Samsung’s featherweight Notebook 9 just got even lighter and packs a bigger punch

Samsung has refreshed its Notebook 9, pepping up the laptop’s power with a move to the latest Kaby Lake processors, while making the device sleeker and more portable.

The Notebook 9 comes in two flavors – 13.3-inch and 15-inch – and both now have seven-generation (Kaby Lake) Intel CPUs, with a Core i7 processor on the latter, and a choice of either Core i5 or i7 with the smaller model.

The 15-inch notebook’s dimensions are 348 x 229 x 14.9mm with a weight of 2.17lbs (around 985g), whereas the 13.3-inch laptop measures 310 x 208 x 13.9mm and tips the scales at just 1.8lbs (around 815g – it previously weighed about 840g, so has shed 25g).

That means the smaller device is the lightest laptop on the market, according to Samsung, and it certainly makes it a highly portable device. You also get an ultra-slim bezel around the screen to make for a ‘near edge-to-edge’ display, and that premium look.

The screen is Full HD on both models, and offers an ‘outdoor mode’ for clearer viewing in bright conditions, with a claimed battery life of up to 7 hours (its relatively short battery life was one of our main bugbears with the existing incarnation of the machine when we reviewed it earlier this year).

It also boasts fast charging which means a full recharge of the battery takes 80 minutes, and a quick top-up to just over two hours of power can be accomplished in 20 minutes. Useful for when you have to charge-and-go.

In terms of connectivity you get a USB Type-C port on each model backed up by a pair of USB 3.0 connectors – plus an additional USB 2.0 port on the larger machine – along with HDMI and a microSD slot. Wireless connectivity includes 802.11ac 2x2 Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1.

System memory runs up to 8GB of DDR4 RAM, although with the Core i7 15-inch laptop you can specify up to 16GB. And you can run with up to 256GB of storage (in the form of a SATA 3 SSD on the smaller notebook, and PCIe NVMe with the 15-inch model).

There’s no word yet on when these revamped models will be available, or what price they will be pitched at, but doubtless we’ll hear more soon enough, quite possibly at CES just around the corner.