I'm very happy with this machine. Fast, light, solid build, good-looking, great screen, comfortable back-lit keyboard. About identical in size and weight to a 13-inch Macbook, but with a 14" screen. Screen resolution is 1600 x 900, equivalent to Macbook and a step up from the 1366 x 768 standard on a lot of Windows laptops. (Sony touts its "full HD" 1920 x 1080 displays, but I found it made screen objects just too small. This is a happy medium.) It's quiet: the fan hardly ever comes on, and when it does it's not too loud. Good battery life: 5 to 6 hours easily without even going to the "max" power-saving scheme.I have no real complaints, only a couple of wishes. More USB ports -it has one 2.0 and one 3.0 (although personally I've never needed more); a Blu-ray drive; a Core i7 option.
I bought this after returning a 15.5" Sony Vaio S-series, which had a flimsy, wobbly screen with the aforementioned "Full HD", an annoying off-center touchpad, and a form factor that was just too big and wide. I'm much happier with the Samsung.
One recommendation: whichever power-management scheme you use, edit it so that the wireless card is set to "Maximum Performance" when unplugged -the default slows wireless to a crawl in order to save a little juice. (If you see Samsung dinged on forums for slow wireless, that's why, and it's an easy adjustment that completely resolves the issue.)
Update 7/9/12: I'm still very happy with it. No changes to my earlier comments. Some people complain about the touchpad, it is very sensitive by default, but I lowered the sensitivity using the control panel and now it rarely misinterprets random thumb or palm touches as taps.
Overall I REALLY like this laptop. It is plenty fast, has a higher resolution display than most of its competitors, is very portable, and is well built. I am a big fan of matte laptop displays and Samsung does not disappoint on this device. I find the keyboard on this laptop to be easier to type on than most others I have tried, especially the Asus G51VX I am coming from. Unibody construction would be nice, but given the price point and the hardware this contains I can overlook it. The track pad is very large. If I'm not careful I can hit it with my left wrist while typing. I'm 6'2" and have large wrists though, it may not be an issue for everyone. This isn't a big issue for me since I typically disable the track pad and use a mouse anyways. If you're in the market for a lighter, very portable, but yet powerful laptop: I highly recommend the Series 7 14".
EDIT: Amazon has updated the photos for this product. They are now correct for the 14" version.
Buy Samsung Series 7 NP700Z3A-S06US 14-Inch Laptop (Silver) Now
After having my Sony Vaio SA2 stolen I was forced into purchasing a new laptop. The things I loved about the Vaio were: dedicated graphics card, battery life, weight, hdmi output,backlit keyboard,screen resolution 1600x900, and appearance.However there were some things that I didn't like; build, materials, noisy fan, and slow hard drive speed. So sense I had to buy a new laptop I wanted to make sure to address some of the issues I had with the Vaio, but maintain the things that I did like about it as well. Thus I came across the Samsung Series 7 NP700Z3A-S06US Laptop.
This Laptop addressed every single issue I had with the Vaio, its better built(screen is solid not flimsy like it was with the Vaio) has a bigger and faster hard drive(1TB, and 8gb of ssd),more ram(8gb vs 4gb on Vaio) and it maintained all the things I loved about the Vaio(speed, graphics card, backlit keyboard, screen resolution 1600x900, and size) .
The only very small, almost not worth mentioning difference, between the Samsung vs the Sony, was that the Sammy cost $150 dollars more, and it weighs about 1lb over the the Sony. Either way these minimalistic differences didn't stop me from making the switch and not looking back at my Vaio SA2
I also want to reinforce what the previous reviewer said, the picture that Amazon has is for the z5a and not the z3a. That being said if your looking for a well made, good looking, portable power house, BUY THIS LAPTOP!
PROS:
Speed processor(dual core i5 2.5 up to 3.0ghz speed)
Hard drive 1TB and 8gb of SATA(SSD like speed)
Screen 1600x900
Dedicated Graphics Card AMD RADEON HD 6490M
RAM 8GB DDR3
Build Screen Lid is solid, brushed aluminum
HDMI If you like to watch movies, play games, and stream videos on a larger screen this is a must.
Back Lit Keyboard Helps allot in low light situations it became a must for me after experiencing it.
Cons:
Weight Over 4lbs tends to be a little heavy(subjective)
Read Best Reviews of Samsung Series 7 NP700Z3A-S06US 14-Inch Laptop (Silver) Here
A little bigger than other ultrabooks, but alot more powerful.PROS:
supports 8GB RAM, this was lightest laptop that I could find supporting 8GB of RAM
Very fast, CPU is better than most other ultrabooks
nice resolution.. things are small, but not too small
some newer battery technology, supposedly letting it last longer
the backlit keyboard is very nice, and the keyboard layout is easy to type with
CONS:
Only 2 USB, both on left side. The USB3 seems to give me issues, might be my driver.
Battery is NOT removable (as long as the battery-life works as intended, this shouldn't be a problem).
CD-Rom is NOT removable... i really not even need an optical drive
Weight is a little heavy, it's not bad.. but could be a little lighter
NOTE: If you do a clean install of windows, like i did, be sure to get the WIFI drivers from the Intel website (not from Samsung). I spend hours trying to figure out way my WIFI would not stay connected in Windows 7 64. Once I installed Intel's drivers (which claim to be an older version) it worked flawlessly.
For $1K, I'm pretty happy. The only comparable light/powerful laptop that met my RAM requirements was from Sony at about $2K.
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I've had my Samsung for two months now so I'm here to tell you about it!What I like:
Screen is bright enough I usually just leave it at minimum brightness and it is suffice
The backlit keyboard and the spacing on the keyboard as well
Quick start-up
Webcam is decent-not amazing but better than my prior computer
Speakers are great-you get a lot of sound at a relatively low setting
Not too heavy
The screen isn't flimsy, after I got it I had to open my old computer for something and it felt so flimsy compared to the Samsung
The machine loads fast (although for the first week after I got it I would've said differently but after some updates that was fixed)
What I don't like as much:
The vent-it's in the hinges where screen meets machine so it can get hot but more so on the top so as long as you have some heat tolerance and don't go sticking your hand above the vent you'll be fine
It came with Skype installed but it was the 32-bit version so I had to get rid of Skype and download it in the 64-bit version-took about 20 minutes to fix but 2 days to figure out
Things to know:
CD/DVD player is a slot you slide the disc into (I have no negative opinion on that)
1 USB 2.0 and 1 USB 3.0 (I would have liked there to be one more, but I can settle for two)
Microphone and headphone are combined into one hole for both
Mouse pad has clickers built into the pad-beware, the clickers only work if you click on the fourth of the mouse pad closest to you
If you think you can't adjust something try googling it, I've learned a lot through doing so-For example the machine comes and it will change screen brightness to compensate the amount of light coming through the light sensor, but you can disable that
Some of the bloat ware like Youcam (similar to photobooth on Mac) can be very useful, others like Mediasuite I have no use for and it may pop-up when working with song files rather than iTunes (which you'll have to download if you want)
Be sure to do updates! Otherwise you'll feel like you got robbed, but it moves swiftly as soon as the updates are on
Overall I have enjoyed this computer so unless I update (if I do I'll post the date I do so) I'd have to say it might be a bit overpriced (I got mine on sale though) but overall I am happy with mine. I would recommend this as a personal computer, if you're mainly doing work I think you'll find a better price that will fit your needs but I'd defiantly recommend this to a person who spends a good bit of time with their machine!
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