Justinbart wrote:I did and so have others. If you read through the threads from the last two sales on the laptop you will see.

I have a feeling that this is the reason for them being sold as refurbs this cheap. Samsung is dumping the inventory.

I also have a problem with the video card as described above. I have to disable the nvidia display adapter in order to play games.

So, now that you have one, was the reduced price worth the hassle? I'm not afraid to work with a piece of hardware if I can overcome its "foibles" ... but is this laptop worth the trouble? Cause I do like the specs and think it would, in a perfect world, fulfill my laptop needs...

Thank for any input ... mahalo

Does this support WiDi 2.0 or just WiDi 1.0? WiDi 1.0 is limited to 720p.

This is a fantastic laptop, the only issue I have had with it is that my Fn + brightness up/down and other various Fn + functions stopped working. I tried installing the appropriate drivers and still, it doesn't work. Not a huge issue, just a minor inconvenience.

Does Samsung offer a docking station for this model?

[quote postid="4717833" user="jamilworm"]I got this computer last time and I'm super satisfied with the purchase. To address things that people have brought up:

1. I have experienced the dvd tray accidental opening. In the month I've had it the tray has opened about 3 or 4 times from picking up the computer. Mine hasn't been damaged yet, hopefully I'll just get used to where is a good place to grab and it will stop happening.


I like mine! Tip: Get a silver Sharpie and make a mark on the top of the deck above the DVD button so you can avoid that area. Use the marker to put your driver's license number in the battery cavity so you can recover it if stolen.

marklsmith wrote:If you are willing to give up a spare USB 2 port there are several Bluetooth adapters that will do. Make sure they have Windows 7 drivers either packaged or on a website.

Thank you very much!

I purchased this laptop off of ebay about a year ago, here's the review I wrote from Amazon.com:

Let me start with my first impressions as I unboxed it - WOW. *opening up the laptop* WOW!
It really is a gorgeous design, and the metal palm rest is really appreciated. The keyboard is nicely spaced and easy to type on, and the fact that it has a num-pad is a big big plus.
The screen is bright and clear - which is to be expected from Samsung - resolution could've been larger given the screen size, but 1366 x 768 is good enough and pretty standard nowadays.
The i7 processor is a powerhouse - it's looked at everything I've thrown at it so far and laughed. More than ample hard drive space, memory, etc.
USB 3.0 - big plus!
Onboard video card instead of integrated graphics means I can game with this machine - got a 6.4 out of 7.9 Windows Experience Index.

Now to those quirks I was talking about:

The computer took 45 minutes to start up the first time because it was busily installing all the Samsung Bloatware. The computer comes packed with semi-useful applications that will backup, restore, make and play dvds, help your computer save power, keep your battery alive longer; you name it.
While I guess a lot of these utilities may be useful (I will see) I'm most likely going to remove them.
Oh yes, and it comes with Norton - be sure to remove that first thing.

It took me longer to uninstall half of the crap they put on it than it did to start the thing up the first time.

You cannot change the power settings without doing some major tweaking. Let me clarify - Samsung has helpfully setup a power profile to help you maximize battery life and use as little power as possible when plugged in (marketed as earth friendly). However, this means that you are stuck with the predetermined options that Samsung has determined are best. The only way to modify these settings is by uninstalling some of the pre-installed Samsung Bloatware, namely the power management software. Frustrating to say the least, until you figure it out.

Otherwise, the case seems durable.
If you need a powerhouse laptop that will handle everything from web surfing to hard core gaming, I think this is your machine.

kingdomson121 wrote:This is a fantastic laptop, the only issue I have had with it is that my Fn + brightness up/down and other various Fn + functions stopped working. I tried installing the appropriate drivers and still, it doesn't work. Not a huge issue, just a minor inconvenience.

If you uninstalled the "Easy Display Manager" program (bloatware) this will happen. You can reinstall it easily enough using the Samsung Recovery software.

How do you buy the Squaretrade extended warranty? I did not see it as an option when I purchased it a few minutes ago. Thanks.

austinrhea wrote:How do you buy the Squaretrade extended warranty? I did not see it as an option when I purchased it a few minutes ago. Thanks.

You can go directly to squaretrade.com or click on the banner on woot.com

robguest wrote:This seems like a really nice laptop, but I am hesitant because I don't like the screen resolution. But maybe the problem is really the screen size. I was checking a bit and this is typical for a 15" screen. It seems that if you want at least 1600x900 you need to get a 17" screen.

As always, I must protest the 1366x768 resolution on any screen over 14". I understand this is the norm, but I encourage everyone to actually look at a 1366x768 15" laptop in a store first.

That said, higher resolution 15" laptops are available at a significantly higher cost, so I can't honestly say this is a bad deal - especially if your budget is tight.

salzone0816 wrote:nitpick much?

My thought too - especially about the backlit keyboard.

