Introducing The 2013 Series 7 Chronos with AMD HD8870M!

I have had this for two weeks now after months of checking out laptops. Very happy with the screen. May not be what photography professionals want but to suggest that this is the worst screen ever is a somewhat hysterical reaction

 

i checked out the same chronos at 2 best buy stores. i noticed a defect. everytime i close the lid and reopen it a few secs later, i have to wait 6 secs for the screen to come back on. the asus touchcreen laptop next to it came back to life instantly. is this normal?? can this be fixed in the settings??

 

Who said there isn't a good screen put in? ?

 

Only Greth and I, I think, have admitted to owning the CES version.

I think all this screen talk is getting out of control - yes, there is a "texture" look on the screen, it's not noticeable unless you stick your head a few inches from the glass, which is not something I do very often! Looking at other devices, the vast majority of them have some degree of this grain texture - even apple devices and laptops, yes even retina. Is it really a big deal? No. In fact, for a glossy screen, this thing is not too bad for reflections. I'd rather have a slight texture than a screen that badly reflects (because I'm not in the habit of putting my nose against the screen to look at it, so can't really see the texture anyway!)

 

Well yeah people always find a little thing thats off to complain and obsess about. Seriously... id rather have the grain issue than a backlight bleeding retina IPS screen anytime. Because you can get used to the grain but never to a huge IPS backlight bleed. Im 100% sure the asus and mbpr are all hit to a different extent by backlight bleeding when displaying black in a dim room.
Maybe the grain is just the result of a bad setup of phase settings of the screen. I remember having a desktop monitor with a big grain and blurr issue issue, it went away when I changed the phase setting value on it. If thats it it can be solved with a bios update if enough people report it to samsung support.

 

A note of warning for anyone getting one of these or similar machines...

You definitey need a 32gb pen drive for the recovery image. I just tried to put it on a 16gb one, but it won't fit. It needs 15.4gb for the bootable image and a 16gb pen drive only actually has 14.9gb formatted space!

 

I don't understand people defending the screen and telling that it doesn't matter or you would not notice from distance etc. You have all mental problems. The screen is grainy, not very grainy and it doesn't affect anything but it is grainy and if someone is looking for screen that is clear and there are plenty of them around will not be happy with the screen quality.
I have seen worst but this is not the best screen you can get. My Dell is not grainy, my friends HP is not grainy at all so don't tell me that every screen is more or less grainy.

 

kmann, have you had a look at it at bestbuy yet? Interested in your comments on the screen.

 

Dude we all get it. You think the series 7 chronos is terrible and your asus is awesome. Good for you.

I'm happy for you you have a laptop you like. So do we, we want the chronos. We like the 8870m, the touchscreen (some of us), the looks, the battery, the decent price,... and choose it above the asus.

You just come here to say your asus is so much better and to say how bad the chronos is. Do you actually have one? I don't think so, so please use this thread what it's for. If you didn't know already, the title is not 'Introducing the worse laptop than my asus'

Btw that picture is way to unclear to see anything or to compare anything.


Status of my order of the np770z5e: there's something wrong with the payment and I won't be able to sort it out until after the weekend. So it won't be here next weekend .

Am I the only one who bought the non-touchscreen version? If I get it, I'll definitely try to review it. And I'll try to put up detailed pictures of the screen. Maybe an unboxing video but my english is too bad for that I'm afraid.

 

I'm sorry, but it really bugs me whenever people says that aluminum is bad at dissipating heat.

What are we comparing it to? Plastic for all I know, unless some manufacturer made a copper laptop, and even then there are better heat conductors out there. Obviously, the laptop being warm/hot, and unbearable to be put on ones lap could be a deal breaker for some, but that has nothing to do with a particular material being good/bad at dissipating heat.

 

Your image is in JPG format. JPG is notorious for artifacts. It would be good if you can capture again using PNG format instead, PNG is a lossless format.

 

Aluminium is good at dissipating heat on a desk, but it will burn when on your lap because it conducts more heat per minute per surface...
Plastic is worse at dissipating heat and more insulating, exhausts more of the heat through the vents than through the bottom plate down to your lap.
Each has its pro and cons.

 

just a quick word about the Retina: I work on one every day at work. It gets quickly warm because Apple set the fan control system to get the quietest computer - and not the coolest. I think it is absurd, especially when you set up fan speed manually, you can drop the temperature of off several degrees without any noticeable increase of the noise level.

