Samsung Series 7 Laptops - 15.0" and 15.6" Models (NP700Z4 & NP700Z5)

The keyboard characters looks like they're painted. No wonder it doesn't have backlighting.

 

AHHH! It's so pretty! I WANT ONE NOW!

Gosh, Samsung sure did add a lot of sticker badges to it.

 

ha ha good eye bro.. so ya the laptop model Amandaville bought from Best Buy doesn't have a backlit keyboard or the express cache.. i don know why the F samsung promoted these latpops saying all of them having backlit keyboards and express cache... and now it does make sense when best buy dropped the price on their website for this specific model Amandaville bought..

 

I went looking around and I found engadget that says it has a backlit and if you look at one of the pics they show it only has 3 lights on the front

http://www.engadget.com/photos/samsung-series-7/#4407088

Samsung unveils Series 7 laptops, we go hands-on -- Engadget

edit: heres a better photo of the 3 lights

http://www.engadget.com/photos/samsung-series-7/#4407084

In this video it has 3 lights and he claims its backlit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLNJdxf1g54


oooooh you might be right....This video it shows 4 lights and its clearly backlit...its in spanish though...no habla espanol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwNkoyCNop0&feature=related

yep you are right....4 lights backlit 3 lights no

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbtbarJMVCU


ahhh!! the amazon version in the pictures only shows 3 lights.....I would be careful

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-NP700...QSGW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317103895&sr=8-1

 

In this photo from engaget, it appears as though the keyboard brightness controls are on the F9 & F10 keys. The keys also appear to have white or clear sides.



Here's a picture from the same perspective of the one I got from Best Buy today. No keyboard brightness controls and black-sided keys.

 

wow I'm so confused. Which model is which? The engadet has only 3 lights and a different keyboard but it still might be backlit? I have a feeling a lot of people are going to get screwed with no backlit keyboard when they want one.

Thanks for showing these pics btw!!

 

Boot time is 37 seconds.

I'm heading to bed now... really this time! ;-)

I'll be back tomorrow with more.

 

If it's not for sure whats backlit and whats not I might be buying the dell xps 15 or the xps 14z when that comes out after all.

 

haha lol ... ya thanks again...

ya no express cache since boot time is 37sec..

samsung jus made this so complicated... they could have jus released one model with one specific configuration in each size.. so stupid of them to have 3 diff models of 15.6" laptops.. they are totally screwing up alot of people who are pre-ordering..and not to mention how they were promoting with backlit and express cache in every single model... anyhow think twice before pre-ordering this laptop.. guess i will wait till Oct 2nd..

 

I don't think there's much need to worry. The Express-Cache models will definitely have backlit keyboards. Just don't trust the super cheap Best Buy versions. This is the norm for them as they get special models with cheaper components. Just look at the Vaio SC

 

I'm not so sure of that. The amazon one mentions nothing of a backlit keyboard and it has the 3 lights in the photos not 4.

 

Well amazon put up same pictures for all the two models of 15.6" and also same pictures for the 14" model.. so do not go by the pictures.. look up the model number ... and since they are priced around $1150 to $1300, im sure those two 15.6" models have express cache and backlit keyboard..

 

either way I'm going to let someone else buy it first to make sure hehe

 

Yeah I wouldn't worry about it if your going to pre order it on amazon or tiger.
Best buy's marketing strategy seems to be to special order every laptop from the manufactuer to have certain feature included, specifically widi and wimax, so they can get people without much tech knowledge to buy their netgear widi adapter and sign up for their wimax service. For example the qx411 which was bestbuy exclusive.

So I wouldn't be surprised if this "series 7" is radically different from the real series 7 laptop we're all interested in especially as their target market will not be the ones looking to see if the ati card is a 64 or a 67 and those people are the ones who will care more about how cheap it is regardless of specs.

But I could be completly wrong but this is my best guess.

 

Gratuitous link to Best Buy's product page for the Series 7 model under discussion, in case anyone's interested: Samsung - Series 7 Laptop / Intel® Core™ i7 Processor / 15.6" Display - Silver - NP700Z5B-W01UB

It's nice that Samsung finally offers USB 3.0 on something other than the significantly more expensive Series 9 models. I cannot see the end of USB 2.0 and widespread adoption of USB 3.0 fast enough to suit me.

