Samsung Series 7 Lovers - Here's The NP700Z5C Ivy Bridge!

Thanks for the excellent detective work! And forgive my bitter, cynical outlook but I think the chances that a vendor has a mixture of S01US and S01UB is REALLY slim.

I'm also curious how they can sell the S01UB under Best Buy's price. I had assumed that the "B" designated a Best-Buy-only model. You guys know (if you dial back the thread a few dozen pages) that there was quite a scandal as the first few owners picked up the S01UB expecting it to have the 640M -- that's how it's listed on Samsung's spec sheet:

Features - Series 7 Notebooks NP700Z5CH | Samsung Laptops

NOWAIT!!! THEY FIXED IT! Wow, that's awesome. I'm feeling a little less cynical.

-Matt

 

So, an update to my situation.

After emailing the seller, they gave us 2 options, either send it back and get a refund or keep it and they would refund us $150 for giving us the wrong model. We decided to take the $150 and keep the wrong one. So essentially we got a SO1UB for $820 after tax and shipping which is not bad at all. I've decided I will try it out and see how GW2, TF2, Minecraft, Skyrim, etc. run then decide on if I will keep this or get the SO1US. The main reason we did this is because if I dislike it my dad will just use it for his business so it will not really be a loss. I think it should be fine, the only part that worries me is that the graphics card is a 512mb one instead of 1gb but it is a DDR5 instead of DDR3 which is great.

 

I have the NP700Z5C-S01CA and overall I am very pleased but there are a number of issues that I am seeing. Was wondering anyone else was seeing the same issues and if there were any workarounds.

1) The Microphone seems almost unusable. I use Skype regularly and people complain about barely being able to hear me unless my mouth is 6 inches from the mic. I have tried playing with the various settings and boost value but cannot seem to get it to improve. My $400 Toshiba was much better.

2) Sometimes (maybe after a forced hibernate when the battery dies not sure), the screen brightness cannot be adjusted. Whether I use the F2/F3 shortcut keys, Easy Settings or edit the power plan, nothing happens. A reboot fixes it.

3) If I turn off Bluetooth using Easy Settings, it is re-enabled next time I reboot. It doesn't seem to remember this setting. I don't know if there is another place where I can disable it more permanently?

 

Well, huh...what do you know? DDR5. I wonder how I missed that. Now you MUST give us some gameplay data! Glad to hear it's now a win-win situation!

I just painfully reread most of the thread, and all three of your concerns seem to be shared by others. No workarounds as far as I know -- and in regards to 2)/3) I noticed the same thing myself, and think maybe it's a problem with how Easy Settings (and the corresponding F- keys) works.

Oh wait...I think I actually went into Device Manager and disabled the bluetooth network adapter directly (I rarely use it). That might have worked (a pain, I know).

-Matt

 

Downloaded the WoW starter edition last night and was getting 40-50 fps on ultra (Not in a main city but still nice.)

And TF2 also ran flawlessly as I expected.

I'm downloading Lotro now and at the end of the month I'll have GW2 so I'll see how they do.

 

I dont know about 2 and 3, but my mic is basically worthless for VOIP and Chat clients, although it seems to work fine for basica voice recording. What's more, there is no dedicated mic jack, so only mic/headset combos will work with it, and I still get complaints that I am hard to hear even when using those. Yesterday I finally got a USB headset, and my friend said she could her me perfect, the difference in quality was night and day. Sucks but not enough for me to return it

I think the problem is that mic is put on the palm rest and not next to the camera.

 

Same here, but not returning either.

 

Has anyone tried to get a bluetooth headset to work with the NP700Z5C? I've tried several different bluetooth headsets (Jabra 510(not sure), Jabra Extreme, Plantronics Voyager Pro, Plantronics Voyager Pro UC). The one that worked the best but still incompletely was the Plantronics Voyager Pro UC. The incomplete part is that the Voyager Pro UC headset needs to be reconnected/paired every time the NP700Z5C is turn on and the connection does not always stay on. I looked through Samsung's website for any support information on using a bluetooth headset on the NP700Z5C ... found nothing. I am thinking maybe there is a bluetooth headset out there that Samsung has tested as to work the best with the NP700Z5C and is willing to tell all the NP700Z5C owners what that is. (I posted an inquiry at the Samsung (USA) customer support website/forum... no response from them so far.) I'd really appreciate anyone who's managed to get a bluetooth headset to work reliably on the NP700Z5C to share his/her knowledge with this forum. (BTW I am talking about using a BT headset withOUT a USB adapter).

