Samsung Series 7 700A3D : Review
The good: The attractive Samsung Series 7 offers a top-notch Windows 8 touch experience at an affordable price.
The bad: Samsung sacrificed performance to keep the price down, and a gesture recognition feature is best left ignored.
The bottom line: The Samsung Series 7 isn't the fastest, or the most fully featured midrange all-in-one, but casual PC users should consider it for its affordability and overall polish.
Samsung's tidy, new $1,099 Series 7 all-in-one mirrors others in its price range, offering a relatively frictionless entry point for those interested in a touch screen, Windows 8-based PC. A poorly implemented gesture control scheme is a minor sticking point, but given the price of this system, Samsung isn't asking much of a a premium for gesture input.
Among other 23-inch Windows 8 all-in-ones, the Samsung Series 7 is one of the most affordable, without sacrificing too much in terms of its core features. Other all-in-ones offer some more intriguing features if you're willing to spend just $100 or $200 more, but if your needs are simple, and/or if you have a hard budget limit, the Samsung Series 7 offers perfectly serviceable option.
The new Series 7 has a less daring look than the model Samsung debuted when it entered the U.S. desktop market in 2011, but it still looks better than most all-in-ones. Gone is the assymetrical base unit and flat-folding screen, replaced here by a swooping stand design and a screen that only reclines about 30 degrees. The more conservative tilt range will still provide some improved comfort when you want to use the system primarily via the touch screen, but it obviously prevents the new Series 7 from serving as a true tabletop computer.
Another casualty of the new unit is the Galaxy Tab-style touch environment that Samsung debuted in the previous model, made superfluous by Windows 8.
I suspect that few buyers of this PC will lament those changes. It wouldn't hurt for the display to recline a bit more, but otherwise, this is a solid touch-screen all-in-one. Samsung deserves particular credit for the responsiveness of the touch screen. This will be the tenth Windows 8 all-in-one that I've reviewed. While I don't have an objective method to test touch screen response, anecdotally, the Samsung Series 7 feels second only to the Dell XPS One 27.
Less successful is the Series 7's gesture input. It's similar to the the same gesture recognition from PointGrab which shipped in the Acer Aspire 7600U, but Samsung uses technology from a company called XTR3D instead. Either way, as with the Acer system, I found the gesture input unintuitive and worse, unresponsive.
Samsung includes a small card with five gesture commands on it, slotted into a plastic stand you can set up next to the system as a reminder. That's a useful touch, but it would also have been thoughtful for Samsung to surface the gesture application on either the Windows 8 touch interface, or at least with an icon on the desktop screen. Until you launch that application, you can't turn the gesture recognition function on, and the only way you can find it seems to be by searching.
Beyond the fact that Samsung obscures the application to launch gesture input (when it should really launch at startup), either the software or the camera isn't responsive enough to detect your movements very accurately. Some gestures, like side-to-side scrolling by sliding your outstretched palm from left to right, seem to work about 75-percent as well as they should. Others, like pushing your fist up to the camera to swap between the Windows desktop and the Windows 8 touch environment, never worked at all.
I'm not willing to write off gesture input entirely. If someone makes it natural, fast, and intuitive, I can see how all-in-one usability might benefit. Windows PC vendors, as always, are also desperate for a way to differentiate themselves. Gesture tech from PointGrab or some other company might even provide a non-awkward experience one day, but right now, either the tech isn't good enough to matter, or the vendors don't know how to implement it properly. Regardless, don't buy this system for the gesture input.
| Samsung Series 7 | Dell Inspiron One 2330 | Asus ET2300INTI | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | $1,099 | $1,199 | $1,299 |
| Display size/resolution | 23.6-inch, 1,920x1,080 touch screen | 23-inch, 1,920x1,080 touch screen | 23-inch, 1,920x1,080 touch screen |
| CPU | 2.9GHz Intel Core i5-3470T | 2.5GHz Intel Core i5 3330S | 3.0GHz Intel Core i5 3330 |
| Memory | 6GB 1,600MHz DDR3 SDRAM | 8GB 1,600MHz DDR3 SDRAM | 8GB 1,333MHz DDR3 SDRAM |
| Graphics | 32MB Intel HD Graphics 2500 | 32MB Intel HD Graphics 2500 | 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT630M |
| Hard drives | 1TB, 5,400rpm | 1TB, 7,200rpm | 1TB, 7,200rpm |
| Optical drive | dual-layer DVD burner | dual-layer DVD burner | dual-layer DVD burner |
| Networking | Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 4.0 | Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 4.0 | Gigabit Ethernet, 802.11b/g/n wireless, Bluetooth 4.0 |
| Operating system | Windows 8 (64-bit) | Windows 8 (64-bit) | Windows 8 (64-bit) |
It's easy to look at the Series 7 and see only shortcomings. It has a dual-core version of Intel's Core i5, where others use the full quad-core silicon. It only has 6GB of RAM, next to 8GB from its competitors. Samsung also went with a slower 5,400 rpm hard drive.
If those sacrifices bother you, the Dell Inspiron One 2330 costs just $100 more. That system also has a wider array of video and audio connectivity options, and it's generally faster than the Samsung Series 7, as you'll see in our charts below.
Despite all of that, I don't feel too let down by the Samsung. It has a more polished appearance than the Dell, and it also has better touch-screen input. Those things won't be important to everyone, but Samsung can at least claim it has a few benefits to offset the sacrifices to its core features.