Samsung Notebook 7 Spin, Notebook 9, and Notebook 9 Pen launch Feb 18th

Samsung’s premium laptop lineup for 2018 hits the streets next week. All of the new notebooks the company unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in January will be available in the US starting February 15th:

• Samsung Notebook 7 Spin (2018) for $900
• Samsung Notebook 9 Pen for $1400
• 13 inch Samsung Notebook 9 (2018) for $1200 and up
• 15 inch Samsung Notebook 9 (2018) for $1300 and up

The Notebook 7 Spin and Notebook 9 Pen are both convertibles, but the more expensive model is thinner, lighter, comes with a pen, and… gets kind of lousy reviews for battery life.

Samsung’s Notebook 9 (2018) laptops are thin and light clamshell-style notebooks.

Samsung’s 13 inch Notebook 9 measures 0.57 inches thick, weighs 2.2 pounds, and comes with either an 8th-gen Core i5 processor (for $1200) or a Core i7 chip (for $1300).

The 15 inch model measures 0.6 inches thick, weighs about 2.8 pounds, and ships standard with a Core i7 chip and a starting price of $1300. But you can pay an extra $200 to get a model with NVIDIA GeForce MX150 graphics.

Both versions have USB Type-C ports, but only the 15 inch model supports Thunderbolt 3.

The Samsung Notebook 9 Pen is 0.65 inches thick, has a Core i7 processor, a 39Wh battery, a USB Type-C port, and a touchscreen display, 360-degree hinge, USB Type-C (not Thunderbolt 3) and Samsung S-Pen.

All of the Samsung Notebook 9 series machines are built from a new material Samsung calls Metal12 that’s lighter than aluminum, but which some reviewers say feels like plastic. It remains to be seen whether that’s necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, but unless we start getting used to Metal12, it’s likely that folks are going to think these premium notebooks feel cheap.

The Notebook 7 Spin (2018), meanwhile, is a bit heftier. This convertible notebook measures 0.73 inches thick, weighs about 3.2 pounds, has a 43Wh battery, and a heavier metal chassis.

While it has a smaller battery and heavier chassis than the Notebook 9 series laptops, it’s a much more affordable machine, and I think most of the price difference comes down to design and materials.

The Notebook 7 Spin has a full HD touchscreen display, USB Type-C and Type-A ports, a fingerprint reader, optional support for an active pen (sold separately), a backlit keyboard, an 8th-gen Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of solid state storage.