Samsung Series 7 Chonos 15.6in Core i7 notebook

Surely someone is having a laugh. Having read nothing but five-star reviews of this luxury notebook on other sources, I find myself surprised to be staring at a four-star product on my desk. Four stars is pretty good, you know, but that’s one less than five. Samsung Series 7 Chonos Intel Core i7 notebook All in good time: …

[Anonymous Coward]

just bought a new laptop. i stopped at the 'plastic that flexes when you twist it level' and paid £319 including delivery (from manufacturer in DE to UK) for a Core i3 4G/500GB and some sort of home premium windows 7 tax. I could buy another 2 of those and have 30 quid left over for a curry for the prix of the SS7Chronos! So it doesn't work for my home market. The Samsung might be great for bizness but at work we're locked into a Fujitsu/Siemens/Dull contract for years so everyone buys MacBook Pros (for special needs - 6 pages of justification to follow = approved every time) I'm still not going to need a Samsung, but maybe someone will write in to the arena and explain which market segment will bite these?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it's a Macbook clone but many people miss the point - many people WANT Lion as they feel it's better than Windows 7 (in many respects it is).

It's like those 'like a golf' (but not) adverts - sure it's a nice Windows PC that looks a bit like a Mac - but it's not a Mac. I'd pay a premium for a Mac as I want Lion - but I would not pay the same money for this running Windows - strange old world.

[Giles Jones]

Honestly, Samsung really needs to get a design team and stop cloning Apple. They're doing the minimum tweaks to get around design patents.

Competition is healthy, but it can't be competition to produce very similar looking products. If you do that with other designer goods they would get confiscated and destroyed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Guys, it's a laptop with a brushed aluminum finish. Do you all bitch about Sony copying Sharp because they both make TVs with shiny black bezels?

The other big difference it it's not designed to be thin and light at all cost like the Macbook, it's got proper ports and drives and stuff.

[Ammaross Danan]

All Roads Lead to Rome

When you design a laptop, there's little you can do to get a "solid" feel. Sure, they could carve the laptop case out of steel, but that wouldn't satisfy the weight category now would it? Aluminium it is. You can see this in PC cases, steel for cheapos with aluminium for higher end.

Keyboards have some potential variation, but chiclite style is still fairly common, no big news there. Black keys on an aluminium surround? Oh noes.... At least they're backlit.

Various designs stray into the realm of blending trackpads, minimizing the bezel, or going for a designer plastic casing vs metal. Why Samsung didn't pick one of these other options? The question to you is, "Do you think it's fugly?" Why would they pick those other designs if you answered "yes"?

Fortunately, all this consideration and market research was unnecessary for Samsung to conduct, as it could simply ape the hodge-podge that Apple tossed together.

[Van]

Plastic has served me well

The i7 Macbook is £1549. I don't care whether it's built like a tank, it will never leave my house. The same way I would never carry £1500 around in my wallet.

A core i7 is also more power than I will need on my lap or coffee table. My i7 mini tower was £429, it's metal and also creaks if you push it hard enough.

I hope this new fashion of metal cases and high price tags affords us longevity where laptops traditionally fail. My experience with laptops, is the plastic cases far outlasting their metal hinges, power supplies and 'great feel' keyboard keys. Speaking of which, IBM model M keyboards were mostly plastic and refuse to die after 18 years of hammering.

[AlmightyCushion]

Battery comparison

The battery comparison isn't exactly fair. The Series 7 has a quad core processor, dedicated graphics and a 15" screen. The two laptops that beat it are ultra-mobiles with a smaller screen, integrated graphics and a lower clocked dual core low voltage processor. There is no way the series 7 could compete with them.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trackpad FUD

I'd like to point out to the journotard that of course the apple trackpad is harder to push closer to the keyboard because that's where the pivot is!

Anyway, it's all about the tap! :D

[melt]

It shouldn't be up to the user to care about where the internals are hinged; it's a sign of poor design that it's more difficult to press down in some areas.

[danny_0x98]

Journotard? Moving on.

I see everyone's point, but I am afraid the user does need to concern themselves a bit with the physics of a lever and moments of force.

What I didn't understand was the point about tapping on a Magic Trackpad. I use one and I have set it up for taps, not depressions. What Apple has done which is questionable is put the preference for taps under Accesubikity rather than Trackpad where one expects and, indeed, finds every other Trackpad option. Also, it is awkward that it is a user preference, because depress-to-click becomes the setting at the log in page. There probably is a way to change that, but I guess I haven't been irritated enough to research.

[annodomini2]

Guilable

"I realise it’s a 15.6in display but it feels much more like a 17in, thanks to a narrow bezel and a generous 1600 x 900-pixel resolution."

For £1000 i'd be expecting a 1080p screen!

[zorgbargle]

1600 x 900

is *not* a "generous resolution", especially for a laptop costing nearly £1K. I spotted a few Dells the other day under £700 with 1920x1080 screens. If 10 inch tablets can offer 1280x800 resolutions, with eyeball resolutions due shortly, then I expect a 15.6 inch laptop screen to give me a few more pixels than 1600x900.

[EzJ]

1600 x 900

I just wanted to say that having used a laptop with a 1920 x 1200 resolution for quite a few years, I can honestly say I seriously regret asking for it and would not opt for one again.

I have the Compaq 8710w which has a larger 17" screen but in my opinion is still not a large enough screen to run that resolution. I immediately noticed how much more eyeball strain / pain I got from using it.

Oh god, did I just say that. It's true...I'm, I'm getting old....nooooooo.

