Samsung NP915S3G-K02US Pro Reviews

I started off liking the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Lite. Its plastic casing didn't bother me as I appreciated its light weight and slim form factor, carrying it around a lot and rarely running out of juice. The graphics performance was also pleasing, on the whole. Even the vague suggestion that this laptop could be running a tablet chip didn't appear to be an encumbrance. Yes, I was prepared to be quite forgiving as I spent most of my time with it presuming it cost £400, which even then seemed a bit on the high side. It was only later I discovered its £500 pricetag, which rather took the shine off things for me. Surely, if you're touting a product as a Lite model, it really should be light on the wallet too – and especially so if you've something to hide.

The Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite entry-level DTR laptop has a great looking design, but with mediocre performance, it's all sizzle, no steak.

The Ativ Book 9 Lite is a good notebook if you also own a mobile Samsung device and intend to use the two together; otherwise, it's just average.

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.

There’s a lot to like about the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite. It’s relatively thin and light, offers decent day-to-day performance, and up to 6 hours of battery life. If it weren’t for the fact that I spent $800 on my Series 9 notebook a year ago and got a model that’s thinner, lighter, and faster, it’d be a lot easier to recommend the ATIV Book 9 Lite. As it stands, this laptop just doesn’t seem to offer the kind of performance you’d expect from an $800 notebook.Fortunately, you can already find stores selling the ATIV Book 9 Lite for much lower prices, and as the price starts to inch closer to $600, it’ll be a lot easier to recommend this as a portable, inexpensive alternative to an ultrabook. But as things stand, there are too many other portable notebooks that offer better performance and similar or longer battery life at much lower prices.

Samsung's Ativ Book 9 Lite is only around one-third the price of the Plus model. This means a plastic chassis and cheap screen and processor, while keeping an impressively thin and light form factor. Component downgrades mean this laptop is no powerhouse but it does the job well and few laptops at this price are so thin and light.

Overall, despite a first-class keyboard and touch pad, a sleek design, and booming speakers, the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite disappoints in the most key regard—everyday use. The torpid performance delivered by its AMD processor makes even basic tasks frustrating.Even if you have to spend $100 or $200 more, we consider it worthwhile to opt for a Core i3 or Core i5 touch ultrabook. (At this end-of-September writing, Lenovo was offering a Core i7 version of the IdeaPad U310 Touch for $799.) The Lite may trick onlookers into thinking you bought the ritzy ATIV Book 9 Plus, but appearances can be deceiving.

It isn't such a great thing to sacrifice battery life and performance for a few hundred dollars in savings. You may not even have to spend that much more: laptops like certain configurations of the Toshiba Portege cost about the same. Yes, some of our favorite ultrabooks cost closer to $1,000. Honestly, you'd be better off spending a little extra. For an everyday, solid computing experience in a stylish, thin body, the Ativ Book 9 Lite will do well enough. I just wouldn't want to buy one, especially with so many new laptops coming out and so many discounted models floating around online. It's nothing special in the world of Windows 8 touch laptops...which is a shame, because so many recent Samsung ultrabooks are.

A budget laptop disguised as a premium machine, the lack of an Intel Core processor and second-rate hardware makes this laptop hard to recommend.

Samsung’s ATIV Book 9 Lite is an interesting, but failed, experiment. There are many things that we like about it; the keyboard is easy to love, the chassis is slim, and build quality is good for the price. If the Lite sold with a fourth-gen Intel Haswell processor, even a slow one, it’d be a serious contender in the budget Ultrabook market. Instead, the Lite is saddled with an AMD quad-core that provides netbook-grade performance, yet also can’t match the idle battery life provided by most Haswell competitors. This ruins the value of the Lite, not because the system is unusable (though it can, at times, feel very slow) but instead because there are so many faster, better alternatives. The Lenovo Yoga 13, Acer Aspire M5, and Asus Zenbook can be had for the same price, or less, and they make the Lite look far too expensive. If Samsung drastically cuts the price, or upgrades the battery, this laptop might find a niche for itself as an affordable, yet extremely slim, Ultrabook alternative. We recommend that buyers stick with Intel-powered competitors until then.