new NP900X3D price mistake?

I was browsing black Friday deals and saw this NP900X3D for an unreal price of $800 shipped. Several months ago, 900X3C were $1400. Even with a small sale now, they’re still $1250. But to see a brand new model come out at only $800 makes me think this is a price mistake.

What is causing this massive price drop? Do these still have PLS panels or did the new 13” models downgrade to the same regular TN panels found in the 15” S9? Quick google searches on this NP900X3D didn’t bring up much, but a quick glance at the specs tells me that the only thing different is the silver color vs the dark ash color in the last 900X3C model. Am I missing something else important? Of course, I had to grab one first in case it was just a short-time price mistake.

Amazon.com: Samsung Series 9 NP900X3D-A01US 13.3-Inch Premium Ultrabook (Silver): Computers & Accessories

 

The low price is because Samsung are shipping some of the X3Cs and X3Ds with the Sandy Bridge platform inside. This is an excellent deal for people who like the Series 9 design but don't need the latest and fastest hardware (see my X3B review for an indication of how it performs). The price difference also highlights haw much Intel must be charging for the Ivy Bridge hardware.

John

 

John, you seem to know everything about every samsung model lol. So you're saying this is how much it should be? Since the model letter (B, C, D) is increasing, how can they come out with a new model but revert back to an older CPU generation? Any way we can distinguish if we'll get an IB or SB processor?

 

Sandy Bridge has CPU numbers beginning with 2 while Ivy Bridge CPUs start with 3. This info should be available in the published specs but will also be given on the label on the box. Ivy Bridge graphics are noticeably faster if you need 3D graphics performance but Sandy Bridge will handle desktop graphics and video just fine. Ivy Bridge is also slightly more power efficient.

I agree that it's confusing for Samsung to put the X3B hardware into the X3D but perhaps they consider the D suffix purpose is to indicate the magnesium alloy chassis. The bigger X4D also has Sandy Bridge versions with a similar price discount. It may be a way to get the notebook into a price range where company purchasing departments might be willing to shell out (and if the notebooks are replacing some 4 year old machine then they will feel much, much faster. A 128GB SSD may be a limitation for many users but this is fixable. Sandy Bridge with 256GB will be more usable for most people than Ivy Bridge with 128GB.

John

 

Another thing to consider on the NP900X3D machines is that some come with a 3 year warranty instead of a single year. For instance, the NP900X3D-A02US I bought was more expensive because of that. I think WALMART's listing for it is incorrect.

 

It looks like it was a price mistake at $800 shipped. A few hours later, price went back up, so I'm glad I grabbed one. I just received it btw

 

Ok it seems like $800ish is not a price mistake, it's currently at that price right now, although a tad more than the black friday deal.

Anyways, I've been playing with it for a few weeks and just wanted to comment on my experiences with this notebook. It's extremely thin and sleek. In fact, it's thinner than I'm use to so I almost dropped it a few times. Also everything else looks the same as the previous Series 9 except for the silver color, although I didn't get a chance to fiddle around with the past Series 9 long because they were at B&M stores. This is my first win8 system, so I'm still trying to get use to the new OS. The OS itself seems optimized for touchscreen, however this notebook does not have a touch screen. Although, screen is just stellar, very vibrant colors and very bright on max settings. The keyboard and touchpad clicks are a little louder than I'd like, but that's not a huge problem. Battery life is decent, lasts about 5 hours with typical web browsing usage. Overall, it's a well engineered notebook, but something that does bother me a lot is the fact that I can't really upgrade much.

Now just need to find a very thing but sturdy case to match the design of this notebook. Any recommendations? Btw, is there a dedicated NP900X3D owners thread or is that pretty much merged with NP900X3C?

 

There is no 3D thread.

The price is not a mistake. It's even more confusing when you consider the NP900X3D-A01 and NP900X3D-A02 have completely different chipsets, CPU's and GPU's. The $800 machine is the old platform and chipsets.

I think it's a little disingenuous to be selling the old platform next to the new platform.

I have the A02 with the Ivy Bridge chipset and like it just fine. It came with Windows 8 and after adding stardock.com Start8, I like Windows 8 much better.

 

There's some discussion about cases in the Series 9 accessories thread.

John