At the outset, I want to make perfectly clear that I have utterly no connection to Samsung other than I own their products. They don’t have me on any promotional lists, and haven’t sent me anything that I didn’t pay full carry for. As far as I can tell, Samsung doesn’t even know that I exist other than as a single name in their vast database of customers worldwide.
For my regular readers who might be wondering, I do sometimes get bored writing only articles on technical legal topics, and so just to change things up (for myself mostly) have decided to write a tech review. Indeed, I am a techie at heart, having once learned to program in several long-forgotten programs such as COBAL and PASCAL, one of my summer jobs involved something known as punch cards, and through this day I am a regular reader of several magazines on home computing, such as it is.
I say that because it is not due to any bias when I say that Samsung is totally killing it with two of their most recent products, being their oversized cellphone, the Galaxy Note9, and their premier laptop, the Notebook 9 Pro. Having bought and used these two products, they are in my opinion about as close to perfect in their own genres as one can find under existing technologies, and more importantly they work well together. For a power user like me who has one or the other in his hand something like twelve hours each working day, which seems to be every day, that is not just a small life’s pleasure.
From the early days of cellular phones, the first versions of which looked like a cheat knockoff of a Marine walkie-talkie that should normally be restricted to calling in air strikes, they had almost nothing in common with laptops, that latter which were then so big and heavy that one feared that at any second they would drop through the Earth’s crust and damage the core. The phones made calls of widely-varying voice quality and nothing else, while laptops were largely restricted to word processing during the 45 minutes or so before their battery conked out — I remember all too well the days of carrying around multiple laptop batteries in my briefcase just to get a couple of hours of work in.
Eventually, cellular phones began to access the internet and provide additional functionality, while laptops slimmed down, beefed up their CPUs, and obtained battery life that made them marginally useful. Still, the two had utterly nothing in common except that they could both access the internet. This state of affairs persisted for a couple of decades, until Apple finally started to change the paradigm (the term the Silicon Valleyers would use) with the introduction of the iPad which combined the functionality of cellphones and laptops.
Samsung has now fully changed that paradigm. The Note9 works like a tablet sans keyboard; the Notebook 9 Pro works like an oversized tablet with a keyboard sans the limitations of tablets. Although their operating systems are still different, the Note9 uses Android while the Notebook 9 Pro uses Windows, these two Samsung products operate quite similarly, allowing users to jump from one to the other with little practical change.
The differences in the operating systems, which is not Samsung’s fault, define the differences between the two products. Android offers a robust marketplace of useful apps that cover the waterfront, including Microsoft Office products, while the Windows store even after all these years still offers only a relative handful useful apps such that just visiting the Windows store is a depressing experience. But there are power programs that one can load onto Windows, such as full office and Adobe programs just to mention a few, that will not be anything like the same on Android. Again, that the problems of Google and Microsoft respectively, and not Samsung’s fault.
What’s In Common
Both the Note9 and the Notebook 9 Pro are aesthetic in appearance and extremely well manufactured. There simply are no rattles or loose parts to be found. I’ve inadvertently dropped both a couple of times, and they were not worse for the wear, although I’ve protected the Note9 with a clear plastic case which adds little to the size but which I’ve found in the past protects cellphones from corner dings.
Both 9s can be used as tablets. The Note9 could in fact be viewed as a smallish tablet with a phone added, while the screen on the Notebook 9 Pro swings around so that it can used in tablet mode. The latter is particularly useful for business users, as the Notebook 9 Pro’s 15 inch screen creates a large writing area for note taking, which is particularly useful to me when I’m in court and having to write down a judge’s rapid-firing of case deadlines. But the Notebook 9 Pro’s instant conversion to a tablet has also paid dividends when I’m stuck on an airplane and there simply isn’t enough room to use it in laptop mode, which is common in these days where legroom has been reduced from 44 inches to something that feels like two, and seat pitch has been changed to that which would be in violation of the Geneva Convention. Suffice it to say that the Notebook 9 Pro’s big screen makes it perfect for watching movies while traveling, and the audio quality is very good.