 

I dont think $820 is bad deal for SO1UB at all. IMO, i think you made the right decision on keeping it for the price.

 

Hey Matt, I know you don't own the machine anymore, but any idea if doing a backup using samsung recovery software would overwrite the recovery partition with the latest state of machine? or it would allow u to keep the stock version in recovery partition and save a new backup to other location (external HDD for example)?


EDIT : oh btw, if you wonder why the heck i keep asking such question despite I myself own the device. so answer is, actually I'm in Canada and Amazon was not able to ship it to here. So i had it delivered to US @ my relative address, who has a plan to come by the end of the month

 

Yeah I WAS trying to figure out which side of the "ownership" fence you sit on, and now I know. The Canadian side. You better not be in Vancouver, I LOVE Vancouver. Or Toronto. Or Montreal!

Let me make sure I understand your question: my logic is the recovery partition is an image of the full install, which when run just extracts and copies it to the boot drive. So I don't think the recovery detects the latest state -- though I don't remember clearly, maybe there was something like a "refresh Windows but don't touch my data" option. Not sure. The second question about "backups" is a little more out of my league. It seems like the options Samsung offers are a mix of built-in utilities and Windows recovery/restore functions. I think you'll have a better idea when you get yours!

In the meantime, what are you thinking about trying?

-Matt

 

Same here, the update tool says the current version is P01AAG, but I have P02AAG istalled since i have the laptop.

700Z3C / 700Z5C (S03DE)

 

Yes I was on the Canadian site the other day and noticed that the P02AAG Bios is no longer there - it's back to P01 being the latest version? I wonder if P02 has an issue?

 

Hi guys,

Last week I got myself a 700Z5C-S01CA at Future Shop. The laptop is amazing, but the screen is meh like many reported. I then saw the S02CA version on NCIX.com and it was in stock. Decided to give it a shot since in the end I would save 120$ anyway because I pay only 1 tax instead of 2 (9.5% less? yes thank you!). At my big surprise, the screen is MUCH better. When I put them side by side with the display effect set to "Sharp", I can clearly see that the S01CA has a blue/purple-ish tint. The whites are not as white as the S02CA. On facebook, the S01CA have a very weird "radioactive" blue that was hard to read. My new one: it's blue. Dunno if they changed the panel or my previous one was just a lemon, but it's def much better. I ended up paying 120$ less for a better screen and a smaller but faster harddrive (750GB Hitachi vs 1000GB Seagate, both 5400rpm but the Hitachi is 10MBps faster in both read and write comparing CrystalDiskMark benchmarks).

Overall I'm super happy with this notebook. It's amazingly powerful and the battery life is awesome (7-8h with wifi on). And with that screen, I'm more than happy! Colors are very nice once set to Sharp.

Cheers!

 

Wonderful! Can you check/post the monitor hardware IDs?

-Matt

 

Funny enough, both are SEC0006...

Maybe my old one was just a bad batch... or the new one from a better one ahah. Either way, I'm happy with my purchase! The laptop is just perfect. No dead pixel, no backlight bleeding, trackpad is even (both side are exactly at the same level and have the same clicking sound)

 

So the first trackpad was wonky?

-Matt

 

Strangely, the $1,099 price on the S01US at Amazon has been creeping downward today. It's now at $1,094.98. I wonder what it means???

-Matt

 

Yeah it was a bit. It was not that bad, just that the travel distance for the right click was shorter than for the left click. The new one is symmetric and the clicking sounds is identical on both side.

 

Thanks, I'll add that to my impressions thread!

-Matt

 

agonyzt, how are the black levels in comparison to the S01CA screen? That's the main thing I'd be concerned with. When I has the S01, everything appeared grey and washed out. I'd been considering trying the 02, but I ended up trying a Dell next. As is, I might very well return it and pick up a Z5C again, but I'm not sure what to go for.

Thanks.

Edit: One other quick question: Does the 02 come with a bilingual keyboard? I'd imagine it does, because my 01 did, but NCIX shows standard US layout on their S02.

 

All of the screens on the US versions will be the same... that is to say very subpar for a 1k+ notebook.

 

Hey long time, no see! Welcome back. Done any more gaming?

-Matt

 

I was referring to the S01 and S02CA that you mentioned. I'm in Canada also.

 

Hi! I am also interested in purchasing the NCIX S02CA however, are the keys bilingual or an english-only keyboard? A bilingual keyboard is where the shift key is very small and the enter key goes upwards as opposed to the English-only keyboard where the enter key is a side way rectangle. Also, was the S01CA bilingual keyboard?

