MacBook Pro Is Now Challenged By Samsung ATIV Book 9 Pro

Is the MacBook Pro still the king of the 15-inch laptops? Within the past year, there have been several new Windows 10 laptops that have come to successfully challenge Apple’s flagship laptop.

The Dell XPS 15 was released last month and The Verge has given the computer an excellent review, especially praising the display.

“The first thing you notice about the XPS 15 is the edge-to-edge display. Dell has gone one step further here and added 4K; it’s simply beautiful.”

The Verge adds that the lack of bezels is even more noticeable than it was on the XPS 13. They also note that the color gamut of the display can achieve 100 percent minimum Adobe RGB, which means that colors really stand out and the viewing angles are excellent.

Now, Samsung, a company known more for its smartphones than laptops, appears to have released a MacBook Pro killer with the ATIV Book 9 Pro. CNET describes Samsung’s new laptop.

“The Ativ Book 9 Pro is a 15-inch MacBook Pro competitor with a powerful processor, discrete Nvidia GeForce graphics and a gorgeous 15.6-inch, 3,840×2,160-pixel-resolution 4K touchscreen display.”

CNET notes that unlike most ultra-thin laptops, which use a mix of metal and plastic components, the ATIV Book 9 Pro (like the ATIV Book 9 Spin) has a rigid aluminum unibody frame that feels like it could withstand a tough backpack ride.

Unfortunately, reviewers for the device at Best Buy have said that there are color display problems.

“I am a Samsung fan, have 5 other Samsung products and bought this laptop to have a seamless data flow and user experience across devices. I love the design and the performance is great. I would give it 5 stars, if the colors would display correctly. But unfortunately, the blues are being rendered very greenish. That is a pretty big flaw,” says a reviewer named Alex.

“Colors look washed out. Blue looks like green!. Great piece of hardware but color problems put the 4K display to shame!! Samsung will need to do better to compete with the mac book pro,” says Sami.

It’s important to note that the new Microsoft Surface Book, Surface Pro, and even the Dell XPS 15 all had display problems at first, until a firmware upgrade fixed the devices. It’s likely that a firmware update will do the same with the ATIV Book 9 Pro if it hasn’t already.

As Gizmodo notes, a 4K display on a laptop can be a huge blow to its battery life.

“There is the looming problem with battery life, which on a 4k display can be quite a problem, but Samsung says you’ll get 6.5 hours on a charge. However, you might want to take those estimates with a grain of salt—they always seem slightly optimistic.”

It is predicted that in early 2016, Apple will strike back with a 15-inch 4K laptop that has a 6th generation Intel Core i7 processor and a discreet GPU. However, Windows 10 laptops are more attractive than ever, especially since Windows 10 has proven to be the robust and smooth operating system that Apple’s OS X is.

It’s important to note that The ATIV Book 9 Pro is a touchscreen laptop. Apple has yet to release a touchscreen laptop, but they may change their minds after the success of such devices as the Microsoft Surface Book, the Surface Pro 4, and even the Dell XPS 15. There are no sales estimates yet for the ATIV Book Pro 9 since it just came out a week and a half ago. However, it looks like Samsung is hoping to change the laptop industry the same way they did with smartphones.

[Photo by David Ramos/Getty Images]