CES: Hands-on with Samsung 9 Series
Samsung 9 Series laptop front view
Taking on the recently launched and undeniably svelte Apple MacBook Air will be no mean feat, but Samsung thinks it has a worthy contender on its hands with its new 9 Series laptop — announced at CES 2011 in Las Vegas on Wednesday — which measures just 16.25mm.
The chassis is constructed from a material known as Duralumin, which Samsung says offers a quality that is twice as durable as aluminium. It also helps to keep the device's weight down, meaning it weighs in at just 1.3kg.
Samsung 9 Series laptop lid view
The 9 Series has a 13.3-inch, 1,366 by 768-pixel backlit LED SuperBright Plus display, which the company says has 400 nits — a measure of luminous intensity — of brightness.
Powering the laptop is an Intel Core i5 2537M processor and Intel HD graphics.
Samsung says that the lithium polymer battery should last up to 6.5 hours. The 9 Series also includes options such as 'Battery Life Extender Mode' and 'Express Charging Mode' allowing the user to control the charging cycle.
Samsung 9 Series laptop side view
The slim chassis has flaps on each side that conceal the ever-important ports, such as USB, an HDMI-out and audio sockets.
Storage on the 9 Series laptop maxes out with a 128GB solid-state drive (SSD), but SSDs often come at a premium — in this case taking the base level starting price for the 9 Series to $1,599 (£1,032).
Samsung 9 Series laptops are due to hit the shops in February.