Introducing The 2013 Series 7 Chronos with AMD HD8870M!

Thanks for the cloning instructiosn! My 17" is coming any minute now, and it will be a big help.

I do have one question, however. Does the cloning method address the differences in Win8 instalation for SSD vs physical drive? I don't recall the differences, but there are several.

Thanks again!

 

The 8870 on series 7 has already been released in the US:

Series 7 17.3

 

I don't have the notebook nor the SSD, but I suggest you to have a look at anandtech.com :they have pretty exhaustive comparisons between many different SSDs, and most likely they have looked also at that "overlapped I/O"

3) The reason of the huge RAM usage is exactly Intellymemory, like you wrote in point 2). Uninstall it and RAM usage will become normal

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Oh I was asking the poster who got a 17.3" one whether it was PLS (I guess I meant MVA, I just misremembered what Samsung uses)

Too bad there's no wiki or something. Someone made a new thread to centralize info, but he included almost zero actual information.

 

In Samsung's official naming scheme, the ATIV Book 6 is actually a replacement for the Samsung Series 5 Chronos, not the Series 7. The Series 7 replacement is actually ATIV Book 8, which I guess hasn't been announced yet?

 

I'm not convinced these are replacements so much as alternative versions - all the Ativ books seem to have black colouring, whereas series 5, 7 (chronos, ultra, or whatever) are Silver. They might move the whole range eventually, but I don't think it will be yet. The Ativ books seem to have exactly the same specs as their silver counterparts, and there's been no hint of a Chronos rebrand, just extra models (Otherwise wouldn't there be a series 5 or 7 Ativ book?).

 

Its official Chronos is dead (at least the branding) All Samsung computers including the famous Series 9 will get re-branded under the ATIV name:

Series 9 will be ATIV BOOK 9 from now on and
Chronos 7 will be replaced by the ATIV BOOK 8

As you can see from the official press release, ATIV Book 8 is officially referred there but they haven't announced the actual product yet.

Samsung Unifies Fastest Growing PC Line under Newly Expanded ATIV Brand; Launches Two New Laptops | Business Wire

 

Ugh, so now what? What are the chances of this being available before May 22nd (the day I leave the US)?

Samsung extends ATIV branding to all Windows PCs, adds Book 5, Book 6 and SideSync software to the roster

 

ATIV Book | Samsung
*Pre-sale starts 4/25. Expected to ship by the week of 5/12.

 

Cross-posting from the owners lounge...cloning my drive's factory image (through the F4 recovery) failed with no explanation given. It's a 256GB Crucial SSD. Is there a workaround, or some reason why this should not work?

Can I use the Factory Image option? Do I need to select "create boot disk"?

 

Try it in windows. Never did it in F4.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

Here we go again, So chronos 7 is now dead, we will never see 8870 15inch in the USA.

And look at the specs of the new ATIV BOOK pre-sales announcement , it has 8770!! This again confirms my speculation that Samsung think 8770 is what USA market will always get. No Hint of Book 8 in the USA, however book 8 is hinted in other countries (they are following the same pattern).

the way i see it now is , if you want 8870 in the usa here are your options:

1. Buy the 17inch 8870 Matt screen and get it over with (which is fine, but too heavy/bulky for most)
2. Drive to Canada or have Canadian friend buy and ship it for u (expensive option)
3. On a trip to other countries like UK, Europe, HongKong, etc pick it up and get a Tax-refund on ur way out.
4. Find a shipping agent willing to export the laptop from a country that has 8870 available (i didnt find one yet, working on it).

 

Would appreciate if someone here with Chronos 7 + SSD do a read/write benchmark using ATTO (link in the above msg) so that we can appreciate how fast SSD can be.

Other SSD tests from other notebook models would not be as authentic as the above test.

Thank-you in advance.

 

Here is my Samsung experience:

First 770Z5E-S01DE: Image retention issue
Second 770Z5E-S01DE: Image retention issue
Third 770Z5E-S01DE: Broken speaker and image retention issue
Fourth 770Z5E-S01DE: Scratch on the screen and at least one dead pixel next to the scratch, maybe also image retention issue, didn't look for that.

