New samsung series 7 with 8870m review / test

Yeah I tried it with rammin772's help but it was really unstable and I lost switchable graphics and/or CCC after a reboot.

 

Dang if not this generation, the next one for sure. I have to convince myself for Maxwell and Haswell.

 

For me 10-20% CPU performance improvements and less power consumption were not worth a few months of waiting.

 

Hi. I got an eye on this one vs the ux51. How is the keyboard flex on the laptop? Been searching vids and I didnt find a good vid about the flex.

 

If you type on it there really is no keyboard flex. Only if you press really hard you'll exerience a tiny bit of flex.

This laptop is really rigid IMO. You should check this video at 1.56 for the overall flex: Samsung Series 7 Chronos Gaming & Series 7 Ultrabook with Touch Screen Linus Tech Tips CES 2013 - YouTube

 

@Pranktank: Thanks for the link. About the screen,is it ips? How wobbly is it?

 

It's mva. Really is a beautiful screen(except the graininess on white can be annoying, but only if you let it get to you)

It's wobbly at first, but once you get used to how hard to touch it it's fine.
I was comparing it to a Mac book air 13" and the chronos is less wobbly

 

Oh, you're from canada too. I have the asus n56 atm and it isnt wobbly. Since im looking at the touch version, i want it be sturdy.

 

I really wouldn't classify it as wobbly. It moves a very small amount if you touch it with a lot of pressure. Not really at all once you get used to how much pressure is needed

 

I have the same questions as u I want to install amd drivers from amd site, but it sems have not been released yet for this model

 

Hi. I plan to purchase a Samsung Series 7 Chronos HD 8870 w/ a non touch screen. It appears that you have not tested Arma III on your laptop. If you are interested, i own 3 Arma III alpha lite keys on Steam, that can give you access to solo "showcases" (sort of mini tutorials to demonstrate the beast). Since I am new on this forum I do not know how to send private messages. Send me a private message if you want a Steam key.
Thanks
EDIT : all keys were given

 

Welcome to the forum .
I'd love a key to try it out. I can't send you (and you can't send me) a PM until you have made 5 posts.

 

OK. I posted enough messages. Maybe is there a waiting period, although the FAQs do not mention any of this.

 

i am experimenting some ghosting in my NP770z5e screen, its just noticeable when you press Ctrl+Alt+Supr, is not a BIG PROBLEM to me, like a said, is just really noticeable when I go to task manager.

What do you recommend ??? just keep the notebook because the problem is not really annoying. Or its better to change it ?? the ghosting problem could increase with the time ???

thanks

 

It should take 24 hours

 

Stupid question here but this ( SAMSUNG Series 7 Chronos 15.6" Touchscreen Laptop - Silver | Laptops | Currys) is the computer right? I find it hard to believe it available already when it's not on samsung.com/ie but it seems like they're the same.

 

I checked Samsung IPS screen on the other models (laptops and pad) in the store today and could see that everyone (beside one 23 inch screen) is some grainy.

The question is:

Is both no touch mat and touch glare screen same grainy or is one of this better ones? Is there a difference between panels realized in various countries or are they all the same panels?

How can it be that one cheap china pad (about 150 €) that I bought before has perfect touch IPS screen while the high end Samsung laptop for 1500€ has grainy screen with burn-in problem?

 

The Currys model is usually the NP780Z5E-T01UK and the model with the top specs is the NP780Z5E is the S01UK. They are both on the Samsung UK website. I would compare the price and specs with Currys elsewhere and see if things tie up.

John

 

@Pranktank: I went to Futureshop yesterday to check out the laptop and sadly, they haven't displayed it yet coz it's a new item/product for them. I really want to check how wobbly the screen is. I've seen some videos from youtube that it wobbles a lot. I'm weighing this laptop vs the ux51 and the screen wobble thingy is really bugging me(touch screen or not.) Is it possible for you to make a short video on the "wobbleness" of the screen? maybe poke the screen with your fingers.

