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

and another question.

Is here so much faster just internet explorer browser, or also chrome and firefox? because i never used internet explorer??

 

I like to be nice

Well the license is a lifetime license as far as I know.

I uninstalled Norton AV and some other tools, don't know anymore.

But if you use another recovery software then you can uninstall Samsungs recovery solution (but there is a ~25GB recovery partition with an initial recovery on it, you can access it on boot with F4, so no need for the windows software), also samsungs Software Update is always in autostart, I uninstalled it... Cyberlink has also several Tools installed, you have to see what you need.

Edit:
If you are referring to the ExpressCache boost, than its doesn't matter what browser you use, if you use it frequently it will be in the SSD
(never used Internet Explorer )

 

Now that you've mentioned it, almost everything looks overly blue... Especially the whites, no matter which colour setting you use. Is that really a hardware issue? If I could warm up the whites one way or another, it might just work...

 

For me the settings change helped...

You can try the windows color calibration and reduce the blue intensity a bit.

 

Actually, I was looking for gamma setting, but couldn't find it

 

hello ganxxta, I wroted you on privat message, can you check it now? thanks

 

Try this:
Right click on the desktop, choose "adjust" or something similar in English.
The on the left side you have "change resolution", "change brightness" and "calibrate colors", choose calibrate colors.
Follow the instructions on screen.

 

I live in Canada and the laptop will be available in Canada early December. But I order the laptop through J&R.com and they will deliver it in Canada after about a week. The address of the website is:
JR.com: Search Results for NP700Z5A

 

Wait, is that the full spec model officially available in stock in US, I never thought this day would come, well the 04 model at least, 03 is out of stock.

 

So it this version from JR the most full spec version? Is it available from anywhere else at all?
And the difference between the two models is just the 2gb ram and WIN 7 home premum vs professional?

Anyone ordered that one and can confirm if the screen is exactly the same as best buy model or not?

 

Samsung Series 7 700Z5A Review | Laptops | CNET UK

CNET UK review of the laptop.

Notice how they praise the screen. They clearly identify its not the best but that it works very well.

Just read it, they love the laptop. People on this forum must be spoiled with INCREDIBLE screens, because the screen wasn't even a problem in this review at all. I must admit, this is a great relief, and I wish people would stop complaining about the screen.

 

While placing the order, J&R.COM says that they are only able to ship the laptop to US and Canada.

 

Not sure, I ordered from Amazon.com: Samsung NP700Z5A-S03US 15.6-Inch Laptop: Computers & Accessories and the S03 is quoted at 8 GB ram. I'm not really sure what I'm getting... I assumed it is the S04 based on the product description.

Edit: Brain fart, I automatically assumed the larger number was higher specs.... The S03 is the one with 8 gb

 

I wonder who writes these reviews. Their only complaint is the lack of Full HD which, I would dare to argue, is hardly an issue. The reviewers completely fail to mention the very visibly poor viewing angles... Not to mention the less visible, but still quite noticeable issues like contrast. I don't know what those guys are paid for... really...

Thanks, tried this and although it did make things visibly better, the contrast remains a major issue. Spent a good hour on Flickr trying to get the right results, but failed miserably - all shades of colours look roughly the same, because the contrast is simply not there. Detail lose is quite substantial.

Funnily enough (or tragically, I should say), it's making my eyes bleed which isn't good at all... Again, I think this can be blamed on contrast as you either have to pump up brigntess to insane levels or face the issue of not really being able to see what's on the screen. In both cases, you're eyes get tired....

 

Just got a shipping confirmation and tracking number for the S04US I ordered 6 hours ago from JR.com via Amazon.com!!

Woooohoooo! I cancelled both my orders from TigerDirect.com and the Microsoft Store. Yes, I know... I ordered this laptop from many different places.

 

JR.com: Samsung NP700Z5A-S04US Series 7 15.6" Notebook PC - Silver Aluminum in PC Notebook Computers

if you go to jr actual website you get the specs
it shows the 6gb

imo its not worth the extra 100 for ram and windows pro

just upgrade the ram yourself. might even be able to make up the $$ by selling the stock ram on ebay to someone who wants it

mine shipped out today =D

microsoft customer service sucks. amazon in my experience is always the fastest to ship

 

i'd blame it on the matte screen.

the matte screen mbp vs the glossy screen mbp has the same contrast problem
it's just not many people think its worth the money to buy the matte screen so there not much of an outrage in the mac community

for us who want the samsung series 7 its not a choice...

i'd rather have the matte screen because sometimes im sitting outside or somewhere where there is always glare.

 

I'm glad. But do note they liked the screen on the 14z, too.

 

I wanted to mention that in my previous post so as not to blow it out of proportions. What I wanted to say is this - contrast is poor even for a matte screen. I've been thrusted with all kinds of business laptops in my daily life at the office, but this one trails most of them when it comes to contrast. And very few of those business laptops actually make your eyes bleed...

