Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite Review: The 13-inch Ultrabook that sports the same look as its higher-end counterpart, the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite, is a mid-range laptop offered at an affordable price. Though it’s cheap, starting at around $800, the unit is not a true value machine.

The Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite runs on 64-bit Windows 8 platform and has a quad-core AMD processor that clocks in at 1.4GHz. The graphic processor of the Book 9 Lite includes an AMD Radeon HD 8250 Graphics. It also has 128GB of Solid State Drive.

The ultra book’s manufacturer, South Korean tech giant Samsung promises that the device will run on “lighting fast performance.” Because of it’s reliable 128GB Solid State Drive, the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite boots up in 8 seconds, or 2 seconds from sleep. It’s labeled as a portable workstation of choice especially for multi-tasking performance.

According to Engadget though, the ATIV Book 9 Lite is sluggish when it comes to day-to-day use. There were ghosting effects when when they dragged around windows and opened new files and applications. Programs become unresponsive at some points as well, the tech site noted. “The bottom line: It’s a little too easy to overwhelm this machine,” Engadget writes in its review for the ATIV Book 9 Lite.

Engadget, however, backs-up the claim of Samsung about ATIV Book 9 Lite’s quick boot up. Thanks once again to its Solid State Drive. The SSD, however, the gadget review site noes doesn’t help much with CPU intensive tasks. Transfer speeds, however, are predictably fast. It maxes out at 550 MB/s, while write outs topped out an average of 139 MB/S. It’s not as fast as the PCI Express-based SSD, but very normal for an old mSATA drive.

In terms of battery life, the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Lite only lasts around 5.5 hours, which is short for an Ultrabook. It’s left to dust by the 11-12 hours battery life of MacBook Pro with Retina Display (2013) and MacBook Air (2013), respectively.

CNET praises this budget spin on the Windows touchscreen and says that the Ultrabook-esque laptop has some flair. It is an excellent value machine, but the corners cut aren’t worthy of the money saved.