A Core i7 and real graphics device (better than an Intel HD3200 at least) and a step up from the typical low-res, 1366x768 screen are very nice features as well.

Still not regretting my purchase of a Series 3 back in August, however. I simply wasn't prepared to spend $1100-ish (not to mention wait a couple of months) for the full-featured Series 7, or to spedn $850 for the feature-reduced Best Buy version of the Series 7. I only spent $700, and I got about what you would expect for the money.

I tend to spend more on desktops in general, because you still get more bang for the buck there vs. anything portable.

 

I don't think that really Samsung's fault. I think its more Best Buys fault and Samsung just agreed as others have said. At one point Best Buys was selling a Vaio F with an i3(first gen) cpu, no back-lit keyboard(?), and standard blu-ray for about $1000, while everywhere else was selling the Vaio F with a quad core i7 for the same price(with the same gpu and no standard blu-ray). Hell, Sony's site didn't even make a mention of an i3 model. I think Best Buy does this to help keep prices down more, and possibly increase profits for themselves?

Besides the EC, gpu, and back-lit keyboard, does the Best Buy model have anything else that is different? Is it know if there will be a 14in Best Buy model?

 

Even without the ExpressCache feature, does the Series 7 have the hybrid sleep/hibernate/resume ability of the Series 3?

Having owned my Series 3 for close to two months, I really like how quickly I can pick up where I left off. The machine is ready to use almost instantaneously. It "wakes" as soon as I open the lid, and I see the Windows unlock/login screen within seconds.

This ability is so useful that I hardly ever shut the machine down completely, so it is not often that I have to wait for the full Windows 7 startup sequence. Haven't got around to timing it, though I suspect a full startup is in the same range as the non-ExpressCache Series 7.

What is still a bit slow is going into this "hybrid sleep" mode. I suspect this is because the OS has to cache memory contents to disk, which would once have been called "hibernate." The terminology surrounding various power-saving modes has become a bit confusing.

 

No im kinda baffled to see now that there is a model of Samsung series 7 laptop without backlit keyboard and Express cache... they promoted in such a way that express cache and backlit keyboard are standard config on each and every single Samsung series 7 laptop.. i guess its all part of promoting a product nowadays.. ya thats true about best buy though.. they do this with lots of laptops..

 

I know Best Buy had their own version of dv6t with a carbon fiber glossy plastic finish that you can't find elsewhere... it also had cheaper components.

 

So... is the palmrest plastic or aluminium ? And the bottom ? Thx

 

Hybrid sleep is a feature of windows 7, it works also in my desktop. If it could recover from sleep it wakes up almost instantly, otherwise it'll load the hibernation file from HD.

Please notice that in every videos there were the "* Factory option" note about expresscache, and a model without it (the base $1000 ish) were planned since the beginning...

Either way, I subscribed this topic...

 

I'm kinda curious about this too... i have heard that the palmrest is plastic in a couple of the previews but I'm kinda curious about the bottom. would prefer plastic on the bottom tbh.

 

Can anyone confirm that I am understanding this situation correctly?

- 700Z3A(14"): HD6490M

- 700Z4A(15"): HD6750M

- 700Z5A(15.6"): HD6750M

 

according to this quote; yes, depending on the region:
Get to know the Samsung SERIES 7 CHRONOS (14 inch) - YouTube

 

Exactly, besides, the BestBuy page made no mention of backlit keyboard.

The model we want is NP700Z5A-S02US, this one has got the ExpressCache, the 6750M and the backlit keyboard.

 

Hi Folks,

The laptop looks sweet and should compliment my GS2 nicely, anyone have any idea when this gets released in Europe? Windows exprerience score seems a little low, my old M1530 scored over five!

 

5.2 you have seen in the other post.is because the bestbuy version has a 6490 graphics card instead of the higher one.

 

I have never seen a drive configuration like this on a brand new laptop.



Four partitions with only 50GB currently usable is absurd for a factory setup. Additionally, notice how there isn't even a drive letter assigned to the dvd drive. This clearly wasn't ready to be released.

I can fix these things easily but it makes me wonder what else is lurking under the surface I haven't noticed yet. I may just install a fresh copy of Windows 7. That is... if I don't return it and buy the better model from Amazon.

 

IMHO, yours was intended as a demonstration machine, in fact the "classic" theme, the absence of any application and the strange partitioning is clearly not intended to be sold as-is.