The 650m is not as powerful as the 8870 might be (even if in the rMBP it is slightly overclocked), but the beauty of this computer is that you don't have to do everything at the native resolution (given to pixel density). You can use intermediate proportionnal resolutions without any noticeable blur as on low density displays (but I would presume it is the same on 1080 LCP panels).

 

Please all of you, stop talking here about that super expensive mbp crappy software. Please.

Inviato dal mio GT-I9300 con Tapatalk 2

 

I can't believe still there is no full review of a 770Z5E (8870m) compared to Asus N56 and UX51...
Unbelievable

 

Google is still your friend.

Among others:
1. Samsung 770Z5E-S02DE - Notebookcheck.net External Reviews
2. SM Cyberzone | Samsung Series 7 Chronos (770Z5E), 15
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzePdOuyyWg

 

Mac OS expensive? Moutain Lion costs $19.99, Windows 8 pro costs more than $200...

MacOS is not crappy, it's different. Of course for those who want to play video games you better go on the Windows side. But for others... Why do you think so many people (especially graphists) work on MacOS ? To be honest with you I am a Windows guy, but I don't find MacOs crappy at all...

 

Well, the stock chronos has a 5400rpm hard drive while at most best buys ive seen the asus next to it is an ultrabook with a 128gb ssd. With an HD it takes longer to sleep and wake, so if you shut the lid and open it before its finished sleeping it will take even longer to wake as its playing catchup. If you wait a good 15-20 seconds to make sure its asleep it will come back on almost instantly.

 

Macbooks and Windows notebooks have totally different operating systems (let's not talk about bootcamp) and target different users.

You can compare build quality and specs, but OS wise it's really different.

Now back on topic please.

 

That looks like the matte non-touch screen model of an asus. just saying hard to compare a matte non touch screen to a gloss touch screen.

 

Good to know, thats a pain, at least they aren't too pricy.

 

(I suppose this is a picture of 780Z5E)
May I ask you where did you this picture?
Because It seems taken in a low light ambient, as could be at home and not in a store.

20% is not small thing, and ambient light can make the difference, also this notebook has dynamic control of screen brightness, have you disabled?

Maybe could be more, because there is new driver Catalyst 13.2 beta that has special improvement for Crysis3.

Someone has said that in thread there aren't Sony and HP fanboys, but it seems that we have instead Asus and Apple fanboys...
I can't realize how someone has made a picture of his screen just to compare at a distance such that you can see even the keyboard, while Jako's photo is almost a macro, it seems that we have a example of smart person... (I'm ironic)

I don't know if you are speaking of your Dell XPS15 L521x, because in these forum there is even a specific thread about the issue of its panel, in specific about its graininess, many people have complaint about it, and many people have request the replace of display or notebook and even a refund.

Do not take seriously posts by that user, it's fairly clear what's his target.
The fact that it is still here, however, seems to indicate that is not very convinced of his choice.

I would remember to everyone that GT650m of rMBP is more than a GTX660m, but unfortunately it's seems to have a serious problem of throttling, it's one of few notebooks that was able to hit 104°C throttling @1.2GHZ on CPU running only Prime95.

Also I want remember that Sony S15, HP Envy 15, but it's seems even its successor and Asus UX51/U500 have the same IPS panel made by LG. This panel is known to its poor space color (gamut), if I say orangegate someone could remember something.
If it's confirmed what we have see in the first review the Chronos panel has a contrast of 1000:1 while IPS LG panel has 500:1, and rMBP is around 900:1, but obviously this is only on parameter to say more we need reviews from reliable site like Anandtech or Notebookcheck.

 

I am going to head out there in an hour or so. Just woke up

 

None of them is a full review with a comparison with Asus, so again
Unbelievable there's still no full review

 

Just a quick question:


Is there anyone out there that possesses a link to buy the US version of the 8870m Touchscreen model? Haha I doubt it, but it'd still be cool.

 

I have owned the Dell XPS 15 that you mention, and that screen is gorgeous and does not have the issues the Samsung had. The laptops I have owned are, many Macbook Pro's (non-retinas), Sony F series, Dell XPS M1710, XPS 15, Inspiron 1501, Lenovo 14" work laptop, and NOW I ordered a Alienware M17x R4 for cheaper than THIS Samsung with more power by calling Dell and getting a deal.

NONE (except I can't say on the AW yet), have had an issue like this Samsung. NONE show this type of screen issues. They are all sharp, and clear from any distance. The samsung you NOTICE from a normal distance while the others you don't unless you get within 2-3 inches of the screen.

