Samsung Series 7 Gamer laptop hits US shelves for $1,900

[Matthew DeCarlo]

First unveiled at CES 2012, Samsung's mobile powerhouse is now available in the US with a starting price of $1,900. Designed with feedback from PC gamers, the Series 7 Gamer notebook has all the ingredients required for playing Skyrim on the road, including an Ivy Bridge 2.3GHz Core i7-3610QM (four cores, eight threads), a discrete Nvidia GeForce GTX 675M graphics chip, 16GB of RAM, up to 1.5TB of storage, a 17.3-inch 1080p display, and dual 2W Dolby Home Theater speakers with a subwoofer.

Although there doesn't appear to be an optional SSD, the hard disk is supplemented with 8GB of onboard flash that uses caching technologies by Diskeeper and Samsung to boost performance. Samsung says its FastStart technology increases wakes the Series 7 Gamer from sleep in as little as two seconds and it cold boots in as little as 19 seconds. That's about what we've experienced with ultrabooks like the HP Folio 13, which has a dedicated 128GB mSATA flash module as the primary storage device.

17.3" 1920x1080 display Core i7-3610QM (2.3-3.3GHz) GeForce GTX 675M 2GB 16GB of DDR3 RAM 1.5TB HDD + 8GB flash Blu-ray reader (right) VGA / HDMI / DisplayPort (left) 2 USB 3.0 (left) / 2 USB 2.0 (right) Multi-card reader (left) LAN / headphone / mic (left) 802.11b/g/n / Bluetooth 4.0 / WiDi 2-megapixel webcam Backlit keyboard (red WASD) Up to a 3.7-hour battery life 16.1" L x 11.2" W x 2" H / 8.4lbs

Instead of fiddling with software profiles, the Series 7 Gamer has a hardware dial to switch between four settings tailored for common usage scenarios. Gaming mode is probably the most interesting, as it enables red backlighting behind WASD as well as a lighting near the speakers that pulsates to a game's audio. It also disables the touchpad and Windows key. Meanwhile, "General" mode sounds like a balanced profile, Quiet mode disables sounds and a fan, and Power Saver mode throttles performance.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/48411-samsung-series-7-gamer-laptop-hits-us-shelves-for-1900.html

 

[amstech]

My initial impressions are pretty good, I like it!
Gets right to the point as a gaming laptop should... good hardware, great sound, no extra crap most people don't care for that jacks the price up.
Couple notes:

1) For that price they couldn't include a 120GB SSD or something along those lines?
2) When DELL started putting the JBL 2.1 speaker and subwoofer in their laptops others have been copying them ever since. I have that setup in my L702X and its amazingly crisp, clean and loud for a laptop (pending the source).

Overall not bad though, Samsung has a good following I can see this laptop selling well if the price isn't too ridiculous. You only need so much power to game at 1080p/900p.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Yeah it needs an SSD and 660M SLI for that price, the 675M is just a fancy name for GTX 580M, while the 660 is a 28nm which makes it better performing

 

[Guest]

Can someone explain to me what the point of ~$2k gaming laptops is? If I want to play games, I want to do it on a nice desktop 27, 30, 37 inch monitor. If I want to play on the couch, I'll get a console and if I am travelling for business on a plane or in a hotel room and I have nothing to do, I'd rather play games on the new 3DS + PS Vita. For $2k, I can buy both portable consoles and a crap-load of games for them. Not to mention when next generation of games launch, this laptop if worthless since it can't be upgraded and you'll have a $2k paperweight for gaming and have to go out and buy another one of these in 2014....and then 2016, then 2018, etc.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Can someone explain to me what the point of ~$2k gaming laptops is? If I want to play games, I want to do it on a nice desktop 27, 30, 37 inch monitor. If I want to play on the couch, I'll get a console and if I am travelling for business on a plane or in a hotel room and I have nothing to do, I'd rather play games on the new 3DS + PS Vita. For $2k, I can buy both portable consoles and a crap-load of games for them. Not to mention when next generation of games launch, this laptop if worthless since it can't be upgraded and you'll have a $2k paperweight for gaming and have to go out and buy another one of these in 2014....and then 2016, then 2018, etc.

I think you know what the point is, but because it doesn't fit your lifestyle, you want to believe it's irrelevant for everyone. A few notes:

• Just because you prefer playing games on a big screen doesn't mean everyone does.
• Even if that were the case, they could hook a gaming notebook up to a hotel's TV. Viola.
• Just because you'd rather play 3DS/Vita games when traveling doesn't mean everyone would.
• Just because you can't afford (or can't justify) $2k for a notebook, doesn't mean nobody can.
• Just because you think spending $2k on a notebook every few years is silly doesn't mean it's true.

So to answer your question: $2k notebooks like this are for people who want to play PC games on a mobile system and can afford it.

 

[Raswan]

Can someone explain to me what the point of ~$2k gaming laptops is? If I want to play games, I want to do it on a nice desktop 27, 30, 37 inch monitor. If I want to play on the couch, I'll get a console and if I am travelling for business on a plane or in a hotel room and I have nothing to do, I'd rather play games on the new 3DS + PS Vita. For $2k, I can buy both portable consoles and a crap-load of games for them. Not to mention when next generation of games launch, this laptop if worthless since it can't be upgraded and you'll have a $2k paperweight for gaming and have to go out and buy another one of these in 2014....and then 2016, then 2018, etc.

I think you know what the point is, but because it doesn't fit your lifestyle, you want to believe it's irrelevant for everyone. A few notes:

• Just because you prefer playing games on a big screen doesn't mean everyone does.
• Even if that were the case, they could hook a gaming notebook up to a hotel's TV. Viola.
• Just because you'd rather play 3DS/Vita games when traveling doesn't mean everyone would.
• Just because you can't afford (or can't justify) $2k for a notebook, doesn't mean nobody can.
• Just because you think spending $2k on a notebook every few years is silly doesn't mean it's true.

