Introducing The 2013 Series 7 Chronos with AMD HD8870M!

It would be quite the mess up, as the bezel is the the touch screen version as well.

 

Great news. This site seems totally legit too, like the UK's version of Best Buy. So you're supposed to have it in your hands Thursday? Make sure you confirm it's the 8870m first thing!

 

We have to wait just for 2 days (I have edited: delivery is scheduled for Thursday)

 

If this IS the case, then this would be a major F**k up on the part of this company (PCWorld & Currys are the same company, BTW, which is now pretty much the only major dedicated electronics retailer in the UK since their main competitor went bust a month or two ago) - If I get there and find it's not the touchscreen NP780Z5E-S01UK model then I'm asking for a refund or a PC that meets the advertised specs.

Watch this space - should be this Thursday (7th March) according to the receipt.

 

Even John Lewis says the 770Z5E has touch screen:
Buy Samsung NP770Z5E-S01 Laptop, Intel Core i7, 2.4GHz, 8GB RAM, 1TB, 15.6", Metal online at John Lewis

So this is clearly an error (watch the specs Touch Screen YES).
I think there is some wrong communication between Samsung and retailers.

 

My only thinking (HOPE) is that John Lewis only mention Touch screen as a "YES" in one location - Currys/PCWorld mention it EVERYWHERE, including the device name.

Edit: Currys/PCWorld also quote shorter battery life, higher weight and show different images to John Lewis (who are also generally a little more expensive than most retailers anyway), so if it's a mistake and they're the same model, there's something seriously wrong somewhere.

We should know in less than 48 hours, I or Greth will inform you as soon as we have it in our hands.

 

I agree
Exciting stuff!
Can someone measure the thickness of their 787 from bestbuy? Different sites are saying different things!

 

Wait so I'm a little confused...those of you who have just ordered one from PC World in the UK and are expecting delivery on Thursday, you are expecting to receive the touchscreen, 15 inch, 8870m model, correct?

 

Pretty sure that's right

 

That's what I believe I've ordered, according to what the site selling it says, yes.

 

I can say that 780Z5E and 770Z5E have different thickness, because of touch screen 780Z5E is slightly bigger than 770Z5E.
So maybe some retailer is confusing between the two models.

 

Thank you! I have been asking about high resolution output over HDMI in this thread over and over, but nobody has replied. If you do get around to EDID modding and/or dual-link DVI experiments I'd be very happy to read the results. I have the older version of your monitor (U2711) and would really like to be able to drive it at native rez / 60hz.

 

Oh man! This is so exciting haha. If you do indeed get the 8870m touchscreen model in your hands Thursday, the US will surely be next in line to get theirs.

You're suppose to go to the store and pick it up Thursday?

 

Yeah, between 5pm and 8pm GMT - I think you guys are around 8 hours behind, depending where you are in the US, so watch the forums around that time, I will update you as soon as I have it - provided everything goes to plan (I always get a bad feeling when this sort of thing happens, it's almost too good to be true!)

 

Hope it helps. I've read that for the U2711 (also 2560x1440), that the HDMI port on the monitor is the limit. I assumed that may have been true for the U2713HM, but upgrading my cable helped. Double check you have a cable with the 1920 *and beyond* designation. The video options did change with a faster cable, now showing 2560x1440, but only 29 or 30Hz.

Using 2560x1440@30Hz, the U2713HM looks terrific (even playing 2560x1440 videos from youtube), and the card can play other 1920@60Hz on the laptop monitor, and still another via VGA. Don't know if this uses only the 8770M or recruits the HD 4000, but the laptop doesn't hiccup, which is reassuring.

I kept reading conflicting specs on the U2711, or U2713HM, so I figure we just have to test it. I'm waiting on a new cable that will connect to the DVI of the monitor (make sure your cable has Dual DVI support), and hope that will solve it. Also have an adapter coming, which I'll also test.

I really hope that this NP8705ZE with Win8 can manage color profiles for both the external monitor and itself. I assume so, but...
I'm installing CS6 (20/mo right now for everything Adobe, if you have an .edu address) presently, and hope to have everything calibrated by the weekend.

 

It's 5:00PM here in Arizona, Tuesday.

And I know! I feel like they'll back out and say they made a mistake and actually don't have it in stock haha. I really, really hope not though...

 

Yes but samsung says otherwise, and there would not be a 4mm difference.
As well the bezel is a solid 1-2mm shorter on the touch version.

So, can someone actually measure their laptop?

 

Yes but the keyboard of the Asus doesn't generate heat over 50c and they also mentioned in the review that they estimate that without the throttling the heat generated would have been much higher. I'm not hating on this notebook. I've been following this thing since Ces. I'm just pointing out some ufourtunate facts.

