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Review Update Samsung Series 7 700Z3C-S01 Notebook

At IFA 2011, the Samsung Chrome Books were first introduced. It was designed as an elite all-rounder. High-priced and well made, but again not as expensive as the 9 series notebooks and sub notebooks. After the 15-incher, we received the 14-inch Series 7 700Z3A in January 2012. Acer TravelMate 5735ZG battery Equipped with the last-generation Sandy Bridge CPU and an entry-level graphics (ATI Radeon HD 6490M), the performance was good. Even without having an SSD drive.

Anyone interested in the 14-incher, has two choices: buy the old model 700Z3A at a favourable price or have the processor and graphics performance (now Ivy Bridge / Geforce GT 630M) improved significantly, so that a 700Z3C is worth the money.

Acer TravelMate 5740 battery The following points are identical to the Chronos predecessor 700Z3A (Sandy Bridge), which is why we refer to the Review Samsung Series 7 700Z3A: case, interfaces, features, input devices and speakers.

Performance

The 700Z3C is so far only available with Core i5 3210M Dual Core Processor. The Ivy Bridge CPU clocks with 2 x 2.50 GHz and can get up to 3.1 GHz in turbo boost. The latter, however, can only be done with a very efficient cooling system, which is not common with small and flat notebooks. Acer TravelMate 5740-332G16Mn battery Anyway, only a single core computing load can tun with such a high clock; however, this is extremely rare with a multitasking operating system. More information about performance can be found in the following paragraph.

The cheaper variant 700Z3C-S03DE has a 750 GB hard drive instead of a 1.000 GB HDD (S01DE). Our model operates with Seagate Momentus SpinPoint M8 ST1000LM024 with 1.000 GB. This means a lot of space for games, movies, or pictures. In order to profit from the advantages of SSD technology at least during the startup phase and the loading of frequently used files, a SanDisk iSSD P4 with 8 GB is used. Acer TravelMate 5740-332G25Mn battery This reading cache (Samsung: ExpressCache) buffers frequently used files, and is not accessible to the user.

Beware! Some shops or price comparison websites list the S01DE without optical drive. This is wrong. Samsung has built in a Slot-In drive without drawer (DVD multi writer). This results in a higher stability of the edge of the chassis.

The Geforce GT 630M with GDDR5 storage (1.024 MB) replaces the Radeon HD 6490M of the pre-decessor. The user can thus enjoy the benefits of the virtually invisible Optimus technology to switch between Intel HD Graphics 4000 and Geforce. AMDs switchable graphics technologie used to be vulnerable in practical use and often required user intervention. Acer TravelMate 5740-333G25Mn battery

Processor
First, we compare the i5 3210M (2.5-3.1 GHz) with the i5 2430M (2.4-2.8 GHz). Buyers should not be guided by the potentially higher turbo clock, as even a single core cinebench test did not manage to raise the core clock to above 2.9 GHz.

Acer TravelMate 5740-333G32Mn battery A cinebench R11.5 multi test finishes 7% faster with Ivy Bridge (2.86 points) than with 2430M (2.67). The 3210M is therefore on the same level as an i5 2520M (2.5 GHz). The fan system is acceptable; at least the turbo boost processor reaches almost the same scores as the same model in the 17 inch device MSI GE70-i547W7H. The clock during cinebench multi test was constantly at 2.9 GHz. There was no trace of throttling.

Acer TravelMate 5740-352G25Mn battery The 700Z3C completes the single core test CB10 Rendering Single 64Bit with 5.347 points. The 2430M was 17% slower in the first test device (4.425 Punkte). The CPU makes good use of its full potential; it is even three percent faster in this test than in the MSI GE70. This is remarkable, because in pre-decessor 700Z3A, the i5 2430M misses its previously reached scores by up to 15%. The performance enhancement of the new Chronos, which on the whole is negligible, becomes more important in this light.

Gaming Performance
Acer TravelMate 5740-372G25Mnss battery Altogether, the GT 630M seems to be the stronger graphics card. So how does it go with games? Mass Effect 3 runs smoothly with 42 FPS in the highest settings. There is no comparison value for HD 6490M. It is the best value which a GT 630M was able to achieve in these settings. The Medion Akoya P6633 (MD97958) managed 40 FPS.

The older Risen does not always run smoothly in high settings. The HD 6490M is slower by 32% (approx. 18 FPS), though. StarCraft 2 runs without problems with 35 FPS under high settings. The Radeon HD 6490M reaches 22 FPS at best. Acer TravelMate 5740-434G32Mn battery

In the end, there is also Anno 2070, which only runs smoothly in Medium Details (32 FPS). The 700Z3A with HD 6490M was worse with 23 FPS. The result is a typical score for the built-in Geforce. As the last game, Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was played. In the high settings, 33 FPS are feasible, which is impossible for HD 6490M with ~20 FPS.

