The NP870Z5G Ativ Book 8 2014 refresh

I've been on the same quest since Dec. and I settled for the Gigayte P34G V2 as I decided I wanted a 14" in the end. The P35G V2 may interest you and for cost savings as well as best value the Asus N56JR from Microcenter, although 5.9lbs. Lenovo, Clevo, Sager, Blade did not keep my attention due to the hit and miss reports on various build quality/heating issues.

 

What is wrong with the 2013 Book 8? The CPU is actually faster than the Haswell CPU in the 2014 model and it already gets crazy long battery life. I have the 2013 Book 8 and I would not trade it for any other model...

Sent from my GT-N5110 using Tapatalk

 

The previous model is a good option provided (i) you can find it for sale and (ii) you can keep the AMD switchable graphics under control. The Haswell iteration of the notebook uses Nvidia graphics where the switching usually behaves better.

John

 

Notebookcheck has reviewed the Z5G.

It's quite thorough, with display measurements etc., but they didn't take the bottom off to look inside.

Essential reading for anyone considering this model.

John

 

Somehow this model, despite the Haswell upgrade and touchscreen removed, can't even match the battery life of the original " New Series 7 Chronos" model. Even taking into account inconsistent battery measure techniques by the reviewers it seems Haswell provides negligible, if not none at all, battery life improvements. Is this true?

 

Yes Samsung is apparently pulling out of the notebook business as of a few months ago. I would not hold out hope for new laptops except that Chromebook 2 they are making.

 

Haswell's biggest improvement in in lower idle power consumption and that shows in the test results. There is not much difference in the CPU power drain under load.

The review also points out that battery run time can be improved by reducing the display brightness: The backlight is a significant power drain and notebooks with relatively dim displays often score well in battery run time tests unless the reviewers use a fixed brightness (eg 75 nits) instead of a percentage of the display maximum brightness.

Also, the version reviewed by notebookcheck combines a relatively fast quad core CPU with a mid-range GPU. Unless the purchaser wants the extra CPU power for non-gaming reasons, a dual core CPU would be a better pairing with that GPU and reduce power consumption, heat and cost.

John

 

Haswell should also provide some benefit when watching video with DXVA. Does the AB8 have an msata slot or just sata? It doesn't have a docking interface either correct?

 

Anyone knows whether a multitouch-model is coming soon?

 

Search for the NP880Z5G.

I think Samsung announced it but have not put it into production (I can't find it in the SW Update database). Maybe they have been waiting to ensure full compatibility with the latest incarnation of Windows 8.

John

 

Hey John,

Any news on when the U.S version of 870Z5g will be released? Another month?

Thanks.

 

One version, NP870Z5G-S01US, is in the SW Update database which means it is cleared for production and might even be on the production line so another month is a fair estimate.

Samsung, however, hasn't yet told the retailers that is is coming. I think we also noticed the same lack of retailer information about the NP930X5J-S01US which is also in the SW Update database. Perhaps Samsung US hasn't made up its mind about what notebooks it is releasing during the current quarter.

John

 

HDMI 2.0 with 4k@60Hz any chance?

 

Probably not. 1%

 

It appears that Samsung is also rolling out the Book 6 version of this notebook with cut-down specs at the NP630Z5J. The specs of the Belgian version are here. It has the i5-4200U CPU and Nvidia 820M GPU. There are photos here.

John

 

I guess the stories of Samsung's demise in the notebook space were greatly exaggerated. Unless it's just happening later?

 

I think they said 2015. They would need to get to the end of supply chain contracts.

However, I wonder if they might also decide to revert to what they used to do: Mid to top range notebooks, and aim for the higher margin products rather than volume. And/or they might then sell off the notebook business ans they did with their HDDs (where the factory is still busy turning out drives for Seagate, some of which get sold with a Samsung label).

John

 

Hello, this is my first post here after about 24 months of lurking...! This is a super forum and I must have read over 1000 pages by now. Yes, it is about time I jump in and say something! I just hope this is the right thread to post my very specific question... Please tell me if I'm doing something wrong here.

I am looking for a desktop replacement as my old computer is getting so extremely frustratingly slow. It is just over 10 years old at the moment so it should be slow although it was a great computer when I bought it. However, I have come to the conclusion that the ativ book 8 is close to the perfect laptop for me. I like most things about it. If I get it I definitely will exchange the hard drive for an SSD. I am no gamer per se, but I would like to be able to play the new game Elite Dangerous. Has anyone got any experience with that game and/or know what is needed to play it decently (minimum requirements don't tell me much)? Is the NP870Z5G with its Nvidia GeForce GT 750M enough?

