Series 7 Ultra NP730U3E / NP740U3E with AMD HD 8570M and optional 4G LTE

My eyes were never very good and have got much worse. I used my 13.3" X3B for a couple of months and my eyes were complaining which is why I got the X4C once it was available. I then also realised that I had been sitting relatively close to my X3B display.

I agree that the 15" S9 display needs better viewing angles but the resolution is fine for my eyes. If I get the successor it's going to be FHD and I'll therefore have to use 125% display scaling and hope that everything, even in older programs that I sometimes use, displays correctly.

And I normally use the X4C at 6/8 brightness. Anything brighter inside and it's hard on the eyes. The full brightness is for working in the sunshine. 6/8 brightness is brighter than my Lenovo T420s running at full brightness (and, overall, the X4C has a much better display than that machine).

John

 

There is now a Notebookcheck 740U3E-S02DE review up on the model with the touchscreen, i7, and 8570M. They seemed to like it quite a lot, but this along with their non-touchscreen review seem to confirm that these FHD panels are a bit different (while retaining the same model number) than what was in the UX31a (non-touchscreen), which had excelllent brightness and color gamut.

As a bit of an off-topic question, could anyone who has purchased the Best Buy 740U3E-A01UB model check and see if they have a 40W or 60W adapter? I picked up an open-box model and it came with a 40W adapter, which seems to take a long time to charge the battery and gets incredibly hot. I'm wondering if there was a mixup when the box was opened.

 

Wow, an open box model from BB. Mind saying how much you paid? I've always wondered if there is a smart strategy for showing up at BB just as they're putting the high end open box specials out. Ideas??

Thanks for pointing out this review. It's rather strange that virtually no one has reviewed this model and NBC has already done it twice, with only slight variations in the models they chose. It is also clear to me from the far better screen specs they got this time around is that they found out about disabling all the screen light "nannies" that needed to be disabled. Still not quite up to the Zenbooks, but close enough that they may have just left one of the three nannies operating. 315 nit is nothing to sneeze at anyway.

What this review convinces me without doubt: the 740U3E at Best Buy for $999 is the one to get an is a screaming buy. The AMD 8570 clearly adds nothing to gaming and for some reason that architecture limits the total ram to 10GB (vs 16 on the 740) and only 4GB in dual channel mode. Otherwise it's way more expensive and has nothing worthwhile - eg, i7 ULV vs. i5 and 256GB SSD mSATA, easily and cheaply upgraded in the 740 model.

I still say this model is a strange "tweener" for Samsung and its own lack of marketing and distribution effort suggest it may be short lived. May be one to pick up if you're in the US or can order from Best Buy and get it shipped to a US address. I continue to be impressed with this model, with my only significant criticism being the keyboard, which is too shallow and inadequately lit, but I got used to my Sony Z22 which was worse in both departments, so I'm sure I will get used to this. It's not as comfortable to type on, but every bit as fast and accurate. In fact, I find in general that shallow keyboards allow faster speeds as long as there is a clear contact point that you can feel.

As far as the power adaptor goes, I'm so sorry but the writing is so tiny and I can't find a magnifying glass so I have no clue what its power is. What is strange is that it's not a Samsung branded PS but branded "Jet." My guess is that it is 40w though, as it is really small. That said, it does not get hot at all and it seems to charge fairly quickly, though I haven't timed it. Hopefully someone else can give you more definitive info.

 

treecall: our Best Buy unit came with a 40W charger. I suspect the models with dedicated graphics get the 60W charger. Our charger gets pretty hot but it's not slow to charge.

 

I paid $850 plus tax, this model wasn't out at the time but I happened to stumble on it on the BestBuy open box inventory site. I'm not sure if there's a great strategy to getting them other than luck. The associate told me the site is 48 hours behind and that BestBuy no longer negotiates on open box item prices (because they are now lower than they once were?), but if you really press them they may.

I agree about the keyboard, shallow but accurate if not exactly the most pleasant to type on. It's no Thinkpad keyboard, but if I could make a franken-laptop I would blend elements of the X230 and this machine!

This adapter is downright tiny. I just measured it at 9cm by 2.5cm, it's a Chicony that puts out 2.1A at 19V. It's smaller than the one pictured in the review at NBC.