With regard to games, the Geforce GT 630M is better than HD 6490M. Those who play games every now and again should go for the 700Z3C.

Temperature
Acer TravelMate 5740-5092 battery Temperature development can be seen as critical; on the whole, it remains acceptable, though, taking into account the performance and the small form factor. In idle mode and during office use, some areas get up to 35 degrees Celsius. Under load, the temperature of the surplus waste heat increases quite a bit, particularly next to the hinge, which is close to the grille. The device does not feature a lateral opening, as would be common, but a hidden one underneath the hinge, which means that the latter warms up considerably, as it is constantly surrounded by hot waste air. The highest temperature of 47 degrees Celsius, however, was measured slightly above the keyboard (perforated speaker strip). Acer TravelMate 5740-524G32Mn battery

The highest waste heat temperature during the stress test was 56 degrees Celsius. Importantly, the wrist rest remains cool at all times and never goes beyond 30 degrees.

Battery Life

Battery life is fantastic and better than that of its predecessor. In idle mode, the battery life of the 700Z3C is a whopping 9:27 h (7003A 7:17 h). The more relevant WLAN test has to stop after 6:14 h (700Z3A 5:57 h). A DVD can be played for 5:41 h, while the predecessor was only able to do this for 3:05 h. Even under full load, the Ivy Bridge Model is ahead: 2:26 h beat 1:38 h. Acer TravelMate 5740-5896 battery

The notebook owes its long battery life to a 65 Wh lithium-polymer battery, which is firmly built in (4.400 mAh, 8 cells). Charging a compeltely empty battery is very quick, taking into account the long life: With the device turned on, it only takes 2:19 h.

Acer TravelMate 5740-5952 battery Samsung has upgraded its Series 7 Chronos 14 inch 700Z3C-S01DE with state-of-the-art technology. By and large, the slightly increased application and processor performance is negligible. Worth considering, however, is the significantly increased gaming performance (GT 630M) as well as the longer battery life compared to the less expensive pre-decessor 700Z3A. Equally noteworthy is the stable computing power in turbo mode under full load. Processor and graphics card live up to the possibilities of a notebook.

The panel, however, has not been optimised. The high brightness and the anti-reflective coating, however, provide a very good user experience outdoors.

Review Samsung Series 6 600B5B-S01DE Notebook

Acer TravelMate 5740-6070 battery Samsung's Series 6 notebook range currently only has two devices. Both 15 inch devices are to bid outstanding perfection and perfect reliability. The Samsung 600B2B-S01 is the lower priced model of the two with a price of €1100. It offers the dual core processor, Intel Core i5 2520M with a base clock of 2.5 GHz. NVIDIA's NVS 4200M is installed as the graphics card. Moreover, there is a 6 GB DDR3 RAM installed on the Intel QM67 chipset.

The Samsung 600B5B-HC1 bids more power and more features for just under €1600. A quad core processor, the Intel Core i7-2720QM with a base clock of 2.2 GHz, works inside this model. The 15.6 inch laptop also has a UMTS module and the latest Bluetooth 3.0 available. That's different in the 600B2B-S01, which only sports the outdated Bluetooth 2.1. Acer TravelMate 5740-6291 battery

Both devices are equipped with a non-glare, 15.6 inch screen with a maximum resolution of 1600x900 pixels. The notebook in the Duracase Mg+ chassis has a few security features, for example a TPM chip.

We put the Samsung 600B2B-S01 through its paces for you. Find out if and for whom the purchase of the €1100 business notebook is worthwhile in the following review.

Case

Acer TravelMate 5740-6529 battery The Samsung 600B2B is definitely no beauty. Its design is basic black, so the Samsung 600B2B isn't an eye-catcher. It's in the eye of the beholder if the design looks boring or professional. Duracase Mg+ is used for the chassis. We previously made sobering experiences with the Duracase material in Samsung's Series 4. However, the addition "Mg+" lets us hope for more. The case is coated with a magnesium alloy and is thus to provide even more protection.

Acer TravelMate 5740G battery In our tests, the Duracase Mg+ chassis proved to be significantly more rigid than the Duracase chassis of the Series 4. In particular, the display lid seems to be considerably stronger. Although the notebook can be depressed selectively at the well-known weak points, the case seems to be more rigid.

