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

I brought this up a few pages back and havn't heard anything about it yet. Can anybody with a laptop in hand comment. Also, now that some people have had more than a day or so with the laptop, what kind of battery life are we seeing?

 

hi, chaser

so whether it is possible for us to change the wimax card to a bluetooth and wifi dual band in the bb edition, since the bb mode has not bluetooth

another question is where the bb mode support sata3?. and is it easy for us to replace the harddisk with a ssd

 

My hinge is pretty solid. Not as solid as my Thinkpad, but I don't notice any play, and you have to use a lot more force than some of my old HPs.

Seems like it should last a while.

 

I did. It's easy. It's also SATA 3. I think all Sandy Bridge laptop have SATA 3. If they don't the manufacturer cheated you because the chipset definitely supports it.

 

So if you tip your laptop all the way up onto its back and slightly move it back and forth there is no play?

 

Don't know if it has been posted but CNET has a review up.

Samsung Series 7 Review - Watch CNET's Video Review

 

I'm seeing you're using Linux, and actually I search a lot to replace my actual laptop.
Is it possible you say what work and what doesn't work on Linux if there's anything who don't work?
I think particularly to habitual things like touchpad & scroll, wifi, keyboard backlit on/off, all the Fn shortcuts, hibernate and so on....
Thanks in advance!

 

The eject key on the keyboard doesn't seem to be recognized, not sure why.

Also, the touchpad is a little wonky. There is a known kernel bug regarding it, where the advanced features like multitouch, two-finger scrolling, and disable-while-typing do not work.

Those are the only two things I notice that do not work. Some of the advanced Fn keys don't work like WiFi on and off and the settings menu.

Other than those few things, I'd say it works pretty well. WiFi worked for me out of the box but I have the Intel chip, not the Broadcom one. You'll need to download drivers for the Broadcom one but it is also compatible.

 

So it seems lot of things are not working correctly? :/

Particularly I think to the backlit keyboard. I tested the series 9 in a shop with a live USB who is a close model, and the keyboard ligth was always on. No way to shut it with the shortkey.

One more model who is not recommanded to work on with Linux? :x

 

I don't have a backlit keyboard on mine (it's the base model).

That's actually pretty damn compatible. It just boils down to a few rarely-used keys and a touchpad which is slightly wonky which will get fixed before long.

I'm using only Linux and it's pretty good.

 

Hi again ;D so I am from Bulgaria (where this laptop isn't available yet) and I want it badly. Can I order it from America (amazon or some other online store I can trust)? Few pages back I explained how different are the prices and Bulgaria certainly is not famous for its high salaries How much money will it cost to send it to me from America to Bulgaria (south-eastern europe)? and how much time?

 

My Dabs order went from having a rolling delivery date of a few days in the future, to jumping to December 1st. Dont really know what that means

 

What's the battery life like? And boot time? How about the graphics switching (or is only the integrated GPU supported)?

Sorry if you've been asked these questions a hundred times before :s

 

Hi, I'm a newbie here - just waiting on the UPS truck to deliver my 15.6" Samsung Series 7 700Z5A-S04 from Amazon. I was wondering if it is possible to put in a 128 Gb SSD to replace the 750 Gb hard drive and then replace the DVD burner with the 750 Gb hard drive. I don't use a DVD drive in a laptop very much. Any tips on how to do this and what special parts might be needed (like a caddy to hold the SSD or the hard drive) would be appreciated.
Thank you!

 

nope, but it's missing the express cache options

 

I get aronud 2.5 hours or so of battery life. Constant usage (coding, web browsing, downloading, things like that). Can't compare it to Windows as I spent all of 15 minutes in Windows before I wiped it.

I am not sure about GPU switching, as I am not gaming, although the Radeon driver is loaded and it SHOULD work, I hear. Either way, composited desktop effects are buttery smooth, so I suspect that the graphics are working the right way (it's smoother than it was on my last laptop which had a Radeon HD 6250).

Boot time is around 10 seconds, but most of that is the SSD. It was around 20 seconds before I got the SSD. This is using Arch Linux, and booting into Gnome 3 (which is huge).