 

Thanks Lisa, that's good to know. It's interesting that Samsung's own US website says the model comes with a 60W adapter. I just did a test on maxing the CPU and according to the Samsung Easy Settings power management tab the power consumption never goes over about 41W. Maybe my idea of charging speed has been skewed by other laptops I have used like the X230.

 

Yes, Lenovo's rapid charge is insanely wonderful! It will spoil you.

 

You got an absolute steal! I think the retail price of $999 is at least $200 under fair market value, so yours was $350 under. With its ability to have massive RAM and SSD changes at end-user pricing, and its extremely generous and unconventional port array at this size/weight class, this is "future proof" and likely to hold up very well. Battery life is already quite good at 6 hrs+ so I don't think Haswell components - which lower power draw of cpu/gpu only, not the screen, by far the greatest power draw - are worth waiting for, especially when I have my doubts that this configuration and pricing will remain intact.

Should you decide not to keep it, please let me buy it! I have family members clamoring!

 

Hi

I bought the np730u3e s03it it has 6 giga ram but i d like to expand to 10 giga ram with 1 dimm 8 giga .
Which type of ram should i buy?and do you know a cheaper web site ?

Thank you
Bye Fabio



Inviato dal mio iPad con Tapatalk HD

 

Hi John, sorry I've been very busy since my last post so was not able to come back to the forum. It also seems to have been running quite normal with no low memory warnings (I did check once and it was just below 60%). Last night/early morning, however, I had about 10 Google Chrome tabs, 10 IE tabs and 1 MS Word file and the low memory warning came forcing me to close Chrome. The low warning sign still appeared so I closed some more IE tabs and even the MS Word file but memory was still over 80% with only say 5 IE tabs opened?

When I have no apps running at all, memory is still over 30%?

I took screenshots with no apps running at all. The first three are from when I last asked you the question (on p. 46 post 456, 8th May) and the latter three are from early morning today. I can take screenshots for when apps are opened too but can tell you it's either Google Chrome and IE in every case that has the highest number of memory usage.

Can you help? Much appreciated.

 

My next thought is whether there is a memory leak. Google has quite a few hits with "Chrome memory leak".

Are you starting your computer from cold every day or using sleep/ hibernation & resume. The latter can let any memory leaks grow progressively and results in less RAM being available for use but not shown as being used by the program that caused the leak.

John

 

I just shut the flap because I need the tabs the next day. It's doing better right now on 67% with about 18 Chrome tabs and 8 IE tabs. I'm starting to use IE more now as touch/zoom does not work so well with Chrome.

So using more IE and shutting down every night more should help fix the issue?

Could also add a 4gb or 8gb stick? (anyone tried a total of 12gb and is it better than 8gb dual channel?)

 

Perhaps you should also give Firefox a try. I've got maybe 40 (too many to count!) tabs open and it's using 1.3GB and, with other open apps, 50% of my 8GB is in use. I normally hibernate with a reboot every week or two. Firefox remembers all the open tabs when it is closed.

I think that 8Gb would be enough for you. There's no performance benefit in having a lot more RAM than you need.

John

 

Has anyone noticed flicker in the screen at the lowest brightness setting? I've noticed this recently (usually after a minute or two at the lowest setting) and assume it is a result of the PWM back-light brightness modulation technique?

 

I've not read of anyone reporting this issue with this notebook but have encountered it with others. Some people's eye's are more sensitive to the flicker. Your hypothesis for the cause is most probably correct - the backlight brightness is varied by switching the LEDs on and off.

John

 

All so true.

While I like the 360° flip-over designs of the Lenovo Yoga and Panasonic CF-AX2 ultrabooks I don't think the standard notebook design allows an ergonomic use of touch anyways.

Intel seems to spend a lot of $$$ on their desperate move to make it into touch screen devices. I just can't see why a manufacturer would let Intel dictate them otherwise.

 

What about the micro SD to SD adapters someone mentioned to fit inside the lid?

