Samsung has announced that a new 15-inch version of its Notebook 9 Pen 2-in-1 convertible is coming to CES 2019 – just after South Korean rival LG revealed it would be showing off a refreshed LG Gram 2-in-1 at Las Vegas in January.
Samsung says that the S Pen stylus offers half the amount of latency compared to the previous version, and, unlike the N-trig-powered Surface Pen stylus Microsoft flogs alongside its Surface Pro and Surface Go convertibles for an extra £99, the S Pen won’t require charging – and comes included in the box for no extra cost.
Processor-wise, Samsung’s not said what’s going to be running under the hood on the new Notebook 9 Pen, other than that it’ll be one of ‘the latest Core i7 8th Gen Intel CPUs.’ It will likely be the same Core i7-8550U Kaby Lake refresh processor that powers the current 13.3-inch Notebook 9 Pen, instead of a new Whiskey Lake CPU. Samsung has confirmed that the 15-inch Notebook 9 Pen will feature a dedicated GPU, an Nvidia GeForce MX150 with 2GB of RAM, which ought to give sketching and painting apps a bit more of a boost.
Other features Samsung’s confirmed for the new Notebook 9 Pen 2-in-1s are a single USB-C port, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, a microSD card slot and a 3.5mm headphone jack.
Korean rivals LG yesterday announced that the new LG Gram 2-in-1 will feature a 14-inch screen and will too be powered by an 8th Gen Intel CPU, although again, it’s not been made clear which processor(s) it’ll feature. The LG Gram 2-in-1 will feature a stylus which uses Wacom’s AES 2.0 technology – Samsung’s previously used Wacom tech in its S Pen styluses.
There’s no information on pricing just yet – though expect this to cost more than the $1299 (£1206) Samsung’s asking for the 13.3-inch counterpart – nor when it’ll go on sale, other than some time in 2019.
Expect to hear more about this and the LG Gram 2-in-1 throughout CES.
Do you think that Samsung’s new convertible is noteworthy, or will you reserve judgement until prices surface? Let us know on Twitter @TrustedReviews.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
