Introducing The 2013 Series 7 Chronos with AMD HD8870M!

I read the old thread of Chronos ( New Samsung Series 7 Laptop i7 3615QM NP700Z7C-S01US 650m Review!), a user had ordered the adapter 120W and unfortunately nothing has changed:

 

Old Chronos has a thermal throttling so I don't know if it's the same for new Chronos.
In any case it is better to not compare different notebook even if they have the same brand, if they have different components.
For example 770Z5E and 770Z7E even if they have same brand and components might have a complete different conduct, because they have a different cooling system.
Just a review or a test can answer to certain question.

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Was that this specific model?

In my case, fixing the secureboot error message was just a matter of deleting the scheduled task (and changing the boot order) of the hard drive clone program and restarting. It still tried to launch recovery, but after restarting a few times it came back to normal.

 

I think it was an old Chronos, you can find the info on thread about Linux brick bug, in this forum section.
So I suggest to not use software that boot from USB drive until it's sure that this bug is fixed.

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My guess / gut feeling is that both 8870 and 8770 equipped units will have some CPU/GPU throttling either due to heat or power limitations. Given that the 8870 is an upgrade to a card designed for large laptops and the 8770 is designed for medium laptops my guess would be that heat / throttling issues would be more likely on the 8870 equipped model.

If I had to guess, I think samsung positioned these models with the 8770 being near an 650m and the 8870 being near the 660m. I know on paper the 8870 should be in 670m territory but I don't think it will be, and if it is at least to me its not worth the extra heat it will probably generate. At least this has been my thinking in keeping the 8770 model I have now instead of waiting for an 8870 model at some point in the future.

 

If the recovery partition really takes up 30GB, I am for sure deleting that thing haha. I like my hard drives with only one partition: Windows.

I will only have 256GB of flash storage to start with, so I don't want a whole 30GB being eaten up by that stupid recovery partition. If I ever run into any problems, I'd just use Windows recovery or do a fresh install by booting off a DVD or flash drive haha.

 

The main restore partition is 21gb. There are a couple additional restore partitions that might amount to another 2gb. You can use restore to create a bootable restore drive in 16gb that you can boot from and restore a drive to factory specs.

For some reason after cloning the drive the system would not recognize my restore partition so I recommend first using Samsung restore to create a factory restore disk on a 16gb+ usb drive, then clone the drive, swap it, and delete any restore partitions.

 

Hello guys I've been reading this thread for a while but I still don't understand how many different types will Series 7 Chronos will have, I'm only saying this because from what I see in NotebookCheck there are different versions and the other day I saw one Samsung Series 7 Chronos with the 8870 for sale but it wasn't full aluminium and it had the weight of 3.00kg these being 6.61 pounds, so will there be that full aluminium version that I saw on NotebookCheck?

 

Is it possible to use directly the factory restore on a 16Gb+ usb drive to restore the system on a empty SSD?

 

I'm first going to try just clean installing my own legitimate copy of Windows 8 onto the clean SSD over a USB drive. Then I'll try installing it while booted into Windows on the HDD, while the SSD is connected via USB. Then, if all of that actually fails, I will clone and reset.

 

I believe so. I went as far as making the USB drive, booting it to to the samsung recovery application. I was presented with a screeen with a recovery button and options to say if i wanted to preserve my data or not and if I wanted to partition the drive... saying that if i did partition all data would be lost. I'm guessing that would create a virgin system but I haven't done that.

There are 15" and 17" versions of the series 7 chronos coming out... and an assortment of configs for each. Not many of them have seen the light of day yet with the best buy variant of the 15" being the only one widely available in the US. I think the 15" is about 5.5lbs. There is also an series 7 ultra coming out, its not a chronos, its an ultrabook with a nice dedicated gpu and 1080p screen. Its the lighter of the bunch.

I believe the ultra will be in a full aluminum body while all versions of the chronos ive seen have a plastic back.

 

i saw the NP780Z5E today at best buy. and my feelings are negative. i cant see the letters on the keys cuz the letters on them almost match the color of the keys themselves. also, the backlit keyboard light is very dim. other comps at best buy had very bright backlit keyboard. i was almost going to buy this laptop. but thank god i didnt. samsung should stick with phones and should drop out of the laptop biz. they still dont learn.

 

A boy extreme there, eh?

