and I found that the laptop 9 Pro significantly supported in performance after a few minutes of use. I did this by performing the FurMark torture test during monitoring GPU clock frequencies. When the heat, it would fall from 800MHz to 405MHz. In the end, the notebook 9 Pro will operate at frequencies of up to 700 MHz clock back, but it's kind of a little concerned about the Dropoff. Dell XPS 15, in comparison, would largely sit at the base of its rated speed to 1096MHz hours without any changes.

Battery Life

When you add up the screen energy costs touch 4K Ultra HD and quad-core chip with discrete graphics, you're not going to get a laptop that will play movies during the flight from Dubai to Panama. No wonder: Notebook Pro 9 has a short battery life of about 260 minutes of video playback. This is probably the smallest we've seen from the laptop, but did not expect a long-term with this much hardware.

I think that Samsung should consider a larger battery though. Dell offers a lot more battery 84 watt-hour of renovation in some assemblies XPS 15 and MacBook Pro 15 uses giant Apple's 99-watt-hour battery. Laptop Battery 9 Pro is too small to make a lot of hardware, and it shows.

Keyboard, trackpad, and speakers

The keyboard is spacious, with no apparent problems or design layout. I'll tell you typing speed, it feels hard when the keys have reached the bottom, but the keyboard is a subjective matter. It is more important that the keys are not established any breach of agreement, annoying way, and Samsung makes no mistakes here.

The trackpad is a standard piano hinge design, which is becoming increasingly difficult to push near the top. I would prefer that it feels soft under your fingertips as the book's surface, but it is a good device, otherwise.

As the quality of the screen and backlight evenness, 9 Notebook Pro also gets a nod for being the best speakers. audio output of the XPS 15 and MacBook Pro 15 decent, but the notebook 9 Pro provides a little more volume and has a full mid-range and low frequencies than others.

Price and Conclusi

As mentioned earlier, one of the areas where the price is dominated by Samsung. Basic Dell XPS 15 with 8GB of RAM and 256GB SSD will set you back $ 1,500 for the same amount, the notebook 9 Pro gives you 4K panel and touch capabilities. In order to get the same type of screen on the Dell, you'll have to shell out about $ 2,000 Dell It really gives you 16 GB DDR4 RAM, a PCIe SSD, bigger battery and a faster GPU. You still another $ 500, though.

Overall, the Pro design Samsung Notebook 9, it seems, as a compromise, perhaps a little too much. It basically does everything well, but does not really excel in any one thing. The end result is that this notebook can not stand out as a 15-inch model to be, despite its bells and whistles.