Both the Note9 and Notebook 9 Pro come with a removable stylus, which at first created some flashbacks to 1996, but which I have found to be extraordinarily useful. At 6’5″, I’m a big guy and have big hands (no offense to our alleged President), and the small display keyboards on cellphones was often troublesome. The stylus helps to eliminate that problem, and is generally a more efficient way of using the Note9. Docking the stylus recharges it.
Speaking of which, both the Note9 and Notebook 9 Pro have amazing battery life. My rule-of-thumb when looking at battery life claims is to divide those for cellphones by three, and those for laptops by five. That rule doesn’t apply here.
Prior to the Note9, I had a Samsung S7 which had decent battery life, but which seemed limited to about ten hours of moderate use, and before that the S5 which gave me about eight hours. The upshot is that if all I took with me was my phone on a day of business travel, I usually had to take with me a carry-along battery pack to recharge the phone before I made it home or to the hotel where I was staying. The Note9 boasts a 4000mAh battery that so far hasn’t seen South of the 50% mark on a full day of use.
Suprisingly, the Note9′s battery is larger than that found on the Notebook 9 Pro, which is only rated at 3530 mAh. But that still gives the Notebook 9 Pro enough power for about three hours of heavy usage on battery only, which is a substantial improvement over every other laptop that I’ve ever had which struggle to make it past the two-hour mark with heavy usage. But it is exactly here that the Notebook 9 Pro sets itself apart from other laptops, since it can be recharged through its USB-C port. This means that the Notebook 9 Pro can be recharged from any USB power outlet so long as you bring a USB-C cable along, or from any wall outlet with the typical $2 USB outlet adapter. Granted, charging via the USB-C cable is slower than charging through the normal Samsung power adapter, but the charge is still fast enough to completely re-juice the Notebook 9 Pro within a few hours.
Oh, and those carry along battery packs that I once used to recharge my cellphone? Those can be repurposed to charge the Notebook 9 Pro or to act as, essentially, an external battery pack. Throw just one of those deck-of-cards sized packs into your briefcase and you’ll have more than enough juice for constant use of the Notebook 9 Pro on the flight between LAX and Heathrow.
The upshot is that for both the Note9 and the Notebook 9 Pro, all you need is a single wall adapter with two USB power slots, and two USB-C cables. That’s all that needs to go into your travel bag, although I note that you could also throw in a dual USB lighter plug charger in case you wanted to recharge both while driving — in the off-chance that your rental car doesn’t have USB outlets.
As has become common with most mobile computing devices these days, both the Note9 and the Notebook 9 Pro can be opened with biometrics, with the Note9 adding a ergonomically-placed fingerprint reader on the back as well.
Now, let’s look at these two wonders of engineering individually.
Samsung Note9
Supposely, the Note9 has a great camera, but I’m the wrong guy to ask about that since if I take more than 30 photos a year on my cellphone it is a big deal. Thus, I’ll leave reviews of the camera to others.
What does impress me is the processor speed of the Note9, which is very fast. My S5 had considerable lag in running some apps or displaying big webpages, and my S7 had noticeable lag, but if the Note 9 has any lag at all it simply isn’t noticeable. You click something and — boom — it works, no time to think about it or for random daydreaming. This is important for me when I’m standing in court and there is a question about some document or another, as I can instantly pull up the document on PDF and scroll through to find the important part without uncomfortable delay.
Another great thing is the Note9′s screen, which at 6.4 inches is pretty big, considering that most tablets have screens that only come in about an inch-and-a-half bigger at 8 inches. What this usually means is that you don’t have to squint to see what you’re looking for. Younger users may not care as much, but this can be a big deal for older users.
At the same time, the Note9 is barely bigger in footprint than the S9, and it easily fits into a front pants pocket or a suit pocket. When I bought the Note9, based on the photos I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to carry it around easily, but that simply has not been the case. Now, it’s not the phone that one is going to strap on the bicep when working out, but it is not too big for business users.
