As notebooks slim down, their svelte designs often come at the expense of upgradability. Samsung's announced its solution: the Notebook 7 spin, a fast-charging, 0.78-inch-thick convertible 2-in-1 notebook that enables you to add an SSD or more RAM after you've taken it home. The Notebook 7 spin starts at $799.99 and will be available at Best Buy stores, BestBuy.com and Samsung.com starting June 26.
The Notebook 7 spin will be sold in three models, starting with the 13.3-inch $799.99 version that offers a Core i5-6200U CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive. The 15.6-inch designs start with a Core i7-6500U processor, 12GB of RAM, 1TB of storage and an Nvidia GeForce 940MX graphics card for $999.99, while the $1,199.99 top-of-the-line 15.6-inch model packs the same Core i7 CPU, 16GB of RAM and both a 1TB hard drive and a 128GB SSD.
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But if your workload gets more demanding, Samsung's designed the Notebook 7 spin so you can upgrade the RAM (to a maximum of 32GB) yourself in order to do more at once. Users looking to make applications and content load faster can add an SSD to the entry-level versions of the 13.3-inch and 15.6-inch models, though Samsung recommends that a professional install that part. Samsung hasn't revealed how exactly these installations will work, but we look forward to finding out.
And if you've ever been frustrated by how long it takes a laptop's battery to refuel, Samsung claims its fast charging technology is here to save the day for the Notebook 7 spin. The convertible should gain two hours of battery life after only 20 minutes of charging, and reach 100 percent after either 90 minutes (for the 15.6-inch NoteBook 7) or 100 minutes (the 13.3-inch model).
All versions of the Notebook 7 spin offer a 1920 x 1080-pixel (Full HD) touch display that rotates into laptop, tent and tablet positions. Each model also offers a Video HDR mode that Samsung claims makes "content sharper, colors more vivid and textures truly pop," and "optimizes the video experience, so that every little detail comes to life."
While each version of the computer comes with a backlit keyboard, number-crunching spreadsheet masters will likely gravitate towards the 15.6-inch models that offer a number-pad not found on the 13.3-inch version.
Each model of the Notebook 7 spin packs an HDMI port, a microSD card reader, a USB 3.0 port, two USB 2.0 connections and a USB Type-C port that offers transfer speeds up to 5GBps, charging and 4K display-out with optional adapter.
We're looking forward to putting the Notebook 7 spin through our rigorous review process, so stay tuned to see how it holds up and how easy it is to upgrade.
