The Samsung Series 7 Chronos is definitely one of the stars of CES 2013. An update to the current Chronos, the laptop was announced just before the show, with news that Samsung was adding a little bit of touch to the line-up. This comes in the form of a 10-point touch system that was fantastic to use in our hands-on tests with the device. The screen itself is a Full HD display that's 15.6 inches in size.
Although the Samsung Series 7 Chronos isn't Samsung's most powerful laptop – you would have to look at the bulkier Series 9 for that accolade – there is still a lot going on within the laptop's lovely 'bare metal' chassis. If you fancy gaming on the device, then there's a AMD Radeon HD 8870M Graphics chip with 2GB GDDR5 Graphic Memory on board. To compliment this, there's up to 16GB of memory and a Core i7 processor.
Chronos look and feel
The Chronos is a seriously good looking laptop that manages to be thin and light, but has enough power to make it feel like a decent desktop replacement. The keyboard was great to use and has the added advantage of being backlit, while the clickpad is a decent size. Looks-wise, there is not much at all to differentiate the latest Chronos with its predecessor - this is because most of the changes have happened under the hood.
Battery on the Chronos seems to be decent enough. Samsung is quoting a rather impressive 'up to eight hours'. While there was no way to test this on the CES show floor, if it matches this stat when we take it in the wild then this will be a decent laptop for all-day working. There's also JBL speakers on board if you fancy blasting out the tunes.
Get yourself connected
Given the relative thinness of the Samsung Series 7 Chronos – its 376 x 249.9 x 20.9mm which is thin but not as thin as the Series 7 Ultra which undercuts the width by some 50mm – you would think Samsung would scrimp on ports but on board is 2x USB 3.0 ports, 2x USB 2.0, HDMI and VGA. There's also a 720p integrated camera, situated at the top of the Chronos screen.
When it comes to boot up times, Samsung is quoting a very impressive 10 seconds, which is definitely decent. And it takes only two seconds to wake the machine from its slumber. We were also impressed with the speed we could navigate through Windows 8 and its many apps. The Chronos is definitely no slouch when it comes to tackling myriad tasks.
There is a lot to like with the new Chronos laptop. Although it doesn't have the thinness of an Ultrabook, there is so much power here that you will be tempted to ditch the desktop for what is a undeniably sleek device.
Yes, it's a MacBook Pro lookalike, but the Chronos has the power of touch at its disposal and also the might of Windows 8, which looks great on the laptop. Look out for it later in the year.
As of yet there's no Samsung Series 7 Chronos release date or pricing.
