Samsung Notebook 9 Pen pairs S Pen with an all-metal 2-in-1

Samsung has a new pen-enabled 2-in-1 laptop, the Samsung Notebook 9 Pen, promising performance and even a standalone GPU option in a sleek, all-metal design. Two versions of the notebook will be offered, the Notebook 9 Pen 13 with a 13.3-inch display, and the Notebook 9 Pen 15, which kicks things up to a 15-inch display with an NVIDIA graphics chip.

Either way, you get a Full HD display with a touchscreen. Samsung supplies its S Pen digital stylus, too, with what the company says is half the latency of the old version. Three different pen tips can be switched in as well, for a choice of drawing feel.

Happily, in a sea of 2-in-1s that don't have anywhere to store their stylus, there's an S Pen silo in the body of the notebook itself. It's also battery-free and works with Windows 10 Home's handwriting recognition.

The Notebook 9 Pen itself is aluminum, with a diamond cut metal finish, and an Ocean Blue color, matching the Galaxy Note 9 – even the S Pen is the same vivid yellow as the phablet's stylus. The 13.3-inch model is 14.9 mm thick and weighs 2.47 pounds; the 15-inch version is 16.9 mm thick, and weighs 3.44 pounds. Both have a 360-degree hinge and a backlit keyboard.

Intel's 8th Generation Core i7 processor is used, with an unspecified amount of LPDDR3 memory. The 13.3-inch model has Intel shared graphics, but the 15-inch 2-in-1 has an NVIDIA GeForce MX150 GPU with 2GB of its own memory. Either way there's a PCIe NVMe SSD for storage.

Connectivity includes 802.11ac WiFi, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, a USB Type-C port, a 3.5mm combination headphones and microphone jack, and a microSD card slot. Samsung fits both a fingerprint sensor and the HD IR camera needed for facial login, too. The speakers are AKG-tuned, and come with a ThunderAmp smart amplifier.

Both sizes of Notebook 9 Pen get a 54 Wh battery. Samsung says that's good for up to 15 hours of runtime, activity depending. There's also fast charging support.

The Samsung Notebook 9 Pen 13 and 15 will each go on sale next year. Pricing is yet to be confirmed.