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2

 

I agree I would prefer black keys... they seem to have a thing for machines that lack contrast... the series 9 ultrabooks did that too.

The keyboard backlight and screen brightness are on a sensor by default, so its not going to be all that bright in store. It has adjustable brightness and works well in low light conditions its designed for.

I don't think they should drop out of the laptop business though, they have built one hell of a machine here. Its not perfect, nothing is but at least for my requirements there is nothing available at twice the price.

 

He has legit complaints. I saw the same thing and had the same issues in my house. But I blew them off since it wasn't that big of a deal. Either way this laptop has too many issues.


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Like what?

I've made a lot of ridiculous posts? No, I've just been here discussing this all with you for the same reasons.

 

Given these posts, would the 8870 17-inch version theoretically have less thermal throttling and thus perform better?

 

Well, I had everything working on the SSD, 8 second boots, most the bloat cleaned off but something was bugging me. I had deleted the inactive recovery partitions but there were still a couple partitions I wasn't sure if I needed so I researched a bit. Turns out the EFI System partition is the boot manager so best to leave that one alone and there was a Windows RE tools partition that had something to do with windows recovery. My question was, would they still work or be inactive like the recovery partition was after I cloned the drive.

So, I decided to do what I probably should have done in the first place. So i used the 'factory' recovery usb I created earlier using samsung recovery to restore the computer to factory specs.

First of... it works, which I'm sure folks will be happy to hear. Although, it doesn't restore it to the same 'factory' it was before.

It gives you the option to set up your partitions, and by default it will make a C drive 3gb bigger than the OS and a D drive with the rest. I didn't like that so expanded the C drive to include the whole volume.

It takes about 10-15 minutes to complete with the SSD installed. After its done you have to go through all the startup stuff like the first time you turned it on.

After recovery you have the following partitions:
500mb Recovery Partition
300mb EFI boot partition
215.11gb NTFS C: with windows installed
15.87gb Recovery Partition
1gb partition (no idea what this is there for).

In contrast, all of the recovery and boot partitions were a little bigger on the original drive. The main recovery was 21gb instead of 15.87 here, so going with the recovery to factory saves a little space.

The samsung recover software finds the recovery partitions fine and works as it should if you choose to keep it installed.

I probably didn't need to do this, but I have a gob of software to install and configure and wanted to have as stable a system as possible before starting. Doing it this was is really simple, in hindsight I would recommend doing this if you switch drives. Just make a factory recovery disk before you start, swap your drive than run the recovery. Nice and simple.

I may still delete the recovery partition and free up room, since I know the USB recovery works so well but at least I know everything was installed and working properly at the start.

 

Alright, some posts were removed, the forums are pretty clear on bypassing the language filter as well as insults towards other members. I know you guys are capable of discussing things in a civil manner, so I'm just leaving a warning in the thread. However, if this continues, there will be consequences for anyone who violates the rules, whether they started it or not.

 

You reccomend we make a recovery USB Flash Drive? This allows us to resize our partitions?

 

YES! Make a factory recovery flash drive using Samsung Recovery before you swap the drive.

When you run it, it will repartition the drive and put the recovery and boot partitions up. By default it puts the OS on C and leaves D for data... you can drag a slider to set the size of C and D. If you slid it all the way over you just get C taking up all available space.

Its just like the computer was setup new on the new SSD. Works really well and doesn't take long to do a full install. I actually did it twice in a half hour... needed to do it a second time because i didn't adjust the partition sizes the first time.

 

Thank you very much Alchemist for all the golden informations you share with us so far! How does Samsung Recovery Software work? Suppose that I do something stupid and I mess up my OS, and I'm not able to boot Windows anymore... Would I be able to run the software? Or I must be in windows to run it?

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Your welcome. Once you have made the factory restore disk your golden. You can have a blank drive, or a corrupted drive or whatever... as long as the drives good it will repartition it and install everything good as new. Once you have the bootable disk you don't need windows installed at all to get it done.

