First few hours with the Samsung Series 9

Blindfold yourself and hold the Samsung Series 9 notebook in your hand, the chances are you will think you are holding a tablet. There is no way you would guess that your fingers are gripping a notebook. It is that thin. It is that light.

How thin? How light? Well, the 13" Series 9 measures only 12.9 mm (0.5") and weighs just 1.16kg. That is thinner and lighter than the Acer Aspire S5 and the Toshiba Protege Z830 is just 40 grams lighter. Samsung calls it the thinnest notebook ever, and we have to nod in agreement. But they are not calling it an Ultrabook, maybe because of the Rs 1,02,990 price tag.

The unibody design is stunning, almost light a dark grey MacBook Air, only thinner. Open the notebook and instead of a crammed keyboard, you see one that is well spaced out. But there is not travel on the keys and that might be a put off for some users. And the arrow keys have been isolated towards the bottom right. The trackpad is very responsive. The Fn keys all have double lives, but there are no extra keys other than the power button which has been placed on the hinge. On the other side of the hinge is the fan, a really good use of design.

The other standout feature is the SuperBright screen, which works wonderfully well even at the low brightness level. There is also a customisable dock, though we couldn't find a key that opens it. The razor thin size means there is space for just two USB ports and a micro-HDMI.

For a full review real the next issue of G&G