So, I am far from being fanboy happy with any laptop since I have had MANY different brands over the last 5 years. I understand you are trying to PROTECT your purchase, but many are noticing this and it's real.

 

Everyone can read the opinions about Dell XPS15 L521X display that you define "gorgeous":

http://forum.notebookreview.com/dell-xps-studio-xps/677227-xps-15-l521x-display-thread.html

That thread was born to the high number of owners that has complaints about its display.

 

How would people say the 7 Chronos compares to the XPS 15?

 

XPS 15 is a faulty machine, low quality screen, faulty Wi-Fi: Dell solution to this issue was to use external Wi-Fi adapter, big throttling: you can hit thermal shutdown just using an external monitor, despite this the price is even higher than Chronos 7.
For more info I suggest to consult this section of this forum:
Dell XPS and Studio XPS Forums

 

Well it depends what you are looking for...

If you want the processing power of an i7 quad core you need to step up to the $1699 model.

If you want a touch screen you are pretty much outta luck with the XPS 15.

As for graphics, it never gets better than a 640m on the XPS and even the 8770m in the best buy version of the chronos bests it and is closer to a 650m.

I couldn't find specs on the battery in the XPS but i'm guessing its more the normal 50000-70000mwh battery instead of the 91000mwh battery in the chronos. So battery life will likely be less.

 

First of all, pictures don't help. Sometimes it's low light, bad camera, etc. Just look at it in person. I want to clarify that it is a gorgeous screen but the level of grain i saw was just too much for me. I probably notice more than the average person.

It's a beautiful laptop, very well built, fast, the speakers were unreal. I'm not trying to bash it or tell you not to buy it. It's just my opinion. Nobody is apple or HP, or dell or any fanboy. I own a Samsung phone, a Sony TV, and now a apple laptop.

It's going to be different for everyone obviously, but you can NOT say there is no grain. Graphics cards don't make a better screen also. Regardless if it has the 8770 or 8870. That's only if you plan on gaming.


and like everyone else said, pop in an 8gb ram stick, SSD and it's even faster.

 

Hm, thanks for opinions guys. I was leaning towards the 7 Chronos, sounds like its definitely the better option

 

So far only the best buy model is reported as having a grainier than average screen ?

 

I never had XPS L521X so cannot say anything about it. Just my final word about screen in Chronos.

IT IS GRAINY, NOT VERY GRAINY BUT IT IS GRAINY!!

Don't compare it to other screens and notebooks, focus on Samsung. It is the best notebook you can buy until autumn and I will definitely buy one myself which doesn't make any difference in graininess. I will have to live with medium grainy screen but I don't give a sh....I will have more reasons to work less and go out more often. Girls are not grainy and touch friendly.

 

I havent heard about European models

 

I wouldn't count on the non-best buy edition being any different, I looked at the samsung all in one desktops last night and their screens were similar (as was about 80-90% of the touch screen computers i looked at for that matter).

As i've said before, this is not a major issue, and borders on being a non issue. The screen is gorgeous, it has texture if you look at it from 2-3" away, but ive found similar texture with most screens available today. The viewing angles and color on this are so superior to typical TN screens its very noticeable.

 

Well even if I look at my note 2 amoled theres grain to it on white backgrounds but man you gotta focus and search for it to notice. If its that kind of grain Im alright with it.

 

The Note 2 is also 720p compared to this 1080p screen.

 

Hi, does anyone here know where I can buy this laptop online? And will it ship to Canada? Thanks.

 

It seems like despite the availability of (some) models with 8870M, we as a community is no closer to identify the cause and the extent of throttling.

 

Well all tests say it comes down to the power supply limited at 92watts. But the 8870m models still hit gtx670-675 performance in lastest direct X games. Maybe you can get a little more performance by setting up a power conservative profile on USBs and other little power draws while at the same time maxing out gpu and cpu power profiles.

 

So I woke up early today and spend the best part of 2 hours looking at this machine in the Currys on oxford street. First thing I'd like to say is that this is the laptop for me (8870 version back in stock next week) and I'm very excited to buy it when I get paid at the end of this month!

I found the build quality to be excellent, absolutely solid. Tested out the speakers on full blast in the shop and again was impressed. I'm not a fan of speakers pointing away from the user like on my Note 2, but it certainly wasn't an issue on this machine.