 

I’ve been lurking this thread for a while. Here’s my background:

Type of User (I’m a tech-noob)
-Gaming (Anno 2070, WoW, LoL, SimCity)
-Video Editing (Premiere, After Effects, Photoshop)
-Mostly web browsing and Msft Office

Requirements
-Full 1080p screen
-Discrete graphics card
-SSD HD
-6+ hours of battery life

This thread has been highly informational (I gotta thank Alchemist,phelan, and everyone else) and has led me to purchase the 8770 model from Best Buy. Here are my opinions so far:

Screen: 9/10
Yes, the screen is a bit grainy. Apparent in lighter colors, but the darker colors are perfect. It reminds me of my phone after I put a screen protector, but not to that degree. I compared it to my old Sony laptop (1366x) and the Sony screen doesn’t even compare.
Overall, it’s amazing; I don’t care what type of monitor it is. I compared it to other screens at Best Buy and it was definitely the best (sans Apple). Comparable Sony and Asus models were also good (but Sony viewing angle is horrible). The viewing angle for this screen is superb and on top of that, sharpness, contrast, and level of colorare top-notch.

Keyboard: 6/10
The keyboard aesthetically is beautiful but the travel is short. I am not used to this. I have to consciously strike the keys harder to make sure I don’t miss any keys. I know some here don’t have the same problem, but some getting used to for me. Even when I am typing this up, I am missing keys. Further, the backlight is not the best. The backlight has 4 levels of intensity. The first two levels are useless. The 3rd is still dim. The highest level is amazing. I’ve used Apple and Lenovo illuminated keyboards and they are far superior to this one. Keep it at the highest level in dark settings and you should be fine.

Trackpad: 8/10
Large. Smart. Smooth. Could be more responsive/accurate, sometimes it has a mind of its own.

Battery: 10/10
Nothing compares. Enlighten me if I am wrong. Gives you quality specs, but still gives you out of this world hours of life. I can’t think of another laptop in this range that will last as long. 10 hours of web browsing and 6:30 for multimedia/video games.

Speed: 6/10
Speed varies. Sometimes I boot and it takes me 33 seconds (damn you 5400). Other times, it takes me 10 seconds. Even after I type in my password at launch, it takes some time to boot the next screen. Even something as simple as my e-mail app takes 19 seconds to load. Shutting down can take some time as well. Anyone have the same issues? I’m hoping that an SSD upgrade will resolve all these issues. I expected more from this machine. The machine is silent is though.

Graphics: TBD
I’m going to put it on driver issues, but I can’t seem to get the AMD Radeon 7780 to get going. My steam games can’t even detect it. I am not tech-savvy enough to tell if the PC is switching over to the 7780. Maybe a driver issue?

Internet Access: 6/10
No really big issues, but I have an old wireless router so I can’t give you a full answer. My old laptop, however, can detect 21 connections while this laptop can only detect 10. But both are going equally fast.

Sound: 9/10
Amazing. Very loud. Crisp. Treble can get tinny at high levels. Bass is not amazing, but what do you expect from laptop speakers?

Aesthetics: 10/10
Amazing build. Thin. You forget the bottom is plastic. Solid build overall. The screen wiggles a bit when using touch screen but not to the degree where it’s an issue.

Support: 3/10
Samsung support sucks. I’ve contacted them for various reasons. It seems every rep has a different answer. I gave them more solutions than they gave me.

I’ve thought about reverting to Windows 7 or changing to SSD. The statement that you can get a copy of the OS from Samsung is incorrect. But I did download Belarc ( Belarc Advisor - Free Personal PC Audit, for software, hardware and security configuration information on your computer. Software license management, IT asset management, cyber security audits, and more.) to find my Windows product key. I don’t know if that helps.

Overall, I’m happy with this laptop even though their are some issues. Also, wish it had space for 16gb ram. Because it’s an exclusive that was available prior to launch and prior to any support or drivers available and on top of that the ambiguity of the 8870, it puts me in a tough decision whether I should keep it or not.

If I am, definitely going to upgrade to an SSD. I’ve read a lot of opinions that say 840 pro > 840. But why hasn’t anyone talked about the 830 series? It’s been tried and true for years with similar performance to 840 pro (c’mon, you’re not going to tell the difference).

The throttle issue with the 90W power supply for both the 7780 and 7880 tells me I should stay with the 7780. I don’t play graphics-intense games anyways. I just want my laptop to work..

I know most of you are gamers and are patiently waiting for the 7880. Best of luck/

 

I have question... if you bought the new series 7 chronos (np770z5e or np780z5e..)

as another person said.. this notebook has some throttling? when ?