I'm sure I am now considerably more blinder thanks to my laptop...but I digress ;P

[JC_]

20/15 Vision Here

...and that was the same for me. A 17" laptop at 1920x1200 was always a bit too small, and 1920x1080 on a 15.6" even worse. The extra pixels are great for all the windows in Visual Studio, but reading the text becomes a struggle!

1600x900 seems pretty good to me, especially with that thin bezel making the laptop look the overall size of a 14 incher.

[Gotno iShit Wantno iShit]

It's all about the V

900 is not enough vertical resolution. Run Excel with the damned ribbon at the top and the number of rows visible is distinctly limited. Why does it have to be 16x9 at all? This is supposed to be portable computer *first* and playing movies something else you might do with it. Stop giving us DVD players that as a 2nd function can run windows. And glossy screens on a laptop? Oh dear.

1680x1050 15.4" matt screen here and I'd even pay macbook money if I could get that afresh with low voltage i5 chippery and a 250ish Gb SDD.

[Wibble]

It's a LOW res screen

900 in the vertical is a low resolution screen. Don't care about the horizontal resolution; it's vertical that counts.

What is it with these damn laptop manufacturers that make them always whitter on about bloody telly resolutions? A laptop is for WORK not watching telly you numskulls. Even powerpoint needs a lower aspect ratio. Then there's that poxy ribbon...

[h4rm0ny]

"More blinder"?

"More blind", if you must. Just "blinder", if you have to (blind is an absolute though). But "more myopic" is probably what you want.

I'm just in a Grammar NAZI mood, today.

[joejack]

Upvote this...

...if you LIKE a numeric keypad on a laptop.

Downvote if (like me) you can't stand it.

That space is better used for speakers, and I'd rather the keyboard be centered.

Still wish the Reg would start reporting full specs, such as is there an option for a higher res screen? Is it glossy? What's the max RAM (shirley not 8GB)?

[zanto]

just resize the window you're typing in

and place it on the left of your screen and you're set to go.

that's what i do on my acer 5740G which also has a numeric keypad which i hated at first.

[Martin Huizing]

@zanti

What? I mean, what?

[GitMeMyShootinIrons]

Upvoted...

As I punch in IP addresses etc at work, a keypad is more useful than better speakers.

For a home machine, maybe speakers. But I don't tend to use a laptop for home use. My desktop with a decent set of (old - as in bought with a Pentium III) Yamaha speakers and subwoofer does a better job for gruntwork, while my iPad (though not opposed to other forms or etch-a-sketch) does well on browsing, light media (and in a pinch RDP to the desktop).

[druck]

And yet another keyboard with the stupid half height up and down cursor keys.

I don't care if there is bulge in the outline of the keyboard, as long as some of the most used keys on the keyboard are full sized.

[Wibble]

Offset keyboard?

The offset keyboard is uncomfortable when using it on your lap as the lappie needs to be straight but your arms moved to the left whilst your head is twisted to the right.

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah, and offset touchpad, too

What on Earth is the touchpad doing so far to the left too? It's only 15% of the population (left-handed)! Instead of the numpad you should have the touchpad, like the razer laptop, or at least in the middle. Stupid designers...

[P. Lee]

Re: Upvote this...

Keypad is fine if your keys are fuil size. I'm with the chap further down who punches in IP addresses all day long.

What I really hate are the half-size arrow keys. They take up space but are too small to hit.

Personally, I carry a full-size mac keyboard (thin, light) and plug it into my (non-mac) laptop. I wish apple would do a bluetooth version.

[Dana W]

Not again.

Another "ME TOO" product from Samsung the me too company. Seriously Samsung, hire some designers, there is no shortage.

Anyway, MORE money than my baseline Macbook, and I get Windows Home too! How can I resist? "Sarcasm notice for the Sarcasm impaired"

No thanks, maybe with Linux on it, but not at that price. I can do better elsewhere.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mobility

I would say that an important factor in a laptop is usability in a mobile environment. I mean, using it on the move. Weight, stability, battery life then display power, etc. What's the point of having a laptop with a super-duper CPU and massive display if the battery goes in a flash because of it?

As far as the home front is concerned, I think the apple product most likely to be in the competition is the iPad or the humble iPhone...

[Anonymous Coward]

the display suffers from an acute viewing angle

This saves battery, and doesn't matter 90% of the time.

Instead of sending light across 2 pi sr, (about 12 steradians, or half a sphere-angle), concentrating it where the eyes are saves a lot of power.

Then it is a choice between comfort and battery life.

[Tom Chiverton 1]

What's the Linux support like ? I heard these 'double video card' jobs are still a pain of mess ? Does the trackpad work for instance, with full multi-touch goodness ?

[the-it-slayer]

Woah! The writer almost fooled me here...

Oh Alistair Dabbs, seriously; could you give us a break about your anti-fanboi hints and give us a proper unbiased review without mentioning the word Apple in the blatently obvious context? We can see from the photos there are very "Apple like" elements to the design. Keyboard and mouse pad design especially.

Yes, a baseline MacBook Pro 15" laptop is £1500, but the Mac OS is kind IMHO.

And @AC:00:57 - What rubbish. An acute viewing angle is critical, especially when the laptop could be used a different horizontal angles.

I'm sure this laptop will be a cooking plate for your lap/testicles when using it for anything more than web browsing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, the display suffers from an acute viewing angle, ..... very difficult to read from oblique angles at the sides.....

This is a bonus, extra security, more difficult for passers by to snoop!

[Mr Lion]

One less than five!

One less than five? One FEWER than five. Wash your keyboard out with soap and water - you should be ashamed.