 

Hello everyone,

I have one question about this computer (the 15 inch model 770Z5E) :
does it have a SSD CACHE in addition to the 1To hard drive ?
I ask that because I know that the 17 inch model (the 770Z7E) has one so I wanted to know if the 15 inch (770Z5E) has it too ?
Thank you

 

When just moving the laptop around the screen doesn't wobble at all. Only when I poke it, it wobbles a bit. I'd find this a problem when it was a touchscreen but mine isn't so it's not bugging me at all. I'll see what I can do for the video but I don' think that you'll be able to even see the wobbling.

No it only has the 1TB hdd. Welcome to the forum .

 

Thank you for your answer !
So I guess I will buy the 17 inch model (770Z7E) because I think the little SSD CACHE (8 Go) might help with the low speed of the 1To HDD.
Did you try this model ? Is it faster than the 15 inch (770Z5E) ?
Thank you.

 

It doesn't make a big difference. Better swap the HDD to an SSD, then You will get enough speed

Handschriftlich von meinem Note 2 gesendet

 

Yes I think this is the best solution for sure but I like to have a lot of memory space (1To) so a SSD added to a big HDD should be right.
Is it possible to remove the DVD drive and put a SSD instead ?
Thank's again

 

The 770z5e doesn't have an optical drive, there is no space for a second hdd/ssd.

 

Hello, I am talking about the 17 inch model (the 770Z7E) and yes it has one.
It has the same components as the 15 inch model (the 770Z5E) instead that it has a SSD CACHE of 8Go and an optical drive.
So I was wondering if I could put a bigger SSD at the emplacement of the optical drive.

PS: sorry for my bad english

 

Then I guess you can replace the optical drive if there is one

Just open the back cover and check how it looks like inside. Probably you will need a SATA ODD bay. Not sure which size exactly is needed.

 

Hello all, I don't know if anyone here can answer this but do you know if the touchscreen version has an anti-reflective screen like the non touchscreen one e.g. Can you use it outside or in a sunny room without squinting to read the screen? Also, do you have any idea if the Haswell chips will be exchanged for the ivy bridge chips when they're available or will it be the next generation Chronos that will have them? (If yes about them being replaced with Haswell in your opinion do you think it's worth waiting for? [in terms of gaming ability])

 

The touch screen version has a a glossy screen. So it's not optimal for using outdoors or in the sun.

I think (It's just my idea, I could be very wrong) they'll do a haswell revision of this latop like they did an ivy bridge revision with the previous series 7 chronos. I think they'll do that because it's too early to make a whole new generation of the series 7 chronos because this one is barely out.

Almost all games are GPU-bottlenecked these days so even if the haswell CPU's are 20% faster than ivy bridge CPU's you'll only see very few fps more. So for gaming, haswell won't be worth waiting for in my opinion. And since the ivy bridge ones are barely out yet waiting for a haswell series 7 chronos may take a really long time.

 

Alrighty, sounds good. Thanks for the info

 

If you could make the vid, it'll be very helpful. I'm leaning on this vs the ux51 though the gpu is weaker on the ux51, the matte screen is very tempting. I might pull the trigger on this one if I could see more reviews/vids. I've [seen] post/s around that this laptop only costs around 1.2k in the US(not sure) but here in canada, its 1.7k rounded up. Why is that?

 

Also the Chronos has the matte display option (non-touch).
There is a price difference because the Canadian model comes with 16GB RAM instead of 8 (and maybe Windows 8 Pro, but I'm not sure about this)

Sent from HTC HD2 with Tapatalk

 

Yeah, I think you're right. It comes with 16gigs of ram.

Samsung Chronos 15.6" Laptop (Intel Core i7-3635QM / 1TB HDD / 16GB RAM / Windows 8) : 15" Laptops - Future Shop

So far, that's the only Chronos I've found. Dunno where to look.

 

Keep in mind the Canadian version has the 8870m, the US version has the 8770m.

 

Yeah. That's the reason why I'm leaning on the Samsung. The 8870m is better than the 8770m or the 650m, yes?

 

Yes. You can use the notebookcheck mobile CPU benchmark list to make comparisons.

John

 

Hey there! I'm portuguese, and I'm new to this forum, though I've been reading some threads for quite a while now.. ever since I got my 2012 samsung series 7 chronos 17-inch (770Z7E-S01), which has the 8870m and the i7 Ivy Bridge 3635m.