All I find is this, what do you guys think?
Minidrive

/Happy recent owner to 740u3e

 

Ok here is an absurd theory of why the 730U3E (non-touch model) won't get the haswell upgrade:

Remember the anouncement of LTE? Up to date there are no LTE models, which means it'll come with the haswell upgrade. The blog just speaks about "touch model based" though. So why would Samsung put LTE in one but not the other?

Because there will never be a non-touch haswell refresh.



On a side note:
How about dropping touch for mobile broadband on the 4th Gen Ultrabook™ specs Intel?

 

It should work but be forewarned that if the SD card slot hardware is the same as on my Series 9 (Device Manager reports it as a USB device) then it is slower than a several year old SD to USB adapter that I have).

Alternatively, we hope that Samsung will tell Intel where to put their Ultrabook marketing money and just get on with the job of making notebooks that people want to buy. Intel should focus their efforts on the components.

John

 

This week's gripe (old one revisited!):

Even with all screen light management features defeated, the maximum brightness on the screen of the 740 (Best Buy, Touch, no GPU) model is just not as bright as it "should" be, and by "should," I refer to both references to it being the same screen as is used in the Asus 13.3" Zenbooks and the most recent notebookcheck.net review (not to be confused with the one two weeks before this one!) showing something like 310 nit.

I did a color calibration which, frankly, didn't change much, and when I look at this screen compared to my two Sony Z TN screens - 1 on a Z13 (2010) 1600x900, 1 on a Z22 (2011) FHD. The former has been measured at up to 280 nit and the latter 240 nit. The 900p on the Sony is, I believe, even brighter than the measured 280 nit because a Sony insider on the NBR Sony Z threads posted a registry hack that increased brightness - on the 900p screens only - by nearly 50%. That would put the 2010 900p TN Z screen at around 400 nit which, honestly, is believeable.

But what I am concerned with on the Samsung 740 (it's the one I'm trying to decide whether to keep as my daily driver or return to Best Buy before July 6!) is that with the glossy screen and less than hoped-for brightness, using it out of doors is an iffy process at best. When Lisa Gade enlightened us all to disabling all the brightness "nannies" built in to these systems the change was so great that it made it hard to look at it and still see it as lacking brightness. But now that toggling all those adaptive light settings to off is standard for me, I'm looking at the screen on my 740 Touch and finding the while backgrounds are distinctly beige in pallor and no brighter than my Z22's FHD TN, still worse out of doors because the latter is matte finished.

So once more, with feeling!!!! There have now been two notebookcheck.net analyses of ostensibly the same screen (one matte, one glossy/touch, neither of which should make a significant change to brightness) and they both show max/avg brightness of around 300 nit while the tests of the Asus UX31A and UX32-VD screens registered brightness of 350-375 nit. I had demoed a UX31A for a while and have to go on memory and comparisons to the two Sony Z screens (former "world standards" for 13" screens), also going from memory.

Bottom line, on its own the screen on this Series 7 Ultra is more than sufficiently bright, but it by no means even in the top 10-15% of the best IPS displays of today. That's a disappointment, especially for a guy who works in unaccomodating lighting and relishes bright screens, but likely not noticed by the "average" consumer.

Still a great piece of work at a great price. Can someone suggest what I may have inadvertently done to dampen my screen's brightness? I walked through the steps to change it in Power Control Pad settings and the UEFI/BIOS setting and all was well. I also tried covering the sensor and that did not effect the screen brightness at all.

So is this just a real-world slightly under-whelming performance in this one area or might my screen have developed a problem that requires a hardware fix (read: return to Best Buy for a replacement)?

Thoughts???

New screen ID: Love [obsessing over] Laptops
Jeff

 

Jeff, I also don't have a way to measure the brightness of the 7 Ultra quantitatively, but I can say that the brightness level is very, very close to the Lenovo X230 as I was comparing the two side-by-side before deciding to send the X230 back (resolution and trackpad keep it from becoming a stellar laptop). Notebookcheck measured the X230 at 280nits, so I don't doubt their measurement on the 7 Ultra of near 300nits. It definitely seems like Samsung has promised more than they delivered, but again this could be up to the panel manufacturer (in the same way that the sRGB coverage isn't nearly as good as the UX31a non-touch). It's still an excellent screen, as you say -- have you checked the Display Color setting in Samsung's Fn-F1 settings? I find No Effect much more appealing than the Standard and default setting, which has a very blue tint.