Also some of the notebooks did have scratches on the cover. I have never seen such bad quality check before! There will be no fifth 770Z5E for me. It's actually really bad because the notebook itself could be awesome without that issues.

 

Yup. No-go on the F4 functionality. Now to decide whether I really need it or not. I still have the 1TB HDD intact, and anything critical on my laptop gets backed up to cloud...

 

Yeah, but ATIV book 6 is only the Series 5 rebranded, so it's actually not really a surprise it has the 8770. What we're waiting for the the Ativ book 8... Which hasn't been announced, or even acknowledged to exist... We'll need some more patience ... :SLEEP:

 

Their site is rubbish. Really. When the Chronos first launched they didn't have it listed under "Samsung". They had it listed under "Samsung Computer". I've also had many issues buying from their stores where the web site shows items in stock at a given store, but they aren't actually on the shelves or in the back room either. Basically, their web site blows. Don't take anything that it shows as fact.

 

The BB version has an i7.

Intellimemory is what's using that RAM. You pointed it out in the previous item.

Honestly, I've never understood why people get so bent out of shape about memory use. They see a high percentage of RAM in use and freak out that their system is messed up. What they really need to be concerned about isn't memory utilization, but memory contention and swapping. My laptop has 12GB of RAM. I want it to use as much of it as possible to ensure that my applications get the best performance, as long as it doesn't lead to swapping. So as long as these caching programs release physical RAM when running applications require it (the built-in Windows features that provide application caching do this correctly) then it shouldn't be an issue. But when I see my hard disk thrashing, that's when I pull out perfmon and start digging a little more.

 

Surely you meant "rumor" instead of "fact".

 

It actually was listed at $1299, and was "on sale" the first couple of weeks for $1199, after which they changed the regular price to...drum roll...$1199. The "sale" wasn't a sale on this laptop, it was on all Win8 touchscreen laptops. I suspect that they intentionally marked up the price for the first couple of weeks when they realized that the hottest laptop they were going to have this spring was debuting during a sale.

 

I asked for this test maybe a month ago, because I wanted to see if after factory restore a SSD would be aligned (albeit without a clean install). If I remember correctly pranktank ran the test and answered me, you should find the post if you search this thread or the owner's lounge with the key word "ATTO"

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Now that Chronos is out of the table, I personally expect at least three configurations of the ATIV Book 8 to be available soon in the US market.

1. AMD 8870, 8GB, 1TB HDD, Touch Display 1080p
2. AMD 8870, 8GB, 1TB HDD, Regular 1080p Display
3. AMD 8870, 16GB, 256GB SSD, Touch Display

I also expect all of them to be available by late May, early June with the current 3rd Generation i7 processors. Unless Intel and its partners are planning an early summer release of the 4th Generation i7, in that case I will not be surprised if Samsung is saving the ATIV Book 8 for that.

 

I just wanted to share with you something weird happened today:



Most troll CEO ever. BTW, I've just checked now, and his profile disappeared, but it seemed legit when I looked it 10 minutes ago!

 

That's obviously a troll. I bet the Samsung CEO would never use "Samsung CEO" as username LOL

 

i think Samsung is intentionally not mass-producing/distributing this because they dont want pissed off customers when they rebrand this to ativ book 8 and update it with haswell/ssd just 3-4 months after first unveiling it.....otherwise in this ever-decling pc sales era why would they not try and push out their best laptop to make whatever profit they can....thoughts?

 

Intel starts teasing the availability of their 4th Generation Core processors in ~38 days

https://twitter.com/intel/status/327799307954708481



CNET had a story couple of weeks ago and reported that the new 4th Generation processors are already shipping to all major computer manufacturers. So most likely this hint from Intels means general market availability of Haswell.

In this case if Samsung is smart they can announce and put for immediate pre-order the ATIV Book 8 with 4th Generation i7 in mid-May and makes it one of the first laptops to be available in the market with i7 4th Generation in early June.