Looking at the last sale of these it seems like there was a pretty big delay in shipping. Anyone know what happened with that? Would be really stressful to have this arrive while I'm out of town for Thanksgiving.

hak426 wrote:Wrong! 1080p allows for much more space with palettes in Adobe Creative Suite Apps. Try doing video/web development in 720P every day. No thank you.

1080p with this class gpu is going to be a slideshow for modern games, unless you want to go to GTX level which on a laptop will add $500 to the price forget it.

billdoe wrote:Ahh, but this one is used as well. Refurbed is woot!speak for used.

Technically refurbed is used in that someone else used it before. But there is a big difference between refurbed and used on eBay. Warrenty on eBay? Reconditioned before sale on eBay? I think not.

If an electronic item is going to fail, it usually fails in the first few hours, so think of refurb as "pre-tested".

And this is why I hate Woot. I just bought this laptop on clearance from Best Buy about a month and a half ago for about $900. And now it's on Woot for $600. Granted it's refurbished, but still, I could have saved $300. Dammit Woot, why can't you ever work in my favor?

GT525M <--- Not suitable for "hardcore" gaming. At all. It's about 35% faster than the HD3000 integrated graphics in the chip, but that is not saying much. Watching 1080p videos, sure, absolutely, but you'll have to turn down pretty much everything to get playable settings. I've got a 540M in a laptop and it'll run Starcraft 2 pretty well, but it's still not much of a card. You don't get "good" portable cards until you get into the "hrm is this going to melt through my table?" territory with the 580Ms or ATI counterparts.

This is a weird laptop. It's a desktop replacement style laptop in terms of its nominal performance characteristics but the graphics card is awful. Great processor, terrible graphics card. Small screen considering its intended application, as well. What a weird set of parts to toss together and sell as a product, it's not especially coherent.

OSA718NYC wrote:1080 is useless on a laptop....
1080 only benefits on large screens exceeding 50"

Really? You must know nothing about computers.

agreed wrote:GT525M <--- Not suitable for "hardcore" gaming. At all. It's about 35% faster than the HD3000 integrated graphics in the chip, but that is not saying much. Watching 1080p videos, sure, absolutely, but you'll have to turn down pretty much everything to get playable settings. I've got a 540M in a laptop and it'll run Starcraft 2 pretty well, but it's still not much of a card. You don't get "good" portable cards until you get into the "hrm is this going to melt through my table?" territory with the 580Ms or ATI counterparts.

This is a weird laptop. It's a desktop replacement style laptop in terms of its nominal performance characteristics but the graphics card is awful. Great processor, terrible graphics card. Small screen considering its intended application, as well. What a weird set of parts to toss together and sell as a product, it's not especially coherent.

This is a Franken-puter ... Blu Ray player with only a 15" screen ... and a low res screen to boot ... but for a bargain hunter, not a bad place to go ... its portable enough being a 15" laptop, decent battery performance, and you can always HDMI it to a big tv and use the blue-ray player to enjoy all of your discs ...

qqqqqq582 wrote:Really? You must know nothing about computers.

1080 not useless, the resolution help with video editing and things required more pixel .. granted it can get pretty small ...

ill just hook up the laptop to a 22" monitor, plug in a keyboard mouse combo to one of the usb port on the laptop, and use it like a desktop ... 1080 isn't cheap though

agreed wrote:GT525M <--- Not suitable for "hardcore" gaming. At all. It's about 35% faster than the HD3000 integrated graphics in the chip, but that is not saying much. Watching 1080p videos, sure, absolutely, but you'll have to turn down pretty much everything to get playable settings. I've got a 540M in a laptop and it'll run Starcraft 2 pretty well, but it's still not much of a card. You don't get "good" portable cards until you get into the "hrm is this going to melt through my table?" territory with the 580Ms or ATI counterparts.

This is a weird laptop. It's a desktop replacement style laptop in terms of its nominal performance characteristics but the graphics card is awful. Great processor, terrible graphics card. Small screen considering its intended application, as well. What a weird set of parts to toss together and sell as a product, it's not especially coherent.

No,No,No, It's a VERY solid mid-range card, like I said I am playing SkyRim, Fallout:NV and Batman:Arkham Asylum on a 420m, a weaker card than this. BUT you do need to overclock to get some great performance.This should EASILY go to 12ghz texture fill.

Almost a perfect laptop for me, although who needs a disc drive anymore?

I just picked up a dual core acer netbook at target on sale for $200 last week that is a 10.1" screen and has the same resolution as this, that is pretty sad they couldnt beef up the resolution.

xXAaronXx wrote:Almost a perfect laptop for me, although who needs a disc drive anymore?

I just picked up a dual core acer netbook at target on sale for $200 last week that is a 10.1" screen and has the same resolution as this, that is pretty sad they couldnt beef up the resolution.

They can beef it up, but it would cost more
1366 x768 is standard resolution for 15" laptop screen in 16:9 ...

