Samsung packs full-voltage CPU/GPU into a slim touch-screen laptop

With all the emphasis on superslim ultrabooks and ultrabooklike laptops, we hear less often lately about heftier laptops with full-power CPUs and discrete graphics cards. Samsung is a rare exception, with a new Series 7 Chronos laptop joining the thinner Series 7 Ultrabook version, both announced just before CES 2013.

Samsung calls the Series 7 Chronos a multimedia powerhouse, with quad-core Intel Core i-series CPUs, up to 16GB of RAM, and up to 1TB of storage, plus discrete AMD Radeon HD 8870 graphics. The 15.6-inch display has a full 1,920x1,080-pixel resolution, which is what we'd expect from a modern multimedia laptop.

The display is also a touch screen, something that's increasingly common in Windows 8 laptops, but seen more often in superslim ultrabooks than in 15-inch midsize laptops.

The Series 7 Chronos is only a bit thicker than a comparable ultrabook, at 20.9 millimeters, but it's also a bit on the hefty side, weighing 5.2 pounds. In comparison, the other new Samsung CES laptop, the 13-inch Series 7 Ultrabook, is 18.9mm thick and weighs 3.6 pounds. Keeping the sort-of-ultrabook vibe, the Series 7 Chronos lacks an optical drive, a feature omission that's common in smaller laptops, but something we're still getting used to in 15-inch models.

We don't have a release date or price for the Series 7 Chronos yet, but it's pretty basic and doesn't look like the sort of product you'd have to wait too long for.