Would you buy a series 7 again?

Hi guys,

I am in the market for a new laptop and have a budget of £1k. I noticed on amazon that if you buy the series 7 you can claim the VAT back which would leave the series 7 at about £750 which sounds like a steal.(Amazon have two models NP700Z5A-S05UK and NP700Z5A-S01UK does anyone know why the model with the larger hard drive is £5 less?)

I have seen threads about issues with wifi, graphics and screen so it doesn't look great and would explain the price tag! I want to know if these are minor annoyances or if given the choice again would you spend the cash on something else?

I was also considering of waiting for the ivy bridge refresh or getting a HP envy or Aliemware m14x - got any other suggestions?

I would be using the laptop for some light gaming, multimedia and application development (Linux, Windows and Android).

 

Maybe I got lucky, but I have been super happy with mine (NP700Z5A-S01CH). The latest driver updates have pretty much fixed all of the graphics issues, and certainly have made the touchpad work quite nicely. Not sure about the wifi as I use mine both at home and at work with either a strong wireless router, or plugged in to the LAN directly.

It is a high-spec laptop that is really thin and light, probably among the most portable 15.6 incher with these specifications. My wife's 15 inch HP laptop (new one, not the envy) feels like a giant slab of concrete by comparison. Excellent battery life. One thing that is kinda annoying is if you are using it to give presentations, you need the special VGA adaptor (unless your projector has HDMI input), although the Mac crowd has long ago gotten desensitized to this idea.

I use mine mainly for scientific computing, including specialized graphics applications (equivalent to high-end gaming loads, although not as sustained), and it handles everything I have thrown at it with ease.

The only reservation I have is the unknown longetivity due to these being a relatively new line, at least in the west. I suppose Samsung has been selling laptops in Asia for a while now. Also, it is not the same build-quality as a Macbook, which is obvious in some of the plastic, and that is why they are signifcantly less money than a poorer-specc'ed mbp. That said, the build quality is definitely superior to most other non-macs.

I would not buy the alienware, as I think they are ugly as hell, whatever their components may be. It looks like it was designed by a 14 year old nerd.

Should you wait for Ivy-bridge? Well, that is personal decision. Of course having the latest-greatest is cool, and if you can wait to buy one later, then wait for IB. But then, when IB comes out, there will be the next cool thing to wait for. The idea of having one of the new "Tri-gate" processors, one of Intels so-called "ticks" is intriguing, but I think it will be mostly a mental issue. Unless you are doing serious video encoding or the like, the real-world performance will probably not be that different. This biggest difference would be if Samsung installs a larger SSD as part of the SSD/HDD hybrid design. That would be cool.

Basically, you will always wait for a better model, or choose to have a good-enough one now.

 

I would buy a new one aswell. Very happy with mine (NP700Z5A-SE01). For my uses, which includes some gaming, this is the best laptop for me for sure, and when I need a new one in the future I will look at the next gen Series 7 Chronus again.

 

It has been my favorite laptop i have owned in the last several years. I would definitely buy it again.

 

The only regret I have is not realizing my model didn't have the backlit keyboard, express cache, or 7200rpm HDD at the time of purchase. If I could wind back the clock, I would totally buy a series 7 again, but one of the models with the aforementioned features.

 

I find it a very good notebook: looks good, is quiet and fast (mine is i7 version).
Mind you, I'm not a gamer...

 

Are your keys still translucent?

 

They are a bit translucent around the edges, yes, but the top surfaces are black. It even has the function keys to adjust the backlight brightness - they just don't do anything.

 

Sounds like you have the exact same keys as the backlit models. Mine are also transluscent around the edges and look like opaque white characters on black keys, but the letters do light up when the backlight is on.
I bet that an intrepid hardware hacker could probably figure out how to make the non-lit model light up. A little skill with a soldering iron can go a long way...