Too good to be true, but nothing is impossible especially after the recent history with Samsung putting the (still) unreleased AMD 8870 in their retail notebooks. Time will tell

 

Spoke to the Samsung London store yesterday who said they were expecting delivery of the 780z5e i7 8870 model (woooooohooo!) today. Called back today and they ended up receiving a different model - I think the i5 - and said they have no idea when they will be getting more...mysterious

 

Haswell release would be a good thing, but doesn't they suffer of some kind of bug related to USB 3?

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

After a few rounds of searches, didn't locate pranktank posting on SSD speed using ATTO, found this instead which is probably the best so far:

 

Yes, but according to Intel it only affects very limited amount of USB 3.0 thumb drives only and they are not readable after the system wakes up from resume.

They haven't confirm if they plan to fix this issue with some kind of update in the future.

 

You know what? Maybe it was Alchemist, he was very active in the forum at that time, and one of the first users to get the laptop

Edit: nevermind, I remembered wrong: the test I had in mind wasn't with ATTO benchmark, it was this one:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...es-7-chronos-amd-hd8870m-294.html#post9117128

 

Alternate benchmark using CrystalDiskMark on the same hardisk:

 

As expected. My advice swap the drives and clone to ssd using samsung recovery. This way you know you wont have to open the laptop anytime soon. This also means you have the recovery feature on both drives.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

Updated Intel graphic drivers released on SWUpdate

 

People, stop posting about Haswell because it is not update or upgrade. It is different technology, everything is different, PC needs new redesigned motherboard. Everything inside notebook will be new. It will take months of designing, testing and production. Companies like Dell may introduce new systems very soon but not Samsung.

 

Thank you. I've been thinking this for the past weeks but didn't want to burst everybody's bubble. I might add though that manufacturers may have had prototype / early versions to start developing. However, looking at the usual release pattern, Samsung and other manufacturers usually announce their new line-ups months before the actually public release to build up the hype / allow for testing from specialized press / blogs. IMO The fact that none has been announced yet means that we won't see a Haswell equipped devices for a few months at the very least. I might be wrong...

 

Anyone know what this does/is useful or will it just interfere with AMDs CCC.

 

I can't do that now because it's been returned for a full refund of $1,200 which makes me happy since I won't get stuck with such an awful looking greasy grainy screen.

 

I installed them and they worked fine with the AMD CCC after the reboot

 

Its coming to america, you cant show something at CES 2013 in america and not release the product there, i predict may/june for full release
*fingers crossed

 

I am writing this from my new NP780Z5E-S02CA. It arrived a couple of days later than expected thanks to my local customs deciding it needed to be thoroughly searched. Maybe they were convinced, as I was beginning to be, that this laptop was just vaperware, and that the parcel must therefore be front for some smuggling operation.

Here are my first impressions and experiences. Sorry for the length. Let me start by saying that I like my new laptop and it is not going back to the shop. Given the cost of postage each way, that was never really an option. However, while I will acknowledge some shortcomings below I do not think that they ultimately make this a faulty laptop. I was replacing a dying (now dead) 4 year old Acer. This computer is smaller, lighter, faster, quieter, more versatile much prettier and about the same price.

I have already switched in a SSD (Samsung 840 pro). I wrestled with myself over clean install vs cloning the drive. In the end I did a clone using Samsung recovery. I have misgivings about that as there really is a lot of crap installed on this machine and I am struggling to get rid of it all. However, I need to be up and working on the computer quite quickly and I did not have the confidence to easily overcome the driver problems people have been experiencing with clean installs. The main regret is that I still have that Samsung splash screen on boot. I am sure it slows down the process by a few seconds. If I have a recovery USB in my draw somewhere, I am not sure why I need to have a recovery partition and a chance to load recovery at every boot. Can anyone suggest a way to excise it short of a clean reinstall?

