Samsung Series 9 NP905S3G User Review
REVIEW SUMMARY
The Samsung NP905S3G Ativ Book 9 Lite is the junior member of the Ativ Book 9 family
(which is the evolution of the Series 9 notebooks). There are four basic versions of the Ativ
Book 9 Lite: With and without touchscreen and either black or white. While it has a similar
appearance to the 13.3” Series 9 models, the Book 9 Lite is made from plastic. The other
distinguishing feature compared to the other members of the family is the use of an AMD
accelerated processing unit (APU) instead of the more common Intel hardware. Samsung
have put a “x4 quad-core sticker” on the palm rest but have not made any explicit reference
to the AMD processor, neither on the box, nor on any sticker, nor in the BIOS). Does this
notebook belong to the Book 9 family? Read on....
Pros
• Non-glare non-touchscreen (a glossy touchscreen version is available for those who
want it)
• Cool and quiet
• Reasonably affordable
• SSD with 10 second startup time.
Cons
• Relatively slow CPU
• Moderate battery capacity
• Needs special dongles for the
network and VGA devices
• Limited potential for hardware
upgrades
BUILD AND DESIGN
The NP905S3G (and the touchscreen NP915S3G) have a similar appearance to the 13.3”
Series 9 notebooks but the NP905S3G is larger in all dimensions with the tapered plastic
edges used to give an impression of thinness. However, it still feels very thin. The overall
feel is that the notebook is reasonably robust. There is some deflection if the notebook is
squeezed but nothing feels flimsy. While it is possible bend the display slightly, this does not
cause ripples on the screen.
Thickness comparison: NP900X3B on left, NP905S3G on right.
The hinges are smooth and firm (in fact, too stiff at the moment) with no hint of wobble. The
label on the box says the colour is “mineral ash black” which, in the real world means very
dark blue. Most surfaces have a matte finish but the display back has an imitation brushed
metal finish under a glossy coating with a shiny “Samsung” logo.
This photo on the scales also shows the “brushed metal” display back
As with many thin-and-light notebooks, there is no official provision for user access to the
inside. I couldn’t resist taking a look inside to see how a computer can be squeezed into so
little space and quickly discovered that not only are there the 11 screws but also plastic clips
around the edge of the base which have to be prised apart.
The inside is dominated by the battery, each side of which is a loudspeaker. The SSD is
hidden under the gold-coloured ribbon cable. There is one fan for the CPU. Two WiFi
antenna cables are connected to the mainboard which indicates that the WiFi is integrated
without a separate card. These two cables disappear into one of the hinges which indicates
that the antennae are in the display and unlikely to suffer the weak WiFi signal problems of
most other members of this family. The various ports, with the exception of the power
socket, appear to be directly mounted onto the mainboard or a secondary board on the other
side of the fan. For what is advertised as a System-on-a-Chip” (SoC), there are a surprising
number of other components on the mainboard. Officially, there’s nothing that can be
upgraded although it should be possible to change the SSD to one of higher capacity.
Ports and Features
As is often the case with thin notebooks, the NP905S3G is not generously endowed with
ports. Altogether there is 1 USB 2.0 port, 1 USB 3.0 port, an audio jack, a gigabit ethernet
port (for which a dongle is provided) a micro-HDMI port and a VGA port (which needs a
special dongle). There is also an SD card slot under a flap on the left side. Even the power
jack uses an unusually small plug. One improvement compared to most other Series 9
notebooks is the provision of a security slot. The ports have slightly greater separation than
on the previous Series 9 models. The photos below show the NP900X3B (on top) for
comparison.
Front side: No ports and just a small recess in the centre to help with opening the display
Back side: The fan exhaust vent between the hinges
Left side, left to right: Power jack, USB 3.0, micro-HDMI and ethernet (via included
dongle). The SD card slot is under a flap in the edge of the base.
Right side, left to right: Mini-VGA (via optional dongle), audio, USB 2.0 and security slot.
Note, however, that an ultrathin security lock will be needed to prevent the lock lifting up the
corner of the computer.
This “slim” lock is too fat
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NP900S3G SCREEN, SPEAKERS, KEYBOARD AND TOUCHPAD
Screen
The display of the NP905S3G does not share the outstanding quality of the other recent
13.3”Series 9 models. It is a standard TN LCD panel (AUO 152C) and while the viewing
angles are good, the display is not in the same league as the IPS / PLS panels used in the
other 13.3” Series 9 notebooks. The resolution is 1366 x 768 which, while providing, by
default, clear and well-sized, text, does not provide the level of detail enabled by higher
resolution displays. The maximum brightness is 250 nits (according to the label on the box)
which is adequate for indoor use but is dim compared with the 400 nit panels on some of the
other Series 9 notebooks.
