Samsung 700Z Chronos review

Samsung has achieved a high standard of fit and finish with the 700Z Chronos, rivalling the MacBook Pro for design and build quality. It’s a visually pleasing laptop, and the overall impression is one of understated quality. At 2.29kg, the Chronos is by no means the lightest laptop on test, but at less than an inch in height it provides a balance between style and portability.

Powered by a quad-core, hyper-threaded Intel Sandy Bridge i7-class processor, with 8GB of RAM, the Chronos has power to spare: it scored 0.76 in the PC Pro benchmarks. The inclusion of dedicated AMD graphics also means that it will cope with 3D graphics and HD video editing.

Samsung has given the Chronos a very small bezel, creating the visual illusion that the screen is larger than its 15.6 inches. This, along with good levels of brightness and an ample resolution of 1,600 x 900, makes for a pleasant viewing experience: the screen’s matte surface cuts down on reflections and glare. The keyboard, which is backlit with a separate numeric keypad, is spacious, with a comfortable action. Throw in a generously sized trackpad, which borrows the two-fingered right-click and multitouch gestures of Apple’s laptops, and you have a system you can happily work on all day.

The Chronos includes an array of connectivity options: three USB ports (two of which utilise the new USB 3 standard), DisplayPort and HDMI. Like the MacBook Pro, connecting to a VGA output requires an adapter, but here it’s supplied.

An non-replaceable lithium-ion battery offers strong enough performance to last most of a school day if not challenged by substantial video or audio playback. On test, we had 6hrs 39mins of light use. Overall, the Chronos offers a specification that’s future-proof for at least the next few years, but this comes at a price. Schools will need to weigh up how much they need the high-end performance that this slick Samsung laptop can deliver.