Samsung NC10

...from these with a 9" Samsung with an external keyboard that eventually just drove me nuts. I'd settled for a larger screened Dell (a massive 13.3" screen) but after 13 months of successful and happy operation the GPU decided that it couldn't handle being so warm for so many hours each day and decided to give up, leaving me with no way to use my otherwise functioning laptop.


Swift action was required as I travel a lot ...
...seen a shiny looking black Samsung NC-10 whilst out shopping and thought how nice it looked. A few weeks further on I saw a shiny blue one and spent rather too long looking at it, the seed was sown in my mind but I was determined to resist buying a new shiny thing, I didn't need another laptop. Then of course my Dell stopped working, giving me a perfect excuse to get straight on the net to order a blue NC-10.


My previous Samsung ... more

I've not had the highest success rate with small laptops. I dropped my 10" Vaio, shattering the screen, it's replacement got stolen and I followed on from these with a 9" Samsung with an external keyboard that eventually just drove me nuts. I'd settled for a larger screened Dell (a massive 13.3" screen) but after 13 months of successful and happy operation the GPU decided that it couldn't handle being so warm for so many hours each day and decided to give up, leaving me with no way to use my otherwise functioning laptop.

Swift action was required as I travel a lot and really really need a little laptop (slightly overstating the need I suppose, but I do go quite mad without one).

The previous month I had seen a shiny looking black Samsung NC-10 whilst out shopping and thought how nice it looked. A few weeks further on I saw a shiny blue one and spent rather too long looking at it, the seed was sown in my mind but I was determined to resist buying a new shiny thing, I didn't need another laptop. Then of course my Dell stopped working, giving me a perfect excuse to get straight on the net to order a blue NC-10.

My previous Samsung laptop experience had been a largely positive one, a nice Q1 that eventually just proved to be impractical because it was just too small and required an external keyboard. It still works and permforms surprisingly well given it's low spec, so I wasn't worried about buying another small Samsung laptop.

The Specs and features

Many small netbooks come bundled with a Linux operating system, usually Ubuntu. I'm no geek (alright, a little bit), but I'm more than comfortable with Linux as I have used it almost every day of my IT career. I always kind of liked Windows though, so wasn't disappointed that the NC-10 comes bundled with Windows XP. I wasn't going to leave it with XP installed anyway, but more of that later.

I'm going to shamelessly cut and paste the rest of the specs here, then discuss how they effect the performance.

Processor Intel® Atom™ processor N270 (1.6GHz, 533MHz, 512KB, 2.5W)
System Memory 1GB (DDR2 / 1GB x 1)
Display LCD 10.2" WSVGA (1024 x 600) LED Anti-Glare Display
Graphic Graphic Memory Intel® 945GSE 128MB Integrated Graphics
Graphic Processor Intel® 945GSE (Integrated Graphics)
Multimedia Sound HD (High Definition) Audio
Speaker 2W Stereo Speaker (1W x 2)
Integrated Camera 1.3 Mega Pixel integrated digital motion camera
Storage HDD 160GB (5400 rpm S-ATA)
Wired Ethernet LAN 10/100 LAN
Wireless LAN Atheros 802.11b.g
Bluetooth Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR
I/O Port VGA Yes
Headphone-out
Microphone-in
Internal Mic Yes
USB 3 x USB 2.0
Multi Card Slot 3-in-1 (SD, SDHC, MMC)
Input Keyboard Type 84 Key with Silver Nano technology (Anti-Bacterial Keyboard)
Standard Battery 6 Cell
Physical Dimension (W x D x H mm) 261 x 185.5 x 30.3mm
Weight, include Standard Battery (kg) 1.33kg

Much of this is standard stuff for a netbook, the processor is the same as you'll find in current models, the 1GB of memory is becoming more common now too.

The display is not the shiny type that I'm used to, but it doesn't really make much difference to my life other than smudges and marks aren't quite as visible and I get less reflection in bright light. The brightness of the display is quite remarkable, I rarely have it more than 50% of the available brightness, it's simply TOO bright to have it set to the maximum.