 

How's the screen quality? Sharpness, viewing angles, color accuracy, etc?

 

Any comments on the palmrest and bottom of the laptop Amandaville ?
So is it finally aluminium or plastic like at the IFA ?

 

Since I'm used to a 27" S-PVA, I'm a little spoiled. That said, I can also say that I'm very impressed with the display. It looks better than any other laptop I've used. I'll eventually get around to properly calibrating it but it looks pretty darn good out of the box.

I'm also very impressed with the built-in speakers. Once again, better than any other laptop I've owned up till now.

This is also the least expensive laptop I've ever owned, having spent between $2000 and $3000 on most of them in the past.

 

The bottom is definitely plastic. I thought the palmrest was aluminum but it doesn't sound like aluminum when I tap on it. I sure looks like brushed aluminum though.

Another thing I noticed is that the palm rest and keyboard seem to bow in toward the center. I thought it was an optical illusion at first but it bugged me so much that I set a straight-edge on it. It seems like the palm rest and keyboard need more support in the center.

 

It might be "fake aluminium", ie. plastic shell covered by a thin layer of aluminium, like the HP dv6 2011...

 

Did not know that. I have no "Hybrid Sleep" available on my desktop machine, only regular old "Sleep" (just enough power to maintain RAM contents, disks spin down) and regular old "Hibernate" (previously-mentioned write-RAM-to-disk mode). Probably hybrid sleep is missing because it's a somewhat old motherboard (Asus P5E3 WS Pro) with a pre-Windows 7 chipset (Intel X38).

The distinction is less important there, as I'm not concerned about old-fashioned Sleep slowly draining the battery on a desktop machine.

 

Is there anywhere I can pre-order/buy the

- 700Z4A(15"): HD6750M

I really dislike the numpad on the 15.6" but I dont want to sacrifice the HD6750M GPU either. Seems like the perfect laptop for me to upgrade to!

 

Also, the Best Buy model comes with a Hitachi Travelstar 5K750 HTS547575A9E384 Hard Drive which is a 5400 rpm drive.

 

You might want to see Control Panel > Hardware & Sounds > Power Saving options > Edit combination settings (where Balanced, high performance, etc... are) > Advanced > Suspension > Allow Hybrid suspension... don't know if the labels are these because my OS is in Italian...
My desktop is a C2D with a P5W motherboard, so not much different than yours

@Amandaville: nice Avatar

 

Hey Amandaville,

Can you please check to see what model DVD-RW drive is int he machine under the Control Panel? I'm curious as Im wondering if it can be swapped out for a Blu-Ray Drive Slot Load.

Id like to do a Google Search on the model number listed.

Thanks in advance!

 

I know only the 15.6 inch Here

 

Here you go,

Matsh-ita DVD-RAM UJ8A7AS
* Remove the hyphen in Matsh-ita (the editor kept deleting the four middle letters beginning with "sh" and ending with "it")

Hope that helps.

 

How are the fans/cooling/noise? You may not play much games, but I'm looking to get the 6750M version and intend on playing Diablo 3/Starcraft 2 half of the time on medium settings.

 

Why medium? The 6750M can handle high garaphics without any problems.

 

Actually went into my local BB and they had a display model out. I have to admit its one sexy machine. I also hate number pads on laptop keyboards but oddly I didn't find this one that annoying at all.

 

Perhaps only the BB model has this type of finish?

 

No, it appears that it will be the case for every models.

 

That is positive to read. How are the vertical and horizontal viewing angles? Better than average, or the same?

 

Amandaville, what laptops have you owned in the past for comparison? Thanks for keeping us updated.

 

Amandaville looks like you got one of those budget ones. The one Samsung announced was suppose to 1K+ since you got ur below 1k and the Samsung announced ones are release on Oct 2. Looks like you got a budget version that Best Buy most likely ask Samsung to create for them. And your model is NP700Z5B all the ones announced by samsung is NP700Z5A. Sounds like you got duped.

 

I don't see where he got duped, BB specs were up to date, samsung did announce in press release lower models without express cache and xeymour gpu, they just forgot to mention the lack of backlight keyboard on them, hell they even announced them for 999$ instead of 870$ since the 6750M 6gig + express cache ones were scheduled for 1149$