Introducing The 2013 Series 7 Chronos with AMD HD8870M!

I had a momentary panic when I first read this. I had seen a reference to bilingual keyboards, but I had forgotten about it when deciding to buy one. However, I've looked at that link and I'm now thinking it could be a real boon. The different enter key is the most worrying bit, but I hope I'll get used to that quickly. The ability to easily do accents will be great. In my work I frequently need to write foreign accented words and it is a real pain on the traditional US or UK keyboards.

 

I looked into this asI've set up ac now and have a couple of other devices using it. I could only find an Asus gaming laptop with ac installed and rumours that it will be in the next gen macs. So, very little support from laptop manufacturers yet. It will probably be standard come the end of the year.

Interestingly, Samsung's new phone, the S4, comes with ac.

 

Well, at least my phone will be able to utilize my AC connection.

 

I don't expect America to get the 8870 anymore, i think we are going to see ATIV book instead in July with updated specs, the chronos 8770 is the Chronos 7 samsung thinks USA market deserves. they gave us 8870 on a 17inch instead and that's that. I hope i'm wrong but This is my conclusion based on frustrating 2 month wait, while all other major markets got it.

I'm working on a way to have it imported from the UK at a reasonable cost + VAT Tax refund, i'll post details here if it works out so others who are interested can buy it too. Ofcourse if you are in seattle maybe u can drive to Canada, but i don't have the facility.

On a side off-topic note, i just saw "Oblivion" , it's a great movie and i highly recommend everyone to go see it!

 

How does the Lenovo Y500 compare to this?

 

I really didn't like oblivion lol. I thought it was really beautiful, and the sound was great, and effects were great, but that the plot, and specifically the end, was pretty bad

 

how does one even compare these two? one is a budget gaming laptop with only good gpu and crappy everything else, and other is expensive allrounder....apart from gaming aspect, they are completely different...

 

Is the Y500 really that bad? Can you please point me to a couple of reviews?

 

Not sure if this was posted before:

Review Samsung Series 7 Chronos 770Z5E-S01DE Notebook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

 

I'm wondering why they didn't find out about the image retention issue. Some users in their forum are reporting it, too (at least in the German speaking forum).

 

It's not that it's bad, but it's in a different class of laptops. The Y500 is a gaming machine, the Chronos is a premium machine. They were made for different purposes, so they can't be compared.

Review Lenovo IdeaPad Y500 Notebook - NotebookCheck.net Reviews

 

Does it also have the English/French keyboard? I would be getting one from Vancouver.

 

Can someone explain to me what this registration means? I am trying to get the US version that is most similar to the NP780Z5E-S02CA sold in Canada. Any idea on whether this registration means the US will be getting a 15" version and when that will occur? I'm confused as to why this is being stated as confirmation that a US version is imminent, yet the first post states that nothing is known about the 15" in the US. I hope to be an active member of the community after I get this computer and upgrade to an SSD, thanks for the excellent resources everyone!

 

Hey guys, one thing about throttling.. In Notebookcheck they say that it doesn't throttle during stress test, and that it consumes 88W in that scenario. So why did we talk about PSU limitation?

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

I think the 17" version throttles because of the PSU limitation.

 

I emailed future shop and they are 16GB AND have english/french keyboards. Looks like I will have to wait for the english only version.

 

Yes, it has the bilingual keyboard. Honestly, it's not a big deal for me after only a little bit of use to get used to the key positions.

 

Its going into may , why do i feel that its gonna be more month till it starts rolling out in the usa (bad for me)
haswell is way better than i7? if it uses less power then i would love it in the chronos

 

First of all hello as I'm new here

Been following this thread with interest as I've been looking around for a laptop for a while now.

I did have my budget set at around £750 (I'm in the UK) and so the Lenovo Y500 was my pick of the bunch. But their customer support while trying to get information from them has been appalling - and in fact non existent on their forums). But I digress.

Decided to look at spending more and the 770 caught my eye at John Lewis. But now I'm torn as I have read about the 780 with the touch screen now. I just feel like maybe a touch screen on a laptop isn't as intuitive (not to mention I could buy the 770 today of course, whereas I'd have to wait for the 780 to come back into stock

But my real concern is the image retention. I already have a plasma TV which I have to baby while playing games because of retention. And just in case anyone says "buy a decent plasma as they are fine these days." It is a Panasonic GT50 and I'm not alone with pretty bad retention on it.

I really don't want the same worries with a laptop = especially as I plan to do a lot of gaming on it. And a lot of games have high contrast HUDs sadly.

I assume no one has yet to see any permanent retention - or basically burn in, on their screen?

I'm desperate for a new machine now and frankly I can't see anything else even close in this price range.

