More important, the 15-inch Notebook 9 doesn't force you to choose between power and portability. You'll be working with one of Intel's seventh-generation Core i7 chips and up to 8GB of DDR4 dual-channel RAM. I didn't get to spend a ton of time with the machine, but it certainly felt snappy enough as I opened Chrome tab after Chrome tab and generally treated it like a jerk.

We'll have more nuanced impressions on performance after we get a final production unit, but, for now, it seems safe to say the Notebook should slot into your daily workflow without much trouble. For those of you who need a little extra graphics clout for gaming and what-not, Samsung also has a variant on deck with a dedicated NVIDIA 940MX GPU. Just know that machine is about half a pound heavier than the base model. No matter what graphics processor drives those visuals, though, they generally look good on Samsung's 15-inch, 1080p screen.

There's a full suite of ports here too: two USB 3.0, one USB 2.0 and a full-size HDMI socket. That said, the Notebook 9 uses a USB Type-C port for power. Your phone charger will do in a pinch if you need juice, but you should be sure to keep that included 45W power adapter handy: It's said to fully recharge the machine in about 80 minutes.

There's at least one potential problem, though: As far as looks go, the Notebook 9 is unassuming at best. The body is decked out in a nondescript silver, without much to break up the visual monotony beyond a Samsung logo slapped on the front. Style mavens might not need to apply, but folks who value function over form probably won't mind the trade-off much, if at all. In fact, the overall strength of this package is enough to make me consider ditching the 12-inch MacBook I've been traveling with as of late. We're counting on nabbing one for review soon, so stay tuned for a deeper dive.

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