Samsung - 15.6" Touch-Screen Laptop - 8GB Memory - 1TB Hard Drive - Metal

+Windows 8 really shines on the Chronos. The Metro UI feels natural when used in conjunction with the touchscreen and it exceeds at media consumption such as light web browsing, picture viewing, and watching videos. The traditional desktop is there for more productivity-related needs like typing documents, coding, and using Photoshop/Illustrator. It does come preloaded with many unnecessary programs but that is easily fixed with CCleaner. +The first thing you'll notice about this laptop is the screen; it's really that great. Colors pop, blacks are deep, and the high resolution make text, pictures, and videos crisp. +Using the touchpad is intuitive and enjoyable. It registers clicks most of the time and gives a satisfying click. A minor quibble is that the right-click equivalent (clicking on the lower right portion of the touchpad) occupies a larger portion than it should. +Typing is one of the better experiences I've had on a Windows 7/8 laptop, with just enough tactile feedback without being too hard nor too soft. They could use a little bit more travel but overall it's accurate and very good. +Touches are quickly registered and have no perceptible lag. The software does a great job at ensuring that the associated animations/transitions appear smooth and fluid-like. +The sound quality on the machine is top-notch. The speakers are on the bottom of the device and the sound bounces off the resting surface to create an all-around sound. They can get quite loud and still retain clarity. The software allows for generous tweaking depending on audio preferences. +I'm able to leave the charger at home when I go to class and make it through around 5-6 hours of light to moderate usage on normal brightness. Getting 7-8 hours on a single charge is quite conceivable if used in power saving mode. Gaming and CPU intensive tasks will, of course, discharge the battery faster. +Initially, the Chronos felt a little unwieldy in the store, mostly due to the fact that my previous laptop was a 3 pound ultra portable. Having had it for the past few days however, I now consider it to be well within the definition of portable, especially when compared to other machines of similar specs. The thinness helps to mask the weight and allows the laptop to be placed in a bag or backpack, although a dedicated case would be more ideal. +Samsung has definitely improved the materials they incorporate in their computers. The laptop is pressed with aluminum and accented by touches of chrome and glass. The bottom is plastic, as to not conduct heat, but it still feels nice in-hand. It does get warm but not hot when gaming. The screen is coated with some type of fingerprint resistant material and helps to avoid some smudges. The keys feel nice but black, instead of silver, would have been a better color choice. The device feels premium and looks professional. +The laptop has a good amount of ports and connectivity options. USB 3.0 is nice and the SD Card slot is useful for cameras and smartphones/tablets. It does lack a CD/DVD/Blu-ray drive but most software can now be obtained through downloads or other types of media. -The stock hard drive is slow, no other way to put it. I consider to be the biggest limiting factor of the machine's performance. I immediately swapped it out for a Samsung 840 Pro SSD with the help of a USB stick and Samsung's Recovery software. The laptop now boots up in less than 9 seconds and shuts down in around 6 seconds. Applications open near instantaneously, games load quickly. and moving data is a breeze. -The AMD Radeon HD 8770m is a mid-range graphics card but it may not always feel like it. AMD has not yet provided any optimized drivers for this specific card, so performance may improve once they are released. Samsung announced a variant of this laptop with an 8870m card and it may be a better fit for those who place gaming high on their list of priorities. -The backlight on the keyboard is not very bright and can be uneven. The auto-dimming can also be aggressive and unpredictable. This isn't a big flaw but just something to consider if you do a lot of nighttime typing. -While the touchscreen is excellent, the hinge used to support it is a little wobbly. Taps and heavy strokes tend to make the screen bounce which can be distracting. This seems to be common throughout all touchscreen laptops, not just this machine. It feels like Samsung attempted to fix this problem by making the hinge more rigid. This, however, makes opening the laptop with one hand near impossible. Overall, this is is a great laptop. I would have given it five stars if it came with an SSD instead of a traditional, spinning hard drive. If you are considering this device, I highly recommend you switch out the hard drive and replace it with a solid state. The flaws are not, in my opinion, deal-breakers and are easily outweighed by its many positives.

Did my research on this Samsung and this beast of a computer did not disappoint ! I've had it for about a month now. I wanted something I could replace my old laptop and desktop with. this computer did the job. Incredibly fast , the touch screen is amazing, picture quality is on another level, and don't for get about the switchable GPU. took me a second to figure out how and when it switches to the Radeon GPU, but once I figured it out through all the power settings Wow it makes a huge difference over the Intel 4000! Every game I've thrown at it, it performs flawlessly with high frame rates. So if you plan to do any kind of gaming at all on a laptop this should be a no brainer. Also the touch pad is comparable to apples .Finally a PC with a great touch pad and keyboard!Get the series 7 Chronos you will not regret it. Plus your options of laptops with dedicated Graphics cards are slim to none. Great Job Samsung. Still not buying there phones though I'll stick with my iphone for now haha... GOOD BYE MAC, HELLO CHRONOS!!!!