With regards to screen graininess, I'll simply say that this is not an issue for me. I've gotta admit I did take a long hard look with this thing right up against my nose and yes you can see something but I also went to look at the LG 84 inch, 4k ultra HDTV today in John Lewis and guess what? I see the same, if not more graininess lol.

Had I never heard of this issue, I never would have noticed it and at the distance I will be using the machine it is not noticeable at all. I'm satisfied with it.

Question - I'm going to throw in an SSD right away when I get the machine, I've looked up how to install it and all the different types of SSD and I'm settled on the 840 pro 256gb. I did notice in the task manager on the machine that RAM was 75%+ in use at all times, I assume due to the RAM accelerator people have mentioned. If I pop in this SSD and format the machine, which software do I avoid installing in order to avoid putting RAM accelerator on again? I don't want this hogging my resources if I have an SSD in!


Cheers

 

Sorry for my misunderstanding about your ownership of XPS 15 L521x, I'm not saying that it's not grainy, but more info regard your picture could be useful, for example, have you disabled dynamic screen brightness before to snap a picture? What's ambient light in place where you have the picture?
Most likely it's grainy but a comparison with others notebooks is not wrong, it can help to understand the judgment of some user.

Also could be very interesting if someone were so lucky to find in some store 780Z5E and 770Z5E side by side to say something about the difference between screen with and without glass, I know that panel is the same, but I wonder if in some way glass+antireflective filter affects the vision.

Unfortunately any owner of 15" 8870m variant until now was not able to test throttling,

I want to remember a simply test to check throttling.
This test checks a condition that rarely occurs in normal operation,
even if some game is not very far from this limit condition, the big difference is that in this test the load on CPU and GPU is constant.

 

The ram cache software is called Intellimemory and your right that you don't want to use it with an SSD installed. If you go the route of making a factory restore usb drive and reinstall your OS from that you can simply uninstall intellimemory once you are all up and running on the new drive. If you go the route of installing a new copy of windows 8 on the machine and use samsung sw update to download all the drivers and such, you can just tell sw update not to install intellimemory. I put a 250gb 840 in mine (best buy model) and it truly flies.

 

I cannot understand people saying yes its grainy but I went to see other notebooks or TV and it was not better so its not grainy.

It is grainy, not very grainy but grainy and stop trying to convince people that it is not because you have seen other grainy panels.

Glass on the front is not part of the panel but part of the case. The panel is finish with matte layer and that why is grainy. If they finish the panel with glossy layer it will be 100% clear as it should be. Now we have glass over matte panel.

 

I am in Best Buy right now typing this on the Chronos. Right off the bat I can say that the "graniness" is far from an issue. Like Alchemist has repeatedly said, it looks no different than any other touchscreen device, and you can ONLY see it when the background is a solid white.

I'll save my full impressions of the laptop until later since I'm in Best Buy, but what I can say is that this computer is f*cking amazing. I am 100% sold and getting this the second the 8870m Touchscreen model comes to the US.

 

So you guys are pissed off by a matte coating grain. Man that laptop must be really flawless if thats the sole thing people have found to rant about.

 

Who's convincing people it's not grainy? I said it wasn't an issue and had I never heard about it, I probably never would have noticed it. Also, I never sought out the Ultra HDTV, it so happened to be in John Lewis when I went to check out their laptop range.

There are people in this forum who may not have seen this laptop and I would like to give them my 2 cents on the matter since posting a picture here is pretty useless. There is no need for animosity and passive aggressiveness with other peoples opinions, especially if they're trying to help others out. This is a forum for sharing and discussion and I have appreciated others opinions before I had an opportunity to check the machine out for myself.


My point of comparison is if the latest and greatest £20,000 TV with ultra high definition can't eliminate this graininess people are speaking about, then in my opinion, the technology isn't here or it's not cost viable to implement yet.




I'm not sure if it'll be too late for some but when I pick the machine up on the 28th, I'll posts pics, benchmarks and gaming vids here for everyone to see. I'm curious to see how much the machine throttles also.

 

Yeah this was the main time I noticed it was when I saw a white background, I wonder why this is. Perhaps this is why the laptop has been described as Anti reflective because of the matte screen underneath?

Just as derpderp said, very little wrong with this machine and that's why I'm so excited about it! This should certainly be my main machine for the next 5 years unless quantum computing in laptops decides to show it's face early

 

What technology? Not grainy screen technology? I've seen many not grainy screens even four or five years ago.
I never said its a major issue or affects the overall experience but it exist and could be better without increasing the price.