I'll buy this notebook ASAP. I think I'll be satisfied with the price,design,thin body..

but I'm wondering if this notebook throttles or not and it will be significant or not.

(+ I'm not a hard gamer so i don't want monsterous performance of GPU , i'll be happy with just similar performace like gtx 660m )

 

Help educate one, could you describe what the two machines are best suited for? My novice cut would be The HP is a high end non-gaming unit with relative good graphics but lower processing power and the Samsung is a mid level gaming unit with better power and graphics. Given an equal price one would opt for the Samsung????

 

If I have understood correctly the restored system and restore partitions are significantly smaller than the originals, so I wonder if you have lost some software that was installed in factory.

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All the videos I could find
Hope a few of these haven't been posted before, some are (in brackets) but I just wanted to put all the links here for you.
Official samsung video
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjA8-aNxgzI) - Series 7 chronos
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRMBbsxt58g&list=UU7f9-86ZFWkuXE0I0IUhhSg) - Series 7 Ultra

Hands-on (CES 2013)
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeTgVQ_2-nk)
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuHQX6c4WpY)
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=071axfvUbAU)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UZ_7N7oAcA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbeFrnIbfgw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exs4tdY0XSM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoBUqAznJSk - Dutch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYm0zdrwdQ0 - German
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o54ZIyhL0Qk - German


(8770m bestbuy version)
unboxing
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la6noScS3x0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYltrMDauOY
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-0-e4w3iRI)
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpZkPUKxVBE)
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p65sud31oCI)

review
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzePdOuyyWg)

build quality review
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oPrFOvwZng

first impressions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjxZ5P0IA08

disassembly
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_RYG6Izcdw)

issues + gameplay
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZHxxwf2bT8)
( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAL_weYeF6w)

 

still don't know what's so complicated to install a fresh win8 version.
can't you simply rip the key out of windows/bios and reinstall the proper way?

drivers should come when normal versions are out

 

The 830 is a great disk, but nowadays there are few left in the market (at least in my country) and you can easily pay them more than a 840 Pro if you find a 830 for a decent price I'd prefer it rather than a 840 basic (I'm still skeptical about TLC's durability), but if the price is similar to the 840 Pro I'd go for the top notch

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Its 1080p and the text imo does look too small

 

Actually you have. And many are tired of it.


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The mod removed the posts relating for this issue for a reason. The point of this thread is to discuss the laptop, not to get into arguments with other users about things unrelated to to the laptop.
Starting now can we stop all of the personal arguments and just focus on anything related to the laptop?

 

I agree. I'm not here to argue or make ridiculous claims. I discuss, get informed, and ask questions just like everyone else.

 

Just saw this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPaF2hdAAN0

This user states that he returned the best buy model because the screen was too grainy. Anyone else experience this?

 

Is 16GB usb drive big enough, or is it better to have 32GB, sorry, I am just going to buy one. Thanks

 

Great summary! A few comments...

Battery life... the only similar notebook spec wise that I know of is the Retna Macbook Pro... it has a 90000+ mwh battery, 650m video and gorgeous screen... its a lot more costlier though, and its battery is not nearly as efficient at running windows as is it is with OSX. Then there are keyboard differences, and other things that may turn people toward or away from apple.

Speed. The highly variable speed is a result of combining a slow 5400rpm hard drive with the included intellimemory software. Intellimemory is a disk cache that keeps application launching fast for cached items... but if its not cached its slow. This doesn't do anything for boot though, i noticed variable boot speeds early on with each install due to the myriad of updates being downloaded and installed in the background... after a few days my boots on HD leveled out between 19-22 seconds. I haven't been running on the SSD long enough to get all the updates done but im guessing it will be about 8-10 from the performance ive seen thus far.

SSDs. The samsung 830 is a great choice, its a great drive, unfortunately it is no longer made so its getting hard to find and the prices usually aren't that great on it. The 840 pro is the next generation of the 830, it uses new controllers and is faster but uses the same underlying technology as the 830 (and just about every modern ssd out there). The 840 is the first of a new breed... stores more values per location and uses a digital signal processor to limit voltage more accurately to extend the drives life. The 840 is average on writes but the fastest out there on read speeds.