For those who were asking about the FutureShop model – yes, it is definitely 16GB despite the website claiming otherwise. It also has this Canadian multilingual keyboard. The keyboard is proving more of a hassle than I had thought, but I still think I will solve the issue. Generally, I have no problem with the layout and my fingers are already learning their way around the differences. However, the real problem is that the keyboard mapping in Windows 8 is not working. By this I mean, regardless of what keyboard layout I chose in settings the special characters I get from hitting keys do not match what is written on the keys. I will have to research custom mapping configurations.

Loading Recovery via f4 is so slow. Once it loads, using it is even slower. Cloning the HDD to create a factory recovery on my SSD took so long I considered writing instructions for my infant son so that he could complete the task after I had passed away from old age. To make matters worse, as per my earlier post, the cloning got to about 97% and then said it had failed. No explanation. I just had to start again. Luckily, it decided to work on the second go. Two lifetimes later and I finally had the SSD ready to install.

Thank you Black83 for the tutorial on switching drives (even though I didn’t follow the advice on a clean install). I wanted to hit like on your original post, but I was struggling to remember which page it was on (330s?).
I found removing the case very difficult. I spent well over an hour doing it. Plus, I had the right tools and have removed similar cases before. I’ve cracked safes more easily. I dread having to do this again.

So, the first big shortcoming I will highlight for this machine is the lack of an drive access panel. Why? I mean, what earthly good reason could they possibly have for trying to stop people switching drives? A switchable drive is an absolute must for me. I have sensitive client data on my computer, which means that I cannot send the computer in for servicing without removing the drive. And then Samsung when and stuck one of the worst available HDD into the computer. It almost looks like a deliberate ploy to trick us all into voiding our warranties.

No one else has had this issue, but the frame for the drive did not quite fit my Samsung 840 pro. The screw holes missed aligning by a fraction of a mm. This meant that the screws holding the drive in the frame would only go in at a little angle and would only go about one turn into the drive before sticking. However, they looked like they were not going to budge and there will be drive vibration to work them out, so I’ve decided it isn’t a serious issue.

My HDD had a sticker in the middle of it which read “warranty void if removed”. You could read that literally and think removing the sticker from the HDD will void its warranty, but I worry that that is intended to remind us that the HDD is not meant to be user upgradable. I think a previous poster has given us the Samsung chapter and verse on this already. If there is a drive bay access panel we’re allowed to change it, if there isn’t then we’re not. My HDD was also quite difficult to navigate past one of the Wifi aerial cables.

With the SSD in, it is booting quickly and looks to be a very speedy machine. I am not getting the 5 second starts others boast of – more like 10. This is probably my fault for not doing a clean install. However, as well as not wanting to lose the Samsung bits I need, I would like to find out what they all are before they hit the recycling bin.

For instance, I am still not sure about intellimemory. The main complaint seems to be that it takes up too much RAM, but the whole point is that it uses whatever memory is currently spare. Since anything stored in intellimemory is there as a duplicate of something on the drive, it will be able to free any space it is using instantly if the memory is needed by another task. And while the speed efficiencies might not be as good for an SSD used as for an HDD user, something already loaded into RAM is still going to run a lot faster than having to load it from the SSD first. So, intellimemory does have the capacity to speed up the machine. It really all depends on how well written it is and I am yet to see anyone who has done comparison testing with and without it.

The screen is a weird dichotomy. My first impression was that it was one of the crispest and best quality screens I have even seen on a laptop. However, this grainy quality that some people complain of was clearly visible once I started word processing with a white background. I have not seen any sign of the image retention issue yet, but I haven’t gone looking for it. I will wait a few more days and see if it crops up in any of the other tasks that I undertake. So far though, I cannot say that it affects me.

The keyboard backlighting is a strange miss from Samsung. The choice of colour contrasts is a real issue with the adaptive lighting. Sitting in my home at night under a normal level of lighting, some of the keys literally vanish so that I cannot see what they are. It would easily be solved with a bit of tint in the lighting or in the keys. I don’t see it as a big problem for me. My fingers know where most of the keys are without looking and, as per above, I cannot find the special characters for love or money. A 5000W searchlight won’t help on that front. In a dimly lit room the keys started to glow nicely and I could see them all fine. Equally, in daylight with the backlighting off there is no problem.