 

Hello pokkker, welcome to NBR. Good to have you with us as active member!

As you probably know if you have been following this thread and the Owners Lounge for the 2013 Series 7 / Ativ Book 8, there is some disappointment that Samsung didn't select a faster GPU for the new AB8: The Nvidia 750M in the new AB8 is slower than the AMD 8870 of the old AB8 which came out over a year ago. OTOH, driver support for the AMD has been a pain (with support for switchable graphics) and is expected to be easier with the Nvidia.

I hope others (who actually game) can provide more input.

 

Thanks for the welcome!

Yes, I am painfully aware...! I was hoping though that the GT 750M card would be enough for Elite Dangerous. If so I will be content and buy this laptop. If not... well... maybe the ativ book 9, + a stationary pc... although that would be a sad solution...

Someone with more input?

 

Still hoping I can get my hand on a ATIV-Book-8-870Z5G as it looks like the ideal portable notebook, with powerful cpu and decent SRGB coverage for my graphic work.

Still I can only find the 8805 over here with the glossy screen, which is something I do not want.

 

Hi everyone,

I've been watching this thread for pretty much as long as it exists and finally want to give my opinion on this.

To sum it up from all I've read about the new release, the advantages and disadvantages of 870Z5G, compared to 870Z5E:

(+) No more problems with screen burn-in.
(+) Anti-reflective coating is not as grainy as the one from 870Z5E.
(+) Haswell saves power when idling, which grants longer battery life.
(+) More powerful integrated graphics, which makes for less switching to dedicated graphics, again saving battery.
(+) Nvidia dedicated graphics grant less problems with drivers and smooth switching between integrated/decicated.
(+) Fans don't give off any high pitched noise under load, like 870Z5E did.
Huge (+) for me: dark coloured chassis. No device with a screen should ever have a bright or silver colour.

(-) Dedicated graphics are about 40% weaker than from 870Z5E, not even the GDDR5 version of 750M.
(-) Overall screen quality a bit below the phenomenal panel of the 870Z5E, but still among the best 15,6" displays out there.
(-) Throttling when under load for longer times, nothing like that from the old model.
(-) Overall temperature of the device higher than 870Z5E.

So, they basically improved mobility and solved any problems with the screen, at the cost of a little diplay quality. However, the huge graphics downgrade is one of the reasons I haven't bought the new model yet.
No idea what in the world they were thinking at Samsung, to release it just one month before Maxwell is out. Instead of implementing the 850M, which could've been about 30% more powerful AND most likely more efficient than the 8870M from the old one, they chose a 40% downgrade. This was one chance to make the new model the most versatile 15,6" NB out there.

However, if there will be an updated version with Maxwell, it's an instant buy for me. If it's the same for some of you, don't hesitate to give Samsung feedback. They may reconsider this, if there are enough people wanting it.

 

Hello Juan89, welcome to NBR.

Thank you for sharing that nice summary. I think you summed up the pros and cons very well. I would point out that both the NP870/880Z5E and the new Z5G come in the same Mineral Ash black (to my understanding). The brushed aluminium silver chassis was the previous NP770/780Z5E (and the entire Series 7 Chronos family back to 2011).

I think we are all puzzled by Samsung's approach with this model, for exactly the reasons you describe. But also because they released it so narrowly, in only a few markets.

My own speculation is that Samsung are closing down this model series, but had leftover chassis and other parts from the NP870/880Z5E (both inventory and ongoing production), and want to clear them at an aggressive price point (including a less costly GPU), in high profit markets (not including USA). By choosing Nvidia (Optimus instead of Enduro) and a trouble free matte screen (instead of the great but controversial Z5E screen) they save a bundle on support and refurbs. They don't want ANY return units on this model and very few support calls -- which makes for a good laptop for customers as well.

This really is just conjecture, and of course I HOPE it is not the case, and they are preparing marvelous new Ativ Book 8 model.

But if indeed they are ramping down their laptop division this would fit quite well. And they want to clear out parts inventory and ramp down production at profit, not at a loss.

 

Man that would suck though, I really hope they don't sotp making the Series 7 Chronos / Ativ Book 8 series. No other manufacturer (that I know of) seems to care about matching performance with awesome battery life. I'm thinking they're gonna release the Broadwell version in the US and skip Haswell entirely, for reasons I don't really understand. I really dig the black too.

 

I agree that would be tragic. Unfortunately I can see it making sense, both for Samsung and for Sony (who also announced their exit from the laptop market). At least in Samsung's case, supporting Win8 models must have been incredibly expensive, with high support costs and many returns. If they DO stay in the laptop market, I think they will stick to high-end ultrabooks -- witness the plethora of different Book 9 models.