 

Does the U.S. version have the same battery as the European counterpart? BBY tends to make adjustments to products to provide customers with a better price point. I purchased a Asus 1005HAB that came with a lower capacity battery than the standard configuration.

I'm also wondering if this may be the issue with screen brightness.

Regards,

Mike

 

The Best Buy version reviewed here has a 57Whr battery.

350 nit brightness should be uncomfortably bright in indoor lighting but any glossy display will struggle outside because of reflections. Notebookcheck are usually very consistent with their brightness measurements (provided the reviewer figured out how to disable the various brightness-reducing measures). In the past I have encountered BIOS updates that changed the display brightness range (it is logical that the upper and lower limits are stored there) so it is possible that Samsung could fix this problem provided the panel itself is capable of running brighter. Perhaps a few people need to complain to Samsung and see what response they get.

John

 

I agree that 350, even 300 (as the Samsung incarnation of the same screen measures consistently in tests) should be, well, at least uncomfortable. As of this moment with all auto-lighting toggled off, max brightness on the glossy screen in my 740 is metely comfortably bright other than in an unlit room at night. Maybe I'll return it - worst case buy it back as an "open box" for $150 (seriously, that is beyond my ethical boundaries)

Coupla questions :

1) Do you - or anyone - know what kind of meter is needed to do reasonably accurate brightness measurements and if special lab conditions are needed?

2) Do you happen to know the most effective channel through which to address product issues?

Though frustrating and a bit irritating I don't think this uneven screen brightness issue has the importance to elevate as just discussed, though Samsung's obsession with auto ambient lighting adjustments as an opt-out feature possibility does.

For now, if anyone knows a responsive contact email address at Samsung I will do some follow up and report back.

Jeff

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2

 

I'm also worried by the crackling sound which comes of my speakers sometimes..
Any help ?
Thanks a lot!

 

Cool, same battery

Right, notebookcheck did the review of the EU version did take measurements. The mobiletechreview doesn't offer any evidence that they actually took measurements. Display looked fine to me in store, but I suppose time will tell as more people get one.

Mike

 

Just a summing-up/somewhat griping comment about device displays. For years we clamored for much better displays meaning: non-glossy high resolution (then meaning 1080p), accurate color reproduction and excellent (+1,000:1) contrast and decent viewing angles. Today such displays are commonplace on many not particularly exceptional nor necessarily very expensive devices, from 4" phones to 10" tablets to 15" laptops. This "r/evolution" has occurred in jjuzt 2-3 years and it did noy require any major new technologies to be commercialized (though now there are some, such as Sharp's IGZO, which promise even higher resolution, better colors and hyper-efficient! energy consumption - no small feat when displays can consume more than 50% of many devices' batteries.

So now that we've overcome technological and economic barriers (if they were ever really there) can we expect viwing experience to become ever more refined and universally available at lower and lower price points?

To some extent the answer is yes but unfortunately I'm seeing a pattern emerge thay reminds me of then past five years, when displays languished while device mfrs fought the spec and benchmark wars! Every year ee got higher clock speeds, more cores and even better and better performing gpus, important to a subset of the mobile computing market, though no more than, 10% I'd wager. Meanwhile I'll take a wild guess that 75% of the notebook market needs no more processing power or graphics than a 1st gen Arrandale i3 and Intel GMA for watching youtubes and movies (remember, the ratios flip if we're surveying NBR diehards)

There is a point to this and I'll try to get to it promptly. For the past 4 years we've votyen more and more silicon power than the vast majority of the mtarket wanted or needed when mfrs could have saved hundreds on cost using older electronics and putting the savings into better displays and batteries. Well, now that we should be getting uniformly superb displays on all de ices costing more than $600 instead the hurdle remains closer to $800+ and where is all the display development investment, effort and promotion going? It's going into ridiculously high resolution displays that neither can most human eyes appreciate - beyond a point - nor, more importantly, can OS or application reproduce. So we get bragging rights for 5000x3000 reion on an 11.6" screen (as long as it qualifies for the fabricated "retina" standard even though 95% of what you see on th screen is blurry and/or so tiny it can only be truly seen or read by vastly distortive scaling that leaves you with a viewing experience inferior to that of a 1366x768 16" monitor!