Besides, I am not entirely sure what Samsung was thinking with default colour balance. It clearly is wrong and the overbalance of blue is huge...

My only theory of why this screen looks, diplomatically speaking, less than what you would expect it to be is related to energy saving. This laptop has absolutely amazing battery length for what it packs. I really don't think the battery is substantially better than other 8 cell equivalents. It has an i7 2675 and not 2670 which means it has a lower clocked intel integrated video card which does save some power. However, I think the bulk of the battery gains come from the screen... And perhaps that's why the visual quality compromise was made in the first place - to make it last longer

 

Yes, it looks like it is finally available. Hopefully we can get users here to verify that the Best Buy model chassis and screen is identical to the high-spec one. If it is, I will have to go take a trip to bestbuy and spend some good time with it. This laptop looks so promising to me, but I will have to spend some quality time with it to decide on the screen.

 

The guy who wrote the review is probably a gardener anyway... (with all due respect due to gardeners).

I simply don't understand how this sort of garbage can be floating around, especially on such a well known and respected website.

They did not mention the viewing angles - that is absolutely unacceptable. I'm not saying the screen is insanely crap, but I do think that calling it a very good screen is an outright lie or complete lack of judgement (take your pick on which one it is).

Not a very constructive post, but I do feel someone needs to point out what complete BS CNET is writing

 

I was just wondering, for the people who have the laptop and are saying the screen is still garbage, do you have the best buy version? or do you have the more "higher class" one.

 

i'll be able to answer you on monday once it comes in

 

Anyone notice the bump on the left side, near the keyboard, just above the ports? Even the cnet version has it. What is that? (these photos are from the cnet review, unedited, http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/laptops/samsung-series-7-700z5a-review-50004913/).

 

It could be that they got a prototype model. But we wouldn't know until actually consumers get a hold of it.

 

From endgadet photos there's also a minor bump but barely noticable. ok, i assume this laptop is fine.

 

Ordered from jr.com today and they shipped it today! UPS says they'll deliver it on Thursday!! Can't wait!

 

Can anyone who has this laptop confirm whether it's WIDI Push2TV compatible?

 

wow about damn time,
I'll wait for amazon though....

 

lol amazon did have it through a third party...and if i would've known that it was going to come AFTER the weekend i would've paid for faster shipping...o wells too late now

either way as long as amazon lists it i'd buy it it means amazon is willing to vouch for the sellers customer quality
sounds like jr shipped everyones laptops ASAP

can't say the same about microsoft...they listed it as available then took it down as it really wasnt available

 

Last week I went to a store (in Germany) and compared two Samsung notebooks (700Z5A vs RC530). The quality of the displays looked pretty similar. At least I couldn't detect any major differences.

Have you already tested the AMD graphis card switching feature on this notebook? I'd like to know how long it takes to switch from the Intel to AMD graphics card and if you can manually set it to always use the AMD one?
Is there a difference on display colors and contrast when you switch from Intel to AMD graphics?

Thanks

 

well if anyone is still looking J&R electronics has both 15.6" models in stock!

and ive been trying to see other laptops similar to this one that others have recommended, particularly ASUS in this thread but the search is weird... if anyone can recall that'd be helpful

 

listing from JR just appeared @ amazon,
before that it was sold by a company I've never heard of,,,

will be purchasing next week! after I return this crappy laptop to costco.

 

Don't have it on mine.

Switching is immediately, but you can't switch it manually to always use one or another. It is per program.

You can try to put explorer.exe to performance mode , then it should always be the amd card.

Unless you change the colors different in the Intel and in the AMD driver there won't be a difference.

 

You can try the upcoming LG P330 laptop, IPS screen and a much faster GT555M GPU.
LG's thin and mighty P330 laptop surfaces at Korean retailer -- Engadget

One positive review does not cancel another negative one. You still have to see which review is more objective. Notebookreview is always very objective, for they use numbers instead of subjective words like "it looks good", "feels good".
Of course, how a screen may look is to an extent subjective, but only to some extent. An objectively good screen is definitely recommended over a screen that is objectively below average (which may be subjectively good to some people).

 

After giving some thought I think I'll keep the envy on the desk and get a transformer prime on the go... the thing looks windows 8/ubuntu (32gb nand flash minimum) proof enough for what I have to do on the go. If it sucks well I'll get some ivy bridge goodness later.

 

Great thread, very informative!

Question: for us in the US, does anyone know of any places that have NP700Z5A-S03US model in stock?

NP700Z5A-S03US differs from NP700Z5A-S04US (available at JR) in that there are 8GB memory pre-installed. It also comes with Windows 7 Pro edition.

I understand that upgrading memory and OS is easy but I would rather buy these pre-installed.

Thanks.