 

Neither keyboard of Chronos 17" generate heat over 50°C.
Also consider that Asus in stress test has CPU locked @1.2GHz due to throttling.
Can you suggest some lucky alternative to Chronos 15" with better temps and without throttling?
The only one that I known is Gigabyte P2542G, it's the only 15" laptop with great performance, no throttling and without excessive weight just 2.6Kg, but I doubt that someone here expect me consider it as alternative, unfortunately is not distributed in my country market.
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Gigabyte-P2542G-Notebook.80159.0.html

 

lol in the same boat here, are they EVER going to release the touch version of UX51VZ??? the wait is killing me, it seems some retailers in northern europe are ordering some for end of march release.

aluminum acts like a heat sink, dissipates heat better. i don't think a lot of people are going to do hardcore gaming on their laps right?

 

it generates max 50.3, whereas the asus is 46.6 on the keyboard

asus CPU throttling isn't an issue when gaming, it's in the notebookcheck review. CPU doesn't get "locked" to 1.2Ghz and never resume normal speed.
"When we subjected the notebook to a stress test with Prime95 and FurMark, the four processor cores throttled back to 1.2 GHz, but immediately recovered and resumed their work at the core frequency of 2.1 GHz. "

 

It doesn't seem that it dissipates better than others, because it has throttling like just like the others...
It strange that notebooks made all in aluminum as a rMBP or Asus UX51/U500 have this kind of throttling
I don't want neither remember the Dell XPS15 L521X same unibody chassis, but with a silicon bottom that even can hit the thermal shut down, while a notebook made of plastic as Gigabyte P2542G has so great performance.

 

I followed the threads of Asus UX51/U500 from the beginning and I have seen the logs (made with Hwinfo64 by several users) while it playing game like Crysis2 and others games it has throttling on CPU @1.2GHz (jump and back between 1.2GHz and 2.1GHz continuously), it's not only the stess test condition.

 

I can attest to this. Aluminum is not ideal for heat dissipation. My rMBP gets uncomfortably hot whenever the fans spool up.

 

I'm waiting for the matte with the 8870m version. The grainy-ness of the touchscreen is putting me off from getting that version.

 

You may very well run into the same problem in the matte display if one is offered. The touch screen isn't causing anything as the tech is pretty much the same across the board. What is different is that the screen is based on MVA technology which gives it better viewing angles and deeper blacks than TN displays and faster response times than IPS displays.

In any case I don't consider it a negative.

 

Matte screens are normally grainier(this a word?) than glossy screens

 

Ohhh, so you're saying the grainy-ness effect is inherent of MVA panels, whether it's touch/glossy, or matte?

Yeah, I agree, but I've never seen the type of grainy-ness people are describing on this screen. It was the sole purpose that one guy returned his Chronos 7.

 

Any updates on the 8870 version? I'm hearing sometime between March 15th and March 30th?

 

Watch all of that one guy's videos.
He was so excited about the laptop that there was no way it would live up to his expectations.
He made like 3 videos before he got it, and then 10 videos once he did, raving about everything, especially the screen. He built it up so much in his head that there was no way it could possibly be good enough.
The people on this forum have noticed it, but only when they are trying to, and none of them seem to care(at least alchemist)

 

It seems to have just been released in the UK, so should be here soon. Current guesses are anywhere between march 15th and end of April. I doubt that it'll be end of April as we'll know about all the upcoming has well systems by then

 

Hey Alchemist, do you mind taking a picture of the screen? If you have a nice camera (something that can take high detailed pictures) can you take a closeup of the screen, trying to highlight the grainy effect? I would appreciate that. I'm pretty certain that I'm going to go for this laptop, but I won't have time/liberty to see it at Best Buy. Thanks!

 

In meantime PCWorld sold the remaining stock of U500VZ through their outlet store for £968, original price £1500. No more u500vz in the UK for now.

 

Yeah I doubt it'll be the end of April either. I'm actually aiming for next week or the week after, before my rMBP goes down in value too much to where I can't sell it and have money left over after buying the Chronos

 

Are you sure this will be the SSD version that is coming to the USA?
Also, has anyone in the UK got their hands on it yet?

 

Honestly I could take dozens of pictures with 15mp cameras and you really couldn't see anything. When I saw the display in the store it was strikingly better than any of the computers around it. Its blacks are deep and solid, its colors vibrant, and the viewing angles wide. I would have swore it was an IPS (hadn't heard of MVP displays). I still think its about the best display ive ever had on a notebook and believe me when I say that I tend to obsess over screen quality. I would have NEVER noticed anything about grainy screen unless it was brought up in this forum... then If I put my face about an inch away from the screen and look at areas of solid color I can see a little bit of what was being talked about. As ive said before, if i do the same thing to my LG 23" desktop monitor it looks way worse.

