The touchpad is large and soft, and looks and feels like Apple's glass touchpad. It has a thin silver outline and no distinguishable buttons. Unlike the touchpad on last year's model, I didn't find this touchpad to be too sensitive; I found it to be not sensitive enough. Even after installing a driver update, the touchpad didn't always respond when I wanted it to, and multitouch gestures were jerky and inaccurate.

One of the Series 9's most impressive features is its big, bright, matte LED-backlit screen. We were impressed with the previous model's screen, and this model's screen is essentially the same, just with a higher resolution (1600 by 900 pixels instead of 1366 by 768 pixels). It is incredibly bright at the highest brightness setting, which means it's perfect for working on in bright or direct sunlight. It also offers excellent viewing angles, vivid colors, and an anti-glare matte finish.

Audio is another story. Though I don't expect studio-quality from laptop speakers, especially one as this as the Series 9, the speakers here are even worse than average. Sound is not just tinny, strung-out, and bass-less, it's also fuzzy at higher levels. For example: I tried watching a Saturday Night Live clip and I could barely make out the announcer's words over the audience's applause, because the different sounds kept running into each other.