The choice of led indicator lights is an interesting choice. I hadn’t read much on that before buying it. There are two leds above the keyboard. These are for mains power and to show that it is on. The range of leds I am used to seeing are not there and I find the lack of a HDD light is particularly odd. The HDD light is a useful diagnostic tool. With an SSD there is also no noise.

On the plus side, there are four led indicator lights in the keyboard. One for each of caps lock, Fn lock, the wifi on/off Fn button, and the touchpad on/off Fn button. I like these, particularly the caps lock one. I would have liked to see one or two more. For instance, given that there is a dedicated number pad, it would have been nice for a toggle led on the Num Lock as well.

I like having the touchscreen. I haven’t gotten heavily into the win8 possibilities for it yet. However, it is a good additional input method. I immediately find myself switching fluidly between the keyboard, touchpad and screen. The touchscreen seems responsive and accurate, but it is still early days.

The touchpad is also quite responsive with a good size and feel. I am occasionally bumping it while typing sending the curser to a new location, which is a little annoying. I hope that will change as I get used to the keyboard.

My first thoughts on the keyboard was that the keys did not have enough resistance. However, after a few hours of use I am already noticing that less. The travel is quite short, but there is absolutely no flex. All in all, I am finding it reasonably easily to type fast. However, there are lots of typos in this short piece. Hopefully I will catch most of them before posting.

I haven’t given it much of a power or graphics challenge yet. No games loaded. No benchmarks run. However, this first impression post is already far too long, so I’ll leave that for another day.

So, I think that some of the criticisms that have been made against the machine by other posters are valid in that they have identified real shortcomings with the keyboard, HDD and screen. However, I think they might be overstated. There is room for Samsung to improve this machine, but it is still very good machine. There are plenty of things they could have done worse, as pretty much every other laptop on the market demonstrates.

 

I have the 17" 770Z7E and installed a 256GB Samsung 840 SSD.
These were my ATTO results.

 

Just in: Samsung rationalizes PC naming scheme | PCWorld

The SideSync feature sounds kinda cool.

But the big question remains, exactly when will the ATIV Book 8 (Chronos 7 version) be released? And when it does, will it have the 8870M and 16GB? What about a stock SSD? And availability in the US ?!?!

 

Thank-you v much. V nice native speed there.

 

There are many reasons why one who rather NOT have intellimemory (IM) gobble up most of the remaining RAM. In fact, if Condusiv implements IM such that it allows users to specify how much RAM to be used, that would have been great.

One case in point, I've benefitted from RAMdisk since DOS days and this is no difference for Chronos 7. During boot up, with IM, RAMdisk (my current setting is 3.5GB Ramdisk) reported insufficient memory even though my unit is 12GB and actual Win8 takes up less than 2GB. That is a good enough reason for me to rid IM.

Am happy to replace Intellimemory with Supercache - no other software software can beat Supercache as far as hard disk caching is concerned.

 

The screen is too grainy, and the colors are too washed out and there is no wow factor to this display. I am going to pony up the extra dough and get the MPBR which has white whites, and bright, vivid colors and a display I can look at for hours and still be amazed by. Maybe Samsung will upgrade the display on a future release,but until then, this laptop is nothing special.

 

Haha, troll. You can't even compare a macbook pro to a windows pc. Completely different operating systems. I currently have a mbp and I'm running windows on it because osx is a nightmare. The file management is unorganized, games come out later, or not at all, Microsoft Office products are all over the place.. Not to mention that God awful sound when an apple computer turns on!

 

I just think the name Chronos sounds so much cooler than ATIV! Just looks like they've misspelled ACTIVE - and there's no need for them to shout!

 

Troll eh? I was saying the display is average at best, and did not even bring up the difference is operating systems. Obviously no one would be playing games on a Mac unless they were running Windows. Read the post next time before you respond.

 

I read your post. You're going to pay 2,200 dollars for a macbook pro with the same specs, except for the sharper display. I wasn't aware that a non-touch retina display was worth the extra 500 bucks.