AMD Takes Samsung, Kabini in the ATIV Book 9 Lite & ATIV One 5 Style - Hands On
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 20, 2013 4:27 PM EST
Samsung was curiously quiet on talking about specs with a couple of its newly announced PCs, and now we know why. Both the ATIV Book 9 Lite (affordable ultraportable) and ATIV One 5 Style (21.5-inch all-in-one) both feature AMD Kabini SoCs. As a refresher we're talking about four AMD Jaguar cores alongside an AMD GCN based GPU, all on a single die.
The ATIV Book 9 Lite features a 13.3-inch 1366 x 768 display, and will be available in touch and non-touch variants. The demo systems at Samsung's event had 4GB of DDR3 and a 128GB LiteOn SSD, although it's not clear if all shipping machines will use SSDs. We also don't know clock speeds at this point. In person the machine looks good and feels solid. We don't have any indication of pricing or availability yet unfortunately.
The ATIV One 5 Style on the other hand makes less of an attempt to hide the SoC vendor inside. The touch-enabled all-in-one features AMD's A6-5200 with four Jaguar cores running at up to 2.0GHz. The demo systems all featured hard drives. The 21.5-inch display features a 1920 x 1080 resolution and comes touch enabled.
The Galaxy S 4 styling makes the jump to an all-in-one relatively well. The big deal with Kabini really boils down to pricing. In my editorial on the topic I mentioned that if OEMs can take Kabini's cost savings and in turn give the end user a better overall experience (e.g. better display, storage, etc...) then AMD will have a real winner on its hands. None of the Kabini based systems at Samsung's Premiere 2013 event looked or felt cheap at all, and in some cases they did have features that I wouldn't have otherwise expected on a value machine (E.g. SSD in the ATIV Book 9 Lite). All that remains is for Samsung to deliver on the pricing front.
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AlB80 - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
ATIV 9 Plus has a 3200x1800 display. I think you will be satisfied.JDG1980 - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
"The ATIV Book 9 Lite features a 13.3-inch 1366 x 768 display"... that's where I stopped reading.heffeque - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
Please, tell me how many ultrabooks that cost under $500 have better than 1366*768 displays do you know. I'm really interested.Darkstone - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
A mediocre display: maybe $50A good 1080p IPS display: maybe $80 ( LP156WF4 SLB6 = $98 aftermarket )
What i'm whilling to pay for the difference between an 1080p ips display and 768p TN: $200.
What i'm actually paying: $30 for the display, $300 in intel taxes.
There is no reason it isn't possible to outfit an $500 notebook with a kabini quadcore and 1080p ips display. Hell, for $50 extra it's possible to grab one of dell's inspirions with i5, 15.6" 1080p TN and HD 7730m. That one is €550-600 where i live. ($ = € usually).
It's a shame samsung positions this in the '9' series. The 9 series is supposed to be the high-end.
monstercameron - Friday, June 21, 2013 - link
its not just about costs, they have limited supplies of certain displays, so they have to choose what products to use them on. There isn't an unlimited supply of high res displays.heffeque - Saturday, June 22, 2013 - link
So... your answer is that there are no 13.3" ultrabooks with better than 1366*768 displays for less than $500. Just what I thought. Thank you for confirming that people have unrealistic expectations.Alexvrb - Sunday, June 23, 2013 - link
Elitist armchair techies alawys have unrealistic expectations when it comes to OEM devices. "I won't touch it if it doesn't have an SSD RAID 0 array, i7 hexacore, two discrete GPUs, and a quad HD display!"Not to mention that OEMs have *gasp* costs and overhead, and have to make a PROFIT off these devices?!? OMG Teh fux00rsz!
Alexvrb - Sunday, June 23, 2013 - link
I'm with Heffeque here. List off the 1080p 13.3" (or even 14") Ultrathins with 1080p displays. The LP156WF4 SLB6 you listed came up as a 15" in a random search. They're not the same cost, for whatever reason, as the ones in this segment. Which is why currently a 14" Ultrathin 1080p is so rare at reasonable prices.This will change with time, of course, and I'm sure we'll see 1080p versions down the road. As they become more common, costs will drop.
AlB80 - Monday, June 24, 2013 - link
Rumor says it costs aprox. $700.AmdInside - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
Are the LCD panels as ugly as those pics make them out to be? They all look like TN panels with overally cool temperature.