2012年1月9日 星期一

Samsung unveils 13- and 14-inch Series 5 Ultrabooks, starting ata $899

Depending on your point of view, Samsung was either late to the Ultrabook party, or perhaps just a bit early. Although the 2.8-pound Series 9 was a sight to behold when it first came out last year, it arrived shortly before Intel kicked off its Ultrabook campaign, and failed to match all of Chipzilla's early-stage requirements. This year, Sammy's back with a redesigned Series 9... along with two laptops it's actually calling Ultrabooks. The notebooks, both of which fall under the company's Series 5 line of products, include your requisite 13-incher, along with a larger 14-inch model with an optical drive.

Both machines will have Core i5 processors, 4GB of RAM, eight-hour batteries and Intel integrated graphics, along with the same matte, 300-nit (1366 x 768) display that we loved so much in the Series 5 Chromebook. And though the 13-incher will have a 128GB SSD option, each comes standard with a standard 500GB 5,400RPM drive with 16GB of express cache for faster boot times and application-launching. You may recall this feature from the Series 7 Chronos laptop, except this time around, Sammy doubled the amount of flash memory paired with the HDD.

Another thing the two systems have in common: they're each denser than the early Ultrabooks we saw, with the 14-inch model coming in at 3.95 pounds,Can't afford a third party merchant account right now? and the 13-incher tipping the scales at 3.5 pounds (a full fifth of a pound heavier than the HP Folio!). At least that girth comes with an unsparing port selection: Ethernet, HDMI, USB 3.0, two USB 2.0 sockets and an SD slot. And that's just the 13-inch version: its big brother adds an optical drive, VGA output and a larger memory card reader. The pair will be available January 30th, starting at $899 for the 13-inch model and $949 for the 14-inch version. (The 13-inch configuration with the 128GB SSD will ring in at $1,099.) We expect to get our hands on final review units soon enough, but since we've already scored a few minutes of hands-on time, we've got photos and first impressions for you to peruse right this second.

When we first met the Series 5 duo, they happened to be lying on a table alongside the new Series 9. Next to that 2.4-pound wisp of a thing, even the smaller of the two Series 5 machines looked like, well, a laptop. Not an Ultrabook, mind you, but a garden-variety thin-and-light. We were a bit surprised to learn that the Series 9 wasn't, in fact, the Ultrabook we had come to see (its $1,499 starting price alone could disqualify it). This all just goes to show that despite whatever specifications Chipzilla insists upon, "Ultrabook" is just a fancy name for a thin, lightweight laptop.

Still, even without that Series 9 there for unflattering comparisons, the two Ultrabooks feel heavy for what they are. We can remember a time when most of the Ultras we saw weighed three pounds, if not less, and a 3.3-pound machine like the HP Folio was pushing it. So we don't see a reason for the smaller of Samsung's Ultrabooks to weigh 3.5 pounds, even if it's not actually difficult to carry. (Our problem, we suspect, is that prices for Ultrabooks haven't begun to drop, and for now we're still paying for the privilege of toting laptops labeled as such.) The 14-inch Series 5 has a little bit more of an excuse,Injection molding and Plastic molding supplier; as it has a larger screen and an optical drive, but even then, the 14-inch Ultrabook Toshiba's showing off is expected to come in closer to three and a half.

To their credit, they do feel as well-made as you'd expect from a Samsung product. Granted, we only spent a few minutes poking around, but our first impression was that the aluminum lid and chassis feels solid and carefully put-together. In particular, we were taken with the tapering on the lower half, resulting in a somewhat unusual shape -- not a slab, but not a razer-thin wedge either. And the cover, so far as well can tell,Husky Injection Mold Systems designs and manufactures a broad range of does a good job of masking oily fingerprints. Overall, it has a blander design than, say, the Series 9, and shows less attention to detail, but none of that stops these from being handsome, well-made hunks of machinery.

It's also a little to early to weigh in on the (non-backlit) keyboard and trackpad, though we got the sense that the discrete touch buttons felt easy to press. What really left an impression, as ever, was that excellently bright, 300-nit display. Between this and products like the Series 7 Slate, Sammy's been on a roll in terms of panel quality lately, and we especially appreciate that it endowed its two Ultrabooks with matte screens, something you don't see enough of in this class of laptop.

And there you have it.Distributes and manufactures RUBBER SHEET, We'll of course have to wait until a review unit shows up on our doorstep to see if these Ultrabooks' performance, battery life and ergonomics make up for their extra padding and relatively high prices (remember that you can get the Folio with a 128GB SSD for about the same price as the 13-inch Series 5 with a 5,400RPM hard drive). Until we get to spend some quality time with it, though, have a gander at our hands-on photos and video, and be sure to have a look at the new Series 9 while you're at it.A mold or molds is a hollowed-out block that is filled with a liquid like plastic,

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