The downside to the Note9 is its weight, which isn’t onerous, but you simply can’t put that big of a screen on something, and insert that big of a battery, and make it light with existing technology.
The Note9 comes in two versions, with one offering 128gb of memory and the other offering a whopping 512gb of memory. I went with the 128gb of memory because I just couldn’t see ever running out of memory. The reason is that the Note9 has a slot for a MicroSD card up to 512gb for a combined total of 640 gb with the smaller built-in memory! That, my friends, is an absurd amount of memory for the average business user. All of my files for all of my clients in all of their open cases take up just a little over 6gb. The real memory hog is my collection of jazz albums, which runs about 40gb. Unless I suddenly become a video bug and start using my Note9 in place of a video recorder, there simply is no way that I’ll ever get even close to maxing out the available memory with or without a MicroSD card inserted (and, yes, I inserted a 128gb card into mine for reasons still yet unknown to me other than I felt that I had to do it).
Finally, all the Samsung phones starting with the S8 are water-resistant to about 30 feet, and this includes the Note9. This doesn’t mean that I’ll be taking my Note9 out with me the next time that I go surfing (though I could), but it is one less thing to worry about, as when recently I was caught outside in a torrential downpour (known locally as a “gullywasher”) while visiting my native Oklahoma, or when the guy in seat 17D knocks his coffee all over everything.
Samsung Notebook 9 Pro
Other than the new features, the thing that is the most striking about the Notebook 9 Pro over earlier iterations of the Notebook 9 is that the Pro is significantly lighter. I have two earlier (2015) versions of the Notebook 9 Pro, both of which I thought at the time were perfect, but which weighed about 4.5lbs. The new 2018 version weighs about 3.8lbs, so Samsung has somehow managed to shave off nearly a pound in weight. While this may not sound like much in the abstract, the loss of that extra pound makes the new version much comfortable to use, and correspondingly lightens the briefcase.
But that is just the start. As mentioned, the new Notebook 9 Pro doesn’t require a unique charger for power, but instead can be charged through a USB-C cable. That means that you can both (1) drop about another pound or so in weight for the charger, and (2) eliminate having to carry a rat’s nest of wires with you at all times. In fact, if you asked me what the single best feature of the Notebook 9 Pro is, it is a good chance that I will say “Lose the charger”. I’ve been carrying those awful chargers with me for over a quarter-of-a-century, and to not have to carry one now while traveling is simply a little slice of heaven. I honestly can’t see ever even considering a laptop that requires a unique charger. As our English cousins might say, “Bollocks to that.”
Otherwise, the Notebook 9 Pro is simply a very solid laptop. RAM comes in a 256gb SSD drive, which by itself isn’t particularly impressive, but then the Notebook 9 Pro also offers a built-in MicroSD card so that one can easily add another 512gb for a total of 768gb. Maybe if I was doing a bunch of video editing I’d want more, but (again) everything that I would want to carry with me comes in well short of 100gbs, so that is far more than enough for me.
The screen of the Notebook 9 Pro is big, bright and beautiful, and as mentioned can be turned into a tablet by the simple expedient of flipping the screen over. The keyboard is lit, which can be very useful for folks like me who enjoy sitting outside at night writing articles like this, or when one is taking the red-eye to New York.
Summary
If there is a serious or even just mildly annoying downside to either the Note9 or the Notebook 9 Pro, I haven’t found it yet through I’ve already racked up quite a few hours with each, including one lengthy business trip to the East Coast. The Note9 is expensive, but then again so is its closest competitor from Apple. As for the Notebook 9 Pro, please don’t tell Samsung but I’d have still been happy if I’d had to pay an extra $1,000 for it; it’s just that good (and I remember that roughly 20-year period where “the laptop that you want is always $3,000″, before cheap consumer goods became common).
Lose the adapter and the rat’s nest of cables? Purest bliss.
This article at https://goo.gl/FFQeab