I apologize for:

1) the length of this piece
2) the self-indulgence of my personal peave
3) the virtually unreadable conition of the piece due to a newly misbehaving flying cursor on my -galaxy note 2 and further problems with its spell check.

But this thought has been germinating in my head for a month or so and I feel compelled to share it. Promise I'll clean it up when next at a real keyboard.

Jeff Bellin

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317 using Tapatalk 2

 

Quoted for typo preservation

I'd say you're generally right about most users not needing the power that's available for mobile computing, but Intel, AMD, and Nvidia aren't going to stop producing it. Any manufacturer that doesn't play ball by selling new tech annually is going to get some very negative reactions from those three, and will lose a lot of customers who think that newer is always better. Not to mention that the price will still be approximately the same as a newer laptop.

What you might be missing is that the NBR crowd is not unique only in its desire for (and utilization of) faster tech, but also its obsession with high quality screens on laptops. The first time I bought a CTO notebook, I paid $100 for a meaningless CPU upgrade but skipped on the $75 screen upgrade. I never knew my laptop screen needs weren't being met and coddled with my previous laptops until I came here and someone told me so, and now, although I've only ever owned or even used one laptop with a high-quality screen, I'm just as rabid about it as everybody. To me, having excellent screens available on just about every class of notebook with an entry price of ~$800 or so is an excellent development - a lower price of entry wouldn't make sense to me after only a year or two of propagation, and face it, these screens are still a niche product; wanted and appreciated by a small minority of customers. Give it a couple years and we may well see 1080p+ IPS screens in every notebook north of $500, but we're doing pretty well for now.

And yes, super-high resolutions are silly until more graphics are either vectorized or distributed in larger resolutions. Fonts have been doing fine since about 1986 though.

 

Screen quality isn't just more pixels. Better viewing angles, brightness, contrast and colour accuracy are all important and I would take those attributes on a 1600 x 900 panel in preference to an FHD panel (or more) which is less good in that respect. Plus, of course, non-glare and no screen door / graininess problems.

John

 

Definitely true that there's more to screen quality than resolution. I was going on the general principle that, as resolution increases, the quality often increases as well. This isn't really the case with PPI-monsters like the Mac Retina screens or the Kirabook, but generally an FHD 13" panel will be better than an HD one in many more ways than resolution/pixel density. Sometimes I spell it all out in posts, while other times I either leave it unsaid or forget to say it (like in this one). Good catch for those who might have misread my meaning.

 

I have also experienced this issue, although only 2-3 times in a week's time and I cannot create the problem by cranking up the volume which is why I think it must be a driver issue or smth?
//XizzeriA

 

Hi Folks, first of all my apologies for the mistakes I am doubtless making in this post - as you can see it's my first time here. I've just bought an NP740U3E and want to upgrade the SSD and ram. I've taken the ten scews out of the baseplate of the case and the leading edge of the base lifts up easily about 8mm. Beyond this, however, it doesn't seem to want to go. It feels like the baseplate is still fixed internally in some way at, or towards, the hinge edge. I've looked and looked, both at the machine, and on the web for advice, but can't find anything to suggest how to remove the baseplate safely. I imagine I may just need to use a guitar pick and/or pull harder, but it feels like if I do, the baseplate will start to bend. I gather from this thread that a number of you have already taken the baseplate off this type of machine and was wondering whether you might be able to advise. Much appreciated if so! Best, Tom

 

I opened mine just like this: Samsung Series 7 Ultra 730U3E-S03 open inside disassemble back cover - YouTube

Just be patient and carefull.

 

Super - thank you!

 

Question #1:

Howdy folks. I'm having a brightness issues with my BB 740. However, I can shed maybe a little more light on the subject. My adaptive brightness (windows power setting one) and the one in the Charms > PC Settings are both off. My brightness hovers around 75% (guess).

Every now and then, with both adaptive settings off, the brightness will crank up to full eye-stinging brightness. For day-to-day work, the 75% is perfect. However, when watching a movie, this is bad.