 

Well...technically, the current Book 8 Models are something like a semi-ultrabook. 21 mm and 2.4 kg (could reduce it by ~50g with SSD) are pretty good for a 15.6" NB with dedicated graphics and such a large battery, they even ditched the disc drive to make it more compact. That's also what I like about it, pretty much the ideal middle ground.

About the available colours, they seem to be different depending on the country. Never found a black version of 870Z5E in Germany, only a black release in Austria that had an i5 and a 8850m. With 870Z5G, it finally was different and I hope they keep it that way. However, the i7 version only comes in black and the i5 one in silver, the choice is quite limited.

 

I am a Series 7 Chronos user myself, and consider my (now old) 14-inch Series 7 Chronos one of the best laptops I've ever had (of many over the last 24 years, and for many reasons that I've posted about on NBR).

My next purchase will be a replacement for my (even older) 18.4 inch HP HDX workhorse, where Samsung's 17-inch NP770Z7E came close. But it lost the ExpressCache feature of its predecessor (NP700Z7C) and was never released in Mineral Ash black (which I too prefer). So I still haven't found a suitable replacement for the HDX, as large-format laptops are going the way of the do do bird. As much as I admire the Ativ Book 9 models for their incredible design, I am not an ultrabook (ULV) kind of guy.

But for Samsung's part, they have only released Ativ Book 9 branded machines this year (apart from Z5G in January) which is understandable, since the stunning design and build quality of that model series has been a great differentiator for them. They even released the AB9 Lite, which to me signified that they are building on the AB9 brand even for more affordable models.

Whether their strategy is just to maximize profit while they wind down, or they have some brand new initiatives up their sleeves, we will have to see. To me it is puzzling that none of their new models (since NP770Z7E in January 2013) have what I consider must-have features in modern laptops, such as DisplayPort and dual drive slots (such as mSATA + SATA). The latest NP930/940X5J (15.6-inch Ativ Book 9) does indeed have dual M.2 slots, but only in some models, and like the Z5G it is only available in a few select markets.

 

It's interesting that Amazon UK are selling the NP870Z5G-X02DE. Yes, Amazon itself, not a marketplace seller.

It's even more interesting that under the customer questions is:

However, I would struggle to work up enthusiasm over a 47W dual core CPU so, if I were shopping for this notebook I'd be inclined to pay a little more for the version with the quad core CPU.

John

 

I noticed that too a few days ago, it's really weird. I would not buy it unless it can be confirmed that it does indeed have UK keyboard.

 

Dear forum members,

after reading carefully the threads on ativ 8 models, I decided to not buy - for the moment - the NP880Z5E and I started to consider the new NP870Z5G (the version with i7 CPU).

I am going to do a lot of photo editing, using mainly lightroom and photoshop and I need a good IPS-like screen. My original choice was NP880 but I read about so many lcd problems that I did not want to risk the investment (plus it seems a real pain to upgrade the OS to Windows 8.1).

On the other side I found a really good deal with Amazon warehouse on NP880Z5E - but of course I am a bit suspicious now...maybe it is a model with defective lcd.

Since I have never worked on IPS matte screens I wanted to ask you which model between NP870 Z5G and NP880Z5E will best suits my needs. I think the NP880Z5E is the best machine among the two, but I am really concerned about all the troubles experienced by other users.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Chris

 

Any hint ?

 

There's a comment here that the 870Z5G is very good for image editing.

Another potential advantage of the X5G is that, although the dGPU is less powerful than that in the Z5E, the Nvidia drivers tend to be less problematic than those from AMD.

If you haven't already done so then read the notebookcheck review.

A lack of response from the Z5G owners probably reflects two factors (i) it hasn't been released in North America and (ii) it must be fairly trouble-free since those who do have the notebook aren't coming here frequently.

John

 

Since I have the 870Z5G for about 6 months now I can surely say it's a very good notebook...

I can verify that. As I already said in this thread a few pages earlier the screen is very good and has absolutely no graininess at all (in contrast to the 870Z5E without the touchscreen which has - in my opinion - a rather grainy look due to its agressive anti-glare coating).

That's also correct. I am using the (newer) drivers provided by NVidia at the moment instead of those from Samsung with no problems at all.

I had only one problem with my Ativ 8 so far: the screen / screen cover is not rigid enough to withstand the forces when you carry your laptop around. If you don't want to have scratches in the anti-glare-coating you have to put something soft (e. g. the foam material from the original packaging) in between the screen and the keyboard / touchpad area.