The screen hinges of the new series also do a much better job than those of the Samsung Series 4. Nevertheless, there is room for improvement. The display lid can hardly be depressed or twisted. A 1.3 megapixel (SVGA) webcam is installed into the display bezel.

Acer TravelMate 5740G-334G32Mn battery The owner should easily be able to stow the notebook in the briefcase due to its size. The 15.6 inch laptop doesn't belong to the lightest of its kind with almost 2.7 kg, though.

Performance

The central computing core in the Samsung 600B5B is the Intel dual core processor, Core i5 2520M. The CPU based on the Sandy Bridge architecture has a base clock of 2.5 GHz. Providing the cooling is sufficient, the clock can be increased to 3 GHz (2 cores) or 3.2 GHz (1 core) for a short time with the Turbo Boost function. Thanks to Hyper Threading, the dual core processor can process four threads at the same time. Acer TravelMate 5740G-434G32Mn battery The CPU has 3072 KB available in the level 3 cache, which is particularly important in connection with the integrated GPU. The chip manufacturer specifies a thermal design power (TDP) of 35 watts.

The DirectX 10 capable Intel HD Graphics 3000 card is integrated in the processor. It has a low performance level. Samsung has also provided an external graphics card, called NVIDIA NVS 4200M. The business graphics card is based on the same core as the GeForce GT 520M. The DirectX 11 capable graphics card isn't really designed for gaming, though. A lot more focus has been placed on stability and special performance in business applications. Acer TravelMate 5740G-524G50Mn battery Thus, it's no surprise that the graphics card supports OpenCL and Direct Compute. Nvidia's Optimus technology provides longer battery runtimes. It switches between the Intel HD Graphics 3000 card and the Nvidia NVS 4200M depending on requirement. Apart from that, the system bids a 6 GB DDR3 RAM.

Processor

We took a closer look at the processor's performance with Cinebench R10 and Cinebench R11.5. The Samsung 600B5B manages good 4871 points in Cinebench R10 (64bit) single rendering and is among devices with the same processor. Turbo Boost works well and lets the CPU clock increase between 3 GHz and 3.2 GHz. The Toshiba Tecra R840-11E manages 5135 points with the same processor. Acer TravelMate 5740G-528G64Mn battery

We achieve a similar result with Cinebench R11.5. The Samsung notebook achieves 2.84 points in the CPU test. The best model with the same CPU only reaches 0.06 points more.

Battery Life

Power Consumption

The power consumption that we determined is within the expected range. The Samsung 600B5B consumes a maximum of 13.4 watts in low load. The notebook's consumption increases considerably during load. We measured a peak rate of high 75.9 watts. However, the included 90 watt power adapter can cope with this. Acer TravelMate 5740G-5452G32Mnss battery

Battery Life

We tested the battery life in four different scenarios. First we checked the maximum battery life with the software tool, BatteryEater. For this, we selected the energy savings profile, disabled all communication modules and set the brightness to minimum. The Samsung 600B2B lasted for 6 hours and 32 minutes.
Our next surf test is closer to reality. We turned on the WLAN module and increased the brightness to 150 cd/m2. A new website is opened automatically every 40 seconds via a script. The surf fun came to an end after 4 hours and 7 minutes. Acer TravelMate 5740G-6765 battery
In another test, we looked at the battery life in DVD rendering. Again, we disabled all communication modules, but we set the brightness to maximum. We could watch a movie for about 2 hours and 44 minutes before we had to reconnect the power adapter.
Finally, we analyzed the battery life in load. Here, we enabled all communication modules, set the high performance mode and selected maximum brightness. The BatteryEater software was used again, but this time its Classic test. It was finished after only 88 minutes. Overall, the battery life isn't outstanding, but feasible with about 4 hours in practical use. Acer TravelMate 5740Z battery

Verdict

The business notebook 600B5B convinced us in many areas. The magnesium alloy case managed to collect points. The Intel Core i5 2520M dual core processor (2.5 GHz) and Nvidia's NVS 4200 supply a good amount of power in office use. There are even two fast USB 3.0 ports available. The many security features could also appeal to the business user. Moreover, the 15.6 inch laptop convinces with a bright, non-glare screen, although its contrast is weak. Nevertheless, outdoor use is possible. Acer TravelMate 5740Z-P602G25Mn battery

Those who like the plain design, expect good performance and don't need a UMTS module will get a good business laptop for about €1100. Samsung puts the sister model 600B5B-HC1 on the shelves for higher demands (starts at about €1400, incl. BT 3.0, UMTS and quad CPU).