Samsung’s New Series 9 Notebook Is the Best of the Big Boys

Samsung Series 9 NP900X4C-A01US (2012)

The 2012 edition of Samsung’s well-regarded Series 9 laptop invites you to play a game of numbers. Here are the relevant digits: 15-inch screen. 15 millimeters thick. 3.7 pounds.

he last figure is the showstopper. This isn’t just the lightest laptop in its size class, it’s lighter than every 14-inch laptop I’ve reviewed and even lighter than some 13.3-inch laptops I’ve seen, too. If ultrabooks had a 15-inch category, the Series 9 would be the leader of the pack.

But for now they don’t, and that puts the Series 9 in an interesting and unique market position. For users who desire broader screen real estate and a more spacious typing experience — yet aren’t willing to sacrifice portability — the 2012 Series 9 is a near-perfect pick.

What’s under the hood? A 1.7GHz 3rd generation Core i5, 128GB SSD, 8GB of RAM, and integrated graphics. The screen — an odd 15.0 inches — packs in 1600×900 pixels and is extremely bright. Altogether, it’s one of the most dazzling displays I’ve come across.

The Series 9 is also an impressive performer, turning in the best general application benchmark scores I’ve seen on an Ivy Bridge system to date while still pulling out 4.5 hours of battery life on a full-screen video loop at maximum brightness. Of course, it’s a no-show on graphics tests, a necessary sacrifice for a machine of this size and weight.

The Series 9 even goes above and beyond with its port selection considering its tiny size: two USB 3.0 ports, one USB 2.0, and an SD card reader, plus micro connectors for HDMI, VGA, and wired Ethernet (dongle included). Even the power brick is small enough to add only a minimal additional burden to your travel bag.

Samsung has been dinged in the past for having wonky clickpads on its laptops, and the kinks finally seem to have been ironed out here. I had no trouble with tracking and taps being registered, and the depress-to-click action works well.

If I have only one complaint (and I do) about the Series 9, it’s the keyboard. 15mm doesn’t give you much depth to work with, and the shallow travel on these keys makes touch typing difficult. At $1,400, the price may be an additional concern for some buyers, but I’d happily argue that the design and power of this good-looking laptop merit the extra outlay.

WIRED Amazingly portable and powerful, with a screen to die for. Surprisingly sturdy, tough design. “Silent mode” kills fans.

TIRED Keyboard backlighting too dim to be useful, even at highest brightness setting. Thin profile means very shallow key travel.

Putin-Netanyahu talks to focus on rising Islamist power: Cairo then Damascus

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis

The Muslim Brotherhood’s rise to power in Egypt – and soon, possibly, in Syria - will have pushed to the sidelines such obvious topics as Iran and gas when Monday, June 25, Russian President Vladimir Putin on a short visit to Israel meets Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

On this subject at least, the Russian and Israeli leaders will find common ground: Both are concerned, to put it mildly, by the chain of Muslim Brotherhood governments rolling out along Middle East shores – Libya, last year; Egypt, yesterday; and Syria, tomorrow. In their view, this process is a menace to regional stability which rivals even that of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Putin counts US President Barack Obama’s sponsorship of Muslim Brotherhood power as a strategic threat to Russian national security because of it could be the match which lights the flame of radical Islam in the Caucasus and among the Russian Muslim populations of the Volga River valleys.

As for Netanyahu, his calm-sounding congratulations for the new, democratically-elected Egyptian president, disguise trepidation. After one domino fell in Cairo, he fears another will fall in Damascus leaving Jordan vulnerable to having its king pushed over by the kingdom’s powerful Muslim Brotherhood.

Israel would then be under siege from three Islamist-ruled neighbors - “moderate” in Obama’s eyes, alarmingly “extremist and expansionist” in the view of Putin and Netanyahu.

In contrast to the Israeli prime minister, the Russian president makes no bones about his utter disapproval of the US President’s “pro-Islamic” policies. His blunt words in support of Syria’s Bashar Assad at the G20 in Mexico Sunday, June 18, were meant as a monkey wrench for US plans to continue to install Muslim power in Arab lands.

Not surprisingly, their conversation on the summit sidelines was described as “candid” – a euphemism for “difficult” – and must have raised a stop sign against the “reset” of ties heralded last year by Washington.

The Israeli Prime Minister keeps on smiling to Obama while grinding his teeth over the security avalanche set in motion at Israel’s front and back doors and wracking his brains for a plan of cooperation with Moscow to arrest the slide.

Israel has already had a foretaste of the trouble to come from Cairo. It bounced all the way from Libya’s Islamist regime to land this month with a sinister bang across Egyptian Sinai’s border with southern Israel.

In the past year, since a new regime took power in Tripoli, the strategic peninsula has been transformed into a major smuggling eden for the distribution of contraband arms and infiltrating Islamist terrorists, including Muslim Brotherhood adherents, into the Hamas-ruled the Gaza Strip and onward to other countries in the region.