 

No it's not permanent, usually it disappears after ~15 mins. But nobody knows if it will get worse after a while. Too bad that Samsung pretends that they didn't know anything about that issue (at least the German Samsung hotline).

 

Chill dude...I've read all the 508 pages of this thread and all the other threads about the new Chronos...I know what we talked about, but last week Notebookcheck's english review of the 8870 model came out, and they write:

And also:

So, I wonder:
- Did they get a lucky machine which doesn't throttle and drains less power?
- Are they crazy and can't measure power consumption properly? (I doubt this)
- What can be the reason of the difference between their experience and the one of some of the members of this forum?
If you can't answer to these new questions, you can ignore my post and let other people answer

 

Any models ending with the CA country code such as the NP780Z5E-S02CA will have the bilingual keyboard, regardless of which province or retailer in Canada you buy it from. Apparently, within the last few years most laptop manufacturers have completely stopped selling different keyboard versions in the French and English speaking parts of the country and only ship the bilingual keyboard models across the country. It's very annoying for those of us who are used to and prefer the standard US English keyboards.

 

I saw the review last week also, and I just assume Samsung either found a way to throttle the 8870 instead of the processor with their drivers, or the 8870 might just use as much power as the 8770. The 8770 runs at 775mhz I think, the 8870 at 725mhz, but with a turbo to 775mhz and a much higher pipeline count, which is the real reason for the better performance.

I havent heard of anyone complain about the 8870 power consumption either, which is why I brought it up, so the review's experience about power consumption was an entirely new fact

 

might be silly but still just wanted to ask anyway-
even though notebookcheck places 8870 well above gtx660, its performance is far worse compared to latter...anyone knows how they actually decide ranks for these gpus? also, if anyone has the 8850 version can they confirm if the gaming performance is similar to gtx660 or not? thanks

 

not worth even trying to baseline the 8870 against nvidia until SATimsung gets their act together and release proper drivers.

 

Hey all,
I'm looking for some advice on what to do with my broken back panel
I was in the middle of removing it (to replace the HDD for a SSD) and it cracked 3/4" where it sits over the SD card slot. I have extra warranty from future shop, but I doubt they will cover that. Do you think Samsung would send me a new back panel? Even if I have to pay for it.

Thanks!!!

 

Haswell better than Ivy Bridge you mean? Intel has been prioritizing lower power consumption/longer battery life with power-saving features lately on their mobile parts, so it should be better. Since Haswell's release is already coming close I'm personally waiting until then.

 

Good grief Curry's/PCWorld in the U.K still don't have the NP780 in stock, but they have decided to increase the price anyway.

It was listed as £1099.99 but is now £1299.99 - that's a whopping $1981.11 (that;s the i7 model with the 8870M and 6GB ram)

Seems my decision has been made and I'll be going for the cheaper NP770 - even though I'd really like a touch screen. But that price tag is crazy money.

 

Please tell me they've made a mistake!?!?

Edit-actually I think samsung are selling in stores for £1,199

 

Meaning intel is trying to pull and AMD :thumbsup:

 

I know Intel is supposed to release a new extra-low power processors designed for use in tablets and such, but is the design actually supposed to be much more power efficient? The TDP for mobile processors actually appears to be increasing by 2 W relative to Ivy Bridge, though this only relates to max power draw.

 

I think you are out of luck on this. The best option is probably to wait until items start appearing on ebay, if the back panel is broken you may possibly "jury-rig" it by using some sort of epoxy made for plastics. By opening your laptop it voids your warrantee with samsung.. If you could somehow prove that the bottom was broken during regular use maybe they would send you a new one. You could call and enquire if they would send you a new bottom at full price but I don't really see them doing that either. I am sorry that you broke the bottom while replacing the hard drive, you really have to go about it slowly and not bend anything... it is plastic.

Jason

 

Where does it say that your warranty would be voided if opened? There are instructions in the manual on how to replace the HDD.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

What does the extra warranty from Futureshop cover? I'm sure there is paper work that details the ins-&-outs of what is covered. At best buy, the full coverage warranty will replace accidental damage. Sounds accidental to me. I had a situation where my kid "sat on" a tablet while under a blanket on the couch and cracked the screen.

 

The Futureshop warranty specifically does not cover physical damage (I asked them when buying the machine).

 

This is from the Samsung website

I also just checked my manual and this is the only thing it says

I did find this about physical damage

So they will be happy to repair it, just get a quote from samsung first.

 

That's because a voltage controller is now integrated into the CPU die (one less motherboard component). Total system idle power use will be significantly less, but no word yet on system load power use as far as I know.

 

Thanks jasongrant15... good to know.
I was going to give Samsung a call anyway, knowing well that I may have to pay for a repair, assuming the same rules apply up here in the frigid white north.
I'm not impressed with the back panel construction, but at the end of the day it was my fault - lesson learned.

