SAMSUNG Series 9 900X3A-A03 Notebook Intel Core i5 2537M(1.40GHz) 13.3" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 128GB SSD HDD Intel HD Graphics 3000

Pros: lightweight, fast, stable.

Cons: none.

Other Thoughts: TURN OFF THE "SAMSUNG POWER SAVER" feature and use windows "performance" or "balanced" feature. There's a bug in samsungs software that slows down the cycles for wifi causing you to have low wifi strength or losing your wi-fi signal.

Pros: lite, sleep, pretty, fast booting

Cons: WIFI CARD IS USELESS, Samsung Support is aloof and not having any service centers, you half to send it in for service for 2-3 weeks. Bought it a week ago and wish I hadn't. Not sure new egg would take a return on it though.

Also, the ports are all obscure micro ones, like the Micro HMDI, which samsung sells and micro hdmi to VGA converter for (no its not included!)

Overall the computer isnt terrible but I would highly recommend staying away from it unless you get it from a place with a great return policy and dont mind waitng weeks for repairs if anything happens.

Other Thoughts: AVOID

Pros: Outstanding screen on full brightness. In a retial store it and the MacBook Pros are obviously the only good screens of laptops on display. It would seem like someone else would try to compete.

Fast CPU for the power. Can handle Photoshop and a tablet without blinking.

semi-good battery life. ~3-4 hours with WiFi on and screen cranked up.

Very light, very sturdy.

The touchpad has taken me some effort to get used to, but works well.

Cons: Besides the light sensor automatically changing the brightness (easy to disable) Intel built into the HD3000 driver that the brightness will be turned up over several seconds as there is more bright colors on the screen and darkened as the colors darken. The result of this is that while web browsing or watching a video, the screen brightness is constantly changing. New Intel drivers will not install and Samsung's latest cannot disable this. I have confirmed that Lenovo and Toshiba Sandy Bridge laptops also have this problem.

The HD 3000 seems to have more trouble getting depth-check calculations correct than any other 3D accellerator.

There is something that is making video playback very difficult. It often skips. Since the CPU is barely trying, it seems to be a problem in the video controller.

WiFi seems to be very short range. The connection drops to half speed at a range of only 15 ft.

Other Thoughts: It is strange that I cannot find mention of any of the Sandy Bridge video problems in official reviews, but they're all over the forums. The screen brightness issue seems to be a common complaint. For software mode video playback, the old GMA950 seems to do better than the HD3000.

In the end, I would probably been happier with the same laptop with an E-350 inside. Much better video driver support, but Photoshop would lag a bit.

Pros: Really nice design, light-weight laptop with good heat dissipation.

Cons: WIFI is the worst ever. Due to the material used in the casing of the laptop as soon as you step away from the router (5-7 feet) signal quality starts dropping. If you have a somewhat large room/house you will get no signal at the other end of the house while all other devices including cell phones get 90% signal strength.

Other Thoughts: Returned it after 1 week. Unfortunately there is no fix to the WIFI. Other than that it is a good laptop!

Pros: Really sleek, really light, really thin. The stylings aren't like Apple, but this is very much the MacBook Air of PC's. I've never liked the design so much of any laptop I've owned.

Cons: The power cord connection to the PC is very small, so there is a bit of worry about wear. I don't think it will be an issue.

The computer comes with a bunch of software like Norton that one probably doesn't want.

Other Thoughts: The software is good, Samsung did well with their F-key options.

I do have some (very very minor) issues:
- The touchpad sometimes has trouble recognizing an 'outward pinch' to unzoom. Zooming works well every time, but it's hard to unzoom. This is a shame since I zoom/unzoom so often.
- The touchpad sometimes has trouble recognizing the four-finger upward or downward motions. This is much less rare than the pervious unzoom issue, however.
- Upon startup, it seems to take a few seconds for the hotkey software to kick in. This is an issue only because the buttons seem to be software-driven (as opposed to having a software indicator of the hardware status). Not a huge deal though.