To demonstrate the difference in display quality I put the NP905S3G between the
NP900X3B and the Lenovo T420s (NP900X3B on left, Lenovo T420s on right) and
compared the viewing angles. For these photos the NP900X3B display was at about 70%
brightness and the other two at full brightness. The superior viewing angles of the
NP900X3B’s PLS panel is very evident and the NP905S3G’s display has similar viewing
angles to the Lenovo T420s, but is slightly brighter.
(Left to right: NP900X3B, NP905S3G, T420s)
Speakers
Samsung have included a reasonably good pair of speakers into the chassis. As can be seen
on the internal photo, these are more than simple loudspeakers. The downward-facing
speakers on the bevelled sides of the computer appear to benefit from the computer being on
a table top so that the sound can be reflected upwards and both audio quantity and quality are
relatively good with a hint of bass.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard appears to be very similar to the other Series 9 / Ativ Book 9 models, but this
one does not include backlighting. However, the bold white lettering on black keys provides
good low-light visibility. As is common for the keyboards on this size of notebook, some
functions are either absent or are accessed using the Fn key. Unlike the NP900X3B, the key
setting indicator lights are in a group next to the power light and not embedded in the keys
themselves.
The Elan touchpad is slightly larger than that in the NP900X3B with the buttons under the
surface of the front part of the pad. One noticeable difference is that the pad in the
NP905S3G appears to be only fixed along the edge nearest the keyboard and feels loose
compared with my other Series 9 notebooks although the use is not impaired. One only needs
to spend a few minutes with one of these big pads to realise that the smaller touchpads in
older notebooks are inconvenient to use in comparison. Most users don’t ever try visiting the
pad control panel, but there are numerous options.
WiFi Performance
While the second generation Series 9 notebooks had better WiFi performance than the first
generation, performance was still below average, probably because of the antennae location
in the metal chassis. The NP905S3G has the antennae mounted in a plastic display and won’t
suffer this potential problem. While the single channel on-board Atheros WiFi is, on paper,
less capable than the dual channel Intel WiFi cards in the other Series 9 notebooks, testing
using Speedtest revealed that it was capable of better throughput within the limit of my
60Mbps internet connection and could connect at reasonable speed at the far end of my house
where the metal Series 9s struggled to hold a connection.
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NP900X3B SPECIFICATIONS, PERFORMANCE AND BENCHMARKS
Specifications
Samsung conveniently provide the key hardware specification on the box label. My
NP905S3G-K02UK contains the following:
However, the label does not tell the full story which is revealed by detailed examination of
the hardware:
• Processor: AMD A6-1450 APU (600 - 1400MHz)
• Chipset: AMD Yangtze
• Screen: 13.3 inch anti-glare 1366 x 768 HD LED Backlit
• Memory: 4GB DDR3-1066 single channel RAM (Samsung, 7-7-8-19 soldered on
board. No SODIMM slot).
• Storage: 128GB SATA 3 mSATA SSD (Samsung PM841 MZMTD128HAFV)
• Optical Drive: None
• Wireless: Atheros AR9565x 802.11bgn (1x1 + Bluetooth 4.0) integrated on board
• Graphics: AMD HD 8250 (integrated into APU)
• UK 81 key island type keyboard
• Elan touchpad (101mm x 67mm (4.0” x 2.6”)
• Web camera and microphone (at display top)
• Battery: 7.5V 30Wh 2-cell
• 40W PSU
• Windows 8 64-bit
• Dimensions: 324 x 224 x 17mm (including rubber pads about 1.5mm thick) or 12.8"
x 8.8" x 0.67"
• Notebook weight: 1.43kg / 3.15 lbs
• Travel weight: 1.75kg / 3.86 lbs (with Samsung 40W PSU and 1m UK mains cable)
The clue that reveals that the unnamed quad-core processor is the A6-1450 processor from
the AMD “Kabini” family is the graphics information:
The APU (combined CPU and GPU) has a power rating of 8W, which is in the power range
of the netbook CPUs, while including 128 graphics shader cores, memory controller and
other functions.
A colourful BIOS configuration screen
PERFORMANCE AND BENCHMARKS
The Samsung NP905S3G has adequate performance for everyday usage. What is particularly
noticeable is the reasonably fast bootup (13 seconds from pressing the start button to getting
the screen full of tiles. The SSD will be a major contributory factor for this.
wPrime CPU Benchmark
The wPrime benchmark shows that the raw CPU performance lags behind the Intel Core i
series CPUs. While the CPU may have 4 cores, they have a maximum speed of 1.4GHz (or
1.2GHz if all are fully loaded). However, one can’t expect miracles from an 8W processor.
The longer bars are for the single core operation. The actual performance per core for the
AMD CPU is similar to an Intel CPU running at the same speed. While the Intel CPUs have
hyperthreading which enables one core to run two threads, the performance boost is not the
same as having more cores. However, having more cores (or hyperthreading) to share the
work only helps when the work can be split between them. Any single-threaded program will
run at the single core speed.
