Samsung Series 7 Chronos
The
Samsung Series 7 ‘Chronos’ 700Z5A-S01 (£899 inc. VAT) is the latest
entertainment machine from the Korean heavyweights, who recently won our coveted
‘best manufacturer’ award. This laptop isn’t nearly as slender as the MacBook
Air, the Toshiba Portege or even Samsung’s own Series 9 ultraportable, but it
packs in the power. And thankfully, this doesn’t come at the expense of battery
life.
The
sleek silver lid is solid at the edges to keep the display from bending, and
even the centre is surprisingly firm. However, the palmrests are less sturdy,
flexing under light pressure.
We
have to admit we were a little disappointed by the overall appearance of the
Chronos, but were pleased to see the isolation- style ‘chiclet’ keyboard
stretching the width of the interior, giving well-sized keys and enough room
for a numeric keypad. Typing is a smooth experience, although the keys don’t
travel far when hit. The arrow keys are once again crushed into a single row,
but we could find them without looking thanks to their wide design. The
keyboard is also backlit, and a built-in light sensor ensures the subtle glow'
only turns on when atmospheric lighting is poor, so saves on your battery life.
We
were less than enamoured with the touchpad. It’s spacious enough, but uses
annoying integrated mouse buttons. You have to push the bottom corners to
simulate left and right mouse button clicks, which quickly frustrates as the
cursor jerks.
Fine
display
 |
Aesthetically
the VAIO is far from our favouritethe plain black
look is overly corporate
and picks up fingerprints too easily
|
The
Series 7 Chronos’ 15.6-inch display stretches almost to the edge of the lid,
with only a slender bezel in place. A sharp 1,600 x 900 resolution keeps images
crisp and clean. There’s no glossy coating, so you can use the Chronos outside
or in brightly-lit interiors.
If
you need a machine to keep you entertained on the move, the Chronos’ 750GB
gives you plenty of space for your games, movies and music. A slot-loading DVD
drive has also been packed in. If you’d rather use this laptop as a home
entertainment machine, an HDMI port can be used to hook up TVs or monitors, and
you have three USB ports, two of which are USB 3.0.
The
Series 7 Chronos certainly doesn’t skimp in the performance department. A Sandy
Bridge Intel Core i7 processor is in charge, backed up by a generous 8GB of
memory. You can run any software imaginable, and should be able to for some
time to come.
Sandy BridgeIntel's Sandy Bridge technology is the codename for its latest generation of ultra-powerful processors.
So,
given all that power, how does the battery life stack up? Powering through four
hours of our tests before the screen faded to black, the Chronos equaled the
likes of the Sony and the Lenovo but unfortunately can’t touch the Asus. We
can’t help but look favourably on the Samsung because the extra performance so
outstrips most of the other laptops in this group.
The
Series 7 Chronos may lack the sexy, curved chassis of the MacBook Air, and the
slender build of some new Ultrabooks, but it’s easily the most powerful laptop
in this group test. We would also argue that it represents the best value for
money. If you need a portable entertainment machine that won’t be out of date
any time soon, then the Chronos is well worth considering.
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