Samsung’s latest flagship laptop brings the premium feel back

Samsung’s last few entries into its flagship Notebook 9 lineup have all been plagued by a similar problem: they looked and felt really, really cheap. The computers were fine, even great, with top-tier specs and performance, but recent models like last year’s Notebook 9 Pen felt and looked more like a $400 Chromebook than a $1,400 professional PC. At CES 2019, Samsung is trying to change that with the new Notebook 9 Pro, which actually looks and feels like a flagship laptop again.

The Notebook 9 Pro looks like a more premium product than past generations. The sloping curves, bubbly corners, and painted plastic look have disappeared in favor of tighter corner radii, sharper edges, and aluminum that, unlike Samsung’s Metal 12 magnesium alloy, actually looks and feels like aluminum. It’s a big step forward from Samsung’s previous offering, and it goes a long way toward making the Notebook 9 Pro feel like a flagship.

The Notebook 9 Pro doesn’t exactly have a distinctive style — with the thinner bezels, larger shallow keys, and an aluminum case, it’s practically a reference design for a 2019 laptop, but I’ll take generic over actively bad at this point. The most unique part of the look are the diamond-cut ridges along the edge of the case, which help the Notebook 9 Pro subtly stand out from the pack.

Samsung has definitely succeeded in making a nicer laptop. There’s a solidity and weight to the Notebook 9 Pro that it didn’t have before (at 2.84 pounds, Notebook 9 Pro is more than half a pound heavier than the Notebook 9 Pen), and there’s no weird flexing when typing.

There’s less to say about the specs, which are more or less in line with what you’d expect of a laptop of this caliber: there’s a quad-core 8th Gen Intel Core i7-8565U processor, 256GB of PCIe NVMe SSD storage, a pair of Thunderbolt 3 USB-C ports on one side of the case, and a regular USB-C port, a headphone jack, and a microSD card slot on the other side. A Windows Hello fingerprint reader is built into the power button on the side of the case as well.

Like many of Samsung’s laptops, the Notebook 9 Pro also has a 2-in-1 design with a touchscreen that can flip around to convert into a tablet, stand up on its side, or any other configuration in between. And while Samsung isn’t offering a built-in S-Pen in a slot, it is including an “Active Pen” in the box for writing or drawing.

Less impressive is the 13.3-inch 1080p display, which is a little low-resolution for a 2019 computer, especially given that gaming isn’t really a concern to justify the lower pixel count. Samsung is also only offering 8GB of RAM, which is a little disappointing. Even an optional 16GB upgrade would be welcome here.