For Putin the math is simple: If Libyan Islamists can travel 1,360 kilometers to reach Israel’s borders without anyone stopping them, why not 2,558 kilometers to the Russian Caucasian?

Ironically, the victim of the first suicide attack the Libyan terrorists mounted inside Israel from Sinai was an Israeli Muslim from Haifa, Said Fashasha, who died in a bombing-shooting ambush on Route 10 to Eilat Sunday, June 18. On the same day, the “candid” Obama-Putin conversation also took place at Los Cabos.

Now as then, President Obama continues to push the Russian leader to accept the compromise of Syria’s Vice President Farouk al-Sharaa, a Sunni Muslim, replacing Bashar Assad, with Assad’s brother-in-law, deputy chief of staff Gen. Shawqat Asif, serving alongside him. With those chips in place, Washington believes Assad might be persuaded to go into exile in Moscow.

What Putin hears is that Obama is so eager to have a Sunni Muslim installed in Damascus that he is willing to put up with retaining the Assad clan in power, even Gen. Asif, a chief instigator of the regime’s bloody savagery.

So both Putin and Netanyahu, when they talk in Jerusalem Monday, know they are stumped for a strategy to hold back the Islamist tide washing across this region and potentially farther afield – any more than a diplomatic solution has been found to stall Iran’s nuclear plans.

Germany rebuffs Obama's advice on euro crisis

BERLIN (AP) -- Germany's finance minister is rejecting U.S. President Barack Obama's calls on Europe to move faster in fighting its debt crisis, telling him to get the American deficit under control instead.

Wolfgang Schaeuble told public broadcaster ZDF in an interview late Sunday that "people are always very quick at giving others advice."

He says: "Mr. Obama should first of all take care of reducing the American deficit, which is higher than in the eurozone."

Obama and other leaders fear an escalating crisis in Europe could drag down the world economy.

The 17-nation eurozone is struggling to overhaul its institutions and streamline its decision making to restore investors' confidence. The bloc's debt relative to its economic output stands at about 80 percent, while it is about 100 percent in the U.S.

Malaysia to extradite Iranian accused of plotting to attack Israeli targets abroad

Iranian man accused of plotting to bomb Israeli targets in Bangkok in February denies any involvement in terrorist organizations; court rules to extradite the man to Thailand.

By The Associated Press

A Malaysian court ruled Monday that an Iranian man accused of plotting to attack Israeli targets in Bangkok must be extradited to Thailand. Masoud Sedaghatzadeh said he planned to appeal the decision. He is not expected to be immediately deported.

Sedaghatzadeh was arrested at a Malaysian airport soon after an apparently accidental explosion rocked a Bangkok neighborhood on Feb. 14. Bombs were found at the house, where the explosion occurred, and Thai police say Sedaghatzadeh, and two other Iranian men now in Thai custody, had been seen leaving the house. Thai officials have said Israeli diplomats may have been the targets of the alleged plot.

A Kuala Lumpur district court on Monday ruled in favor of the Malaysian government's bid to deport Sedaghatzadeh to the Thai capital. Sedaghatzadeh has 15 days to file an appeal, said his lawyer, Nashir Hussin.

Malaysian prosecutors have said the Iranian was wanted by Thailand on suspicion of "taking part in making and possessing an explosive device" as well as causing an explosion that led to human injuries and property damage. He faces life in prison if convicted in Thailand.

Israel has blamed Iran for the explosions, which wounded five including one of the alleged bombers, as well as two incidents the day before: a bombing in India that wounded an Israeli diplomat's wife and driver, and an attempted bombing in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Iran has denied involvement.

Berlin gay pride parade draws 700,000 people

BERLIN - Agence France-Presse

Camp costumes and colorful drag flooded the streets of Berlin on Saturday as hundreds of thousands took part in the city’s annual Christopher Street Day gay pride parade.

Marching and dancing to thumping techno music, the crowds made their way from the cosmopolitan Kreuzberg district to the Brandenburg Gate, where DJs and musicians were scheduled to keep the party going until midnight.

The German capital’s gay mayor, Klaus Wowereit, kicked off the event. Organizers said 700,000 people had taken part in the parade, which celebrated its 34th anniversary this year.

The treatment of homosexuals in Russia was a hot topic at the parade, with some participants bearing giant portraits of President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev retouched in the flamboyant style of gay French artists Pierre and Gilles.

Gay pride parades are banned in Moscow and since 2006 have been systematically dispersed when organizers try to start them.

Homosexuality was a crime in Russia until 1993 and was classified as a mental illness until 1999.

Christopher Street Day parades commemorate the Stonewall uprising of June 28, 1969, when police harassment at a New York gay bar sparked five days of rioting that launched the U.S. gay rights movement.