Honestly I wouldn't give it a second thought, the screen is so much better than a washed out TN display and the refresh times are better than your typical IPS. Its a gorgeous screen, its the first thing that attracted me to the unit and hasn't disappointed yet.

 

I'm saying that there is nothing in touch screen technology that would obscure the screen in any way so it can't be the cause of anything visual. MVA screens do use a different tech with their pixels and it does tend to produce much better color saturation and blacks, ive never seen this tech before so its reasonable to consider it possible that it could effect the screen quality.

You have to take the guy in the videos with a grain of salt, I've been shopping alot of notebooks so ive seen a number of his videos... hes shopping alot of notebooks too... you can find videos of him just as excited waiting for the transformer book and others as for the samsung. As others have said, he built it up so much he could hardly contain himself of course he was going to find a deal breaker at some point. I stopped watching his vids a while back as it was all 'im so excited, i can't wait' stuff, I didn't realize he was the grainy screen guy until later.

 

The version released in the UK is the same as they best buy version except with an 8870 gpu. no SSD.

 

And that's the way I like it, because I want to put my own SSD in there. The 840 Pro is surely faster than anything Samsung would put in.

I hope it stays that way when the US version with the 8870m appears.

 

The 840 pro is a fast drive... although in reads the stock 840 is a hair faster. All things being equal i'd still take the 840 pro though although in my case the 840 was cheap and im more than happy with it. Its 2-3 times as fast as the ssd in my vizio and its a noticable difference. Photoshop CS3 is launched instantly... its like an ipad but with REAL apps, actually scratch that its faster launching than the ipad.

Btw... the 5400rpm drive in the chronos is labeled 'samsung momentus' I really couldn't find any details about it but did find some references to segate/samsung momentus and I know this was segates model for early hybrid drives. Im wondering if this thing might have an unadvertised flash cash or something? It did boot in 20 seconds, but was otherwise quite average.

 

Ey Alchemist mine just arrived Mexico City from the States I'm planning to swap the HDD for the samsung 840 can you give some advice to reinstall windows? cheers!

 

I can't find it anywhere on that site. Could you give a link please?

 

Do you have a Windows 8 upgrade disc/iso?

 

I checked this laptop out today at BestBuy, and I gotta say... I thought this was going to be the perfect laptop but I'm reconsidering it.

I have to say the series 7 chronos is way too heavy (though it is really thin for a laptop). Also, I think the glass covering the screen is really thick so that sacrifices some viewing angles and the glossy screen is reeeally reflective. The graininess is noticeable if you are looking for it.

As a soon-to-be college student, I'll have to opt out for a lighter, more portable laptop. I'm thinking about the 15 in. retina MBP once there's a price-drop. The 650m should suffice for CAD and light gaming.

 

What about the original Chronos with the Nvidia GPU?

 

Yeah, the rMBP is a full pound lighter. Makes a big difference if you're lugging it around a lot, TBH. Not sure what you're getting on on your screen and glass discussion though. One of the great features of the laptop is its great viewing angle. The glossy screen is no more reflective than any other glossy screen. I'm debating trying to find some kind of matte screen protector / screen guard and trying it out, but I haven't really decided yet.

I almost would think the Series 7 Ultra would be a pretty good bet for a college student.

Also - to the people who want a picture of the screen; keep in mind that any photo may have some noise in it (even my decent Nikon D7000 with borrowing my friend's lens would still have to get passed through a noise filter before I'm happy with it), so it's pretty hard to determine if the graininess is from the picture, or from the screen itself. Honestly speaking, YMMV with the screen. Alchemist and I seem to be in agreement that it's one of the sharpest we've seen in a really long time, but others may get turned off by it. We can't make the decision for you, it's something you'll have to decide for yourself (which means trucking it to the nearest Best Buy or equivalent store).

 

When I looked at the screen from an angle (I would estimate about 150 degrees) I could clearly see a gap between the outer glass and the screen, and that really reduced the full potential viewing angle of the screen. This is a rather minor thing I noticed that shouldn't be a deal breaker.
And yes, the color and contrast were gorgeous on the laptop.

If only I could see the Series 7 Ultra on display... but the dedicated gpu is nice but the 8570m is terribly weak in my opinion.

 

MBP is reflective too and has no touch and costs twice as much. Go for Chronos matte version.
Apple is no prestige brand anymore since Cook took over. A massive amount auf trouble (soft- and hardware) across all Apple products are standard now. There is no reason to pay the extra 500$ for Apple quality because there is none anymore.

 

Unfortunately this one has no FULL HD screen and the CPU is not powerful enough for my needs as a Motion Grapher.

 

Hi

Please can you help.....Kind of getting a bit lost in this huge thread.

Is there still a 16gb Chronos 7 coming out, as was stated at CES?

Many thanks.