 

S01 is bilingual. I also asked about the 02.

 

How are the viewing angles on the S02CA?

 

@Serephucus & Pookiepooky: The keyboard is bilingual. The french characters are printed in dark red on the keys and are not illuminated by the backlight. I think the only difference is a slight variation in the layout to include the french double quotes « ». So the result is a shorter left shift key. Here is a picture I took this morning: http://img825.imageshack.us/img825/9698/20120805100520.jpg

@Serephucus: About the black levels, well it's on par with the S01. I'm convinced the screen is the same (poor contrast, gray blacks), it's just that this one doesn't have a blue/purple-ish tint to it so it looks much better than the one I had before. I'm not saying it's a great screen by any mean, on the opposite, it's still a sub-par screen for the price... but I can def live with it.

@dn00: The viewing angles are just as poor as the other models. Only the colors appear to be a bit better. Maybe they just fixed a few prod issues with this batch.


Just an update to anyone who might be interested. I replaced the HDD with a Mushkin Chronos SSD and it's FAST. With the stock hard drive, it was really slow, even with the express cache. Rebooting would take 3-4 min before it's getting usable. However, replacing the stock HDD introduced a bit issue: my perfect trackpad is not perfect anymore! If I click on the bottom left corner, it doesn't actually click. It's like if the SSD is too thick and the trackpad travel is too limited to actually click. The thing is that the SSD is installed so the bottom of the drive will get touched by the trackpad... so the base should be at the same level as the previous one and therefor should not cause any issue. I'll reopen the laptop today to reinstall the stock HDD to see if it fixes my issue. If it does, I'll install the SSD in a caddy and replace the ODD...

Overall impressions on the notebook so far: The screen is really mediocre. Even if it's a big improvement over my previous one (S01CA), it's still mediocre at best. I constantly have to readjust the screen because of the poor viewing angles. The right side of the screen is also slightly darker than the left side. It's a bit annoying, but not a deal breaker. Colors are not so bad once you set it to Sharp. The trackpad (minus my new issue) is very good. Actually one of the best trackpad I've used on a PC notebook. It's not on par with Mac's trackpad, but it's not too far. Keyboard is great. The feedback is awesome and the travel is good enough to type comfortably. The only small issue I have is the F key that is a bit lower than the rest (it's like if the left of the key was falling in the keyboard), but I compared with the S01CA I had and it seems that both had this "issue"... just worse on my S02CA. Other then that, build quality is awesome. Everything feels solid, even the hinge. The screen doesn't move at all. Performance-wise, it's awesome. I just launched RIFT just to see how it runs and at ultra settings, I get ~35-40 FPS which is pretty good. Didn't test in more crowded area, but I think it's pretty decent for a laptop of this size and weight hehe.

 

Wait, so the hard drive location is different on the models? I have the S01US and the hard drive is on the far right bottom - plenty of distance between the trackpad and the hard drive. I also installed an SSD and do agree the difference in speed is amazing. My boot-up time is 7 seconds.

 

Seriously, on the right? The HDD on my S02CA is on the left side of the palm rest. Right behind the card reader and under the trackpad.

I just reinstalled the stock HDD and the trackpad is back to normal! So it's really my SSD that was causing the issue. I compared the size of both, they are pretty much identical beside one slight difference: the back on the HDD is like 0.5mm thinner because it's directly on the PCB, the plastic cover doesn't cover all the bottom of the disk while on my SSD the surface is even. That would mean that Samsung engineered the notebook to have a perfectly working trackpad around the size of the back of the HDD. I could probably grind the back of the touchpad rubber pad to make it 0.5mm thinner so the touchpad has more travel with the SSD but it's a bit risky...

Oh well! I'll probably end up installing a HDD caddy but it doesn't look really simple to do and would also mean that I would have to break some silver stickers to remove it... Hopefully it won't void the warranty.

 

I finally managed to install my SSD without screwing up my touchpad. I just added 2 layers of electric tape on the small rubber pads that hold the HDD in place so the touchpad get all the room it needs to travel. Hurray! This notebook is awesome with an SSD hehe, everything is super fast!

 

Is this normal?



Basically the viewing angle is so bad there's no "perfect spot" on a black screen. Horrible for movies.

 

Yes, unfortunately

 

Is the NP700Z5C-S02US the best 15.6" Series 7 model out right now?

 

Would anyone happen to know where I could find a protective keyboard cover for the NP700Z5C-S01UB or a universal one that would fit?

 

Getting mine maybe in th next few weeks

 

I've noticed the price is dropping a bit at Amazon -- started at $1,099 but is down to $1,080 at the moment. Maybe a real drop coming soon?