 

In the Netherlands the only model currently available (and in stock at most stores) is the NP700Z5A-S01NL but with 6GB of RAM, a 500GB HD and a Core i5 2430M. Rest of the specs seems the same as the high end model.

Now I know RAM and HD are fairly easy to upgrade but what about the cpu? Would I really be much worse of with this model instead of one with a core i7?

 

That depends on what you will be doing with it.

i7 is only really needed for video encoding/hd editing/gaming etc. (and some folks will argue a laptop is no good for that sort of stuff anyway).

 

Don't recommend the P330 to people yet. There doesn't seem to be any evidence at all that they're actually planning on releasing it in the US or Europe anytime soon.

Plus, the screen on that is 1366x768, and I have serious doubts about how a laptop that small and thin handles the heat dissipation from a GPU like that.

 

Here's a short test i did together with a buddy's macbook pro that had the factory installed 120GB SSD on it.

I've had the series 7 for about a week now, and installed all my standard software, games etc. Still booting pretty damn fast!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYgL28GuyCQ

 

I would be curious how fast the macbookpro would boot into osx on an ssd vs samsung into w7.

The macbook pro screens I have seen in matte in person are beautiful. I am pretty sure this is not it....

 

FYI -
have been trying to locate one of these for over a month. After asking the pc tech whiz who has serviced my computers for 10 years, I'm not going to buy it or any other hybrid drive. Have also read about many early failures of SSDs. His comments:

"I’ve seen reports that people have issues when cloning to the hybrid drives, some don’t work properly after the cloning process, seems sensitive to the software you use for cloning.

Also, comments like this aren’t encouraging:

This is a great drive when it works…the problem I’ve seen with personal experience and with others as well, is the 4GB NAND memory. Once that fails, the HDD is completely useless. I’ve gone through 3 of these drives with the exact same issue. I went with a Western Digital Black 750gb instead, which showed consistent performance (boot times weren’t as fast as the Momentus XT, but being a Mac user you should’t have to cold boot your system, just put it to sleep).

That’s about the Seagate hybrid. It’s still maturing technology."

 

Well i wouldn't think that would be very interesting, since its two completely different OS's... It's like comparing apples and oranges (no pun intended).

I would install ubuntu on mine though, but i'm not sure it will take advantage of the express cache

 

This isn't a hybrid drive--the expresscache is on a separate mSATA (I think) SSD.

 

Hence why they are much more expensive. BTW the colours on the glossy mbp look better than on the matte screen, imo.

If sammy went along with a glossy screen instead of matte, then i think less people will be complaining about the screen. They tried to do the right thing by using matte but for some people it backfired. I personally still think the laptop is great, better than the Sony SE except the screen. I've also had problems with my sony lappy degrading after a year and being quoted prices for parts even more expensive than lenovo.

I'll probably wait till December for the christmas discounts to kick in.

 

Exactly, even if you want to replace the HDD, the 8GB of ExpressCache still remains.
But it is right that it seems to be tricky to partition it right, so that the ExpressCache is recognized.
But how often do you have to format and repartition your laptop?

 

GParted should be able to handle it if it's just a matter of retaining the system reserved partition; you shouldn't zero out the partition table and there's no real need to do that anymore anyway, since Linux now has native drivers for NTFS.

 

I just saw on my Local store here in Finland that it will be available within a week so i am thinking whether to have samsung 7 series or sony vaio SE series.. i am not worried about screen but i want to ask about the touchpad how it works....

 

Thanks! You are correct. However they say if flash memory on motherboard fails the motherboard may not work.

Here is a Samsung response:


Henry: Hi, thanks for reaching out to Samsung tech support. How can I help you today?

ron: Express Cache on Series 7 notebooks: is this a hybrid drive?

Henry: Could you please provide me the model number of the notebook?

ron: NP700Z5A

Henry: Thanks for the information.

Henry: ExpressCache is a technology provides 8GB of flash memory on the motherboard that works as an ultra fast HDD. Its intelligent, automatic caching takes 45% less time to boot up and starts Internet Explorer and frequently used applications 2 times faster, while still maintaining the safety and integrity of your data.

Henry: Do you have any other concerns?

ron: So I guess its not a hybrid. If the flash memory on the motherboard fails will the HDD still work?

Henry: Thank you for waiting. I'll be with you in just a moment.

Henry: Would you mind holding a few minutes while I gather the required information for your request?

ron: sure thanks

Henry: Thanks.

Henry: Thanks for holding.

Henry: Express Cache is a technology that is built in for the faster booting up of applications. This will not effect the HDD in your system.

ron: If Express Cache fails is the computer still functional?

Henry: As it is a part on the mother board, if that fails it may effect the functionality of the system.

ron: Thank you. Are there any special issues with cloning the HDD in Express Cache syatem?

Henry: Your welcome.

Henry: There are no issues with the cloning.

ron: Thanks Henry. Appreciate your help.