 

I've had it off battery for about 2 hours and 30 min and I have 55% battery life left. I also gamed on it for about 20 minutes during that time.

 

Interesting. Linux currently has a nasty bug where battery life is being pretty bad. It only affects some models, this must be one of them.

Work's starting on fixing it.

 

Thanks for the info! I definitely hope they get around to fixing it, I'm replacing my 6 year old laptop mostly because of its ty battery life

 

I just replaced HDD on mine with intel 160gb SSD, there is no way take out the dvd rom and replace with 750gb harddrive as far am concerned... if anyone manage to do that please let us know perhaps some custom build solution? Good luck!

 

I don't think amazon will ship this to Bulgaria for you, perhaps you can get somebody ship it for you or find US seller in ebay who does. Good Luck!

 

Then I guess no Samsung Series 7 for me then These f#ckers will overprice it and there's no chance for me getting this..

 

That's because by default Linux works very bad with switch solutions of ATI or nvidia.
Actually on computers with switchable graphics or Optimus, Intel chipset AND dedicated card uses energy, reason of the bad autonomy, but the chipset is the only one used in the OS.

You should search after program called "switcheroo", or look at this website Linux Hybrid Graphics
That's peoples who are working on solutions to have better support of switchable graphics & nvidia on Linux.

One solution I seen while searching informations on how to use theses switchs was to blacklist & disable radeon driver.
Consequences are same performances because the dedicated card was not used, but the card won't use more energy and your autonomy will significantly increased.

 

I will probably look into that. I rarely need to use the Radeon graphics anyway. Thanks for the tip!

The big power bug that everyone is talking about though, is the fact that the kernel no longer does advanced power management on PCI Express properly on many laptop models. It was based on a flawed assumption that the laptop manufacturers would follow specs about how such support is advertised through the BIOS.

 

The model of Hitachi hard disk used in S04 is 7K750 HTS727575A9E364, which I noted from BIOS. It is 7200 rpm. The description of the drive is listed at:
Softchoice: Cookie Error

 

Was it soldered in place or something? Is there a disassembly manual available?

 

Mark838, thanks for your help. There is a web site that helps swap out HDDs for SSDs and then install the HDD in the slot DVD drive.
NewmodeUS, Hard Drive Caddys for Notebooks

If anyone is willing to try this and report on it, please let us know. This site provides all the necessary software /hardware to do the install. Cheers!

 

any stores that have it in stock that are willing to ship it to canada?? I missed out on JR and provantage... they're out of stock now.

 

Hey thanks for link... am well aware of this can be done for other models but I don't think it can be done for Sammy np700 because first of all it has slot load based drive so even if u can get harddrive in there ... the ugly slot load opening will be there... it would kind of annoy me.

The other forum member from Germany Ganxxta took some pictures of it you can see here https://picasaweb.google.com/112978...-tuLP_xgE&feat=directlink#5673890016555584754

Perhaps he could weight in if it can be done but am sure where would to get adapter for this one. If anyone can do it i would love to see this project in pictures.

 

one thing i have found annoying is that the trackpad is off center so when i type sometimes my wrist touches it and the computer inputs it as a click so it moves the curse and i type in the wrong place.

but i just disable the pad and use a wireless mouse a lot of the time anyways so its fine

 

Neo, it is off center because the keyboard is off center with the number pad. Perhaps you could try turning off tap to click (if thats possible), that may help with it registering your wrist as a click.

 

sorry i'm moving off to new envy. scheduled to be released on 12/7.
hopefully they'll keep their word

 

oh yeah that is a good idea and is the 14' model trackpad in the middle then?

 

hp envy will not be as small as the samsung series 7 due to the larger bezel.
that is one of the biggest factors in my choice of getting this laptop

 

Damn, just when I settled on this they drop the new Envy. We will have to see what GPU it has before I make my decision now. Also, for the love of god let there be a radiance display or at least a 900p or something on the 15in 7xx is lame.
Also neo I believe the 14 is in the center.

