Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite

While most people are getting hyped over tablets and smartphones, Samsung released another few ultrabook model alongside few months back which I bet not many of you notice. There were basically 3 new model released namely ATIV Book 9 LITE, ATIV Book 9 LITE (with touchscreen), and ATIV Book 9 Plus. With the release of similar model of ultrabook is to cater to all range of consume as they are price from RM1999. 

I manage to play with the very basic model ATIV Book 9 Lite and on the very first glance it does look classy and solid. Like every ultrabook, you can expect that several common component slot will be missing like DVD ROM, the multiple USB slot, and etc.

The display although it was only 13.3" HD LED Display (1366 x 768) Anti-Reflective, it was good enough for me, probably I wasn't into gaming and graphics. But a snippet above does satisfy me for typical daily usage. The lower pixel can be justify with its entry level range pricing so you'll have to know what you'll be paying before you finalize your decision.

The inner built of the ATIV Book 9 Lite is however quite 'plastic-ky' according to my preference. It doesn't feel fragile, it just doesn't give you that strong and solid touch be it on the keyboard or the surrounding area. Ever since the release of Windows 8, any new release of Desktop / Notebook tend to come with a touch screen display for that maximum navigation designed by Microsoft. So having the non touch screen ATIV Book 9 Lite, I do find it difficult to navigate around. To make things worse, if you're using the touch pad on the ultrabook, you might wanna consider investing in at least a mouse (that's assuming touch screen if out of your budget) for better user experience. 

As part of keeping the price below RM2000, AMD processor is introduced into this particular model instead of Intel. Personally I find the processing power wasn't as great as Intel but it wasn't up to a level of unacceptable. Equipped with 4GB DDR3 and 128GB SSD, multitasking with none processor hogging application / software does behave the way you would have expected it. I will not be going into the feature of Windows 8 as they are rather identical from each other. 

Like I mentioned earlier, I was rather happy with its display as they are sharp and clear even from different angle and you might lose some contrast view from other angle but overall it wasn't up to the point where it is unreadable. So if you're not a design police, such matter should not bother you at all. The overall thickness wasn't paper thin yet to be honest and I would said it weight a little extra (not much but you can feel it) compare to other range of ultrabook. 

Overall it is a great entry level ultrabook and it really depend on your need / usage. If you're more toward a presentation person, you meet client a lot and there's so many brochures / slides you would use to aid you in closing sales, perhaps a tablet suits you better. However if you're the one who does tons of typing and required lots of 'background' work but have limited budget, then the ATIV Book 9 Lite may be your best option.