 

I'm not surprised the demand is huge, what surprises me is the pathetic distribution of this model.

Go ahead with the 770 you get a Matt screen which is a plus and touchscreen isn't a big deal. Ur aRms will get tired, Maybe 3 years from now when apps utiliZe touch on laptops better it will be time for an upgrade. In fact touch free gesture tech is the way of the future as it resolves having to reach your arm forward so I don't see touch lasting long on laptops.

 

I just purchased the NP780Z5E-S01UB Chronos 15.6 touchscreen. I want to upgrade the memory to 16GB but am not sure what memory I need to by in order to accomplish this.

I also want to Upgrade the HDD with SSD. Since this will void the warrenty I wanted to ask if anyone else has done this and has it resulted in significant improvments. My primary use of the comp is for post processing photography using lightroom 4. I also do a little gaming but so far the HDD seems fine for that. My load of photos is slow compared to other laptops that I have seen that have SSD's.

Any help would be apprciated.

 

No!! Should've bought it when it was back in stock last week... :S

 

If I'm not mistaken, you won't be able to go up to 16Gb since there's already 4GB soldered on the MB. You can go up to 12Gb by replacing the 4Gb removable one.

 

Hi Padler66

I purchased this memory for my Chronos
Amazon.com: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (1x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory (CMSX8GX3M1A1600C10): Electronics

You don't need to get the same stuff, just make sure you are getting DDR3 1600 MHz (PC3 12800) Laptop Memory and you will be fine.

As for upgrading the HDD with an SSD, it will only void the warranty if you leave behind evidence that you tampered with the laptop. I have opened this laptop 3 times (I purchased a Chronos, ended up returning it and just purchased another one after giving up the wait for the 8870.) My main suggestion is you take your time, do not bend the plastic bottom. I find it works best working from front to back on this laptop. there are snaps all the way around the laptop. I started at the middle, worked to the left, then to the right and then around the ports as best as possible. I then removed the bottom from front to back AFTER removing the snaps between the hinges on the back. I did not however attempt to remove the snaps on the hinges themselves. I lightly lifted using equal pressure on the left and the right sides as the back was the only thing left attached. Main thing is, do not bend the plastic any more than you have to. I also highly recommend using proper prying tools in order to open your laptop.

Something like this ( Amazon.com: Metal and Nylon Spudger Repair Opening Pry Tool Kit: Cell Phones & Accessories) I did not use the metal tool. It is also very important to use the prying tools properly, do not use any sort of a twisting motion creating unequal force on the case. The plastic will show damage. I used up and down pressure only.

Replacing the HDD with a SSD will greatly improve post processing, pretty much anything saving to a hard drive will speed up. My chronos boots in 8 or 9 seconds from cold boot. With my SSD which is the Samsung 840 Pro you get multiple benifits, increased hard drive speed 540mb-580mb per second verse traditional hard drives of between 30-50mb per second plus you also decrease power consumption. The Samsung 840 pro uses very little power.

MrGuitou is correct, if your laptop currently has 8GB ram you will only be able to upgrade to 12gb. 4 is soldered onto the mobo and 4 is in the expansion slot.

Jason

 

Thanks Jason - that is exactly what I was looking for. Will take your recomendationa and proceed with care when swaping the drive. As I was reading back through the meriad of post in this thread I can to the same understadnign about 12 vs 16gb memory. Thansk again.

 

i just noticed yesterday that civ 5 is touch enabled. it works really well actually!

 

Jason - one last question the 840 pro says it is a SATA 3 device where as the Chronos appears to have a SATA 2 hookup for the 1 TB drive. is this a problem or is there a different 840 pro that I shoud lbuy. Here is a link to the one that I am looking at on Amazon

 

Yes - I have been playing with my 7 year old son and we have been loving the touch interfacce since we got the Samsung a week ago

 

Does anyone have any information about the availability of the touch model in the Netherlands. I've read some short news from March that Samsung is about to introduce it around beginning of May, however no exact details are given or verified. i dont know if it does make sense to wait.

 

I want to say that the inteface on the laptop is SATA3 and am pretty sure it is but can not confirm till I get home in a few hours.I believe the specs are showing that the HDD that they include has SATA2 which makes sense since slow HDD's can't take advantage of the faster interface. Long story short, the Samsung 840 pro that you are looking at is compatible with the laptop. That is the exact drive I purchased. I love it, and I love the fact that it uses so little power. All SATA is backwards compatible. So if you were to stick your nice new 840 into an old computer with a SATA interface it still should work.

Also, I just noticed a pretty detailed HDD to SSD tutorial has been posted in the very first post in this forum thread, however the Samsung 840 pro comes with great migration software you should run prior to installing the ssd... this will allow you to bypass some of the tutorial.

** Confirmed, I am home now and I have SATA3