Being a tiny netbook the graphics are limited, not a problem for the kinds of games I play and not a problem for watching movies.

Another negative for many people is the lack of an optical drive. This is a sacrifice I'm willing to make, but if you're going to use this as your main machine you may have to invest in an external drive.

The speakers are a bit weak, but I expect that on a machine of this stature. Just plug in some headphones and things improve a lot. With the inbuilt microphone you can make all the Skype calls you want without any additional hardware, the built in webcam provides a good image too if you want to make video calls.

One thing I do miss is an HDMI output, but again I realise I'm spending small money on a small machine, so I can't have everything. The VGA output is there though, if you want to attach the computer to an external monitor.

Connectivity is provided via a standard LAN port, wireless internet and bluetooth. I never have much need for bluetooth so haven't tested it. I can report that the wireless is excellent though, not quite as good as my Dell XPS which benefits from a larger aerial, but still better than most laptops I've tried.

Other goodies include 3 USB ports, a good number to have and an SD/SDHC/MMC card reader. I only use SD/SDHC so that works great for me.

With a 160GB hard drive I have enough space to store some movies and also keep my photos on my travels.

The final feature I will mention here is the battery. 3 cell batteries are common for netbooks, but the NC-10 comes with a 6 cell that allows me to confidently roam without my charger for hours at a time. I've been able to squeeze over 5 hours from the battery whilst using a wireless connection, that still left some spare capacity. The power management options help this, the screen dims when left for a little while and the CPU is designed to be low voltage, but even so the battery life is very impressive.

Styling

I personally find most netbooks to be ugly little things, something always seems wrong. The Dell mini has a strange hole under the screen, the Acer's look dinstinctly cheap and the others just seem to waste space around the screen with needless plastic. The NC-10 may be a tiny bit bigger than most of these and I'm sure that gives the Samsung design team more scope.

The look and feel of the NC-10 is certainly impressive. The lid is shiny, a nice metal stripe flows around the edges, even the lights are a nice blue colour (green or orange for the power supply), lined up on the front left edge to tell you when things are switched on. The power button itself is located in the barrel of the hinge for the lid and is also lit a nice bright blue, this choice of location is my only concern with the design however, I have accidently hit the button whilst moving the machine off my lap and it's has shutdown. I've now changed the option that makes it do that :-)

Even the power supply is smaller, it has a nice long cable but the actual transformer is small, so it won't take up more room in your bag than the NC-10 itself.

The keyboard is a very comfortable size, I don't mistype much (if I do it's my own fault, not the keyboard's). A common complaint is that the touchpad is too small, it is a little on the short side and I stray into the scrollbar area sometimes, but you get used to it.

The build quality is also excellent, better than my Dell was. No creaking parts or misaligned hinges here, everything feels solid and I never feel scared to really bash on the keys or travel with it in my backpack.

Upgrades

When my NC-10 arrived I took the memory out and replaced it with the maximum 2GB. I also upgraded it to Vista, not something that currently comes as standard with netbooks.

The Vista upgrade was quite painless, a few drivers had to be reinstalled from manufacturers websites but it was finished quite quickly. I was expecting the performance to be quite bad with Vista running, but I'm happily typing away now writing this review with multiple browser windows, Skype, MSN, a movie playing and it also runs Vista Aero with the glass feature enabled. The Windows Experience Rating is a mere 2.6, but that's not so bad in my opinion, if I wanted a gaming machine I wouldn't be buying a netbook.

I'm sure lots of people would be horrified at the thought of 'upgrading' to Vista, but it works for me and I'm happy.

Summary

For me this has been a great purchase, I'm almost glad that my Dell broke. I now have a smaller laptop with which to travel with. It looks nice, performs well and runs Vista. I wouldn't ask for much more. The cheapest prices are a little over £300, a bargain.

(also posted on dooyoo)
 

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