As notebooks go, the Samsung 9-series Ultrabook is the definition of slim. It measures 14.9mm thick, with the edges tapering down to about half that. Slim is good, slim is great... but going too slim means there's no room for standard data ports and video connections.

On the graph chart of life, eventually the lines representing "sleek and slim" intersect with "inconvenient dongles needed" and notebook portability starts to get saddled with adaptors, dongles and special micro-cables. When this happens, the slim, thin and portable notebook finds itself accompanied by an unsightly bag full of all the adaptors or special cables it needs to interference with monitors, wired Ethernet and HD Televisions. On the Samsung NP900X4C-A02 Ultrabook, everything, save for the USB and headphone jacks requires an adaptor or mini-cable version.

Along the left hand side of the Samsung 9-series ultrabook are ports for the notebooks' DC power adaptor, a chargeable USB 2.0 port (for recharging a smart phone via USB), a 1.8" headphone/mic jack, micro-HDMI video output, mini-connector for the supplied RJ45 wired LAN dongle and internal microphone hole.

Shown with the RJ-45 LAN dongle and DC power supply connected to their respective ports. The spacing is tight, add a headphone jack and USB cable and it gets difficult to access individual connectors. The RJ-45 wired LAN dongle comes with a dust cap to protect the mini connector end, so tossing it in your bag when it's not needed shouldn't be a problem.

Along the right side of the Samsung NP900X4C-A02 ultrabook we find the mini-VGA out adaptor which requires a dongle (not included) before a second external display can be connected. There are also two USB 3.0 ports for standard SuperSpeed USB 3.0 thumb drives or external hard drives.

As far as ports and connectors go, that's it. There is one little trap door on the bottom of the notebook, just a few inches down from the speaker grills.

Right below the minn-VGA dongle port is a SDHC 4-in-1 memory card reader, hidden conveniently behind a self closing trap door to keep out the dust.

The back of the display is plain aluminum, except for the sparkly Samsung logo.

The bottom of the Samsung 9-Series notebook is flush, with no access bays to reach memory, hard drive, mSATA cards, mPCI-E cards or even the battery. The only three things which grace this pressed aluminum sheet metal surface are a couple of cooling vents, a speaker grill on either side and the 4-in-1 card reader slot.

Speaking of Sound

The built in speakers are tucked away on the rear of the Samsung 9-series notebook and are fairly powerful when the volume is boosted all the way up. Sound quality was actually better than expected, with significantly less 'tinny' sound coming from the 2W speakers than you would expect. At moderate volume the speakers are well up to the task of playing music. Bass is generally absent from the music, but at least the sound was clear and distortion free up to about %75 of the volume scale.

Next up, the tile keyboard. If you make your living typing, you'll want to read what PCSTATS has to say.