On the picture below you can see a horizontal line in the screen coating which is caused by the edge of the wrist rest - but fortunately it's only visible when you are in direct sunlight... Since I realized this I have been much more cautious when carrying the notebook around...


I don't know if only the new "G"-Model has this problem or if it's the same with older versions of this notebook with different screens but the same chassis.

It's even a bit lighter than the specs are suggesting. I made a comparision between 870Z5E-X04, 870Z5G-X01, and 870Z5G-X01 with Crucial M500 480GB SSD (2383g vs. 2258g vs. 2214g, see picture below).

 

Okay, as it seems, the X01 is sold out in Germany and Austria as of now, at least in pretty much all online stores.
I couldn't make it to getting one before they disappeared from the market. Might there be any other place where the X01 is still sold?

 

Did you see that:
삼성 아티브 북8 NT870Z5G-X28 (39.6cm LED 디스플레이) - 요약정보 | SAMSUNG
it looks like Samsung refreshed it's Ativ Book 8 with new processor (i7-4710HQ) and 256 GB SSD disk. It's available on South Korean ebay:
NEW SAMSUNG ATIV Book 8 NT870Z5G-X28 Core™ i7 15.6" Notebook PC Laptop 256GB SSD | eBay

I'm really sad that Samsung left Europen market and I can't stand that I didn't buy NP870Z5G when it was around 1099 EURO. It was a prefect notebook for my needs: long lasting, light, elegant and powreful enough. There is no competition.

 

I've had this laptop for about 6 months now and I couldn't be happier. I was thinking of buying either this or Dell XPS 15 but didn't want to pay extra for the touch screen and higher resolution which I didn't need. I did get Samsung 840 PRO (256GB) and installed it when I got the laptop. I do mostly some photo editing with Lightroom and watch HD videos, but I am thinking of doing some HD video editing in the future. For that I need to get the extra 8GB of RAM.

Anyways I am really pleased with my purchase, and wanted to share this with you

 

Hi,

has anybody tried to run an external Monitor with 2560x1440 resolution via the HDMI port? Does that work?


Piotre

 

Now I can answer my Question by myself:

YES it works!!!

2560x1440 at 60Hz is no problem for the 870Z5G via the HDMI Port.


When you search on the internet, then you can find many many problems with the HDMI Port and the Intel 4600 for higher resoluations than Full HD. Most Notebooks only work with 1920x1080 over HDMI. But with the Ativ 8 870z5g everything works perfect

 

Hello again. New member on the forum and was wondering if anyone has experience running the latest 3dsmax, maya 3d animation software on this machine. I need a quiet and cool running laptop for 3d animation. I wont be doing any 3d modelling or rendering.

Any help would be much appreciated.

 

Hello,

Could someone answer these questions please?

1. Could someone tell me differences in audio quality between the 870Z5G non JBL and the 870Z5E JBL?
2. Are there any known issues/problems with 870Z5G?
3. Should I just source this new refreshed NT version?

This machine is currently on my to buy list, but is difficult to source and to find information on. I have seen the 870Z5G advertised on the German samsung website, but I am unsure if they would ship to the UK.
I have never dealt or bought a Samsung product before.

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that this model is not being sold anymore, and it hasn't been for a while.

 

I think that all of the samsung series 8 brands are hard to find.

So any comparisons on the audio quality between the two?

 

Found these, but I dont know how reliable they are. It also has the version that is equipped with the i7 4710 hq.

http://www.ocubic.com/product.asp?kk=437&classid=637

 

It seems like the 870z5g also had an AMD variant:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-870Z5G-X03-Intel®-RADEON-7870M/dp/B00HWPG9UG

This is a very powerful machine

Did anyone own one of these?

 

So - people with this machine; how is it holding up so far? It's an extremely quiet thread so I was wondering about peoples experience with the build quality of the machine and the transition to windows 10.

Also, was this the last powerhouse machine that samsung made for european shores before the exit?

 

Okay, everyone, we have a spiritual successor in the making:

http://www.engadget.com/2015/11/04/samsung-ativ-book-9-pro/

Also, check this thread:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/any-news-on-a-new-ativ-9-15-for-2015-2016.783068/

It's got everything from the old Ativ Book 8, just better (well, except battery life):

- i7 6700HQ
- GeForce GTX 950M (GDDR type not specified)
- 8GB of RAM (DDR3/DDR4 not specified)
- 15.6" 4k Display with claimed enhancements
- 256 GB SSD
- full Aluminium chassis (black)
- 4.45 pounds (~2kg)
- claimed 6.5h worth of battery life
- 1600$ at launch