The Samsung 9 Series captivated us at CES 2011, earning a Best of CES award, and now it has arrived for sale in the U.S. in a smaller 11.6″ version which comes with a smaller price tag, but not a cheap one. The 11.6″ notebook is available at retailers like Amazon for $1,159 which, like the larger 9 Series, is priced quite a bit higher than the MacBook Air.

The 11.6″ Samsung 9 Series NP900X1A-A01US has an Intel Core i3 ULV processor clocked at 1.33GHz rather than a new Sandy Bridge Core i5 processor like we have seen in the larger Samsung 9 series. The slim notebook includes a 64GB solid state drive, 2GB RAM and uses Intel integrated graphics.

The slim Samsung 9 Series 11.6″ notebook has a resolution of 1366 x 768 on the 340 Nit display and has no optical drive which helps it come in at .662″ to .65″ in thickness and a weight of 2.31 pounds. The Samsung 9 Series has Intel Wireless Display, a 1.3MP webcam, USB 3.0, USB 2.0 and SRS 3D Sound. The 11.6″ Samsung 9 series has a 4 cell battery which is rated for 7 hours.

The Samsung 9 Series is an attractive looking notebook, but the smaller version isn’t as tempting as the 13.3″ Samsung 9 Series in terms of power. Unfortunately, the Samsung 9 Series notebooks’ price will continue to be a major factor in the notebook’s success. With the MacBook Air starting at $999, we’ll have to wait and see if consumers are willing to pay a $160 premium for the extra features.

Samsung 9 Series Hands On Video

Samsung 9 Series Gallery

Via Electronista

Samsung 9 Series 11″ Notebook Hits U.S. with Core i3 and High Pricetag is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.

The Samsung 9 Series laptop, which we previewed at the Consumer Electronics Show earlier this year and awarded a Notebooks.com Best of CES 2011 award to, is now priced by Samsung and will go on sale today, March 17th. What’s dubbed as a MacBook Air-killer, the thing that may kill the 13-inch 9 Series may be its price tag, which comes in at $1,649 for the second-generation Core i5 Intel Sandy Bridge ultra-portable notebook and Windows 7 Home Premium; Windows 7 Professional costs an extra $50.

By comparison, the base 128 GB SSD model of the 13-inch MacBook Air from Apple costs just $1,300 and the 256 GB SSD premium option comes in at $1,600; the 9-Series costs more than both models. To be fair, though, the MacBook Air currently runs on the older Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, but does have an integrated GPU made by NVIDIA to handle the graphics load whereas the 9-Series relies on Intel’s comparable graphics solution. Additionally, while the 9 Series may have half the storage of the most expensive Air, it does offer twice the RAM at 4 GB of RAM.

The 11-inch 9 Series model will ship in April and will rival the 11-inch MacBook Air. The smaller model will instead come with an Intel Core i3 dual-core CPU rather than the i5 chip.

Via: PC Mag

Samsung’s 9 Series Ultra-Thin Priced and Ready to Buy, But Is It Too Expensive? is a post by Chuong Nguyen from Notebooks.com.

It looks like an online retailer did put up some preliminary specs for an 11.6-inch Samsung 9 Series ultra-portable laptop that would rival the similarly-sized Apple MacBook Air. While Engadget isn’t sure about an 11.6-inch model, at the Consumer Electronics Show where we did manage to speak with Samsung representatives and were told that there would be an 11.6-inch version of the 13.3-inch lightweight notebook with options for ‘reduced’ specs–a lighter CPU–though Samsung says that the model may not make it to the U.S. and Stateside residents should be looking at the 13.3-inch aluminum body laptop.

The specs on Provantage, which lists the 11.6-inch variant at just shy of $1,200 indeed confirms what Samsung told us. Instead of the Core i5 Sandy Bridge, the 11.6-inch model will ship with a dual-core Intel Core i3 CPU clocking in at 1.33 GHz. For the asking price, the laptop will ship with the 64 bit edition of Windows, feature 2 GB of RAM along with 64 GB SSD for storage.

At CES, Samsung reps informed us that they weren’t sure if there would be a Core i3 variant only or if the company will also allow a higher-spec model with the option for a Core i5 to match the 13.3-inch model’s CPU.

Whether the laptop will be as attractive to consumers as the MacBook Air is still unclear. While the MacBook Air uses an older Intel Core 2 Duo dual-core CPU, the device comes with an integrated NVIDIA graphics processor whereas the new Core i5 on the 9 Series comes with an integrated Intel GPU. The current Core 2 Duo MacBook Air with 2 GB RAM and 64 GB SSD retails for only $1,000 with an NVIDIA GeForce 320M GPU alongside a Core 2 Duo CPU, giving it a $200 price advantage. For the $1,200 asking price, users would get double the SSD capacity on Apple’s Air.

Via: Engadget

Samsung 9 Series 11-Inch Model Gets Priced is a post by Chuong Nguyen from Notebooks.com.

Foobar2000 has long been one of my favorite freeware audio players for Windows. Not only is it free; it’s also lightweight, customizable, able to rip CDs and supports numerous audio formats. These abilities have made it my go to audio program for use on a netbook, an audio player Swiss Army knife if you will that handles anything I can throw at it without slowing me down.

I was very excited to see that after years of releases Foobar2000 has finally released the v1.0 beta. This latest release contains improvements to the user interface and adds support for streaming Windows Media streams as well as other fixes and tweaks.

The best part about Foobar2000 is that it works perfect for listening to music. You don’t have to wait for things to happen, there’s no genius trying to figure out what to play next it’s just you and your tunes.

When it comes to customizing the player you can download add-ons and mods that transform the stock player into a still lightweight audio player that works great on your netbook. If you are running Windows 7 on your netbook you can also install an add-on that gives Foobar2000 Windows 7 Taskbar features to make it even easier to use.

Whether you want to rock the stock installation and just listen or start customizing Foobar2000 to match your Windows theme it’s a great free program for listening to music on your netbook.

You can download the latest V1.0 Beta from the Foobar2000 Web site with a torrent application like uTorrent or download it directly from MajorGeeks.

Via Download Squad

FooBar2000 v1.0 Beta released – Lightweight Audio Player for Your Netbook is a post by Josh Smith from Notebooks.com.