Determined to be the first company to announce new products ahead of the upcoming IFA trade show, Samsung has just unveiled an impressive range of premium laptops designed to compete with Apple’s MacBook Pro. The new Series 7 has a super-thin metallic chassis, incredibly bright display and a hybrid storage system designed to make a regular hard disk act like an SSD.

Express Cache, the combination of a standard 2.5in hard disk and NAND flash memory, is designed to speed up boot and application load times to near SSD levels, without a huge price premium. It will come as standard across the new range, adding 8GB of system-controlled flash storage to a traditional 750GB hard disk.

Samsung will be releasing three versions of the Series 7; the entry-level model will come equipped with an Intel Core i5-2430M processor running at 2.4GHz, 6GB of memory and integrated graphics. The mid-range system will use the same processor, but increase the amount of RAM to 8GB and add dedicated AMD graphics. The top-end version will use a much faster Core i7-2675QM, as well as the same memory and graphics configuration as the mid-range model.

Other stand-out features include an incredibly bright 300nit display; the 15.6in, 1,600x900 screen has a matt finish that makes a welcome change from the glossy finishes we’re used to seeing in consumer laptops. An increased colour gamut and high brightness should mean image quality is higher than most competing laptops, although there’s currently no option for a full 1080p panel.

With a backlit keyboard, slot-loading optical drive and an 8-cell battery which is apparently capable of nine hours away from the mains, the Series 7 certainly has a lot going for it. Whether it can do the impossible and beat Apple at its own game remains to be seen, at least until it goes on sale at the end of the year. Prices are expected to start from £800, with the high-end version reaching £1,000. We’ll be taking a closer look when review units become available after IFA.