If you are an experienced computer user shopping for a new computer, I would strongly recommend this machine. It is beautiful to look at, not too heavy, the keyboard is well-constructed. Back-lit keys were a delightful and welcome surprise. It is very quiet and the amenities are well thought out. For example, the computer has a light sensor so that in the late afternoon when the light in the room dims, the back-lit keyboard starts to glow and the display screen automatically dims so that you don't manually have to reduce the glare. Turn on a light, and everything pops back to normal. There are so many thoughtful touches, I would just urge you to go into a store and play with the machine. However, Microsoft's System 8 is a real problem for experienced users. The problem is not just cosmetic -- there is a whole approach that Microsoft took (to take the control out of the users' hands) which HAS to be fixed. System 8 is designed for the 3% of the people who have never owned a computer in their lives. (Duh?) Big mistake! For the rest of us, the Start Menu is gone, Charms only work well with Microsoft's approved aps, and the rest of the programming universe is apparently in compatibility mode. When things go wrong, System 8 generally gives you three options: go online to a forum (that's an offered option, even when the problem is that you can't go online), call a friend, or close the troubleshooter. Can't get on the internet? System 8 will tell you that there are connections available, and you're not on them, but it won't even show you a list! What's up with that? Solve the problem? That apparently is a novel idea. And what happens when you go on line? The standard answer is reinstall your system and go back to square 1. Now why would any experienced user with tons of specialized software even consider that? Alternatives recommended by the tech forums seem to be so circuitous that the user simply gives up and calls a geek to fix things. I think this move to dis-empower the average computer user is ill-founded and insulting, and I hope that Microsoft gets over it. For all the aps in the standard Charms menu that I had to disable that I really needed, I found compatible and perfectly fine replacements on the internet, most of them free. I bought this computer because my previous computer (a 4 1/2 year old Dell) was experiencing the blue screen of death about once a week. It was just a matter of time until it didn't come back at all. If I didn't have to buy a computer, I would have waited, but since I did, I must say that this Samsung is the best computer Ive ever owned and I have owned and worked on many from the TRS-80 and the 128K Mac to all the flavors of Windows. I have confidence that there will be tremendous pressure on Microsoft to really fix System 8, even the non-cosmetic features. Someday its aps and my special aps that I use will play together nicely. For now, I have had to ditch the Charms because Microsoft has made some hardware and port decisions that don't work for me and has provided no alternatives. Too bad for me. But for most people, this is might night be a problem.

When I looked at this screen in the store, I was blown away by the good looking screen. I was not surprised since Samsung make some of the best TVs on the market. After getting home and setting up my Netflix account, I couldn't wait to see a HD movie on the screen. I was not disappointed from the fabulus picture. The laptop look and feel good in your lap and works good on the desk as well. The backlite keys are easy to see in low light but typing felt a lillte differnt than normal. I picked up the laptop about a dozen times in the store to get a feel for the weight and comfort of the device. I was confident I would be satisfied with it. Well the OH NO started when I wanted to load my software from the disk. This device has none; nope not at all. Some may believe this is the future but I still need a CD/DVD. I was willing to far go the standard CD/DVD and copy the programs to my external HDD. I gave up when I noticed this device doesn't have a user changable HDD or battery. I did compare this one to the Sony T Series and I like the screen on the Samsung much better. However, with the hybride HDD on the Sony which make bootup and wakeup much faster, the CD/DVD, and the user changable HDD and battery made me return the Samsung for the Sony. I love my Sony. I like Samsung devices as I own a Galaxy Tablet 10.1 and the Galaxy SIII phone. I really wanted the Samsung to work for me but the restricted functionallity didn't cut it for me.