I've messed with the color balance (that weird control panel that allows you to change the color settings) and many, many, many other settings to no avail.

This is a huge annoyance in what is nearly a perfect laptop.

I saw something earlier in the week on another forum about installing older drivers, but I A.) can't find ANY drivers online (only through the Samsung update tool) and B.) can't find that thread again...

Any suggestions or clues I might follow to keep working on this?

Question #2:

I put in a 256gb HD and lost the "Samsung Recovery" partition. Can someone screen shot their disk manager so I can see what I'm missing? Here's what I've got on my onboard SSD:
499MB OEM Partition
300MB EFI System Partition
70.11GB Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition
150GB Primary Partition
Some unallocated space to move around for the missing partition

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

 

Hey guys, I am really interested in this laptop, but I can't find anywhere to buy it.

Is there somewhere I can order it online?

Thanks!

 

Which country?

 

@stefani: Are you using the factory Win8 installation or did you re-install Windows? If so, which version?

You need to install Samsung Settings (or Easy Settings for Win7) in order to use Fn-keys to adjust brightness.

And Samsung SW Update is now the ONLY way to find and download drivers. They no longer update the web site.

Re your Recovery: If you didn't use Recovery on the original disk to clone onto your new SSD, you will not be able to get F4 Recovery working on this one. Period.

If you still have the original disk (with its Recovery partitions intact) you can put it back in and make that clone. Otherwise just be careful not to delete the Recovery Partitions on it or otherwise mess with its partition structure, in case you want to get back to factory state some day. You can shrink the Windows partition and use the empty space however you like.

 

United States

 

I reinstalled plain-jane Windows 8. I have everything downloaded and have the proper drivers and my FN keys work. My brightness is set at 100%. However, it doesn't go to an "actual" 100%. Every now and then, maybe once a day, seemingly at random, it will bump up to what I would assume is the REAL 100%. It is super bright. It behaves slightly similar to the Charms > PC Settings > General > Adjust Screen brightness horrible thing...

I really don't want to open my laptop again to swap, clone, reinstall the new HD and restore a partition... I'm surprised that using something lower level like diskpart or some other partition/disk tool that allows volume settings to be defined won't work... Can someone out there look at their disk setup and let me know what position, size, and settings are on the recovery partition? I'd at least like to give it a whack before I spend a couple of hours with the screwdriver again... Is this really not documented by Samsung? Maybe not as their support has been pretty unfulfilling so far...

<edit>
It seems there is more to this recovery partition than I first thought. I've poked around on this forum, but so far, can't find any directions on re-creating a recovery partition. I'm off to research that, but in the meantime, any instructions you guys have here would be a help...
</edit>

<edit>
Now I feel like a tool. I searched a few times using the search on this forum to no avail. I just googled around a bit and found two thorough links from Dannemand here and here. Sorry about that!
</edit>

Thanks for your responses. I hope there are more ideas on the brightness! http://forum.notebookreview.com/samsung/631237-samsung-2012-series-7-chronos-np700z3-np700z4-np700z5-series-owners-lounge-89.html#post9156138

 

@stefani: Yeah, that's the thing with Samsung Recovery: I can tell you exactly how to re-create it, assuming you have the necessary types of backup. But those backups all have to be made by booting into a working Recovery in the first place. That's why I said you really have to EITHER put the old disk back in; OR just don't worry about it and keep the original disk safe and its Recovery partitions intact. As you may have gathered already, it's not ONLY about the Recovery Partition (your model has two of them) but also about the F4 link buried in the partition table.

Regarding the brightness issue, there are TONS of discussion all over this forum, but the following two threads in particular should be relevant to you:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...u-intel-graphics-cant-control-brightness.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...ness-driving-me-nuts-unable-disable-help.html

Note that there are no less than FOUR different places (that we know so far) where Adaptive Brightness can and should be disabled on newer models in order to reclaim manual control. Again, it's covered in those threads.

Let us know how it goes

Edit: If you're the adventurous type (kind of sounds like it ) then here is an experiment you can try: Put your old disk (containing the original Recovery Partitions) into a USB enclosure and add its Recovery to your Windows boot menu using the steps in this post.

I suggested it to another member some time ago in this post but never heard back.