PCMark Vantage
The PCMark Vantage benchmark measures overall system performance. The NP905S3G’s
performance in this benchmark is mid-range with the SSD offsetting the slow CPU to match
the overall score of the Dell E6410 with an i5-540M CPU and an HDD. I had hoped to get a
comparative score for a netbook, but the benchmark wouldn’t run.
PC Mark7
PCMark 7 is a newer benchmark to measure overall system performance. The NP905S3G
sits mid-way between the Toshiba R700 and the Samsung NP900X3B.
3DMark06
3DMark06 measures gaming graphics performance. While there is the newer and more
demanding 3DMark graphics benchmarks, this older benchmark is more appropriate for
ultrabooks with their less powerful capabilities. While the NP905S3G is behind the Intel-
powered Series 9s, it is comfortably ahead of not only the Intel graphics in the Dell E6410
and E6400 but also the ATI X1700 GPU in the old Samsung X60plus.
3DMark11
For those who wonder how the AMD 8250 GPU fares in this newer benchmark, the answer
is P477.
SSD Performance
Samsung installed the PM841 128GB mSATA SSD. However, this SSD has much lower
sequential write performance than higher capacity members of the family and, on that
parameter, looks worse than the Sandisk U100 shipped in my NP900X3B. However, the
PM841pulls ahead of the U100 in all the other tests and is more than adequate for this
notebook.
I should also mention the SD card slot since some people consider the option of using this to
supplement the relatively small SSD capacity. The slot has a Realtek controller and
CrystalDiskMark shows the sequential read speed for a class 10 SDHC card as 27MB/s
which is nearly 50% faster than the 19MB/s for the same card when tested in the older Series
9 notebooks. A card in the NP905S3G’s slot also protrudes less than with the older Series 9s
so there is less risk of damage if a card is left in the slot.
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NP905S3G HEAT, NOISE AND BATTERY LIFE,
Heat and Noise
This notebook is neither hot nor noisy. Having a CPU / GPU with an 8W design power and a
cooling fan that looks similar to that on the other members of the family with more powerful
CPUs means that there is never much heat to be dissipated and this can be dissipated by the
fan running slowly. This can have its advantages: I was annoyed by how hot and noisy my
NP900X4C was when given the task of ripping a DVD so I passed the job over to the
NP905S3G. It took twice as long but without any obvious heat or noise.
The maximum CPU temperature recorded by HWiNFO during the above benchmarking is a
relatively tepid 66°C. My infra-red thermometer reported 39°C on the middle back of the
bottom. That won’t feel uncomfortable to users. The fan remains inaudible even under heavy
usage (but putting my ear next to the keyboard revealed that it is running).
Battery Life
A 30Watt-hour battery is small compared to most ultrabooks. How does it cope? The answer
is surprisingly well due to the frugal processor. I carried out two tests: (i) It ran for 5 hours
watching an mp4 video stored on the computer at 70% display brightness (enough for the
same video 3 times!). The typical power drain was 5.5W. Test (ii) was refreshing a web page
every 30 seconds with the display on ¼ brightness. I got bored observing this test during
which 3 hours dropped the battery from 85% to 41%. This extrapolates to 6½ hours run time
under frugal operation. That’s long enough for intermittent use during a day but 50% more
battery capacity would be needed to avoid carrying the power supply as backup.
Samsung have dropped the 3 year battery life claim with the introduction of the new Ativ
Book family (perhaps they realised that they were open to claims for replacement batteries
outside of the normal warranty period). Surprisingly, they have also dropped the Battery Life
Extender facility which reduced battery wear by limiting the charge to 80%.
CONCLUSIONS
What were Samsung thinking of when they designed this notebook? Perhaps it is aimed at
those who desire portability, ease of use and modest computing power while wanting
something bigger than a tablet with a keyboard, all at a reasonable price. Anyone upgrading
from a netbook to this model would appreciate the larger screen and much better
responsiveness. Samsung have also catered for both those who want a touchscreen notebook
and for those who don’t. They could well be watching the sales statistics with interest given
Intel’s view that touchscreen is the only way forward for the smaller notebooks.
Why did Samsung use such a low-rated CPU and not a faster member of AMD’s Kabini
family such as the 15W A4-5000? The cooling system could easily handle the extra heat.
Perhaps the power efficiency would suffer. However, in its present form, this notebook is
ideal for anyone who wants a quiet notebook.
Does the Book 9 Lite deserve to be a member of the Book 9 family? Not really. In size and
display quality it has a close resemblance to the Series 5 NP530U3C. Had Samsung opted to
provide the Book 9 Lite with the high quality PLS display that is now superseded by the
FHD panels then it would be a worthy member of the Book 9 family in spite of the relatively
slow CPU. On current pricing the Book 9 Lite is unlikely to sell in the numbers that it
deserves and I can’t give it a good value for money rating.
Individual Ratings:
Software & Support
Upgrade Capabilities
Usability
Design
Display
Performance
Features
Price/Value Rating