 

All in all after doing a restore from the created factory restore disk its about 6gb smaller in the disk space taken up than on the default install when you bought it. I have found ZERO differences in the software installed so far since I reviewed it all to delete bloat before I ended up doing the restore and am no removing bloat again. My guess is that its the same content, its just the factory restore was probably optimized so it could fit in 16gb.

Nothing... if you have a Windows 8 disk to install from, and want to waste another windows license when your computer already came with one.

 

If the key is embedded, you won't waste another license. The new install is supposed to use the embedded key.

 

When I got the Chronos the screen was one of the big selling points, bright images, great blacks and wide viewing angles. After reading another post about grainy screens I decided to look mine and others at best buys over to see what they were talking about. If i look really really closely at the screen, especially in larger areas of the same light colors you can see a bit of grainy... its basically that the area between the cells of the screen are dark. Some may see this as a negative, as I've said before I don't, I think it contributes to the great color and deep blacks the screen is capable of producing. IMO, its one of the best screens ive seen on a notebook and my previous display was the 120hz 1080p matte screen on the asus g73sw3de which was one great screen.

It says it will fit in 16gb and took right under 16gb... that said I bought a 32gb just to be sure so I can't confirm it will run in 16gb although I think it will. 32gb usb3 drives are $18 at microcenter so I just went that way.

True but didnt want to go buy Windows 8 to try it out.

 

Multi-quote, buddy.

This whole thing about the screen is really picking at the laptop. Granted, it's a pretty premium to pay for a computer, so one should expect high quality results, but like Alchemist said I had to really stare closely at the screen to notice any graininess. In my eyes, the screen looks brilliant.

Alchemist - so you're 100% on keeping? I just ordered an 840 Pro myself .

 

Yea in hindsight multi-quote would have taken less space... but I was replying as I read them.

I'm about 99% sure I'm keeping it. Its a solid machine, and ive kinda taken ownership since ive disassembled it twice, etc. I can't say 100% until I have all my software on it and its ready to go. Of course if samsung released a 16gb enabled model on amazon that I could get for say $1300 (same i paid with tax for this) I may have to consider it. lol.

Btw... a samsung tech gave me this little tidbit yesterday to get your serial number: Go to a command prompt and type...
wmic bios get serialnumber

 

If I use a clean Windows 8 (not W8 Pro) ISO to create a bootable USB stick, will the notebook recognize the embedded key?

2nd question: can you confirm me that If I have a Windows 8 Pro ISO and a legit key I won't be able to install it? Or did I misunderstand something?

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Please, please, please: could someone try out Hyper-V? (Assuming the Series 7 comes with Windows 8 Pro).

I will need to get a relative to buy this and bring it back to the UK for me; not having the ability to run Hyper-V is a deal breaker for me!

Thanks!

 

Bloat & Trial Ware
Here are a few things ive removed from the chronos.

Photoshop Elements 11 - Trial
Norton Antivirus - Trial (be sure to turn on windows defender or install an antivirus of your choice)
Norton Backup - Trial
Intellimemory - Don't need a disk cache with an SSD, if you still have the 5400rpm drive it may or may not be useful to you.
Adera - Just didn't like the game
Bitcasa - I already use dropbox and Skydrive so didn't need another cloud storage solution.
Merriam-Webster dictionary - Trial
Shark Dash - Trial
Norton Studio
Absolute Reminder - Trial to service allowing remote data wipes if computer stolen, etc.

 

Good list, I did the same basically. There's a few Samsung apps that can be removed too, as they are 'demo' purpose apps only. I have the list at home, and will update when I get there.

 

Yep. I did as well. 3 of the showed it.


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It's not possible because the 780Z5E with 8770m from Bestbuy comes with Windows 8.
In Europe maybe the 770Z5E-S02 version comes with Windows 8 PRO.

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Looks like there's more traffic here than on thread #2 ...

I'm having trouble with my machine. The machine will not go to sleep if left idle. The backlit keyboard doesn't turn off after a minute as its supposed to. For the first two days, I was able to connect to my wireless. I can no longer connect via wireless. Luckily the wired connection works. I applied all the available updates. Contacted Samsung via their support app and was told that I should return the machine for a new one. I ordered this online, but I did fine a local Best Buy that still has a few in stock. Anyone else have these kinds of issues? Do you think a new machine will solve these issues?

 

is there any way to turn up the brightness of the backlit keyboard? maybe through a registry tweak?