So to answer your question: $2k notebooks like this are for people who want to play PC games on a mobile system and can afford it.

That's a lot nicer than I would have put it

 

[Trillionsin]

In my opinion an SSD wouldnt be worth it. ...well, long story short

I'd want at least a SSD larder than 200GB, because I use to have a 120GB SSD on my desktop, and I could only have a few games installed at a time. Whenever I wanted to install a new one, I'd have to uninstall one of the others. Now I have a 240GB SSD, and I currently only have 67GB free... only a few more games... but at least at this point, I will get tired of a game by the time I want to install another game.... a 240GB SSD swap for a 750GB or 1TB MIGHT be okay... but here's my other problem. I told you guys I had an SSD in my desktop computer right? Well, I have about 250GB of music, and 500GB of videos on other internal hard drives. I have a total of 2.5TBs in my desktop. Of which I would want to carry around the music, and some of the videos... at this point, I'd be running into the problem like with the 120GB SSD.

Anyways, long story short... I would prefer to have a 1TB or greater for this price on a laptop.

 

[Trillionsin]

Long story short...

I meant to say, I actually have something like 3560GBs in my desktop, a total of 5 drives.

 

[Guest]

Hi all,

If any of you are interested this model is for sale at newegg.com for $1449.99. On tigerdirect.com it is full price. I don't know if it is an error when putting up the price but may be worth asking about.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834131264

 

[Darth Shiv]

In my opinion an SSD wouldnt be worth it. ...well, long story short

I'd want at least a SSD larder than 200GB, because I use to have a 120GB SSD on my desktop, and I could only have a few games installed at a time. Whenever I wanted to install a new one, I'd have to uninstall one of the others. Now I have a 240GB SSD, and I currently only have 67GB free... only a few more games... but at least at this point, I will get tired of a game by the time I want to install another game.... a 240GB SSD swap for a 750GB or 1TB MIGHT be okay... but here's my other problem. I told you guys I had an SSD in my desktop computer right? Well, I have about 250GB of music, and 500GB of videos on other internal hard drives. I have a total of 2.5TBs in my desktop. Of which I would want to carry around the music, and some of the videos... at this point, I'd be running into the problem like with the 120GB SSD.

Anyways, long story short... I would prefer to have a 1TB or greater for this price on a laptop.

Running a Vertex 3 240GB in my Dell XPS 15 (Sandybridge) and it is absolutely fantastic. Would not go back to a spinning disk. You have to be a little more conservative on what media you copy onto it, sure, but the performance increase is brilliant. I'd upgrade the HDD in that gaming laptop in a heartbeat.

 

[Darth Shiv]

Hi all,

If any of you are interested this model is for sale at newegg.com for $1449.99. On tigerdirect.com it is full price. I don't know if it is an error when putting up the price but may be worth asking about.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834131264

That's an older version or something. The graphics chip is slower. Didn't bother looking for anything else but it is a different spec...

 

[ebolamonkey3]

Can someone explain to me what the point of ~$2k gaming laptops is? If I want to play games, I want to do it on a nice desktop 27, 30, 37 inch monitor. If I want to play on the couch, I'll get a console and if I am travelling for business on a plane or in a hotel room and I have nothing to do, I'd rather play games on the new 3DS + PS Vita. For $2k, I can buy both portable consoles and a crap-load of games for them. Not to mention when next generation of games launch, this laptop if worthless since it can't be upgraded and you'll have a $2k paperweight for gaming and have to go out and buy another one of these in 2014....and then 2016, then 2018, etc.

It's nice for LAN parties and going to play at friends' houses. Much better than lugging a desktop around

 

[Guest]

Matthew , i could not have said it any better

 

[avoidz]

I mean it's nice tech and everything, but playing any new games on my fairly decent laptop feels like it's gonna burn a hole in the keyboard.

 

[Guest]

GeForce GTX 675M 2GB is weak for a $1,900 gaming laptop.

Alienware M17x comes with the same CPU and HD7970M GPU for $1,900 that will smoke this thing. In fact a single HD7970M is nearly as fast as GTX675M SLI:

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Comparison-of-Laptop-Graphics-Cards.130.0.html

 

[Zchelter]

Can someone explain to me what the point of ~$2k gaming laptops is? If I want to play games, I want to do it on a nice desktop 27, 30, 37 inch monitor. If I want to play on the couch, I'll get a console and if I am travelling for business on a plane or in a hotel room and I have nothing to do, I'd rather play games on the new 3DS + PS Vita. For $2k, I can buy both portable consoles and a crap-load of games for them. Not to mention when next generation of games launch, this laptop if worthless since it can't be upgraded and you'll have a $2k paperweight for gaming and have to go out and buy another one of these in 2014....and then 2016, then 2018, etc.

I won't bring my heavy bulky desktop (I know it is powerfull) just to play Modern Warfare, Skyrim, Battlefield during my traveling or LAN parties,

I won't get same experience when playing Modern Warfare, Skyrim or Battlefield on PSP Vita or N3DS, and I don't think they have those titles,

I can play my Online game, World of Warcraft, Rift, and similar everywhere using my Laptop and 3G USB Modem, 3DS or PSP Vita won't be able to do that,

 

[ASHISH SNHA]

Awesome Starting

 

[Guest]

Pricing is excellent considering the only other options are from brands like alienware that charges a good few benjamins more. Samsung computers are awesome since they make almost every component in-house.

 

[Guest]

Specced the same laptop as an Alienware M17X on Dell's website, its 2274. Guest Samsung turns out the winner.