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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thesuperject - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
1366 x 768? Is it really too much to ask for at least a 1600 x 900 display on these sorts of devices?Stuka87 - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
Its intended to be very low cost, which means the screen is going to suck. But for its price bracket that doesn't matter to most people.ImSpartacus - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
Yup, that's Kabini's bag.I'm tickled that these kinds of budget machines might start seeing ~128GB SSDs. Even mediocre SSDs would yield a tremendous improvement.
Alexvrb - Sunday, July 7, 2013 - link
Absolutely. For consumers buying this sort of entry-level ultraportable, they're better served with an SSD and a less expensive CPU, rather than a mechanical drive and a pricier processor. Hopefully this trend continues.djc208 - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
It's a value ultraportable, so for around $500 it wouldn't be too out of place. Sure most tablets have better resolution in a smaller screen, but they don't currently run a full Windows OS or have 128GB SSDs (or full HDDs).karasaj - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
I would take a 400-500$ device (maybe even 600$?) with a Kabini SoC, 128GB SSD, and 768 display (especially if it's decent contrast - low ppi doesn't necessarily mean shitty display!) over a 1600x900 13 inch with a 5400RPM hard drive and i5 any day. An SSD means worlds for the feeling of responsiveness in a system.whyso - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
You can generally add in an SSD too. 128 GB for $80. Or even if the laptop has an mssd slot have the best of both worlds: storage and speed.I'd certainty pay $80 more for i5 and better screen.
karasaj - Saturday, June 22, 2013 - link
You're exaggerating - most 128gb SSDs cost around 100$, and fall to 90$ sales. *Occasionally*, they do fall to 80$, but not often. Plus, good or bad, laptops this thin don't tend to be serviceable.If you're buying a thin and light notebook under 500$, chances are your intentions are web browsing, office, and maybe a flash game. An i5 and better screen would probably rocket the price at least $200 haha... Kabini costs way less than the three hundred something I think Intel charges.
gnx - Thursday, June 20, 2013 - link
Also hoping that by the end-of-year refresh, they'll have a 1600*900 display version of the ATIV Book 9. AMD or not, I don't really mind, since I don't game, but a 1366*768 is no good for heavy text work that I need to do on my portable laptop.One more thing, I am very glad they have a dark color scheme with matte screens. IMHO, much better than shiny silver and glossy screens in most ultrabooks.
R3MF - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - link
agreed.they have some great 13.3" screens at 1600x900 from the old series 9 chassis, can we not have those in the kabini version?