Samsung NP700Z5A-S01US Vs NP700Z5A-S02US review

Samsung's NP7000 series release has some good laptops - Two of these are the NP700Z5A-S01US and the Samsung NP700Z5A-S02US.


Both these notebooks are identical in specifications. Both of these come with Intel Core i7-2675QM, the high end quad core processor clocked at 2.2 GHz. The notebooks are thin and light made with aluminum body and gives a run for money to the more popular MAC notebooks from Apple - at a substantially low prices. While a similar configuration from Apple's MAC will cost north of  $2000, Samsung have these just above $1000.

While the NP700Z5A-S01US is priced at $1299 the Samsung NP700Z5A-S02US is priced slightly lower at $1149. Expect the prices to go down a bit when deals start pouring in and the Black Friday nears.



The only difference we found between these two notebooks is the DDR3 memory. While the lower priced NP700Z5A-S02US comes with 6 GB memory the bigger brother NP700Z5A-S01US comes with a whopping 8 GB of memory.

The two notebooks come with two USB 3.0 ports in addition to HDMI port. These two should set it apart from the entry level notebooks available in the market. Notice that Apple's MAC is still lethargic in adoption of the new technologies. Even there $2000 plus notebooks do not have the HDMI or the USB 3.0 in them. They are over priced and over hyped and have little value except the beautiful slim looks.

These two models come with SSD ( Solid State Device) storage in addition to the Hard Drive. The Solid State Drive has some inherent advantages. The SSD is faster if these are hooked directly to the system - they provide speedier boot time. The SSD also acts as a cache between the hard drive and the system providing further increase in the speed boost. The SSD is however welded directly to the motherboard and you can not upgrade or increase its amount.

As Anandtech rightly put it - You get two of the NP700Z5A-S02US at the price of one MAC Book pro and the two USB 3.0 are the bonus that you do not have in the MAC Book Pro. The MAC Book Pro is often written as MBP in short.

Steve Jobs should reduce the prices in order to be competitive and pass on some of the profits it garner from its excessively priced gadgets. Till then Samsung's Aluminum Notebooks are not bad choices at all.