Samsung Series 9 NP900X3A (13-inch)

The good: A thin, stylish design, long battery life, excellent screen, and a new second-generation Intel Core i5 CPU make the Samsung Series 9 NP900X3A one of the best ultrathin Windows laptops we've ever seen.

The bad: The Series 9's way-too-high sticker price makes the MacBook Air look downright affordable by comparison; the flexy case design doesn't feel as good as the MacBook Air's, either.

The bottom line: The $1,649 Samsung Series 9 NP900X3A certainly won't be for every wallet, but this light, well-featured, and striking 13-incher is the closest the Windows world will ever come to a MacBook Air. However, its higher-than-the-Air price will be hard to stomach.

If every action has an equal and opposite reaction, then consider the Samsung Series 9 NP900X3A to be a direct response to Apple's MacBook Air. It's been a long time since we've seen two laptops so seemingly intertwined--in purpose, design, performance, and even price. For all that you could love about a MacBook Air, nearly the same could be said for the sleek, black Series 9, a 13-inch laptop packed with exceptional design and undeniable geek appeal.

At $1,649, the real question will be whether you're able to afford it. Weighing 2.9 pounds and packing a 1.4 GHz second-gen Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD drive, it's got some of the best performance-per-pound that we've ever seen. It starts fast and feels great to work on. However, this laptop makes MacBook Air look like a bargain by comparison, and that's saying something: the 13-inch Air starts at just $1,299 for that same 128GB SSD drive (although with half the RAM). Amazingly, the $1,649 configuration is the low end for the Series 9--there's also a $1,699 version that adds Windows 7 Professional, which is the configuration we were sent for review. That price is 15-inch MacBook Proterritory--lofty, indeed.

We've seen high-end design-heavy Windows laptops before, though not for a while--the Dell Adamo and Adamo XPS come to mind. The Series 9 is a better overall laptop than those--but if this laptop were $1,000, we'd really be far more bullish.

As it is, $1,649 is way above standard laptop pricing landscape (at least it comes standard with a three-year warranty). This is a luxury system, especially with $400-range 11.6-inch AMD Fusion laptops presenting pretty reasonable alternatives.

If you're a Windows laptop user but have been secretly envying devices like the MacBook Air, clenching your hands uncontrollably at night for a Windows analogue--and price is no object-- then your gleaming onyx savior has arrived. Otherwise, you might want to wait for the 11-inch Series 9 coming in about a month, which will cost a little less--or, find a more affordable alternative, provided you can live without supersleek duraluminum. But, if you can stomach the sticker price, this is one of the best, thin, usable ultraportable PCs we've ever come across.