Bought it last time it was on Woot, CAN NOT beat the price for the features and performance. Saw a comparable i7 hp but with 17" at HHGreg on sale for 828.00. Go get it but that's hardly for the lap, if you catch my meanin'. This one is a great laptop - EXCEPT, I just can't get used to the "island" keyboard, at least not yet. Always seem to be 1 key pgg

Got this laptop last time it was on woot, specifically for a gaming machine that I can take with me. It's more powerful than my 3-year-old desktop.

It's extremely capable. I spent a night removing the bloatware and getting the computer up to speed, and since then, it's been great.

I'm playing Skyrim on this computer on Medium graphics settings.


I have run into the "too easy to open disc tray" issue, but I keep that in mind when picking up and storing the laptop, so it's not a dealbreaker for me.

Im in for one. Can't beat the price for this laptop, and good timing cuz my toshiba of 4 years just crapped out on me.

I may swap the Hard drive for a 7200, no need for much else.

Checked best buy and they had a exact specs match (Samsung Refurb) with a better casing for $899, originally $1099

Has anyone been able to change their payment method via Woot customer service? I chose PayPal for payment and Paypal was defaulted to the paypal credit card however Woot went directly to my bank account on this item! OUCH. Called Paypal, they blamed it on Woot's choices of not wanting to deal with Paypal's defaulted card choice. (??!!!??) Anyway...any help on this? I dont want to cancel, only change payment method. Any hope?
And yeah, I already sent my request to Service@woot.com

DennisWKam wrote:I just sent you a PM with some instructions on how to change the payment card. Please feel free to email us at service@woot.com or reply back to this PM if you have any questions.

Hi, maybe it hasnt refreshed yet but I have no PM's? Never mind...I got the PM ;)

Giving a non-full-HD laptop a Blu-ray player is like giving Helen Keller a Harvard scholarship.

jseleski wrote:So, are was safe from the Intel recall on this Laptop? Anyone know how to determine this?

Yes: Intel has said that this only effects channels 2 - 5 on sata. Most Laptops only use 2 sata channels. (SATA 0, SATA 1). This laptop does not have any external SATA ports, so you are safe there.

In other words, even if nothing was done about the recall, (which probably nothing was) it wouldn't matter. The recall more effects Desktops than laptops.

Exciting Woot!

I was in the market for a new laptop and after consulting our IT dept at work on this one, I didn't wait for Black Friday!

Now, how does everyone feel about adding $105 for a 2yr Square Trade warranty (after coupon THIRTY30 which takes off $30)?
I usually pass on extra warranties but I have never had a refurb before...

Just bought this after reading through the comments. I want to repartion/reformat and do a clean install of Windows- anyone know what I'll need to make a backup of before wiping it? It seems like it comes with a lot of bloatware/unnecessary programs, but I assume that some of them are more useful than others.

bluegryffin wrote:Hi, maybe it hasnt refreshed yet but I have no PM's? Never mind...I got the PM ;)

Hey!! I have to give a big "thumbs up" to Service@woot.com. Their people sent me an email and a PM on how to take care of my Paypal payment problem! They told me the procedure and it only took a matter of minutes for them to refund me and accept another form of payment. Paypal however is telling me 3-4 days for the refund to hit my Paypal account and then 3-4 days for that $ to get deposited to my bank account. NOT good news, wish they were as fast as WOOT! I'm impressed and will be buying here again, this is my 2nd major purchase

magicmanfk wrote:Just bought this after reading through the comments. I want to repartion/reformat and do a clean install of Windows- anyone know what I'll need to make a backup of before wiping it? It seems like it comes with a lot of bloatware/unnecessary programs, but I assume that some of them are more useful than others.

Check out the previous woot forum on the same computer: someone posted the step he took after receiving his computer and what to keep/delete...

Can someone give me some insight? I cant decide if i want to jump on this deal or save up and build a slightly more expensive desktop. The biggest tasks they will be handling is probably be D3/SWTOR/etc. Don't really need it for anything else besides that. Any advice will be appreciated.

In for one!

Man... It's KILLING ME. Nearly everything I want - processor, hard drive, bluray, graphics card... I've been looking at this ALL DAY, and I can't pull the trigger!!! That it's not max-ram, and has no bluetooth bothers me, but the keyboard layout actually bothers me more. Someone make this decision for me... Is this going to die or be obsolete in 3 months?

Does this one have a glossy screen or matte screen?

dovs wrote:Man... It's KILLING ME. Nearly everything I want - processor, hard drive, bluray, graphics card... I've been looking at this ALL DAY, and I can't pull the trigger!!! That it's not max-ram, and has no bluetooth bothers me, but the keyboard layout actually bothers me more. Someone make this decision for me... Is this going to die or be obsolete in 3 months?

im in the same boat ... but you can add bluetooth with an easy BT USB key .... and with probably two sticks of RAM, it has a 4 and a 2 so you can prob buy a matching 4 to upgrade it to 8 gig total ...

yeah, ive been on the fence about this one all day too, but i think its time to nut up and just make the plunge :-)