So Samsung don’t believe in netbooks

Not so long ago Samsung stated that they didn’t see any money in the netbook market and it was merely damaging to their laptop business.

Having seen Asus and Acer steal a march in the market Samsung have quickly changed their tune.

Never a company to do things by halves the result of their toil is the stunning NC10.

Samsung have really hit the ground running with the NC10.

So we finally have our hands on one. Is it as good as everybody says? There’s only one way to find out. Read on!

First Impressions

To give honest first impressions on taking it out of the box is a little unfair as we have seen the NC10 on numerous occasions and have been keenly awaiting some hands on time.

Our review model is in glossy black and looks very classy indeed.  The NC10 has taken a bit of stick in some quarters for not being very pretty.  Beauty as they say is in the eye of the beholder and whilst we would have preferred a blue one it looks pretty damned smart to us.

Opening it up the glossy exterior finish gives way to a more sensible matt black.  The keyboard is 93% full size and seems of good quality.

The Nc10 is heavier than some of its 10″ rivals and it does sit right on the netbook format limit of 1.3kg.  In it’s defense you do get a 6 cell battery so it makes sense that it is a little heavier than some.  1.3Kg is still a very portable weight and you will be glad of the extra battery life it provides over its competitors.

The specification is de rigeur Intel Atom N270, 1Gb RAM 1024×600 display and a larger than most 160Gb Hard drive.  WIndows XP Home is standard and there is no Linux option.

The big difference between the NC10 and many similarly priced offerings is the 6 cell battery as standard.  Why all manufacturers can’t do this we just don’t understand.  Other than the possibility of more RAM pretty much the first upgrade any of us want to make to a netbook is a bigger battery.  Why not save us all the hassle and ship it with one in the first place?

The NC10 is well connected with 3 USB ports, VGA Out, Headphone and Mic sockets.  Network connectivity is courtesy of Bluetooth and Wifi of the 802.11b/g variety.

A 1.3 megapixel webcam is built in which does the job nicely.

Overall we have been very impressed with the Samsung NC10 in the short time we had together.  The 10.2 Inch backlit screen is of excellent quality and makes you forget it’s size after a while.  Likewise the keyboard is on par with that of the HP2140 and Compaq Mini 700.  The one advantage over those rivals is that the trackpad buttons live under the pad rather than to the left and right.  This will make it easier for standard laptop users to adapt to the micro format.

Last but not least is battery life.

The 6 cell battery pack has a claimed life of up to 8 hours.  We cannot imaging what you could do to make it last that long.  With the screen brightness turned right down however we did manage to squeeze five minutes under 6 hours out of it whilst doing some light surfing and watching some video.

It has been said that the NC10 looks remarkably like the MSI Wind which given the success of that machine should probably be taken as a compliment.  It is a fair point and they are difficult to tell apart at a glance.

Having been raving recently about the compaq mini 700 we can’t help feeling that for £20 more you gain an awful lot with the NC10.  Another 100GB of storage for starters and double the battery life.  True the Samsung isn’t nearly as pretty as the compaq but does that really matter?

Whilst we can still heartily recommend the compaq mini 700 as a great netbook the crown has to be passed to the NC10.

If you have around £300 to spend on your new toy then you really can’t do any better than picking up an NC10.