I really wanted to like this laptop. I was able to pick one up in Wilmington, DE. Here are my thoughts. Pros: The display on this Series 7 Chronos is amazing! 1080p + touchscreen capabilities = awesome. The screen can also get pretty bright, however, it is glossy. The backlit keyboard is chiclet /island style which I like. The keys don't have too much travel but I like the feeling of typing on it (plus you get a numberpad on the right side). The audio is also praiseworthy. It sounds full/rich and can get pretty loud. The build quality is pretty good with this nice brush aluminum look in the keyboard/trackpad area. It's "thinner" but still weighs over 5 lbs. After using the laptop, I don't think I would've gotten their estimated battery life, but I'm sure I could've gotten 7-8 hours. It's nice that Samsung didn't skimp out too much on the ports (which, unfortunately, seems to be a growing trend these days). The laptop was pretty quiet, I rarely heard the fans go on. The trackpad was also quite nice. It has a very nice glass feel and two-finger scrolling/pinching was smooth. Cons: I'll start with the small gripes. The laptop is difficult to open when it's closed. It has his tiny little tab which is hard to grab onto with your finger/thumb. Without the help of my other hand, I just end up pushing the laptop away from me when I try to open it. The webcam is not very good compared to the display. Photos come out very grainy. It can record in 720p but when it's displayed in a 1080p screen, it doesn't look as good. The backlit keyboard is nice, but I had trouble with Samsung software to actually turn it off. Even after changing it in the settings, the backlight would always come on when I didn't want it to. The last and most important gripe to me (and the reason I had to return this laptop) is the fact that Samsung didn't make the hard drive really user upgradeable. The memory modules are easy to swap but not the hard drive. I would've thought Samsung would try to improve that over the last Series 7 Chronos. Here we have an amazing machine (with specs to match) and it's being held back by a 5400 RPM hard drive. I really found myself waiting alot of time for programs to load. I'm sure you could get the bottom of the case off with force, but without incurring some physical damage to the laptop. Overall, this is still a very good laptop. But it could've been so much more. It could still, however, fit someone else's needs, just not mine. For a $1200 laptop, I expect to be able to swap my own hard drive or at least get an option to get something better than a 5400 RPM hard drive. Hope this helps someone looking at this laptop.

We liked it so much we bought 2! Heard this Chronos was coming out so we waited for it, so glad we did. The specs are perfect for Windows 8. Touch, 8GB RAM, Full HD (1080p), 2 3.0 and 2 2.0 USB ports, 11 hr rated battery life!, backlit keyboard, number pad. We did put in 256GB SSD's in both since SSD is so awesome. Boot time from cold is <=6 seconds with the SSD. Put the TB drives into cases and use them for external storage around the home network. I think this is the best current form factor for Windows 8. The size is just right at 15.6". It is almost an Ultrabook but more powerful with more ports. Wifi is perfect, no problem with it at all. With the SSD change it is the perfect Windows 8 notebook right now and really, the 1 TB drive is not bad but and SSD is just so good.

First of all, this laptop is incredible. It boots in 9 seconds and shuts off in 7 seconds and wakes uo in less than 2. How? Very simple. When you buy this laptop, IMMEDIATELY go to add/remove programs and uninstall Intellimemory. This piece of bloatware is the source of the so called "slow hard drive. I thought it could be the useless AMD Radeon graphics driver that doesn't work, but after uninstalling the minimal bloatware, and then Intellimemory, all of a sudden this laptop starting acting as though it had a SSD hard drive. I am not joking or exaggerating. It went from using 75% memory and 75% disk at IDLE, to 15%-20% memory and 0% disk at idle. Other than that, this laptop is incredible. Yes, the AMD Radeon 8770M does not work YET, but it is because there is a compatibility issue with Windows 8. AMD is working on it. The Intel HD 4000 graphics inside will hold you over trust me. The backlit keyboard isn't the brightest, but it is more than enough for night time typing. And one other note, the battery IS NOT user replacement. Not a problem, because this apparently has an 11 hour battery. From the heavy usage I've been doing, it's around 7-8. Pretty incredible. Well done Samsung. There is an updated version of this laptop coming out with the Radeon 8870M, you may want to wait for it, but it's currently out in Europe and apparently still doesn't have a proper graphics card driver. The whole Radeon 8000M graphics card series isn't even listed on AMD's website for drivers. HURRY UP!! Oh and by the way, the screen on this is not too glossy, and the colors are......INCREDIBLE. And about that battery again, It will hold 80% of its capacity after 1000 charges, so don't worry about the non user replaceable battery.

This laptop feels solidly built and really is a beautiful piece of machinery. It is a little heavy for such a thin laptop, but it's not much of a hindrance. Unfortunately, it doesn't come with with a DVD player, but that's the sacrifice for such a thin laptop I suppose. The touch screen is a ton of fun, and really great for Windows 8. The keyboard is comfortable, the number pad is convenient, and the back lighting on the keyboard has been very handy. My biggest complaint is that the speakers are on the bottom of the laptop. This is fine when it's on a hard surface, but if it's, say, on your lap, the sound gets muffled very easily.