-Matt

 

Picked up an S01CA from Futureshop for $1,260 (inc. tax) the other day. Price matched to NCIX's sale. Quite happy. It's still got its obvious drawbacks, but hey, it's still a nice machine.

 

Is there any cheap hard drive caddy out there?

 

Hey all, I have been watching this thread for a while and finally picked up an np700z5c-s01au (I'm in Australia... riding kangaroo's to work etc) and installed a samsung 830 ssd 128g for a fresh install of windows 7. Everything is working pretty much perfectly now that I have done the updates and downloaded all the drivers off the samsung website. Except for one thing... The function key doesn't seem to work for all the functions. It's mainly the screen brightness that I want to use but I don't know if it's driver related or maybe a setting I don't have on? Thanks!

 

I think you need to reassign them in Easy Setting software by Samsung

 

I just picked up one of these badboys! Albeit, it's a S01UB, but it's still amazing. I went with the UB because I wanted the 8GB stock ram, as opposed to the S01US, and because getting it at Best Buy makes it so that I didn't have to go through that week-long period of waiting for it to arrive.

I do know that the GPU is a 630m 512MB. Not really a problem for me because I won't be gaming that much anyway since it is a school/work laptop. Everything else about the S01UB was just too good to pass up.

I went in-store at Best Buy and got the free Xbox 360 deal because of a student coupon. I believe the total came out to be around $1100 and I will be selling the laptop to my friend, so I basically paid $900 for it and will make my friend happy!

I was originally stuck between this and the Sony S15. I kept flopping back and forth but eventually, the Samsung was too powerful to pass up. I wanted the 1080p on the S15, but the Samsung is just worth it. I went through every page of this thread before making the purchase, so thanks to everyone who posted in here! I'm a happy guy right now!

 

Hey guys, which size Series 7 laptop is most recommended? (which has the least amount of issues?)

Thanks.

 

is there any way to disable the automatic keyboard lighting?
i've already disable the automatic screen dimming, and i tried unchecking the light sensor in the control panel. But it doesn't seem to matter, the keyboard lighting seems to come on whenever the hell it feels like. Any suggestions?

 

Thanks! I didn't need to reassign them (I don't think you can in easy settings?) but the program seems to have fixed them anyway so thank you . I wouldn't have thought of that in a million years.

 

Is there no way to get the webcam to capture well in the dark? Low-Light Compensation doesn't help that much.

 

hey Matt
sorry for the late reply, i was away from home past few weeks.

umm..i think i did not put my question clearly. I was actually wondering if I make a new backup of the machine [i.e. after making some changes], would it overwrite the data in recovery partition.

i think, it does not change the recovery partition and only allows u to backup to DVD/External drive [unless u use Admin tool to manage recovery partition]

and yes, i have the same impression that recovery partition is an image of the full install, and when u restore, it simply copies it to the boot drive [it does not even touch other partition .. just dump the boot partition with whatever in recovery].

oh yeah, i'm in Montreal

 

i guess, moving down the brightness to its lowest would act as it is disabled. no?

 

Darn, Montreal, I knew it. Actually, I can almost "hear" your Quebecois accent when you write!

And yeah you're intuition is right -- the recovery area is just a giant image file and isn't affected by anything you do on the other partitions. But wait...by "backup" do you mean a full-disk backup, or just a recovery-disk backup? I assume you mean the second.

Oh, and I have some INTERESTING news for prospective owners. There is a new 14" kid on the block:

Buy Samsung Series 7 NP700Z3C-S02US - stylish and portable 14 inch notebook with Intel Core i5 processor - Microsoft Store Online

http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/684561-new-14-series-7-np700z3c-s02us-now-available.html

Series 7 14

It's essentially the same model as the 15" with a 14" screen (same resolution), a Core i5, and the 630m. It's $999 at Microsoft Store but that includes the Xbox (for "students"). Kind of a smaller, lighter version of the S01US that Best Buy sells. I'm impressed that it even has the same full keyboard with numeric keypad.

My impression from the European discussion (they got it back in July) is that the lackluster display on the 15" is about the same on the 14" (low contrast, poor blacks). Still adds something interesting to the discussion.

-Matt

 

I updated the webcam drivers to the latest set via the Samsung Website... it helps a little bit with the dark webcam!

Yes...But...
But it comes on randomly even after moving it down to off. I wouldn't be asking if it STAYED off.
What i'm asking is there any way to make sure the keyboard doesn't come on automatically due to the ambient light?