I have NO idea if (1) it will boot the recovery software at all on the external disk; (2) the recovery software will discover and recognize the Recovery Data partition on the external disk; and (3) if it is able to clone onto your (now internal) SSD.

But if you manage to at least boot it this way, you should be able to create a USB Admin Tool. With that, you can re-partition your internal SDD and re-create proper Recovery Partitions and F4 link in the process. Then just copy contents over from the original Recovery Partitions (on the external disk) to restore Recovery Data. I describe that process in this post and this post.

If you manage to pull this off, I would LOVE to hear about it. Assuming you are able to boot the Recovery Software on the external disk, I give it a good chance of working.

Good luck. Needles to say, only do this if you know the risks and are able to have fun with it

 

Excellent! Thanks. I ordered a mSATA enslosure for the 128GB drive that came with the S7. I'll see if I can work any magic based on your posts.

The references to the other places to mess with the brightness seems to have fixed my problem: When I'm inside, my laptop now hurts my eyes. But when I'm watching a movie or working outside, it's AWESOME. Thanks!

I'll update the forum on this thread after I monkey around with the recovery partition. I don't feel like I need it so much at this point, but I want to conquer this from a purely ego point-of-view.

Thanks for your help!

 

I've had the X01AU model for a few weeks now, and i've been loving it. The keyboad key visibility has annoyed me a few times, but moving my head slightly usually solves the issue. I also swapped out the SSD for a larger capacity one. With my X01 model, taking the back off the laptop seemed to be a bit more difficult than the video that was previously posted. The easily poppable clips didn't exist, it was more solid plastic hinges that I had to quite roughly pry open. I eventually got there, but it took some time and frustration. Just a heads up for future X01 owners, be careful as I did think i broke some things a few times (luckily I didn't).

Something that has been annoying me is the functions for the directional keys. I love the Fn lock, however I wished that the directional keys didn't have a function, and just remained as regular arrow keys when the Fn key or Fn lock is pressed. Does anyone know how to achieve this? Remove the function side of the directional keys?

 

Hi guys,
I've read this whole thread, but I'm still not sure about the RAM in this model. It's critical for me.
Is it true that all models without dGPU will have not-soldered RAM, and it will be possible to upgrade up to 16G ?

Where can I buy such version in Europe? If it is black It will be the best one.

 

As far as I know, the models that don't have a dGPU all have two DIMMS, while the models with a dGPU have one soldered stick of 2GB and one DIMM.

Looking at the German site for an example of a European offering, there are six models, two of which are available in black (under the name ATIV Book 7), but they all have dGPUs. I agree that a dGPU version of the Series 7 Ultra/ATIV Book 7 loses a lot of the appeal of the model. You might still have luck if you check your own country's Samsung website for availability of iGPU models.

 

Hello everyone....

 

Here's engadget's review of the Samsung ATIV Book 7.

 

Hello,
I got a problem with the Wake on LAN on the NP740U3E-S03CH.
The computer does not wake up on a WOL signal when the it is turned off.
In the bios, there is no setting for activating WOL.
The computer can be waked up from sleep mode but not in hibernating mode or when the computer is completely turned off.

My device driver settings (realtek adapter) is configured correctly to allow wake on lan only from Magic Packet (power management)...

I have written to samsung about this problem, still waiting for an answer. My BIOS version is : P04ABW
Did you try wake on lan from S5 on yours ?

 

Hi,

Which version of drivers you have? I have problem with switching cards in games on my 730U3E. Additionaly GPU-Z not working.
Can you help me? How install the new drivers?

 

Do note that many games show as if the Intel HD4000 GPU is being used, even when graphics switching is working properly and the AMD GPU is actually running. Use the Summary screen in the free tool HWInfo to see if the AMD is running.

Generally, you use the SW Update utility to make driver updates. Samsung's website is not updated for drivers anymore. In the case of AMD drivers, gamers in the 2013 Series 7 Owners Lounge (linked below) have found success using beta drivers directly from AMD. You have to follow certain steps to get out working right, though. I think you will find much useful information in that thread, even though it's a different model.

http://forum.notebookreview.com/sam...unge-np770z5e-np780z5e-np870z5e-np880z5e.html