 

Just got a BSOD on my series 7...
I mentioned before about my issue with playing full screen flash videos (like YouTube) and even after re installing my display drivers it freaks out. This time instead of making my display drivers have to be recovered by windows it just went straight into the BSOD screen and shut the noteook off.
This has happened only once so far but still frustrating nonetheless.

If anyone has insight as to how I could fix it that would be awesome

On a positive note just got my neoprene case ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00359EXWE/ref=oh_o02_s00_i00_details) Designed for the 15.4 Macbook Pro and it fits perfectly

 

the new hp envy seems like a decent notebook.
the base model 15in however only comes with an core i5, 500gb hd and a 1366 x 768 display costing $1250, although you can upgrade it to a ips panel for more

 

radiance IPS 1080p optional on Envy,

 

Anything 15.6" 1366x768 for $1250 is an awful deal. 1366x768 is a terrible resolution for a 15.6" laptop. 15.6" 1366x768 displays have terrible image quality and due to the low resolution they make everything onscreen huge so it's difficult to multitask. Make sure you get the radiance 1920x1080 display if you go with one of these.

 

The newly refreshed Envy series seems able to beat Samsung series 7:
HP Laptops Redefine Envy | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

The new 15'' laptop, starts at $1099.99, has the Radiance Infinity IPS display that offers up to 350 nits brightness and 1366 x 768 resolution (can be upgraded to 1920 x 1080). Battery life 9 hours.
The 17'' screen is just TN panel, but still comes with Radiance Infinity 1920x1080 full HD display.
All come with backlit keyboards where each key has its own LED light, so they lit up in a sequence.
Beats audio with six speakers and subwoofer.

 

I think the size and weight of the hp is going to be too big for me to carry around with me.

At least people who were complaining about the screen of the sammy can now move along to hp

 

Sorry Sammy, you guys could've had my money. Off to the new HP Envy 15 I go...

 

I don't think the envy is better than the S7.
- 9 Hours battery ? Out of a removable 6 cells ? Typical HP marketing lies, just like the previous envy line advertised at 8 hours or so, real world usage ?? 4hours top.
- I find the design poorly appealing with the obvious seams on top and bottom.
- Just like a mbp it'll be pricier than the S7 in order to beat the S7 through optional features, so it's basically in another league...
- I still don't trust HP's touchpad, I bet it's a crappy synaptics one like they are used to.
- I don't know if HP can still be reliable since they said they'd abandon their consumers PC division.
I won't consider shelling extra $ up to 1500 for it untill I read a full review.

 

I personally don't like how the new Envys are trying to look as close as possible to the Macbook Pros. Get original, HP.

I was very close to getting a DV6T Quad Edition, but once I saw it in person, I couldn't deal with the build quality. It seemed extremely cheaply made.

I kinda hope that the Envy is at least better made than that.

 

That's my concern for HP's hardware. I bought an HP laptop 4 years ago and had to return it at least twice and died after a year and a half. Customer service was terrible and the build quality was not good with lots of flex.

 

Hmm 14.26" (W) x 0.94" (D) x 9.39" (H) (for the series 7) vs. 14.9”W x 9.6”D x 1.1”H (for the envy). Not too different but still obviously larger. For me, it comes down to what GPU they have in the new Envy, and how much the upgrade is to at least a 900p radiance display. I will not stand for 7xx. If I can get one at a good price I will possibly jump ship. I havn't lost all hope in Samsung yet.

 

Honestly if the Samsung had a better screen we wouldn't be having this discussion. It's really a shame that Samsung doesn't allow optional upgrades. I would definitely pay the premium for a better screen because spec wise the series 7 is difficult to beat at the price they offer.

 

I can't seem to find any actual specs for the Envy. I get the feeling that for features comparable to the S7, we'll be paying a LOT.

 

Gavin I don't know about that. Starting at 1100 the only real upgrade I need would be the 1080p screen, IF and only if the GPU is something better than the 6750. I am now definatly going to hold off ordering until I can spec the two side by side and decide. Just when I finally settled on the S7, damn you HP.

 

As a graphics designer and developer a nice screen is a big factor for me. Samsung Series 7 is great aside from the screen. The new HP Envy probably won't be as solidly built as S7 but the Radiance screen is awesome. I'll have to wait and see.