Samsung's earlier ATIV laptops were designed to compete with lighter, less powerful Ultrabooks, but the South Korean manufacturer's recently announced new laptops clearly show it wants to tread a new path with its PC business.
The Samsung ATIV Book 9 Pro and the ATIV Book 9 Spin are taking on the heavyweights of the PC industry. While the ATIV Book 9 Spin is more of a two-in-one Windows 10 convertible laptop that can stand on its own against the Surface Pro 4, the ATIV Book 9 Pro wants to be the ultimate portable workstation for professionals. This area was previously dominated by Apple's MacBook Pro, but Microsoft's new Surface Book is also proving to be a worthy contender. Can the new ATIV Book 9 Pro match up against these two premium laptops in the market?
Let's take a look at what all three laptops have to offer.
Performance
The ATIV Book 9 Pro was designed for pros, having a sixth-generation Intel Core i7 6700HQ processor under the hood and an optional NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950M graphics card. It comes with 8 GB of RAM as well, making it a powerful laptop for graphics-intensive usage, such as video editing and gaming.
Meanwhile, the entry-level Surface Book runs on a sixth-generation Intel Core i5 and 8 GB of RAM, with higher-end units sporting Intel Core i7 and 16 GB RAM. Buyers have the option to get a discrete NVIDIA GeForce GPU with 1GB GDDR5.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro has a dual-core Intel Core i5 for the lowest end, while the bigger 15-inch MacBook Pro has an Intel Core i7 processor. Both can have up to 16 GB of RAM. The smaller MacBook Pro has Intel Iris Graphics 6800, while the bigger model offers the option to use an AMD Radeon R9 M370X with 2GB of GDDR5 memory.
Display
Samsung is really hitting heavy with the ATIV Book 9 Pro's display, which boasts a 4K resolution of 3,840 x 2,160 pixels. The 15.6-inch display is bigger than the Surface Book's 13.5 inches as well as the 15.4-inch Retina display of the bigger MacBook Pro. The smaller MacBook Pro has a 13.3-inch display.
In terms of resolution, the new ATIV trumps both laptops, with the resolution of the Surface Book at 3,000 x 2,000 pixels and the Retina MacBook Pro at 2,880 x 1,800 for the 15-inch model. That's not to say that Microsoft and Apple's offerings do not have stunning displays. They do, but the bragging rights go to Samsung on this one.
The ATIV Book 9 Pro also claims to have "real-time HDR enhancements," which Samsung says optimize brightness and contrast to provide clear, crisp images all the time. It's also apparently a good laptop to use outdoors, with Outdoor Mode offering 500nit of brightness to let users see what's on the screen even in bright sunlight.
Storage
Samsung is offering the ATIV Book 9 Pro with 256 GB of SSD SATA. That's not a lot of storage, but considering how more advanced SSD is to flash storage, customers might consider it a plus. However, the Surface Book also offers 512 GB and 1 TB of SSD storage, as well as a smaller option of 128 GB. The MacBook Pro also offers more options up to 1 TB, but the storage is flash-based, not SSD.
Battery Life
Unfortunately, not much can be said of the ATIV Book 9 Pro's battery. Samsung estimates that the laptop can last up to 6.5 hours on a single charge, which may not be enough for the worker bees out there who need their laptops for more than 6.5 hours. This is probably due to all those pixels on the screen the battery has to power.
Meanwhile, the 15.4-inch MacBook Pro offers up to nine hours of continuous video playback, while the smaller MacBook Pro has a bit more at 12 hours. This is the same estimated battery life for the Surface Book.
Dimensions
The ATIV Book 9 Pro (14.72 x 9.83 x 0.70 inches) shares almost the same dimensions as the 15-inch MacBook Pro (14.41 x 9.73 x 0.71 inches). Both laptops are also nearly as heavy as the other, with the 4.45-pound ATIV just slightly lighter than the MacBook Pro, which tips the scales at 4.49 pounds.
Users who are gunning for portability however, should get the 3.34-pound Surface Book (12.3 x 9.14 x 0.51 to 0.9 inches) or the 13-inch MacBook Pro (12.35 x 8.62 x 0.71 inches), which is just a little bit heavier at 3.48 pounds.
Software
For all its promises to become the ultimate laptop for pros, Samsung offers the ATIV Book 9 Pro with Windows 10 Home. Buyers who want the pro edition might want to get the Surface Book, which comes with a 30-day free trial of Microsoft's Office 365 productivity subscription service. If software is a deal-breaker, it pays to get the Surface Book running on Windows 10 Pro instead.
Of course, the MacBook Pro runs on OS X 10, and it will take an entirely different article altogether to compare these two very different operating systems. If you're already invested in the Apple ecosystem, it's best to get the MacBook Pro.
Price
Here is where all the three laptops vary wildly against each other. Samsung will be offering the ATIV Book 9 Pro at $1,599 starting November. Microsoft offers two variants of the Surface Book at $1,499 and $1,699, but at these price points, users have the Intel Core i5 versions. To get the same Intel Core i7, discrete GPU and 256 GB of SSD storage on the Surface Book, buyers will have to shell out anywhere between $2,099 and a whopping $3,199. Meanwhile, the 13-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,299, while the 15-inch MacBook Pro with 1 TB of flash storage costs $2,999.