At first I was checking some threads about adding a SSD, which I successfully did (thanks :thumbsup: ), even though I erased ALL the partitions from the HDD.
This caused me to do a fresh install not only for windows, but for all drivers. While I was at it, I noticed that after some installs, I wasn't able to adjust the screen's brightness anymore (the Fn keys acted as they were actually adjusting it, but the screen remained the same. Not even by going to window's brightness adjustment option it changed). By trial and error, I found out it was AMD's software that was causing this. I went in search of drivers for my ATI Radeon HD 8870m and I couldn't find any. I sent an e-mail to AMD and they replied that "we don't write samsung's graphics drivers, they do."

So my questions are:

1) Did anyone else have issues with Catalyst Center (or drivers) conflicting with screen brightness?
2) Are there any drivers for this graphics card?
3) If not, how are some (lucky) people getting high fps if I cant even run Trackmania smoothly?

Thanks in advance, guys!

Ps: Sorry for my bad english!

 

Try (re)installing Samsung's Settings program. It includes the driver for the Fn keys.

John

 

Welcome .
Do you have any graphics AMD drivers installed right now? If not, install them through SW update. (First install SW update if you don't have it). This is the only fully working driver right now.

If you still have performance issues after that here's a quick checklist:
Is silent mode off? (go to settings through fn F1).

Have you used the switchable graphics app to use the 8870m for the game? (right click on desktop > switchable graphics > choose the game and set it to high performance

Is your laptop plugged in?

Hope it helps

 

Hi, John. I did try that, several times. The Fn keys all worked fine, as they were supposed to. It was the screen's brightness that wouldn't change, neither via Fn keys nor via the brightness adjustment option in the power options..

Thanks,
Jorge Martins

 

I do not have any AMD drivers installed. However, when I did install them, I did it through the SW Update software, which caused the brightness issue in the first place..

Thanks,
Jorge Martins

 

Anyone has tried the new Catalyst 13.4 and 13.5 beta driver to see how improves performance?

 

I only tried 13.3 beta for a very short time and saw no big improvement. I don't know how to mod the .INF file. However, I still have the modded .inf file for 13.3 that rammin772 made. Would that work? I'll try it then.

I was dissapointed 13.5 beta still doesn't support the 8000m series.

 

Anything on the US release of this? I am tempted to buy the 8770M model, but this is such a carrot to wait for. Anyone familiar with the usual timetable for a release in the US after it has been released in the UK?

 

It currently looks like the Series 7 Chronos with 8870 won't be released in the US as such, but rather it looks like Samsung is going to be releasing the ATIV Book 8 (basically the 8870 Chronos 7) in the coming couple of months.

This is speculation, though.

 

Hi,

I've been waiting for this computer to come out in Spain for more than one month with no luck.

I would like to know if anyone have tried installing any linux distro like Ubuntu since I've read that there have been some big issues with the old chronos 7.

Another thing I would like to know if there is any kind of HDD activity LED in the computer.

By the way, I'm planning changing the HDD for a Momentus TX (7200 RPM and 8Gbs of ssd cache)

I disagree with those that say it doesn't improve performance having ssd cache. I've used the Lenovo Y500 with 16Gb cache and it was 12 seconds to boot and loading time in those applications that you use daily improves a lot.

Obviously copying data or when you open an application that you rarely use the cache have no interest.

 

FYI - for those in Canada considering the NP7805ZE-S02, or those who have purchased one in the past 30 days, it is on sale at Future Shop ($200 off the original price of $1699).

 

Seems there's only the power indicator and ambient light sensor:


I was considering getting the Momentus XT but I did some research on Seagate's new "Solid-State Hybrid Drives" or "SSHD"'s. They're cheaper, go up to 1 TB in the 2.5" form factor, but run only on 5400 rpm drives. What do you think of the new drives?

 

@twistx and Bitech: Coincidentally, we were just discussing the Momentus XT drives in another thread, starting right here. It spans a few pages.

 

Thanks for the heads up. I really like this laptop. It's the wobly screen that is holding me back.