Shop For Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook - 6 Cell Battery

After buying and returning three Asus 1000HA units, I purchased the Samsung NC10. I purchased my first and only NC10 unit a few weeks ago - it's definitely been a great netbook choice. The problems I had with the 1000HA (crackly speakers, loose housing around battery) do not exist with the NC10. Features I especially like about the NC10:

Battery life - I have reached as much as 9 hours and 20 minutes when fully charged (9 is an extreme, more routinely I get about 7 hours and 30 minutes)
Lightweight - ultra portable
Slim profile (fits easily in my tote)
Sturdy build, great overall feel
Bluetooth - though I still don't know what I'd use it for
Easy memory upgrade (did it myself)
Keyboard a great size/layout

For those who have the NC10 and are experiencing jerky video play, try this: create a new user (mine is called "movies") that you'll use only for watching videos. Disable as much programming as you can on that user profile. I did this on my NC10 and now I can watch hulu.com without any problems. If try to watch videos with my other user account, I experience the jerkiness. I also figured out how to share the c drive of my desktop PC on my home network so not having an internal disc drive on the netbook is no longer a problem.
Get more detail about Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook - 6 Cell Battery.

Purchase Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook - 6 Cell Battery

This is an actual laptop with 1.6 GHz processor, not a retarded machine for "light word processing, emailing and web browsing" like the laptop companies advertise it. They are just afraid that people will buy netbooks instead of the overpriced portable laptops and they are right! I've seen quite a few reviews from computer "professionals" that just repeat mindlessly the official advertisement that netbook can't perform like a laptop. Obviously those never had a netbook and most netbook owners will disagree completely with them. The Intel Atom processor of NC10 has hyperthreading - the processor splits in two virtual processors during calculation - which increases the speed. This processor will beat in speed any old 1.6 GHz processor without hyperthreading so don't believe it can't run serious programs. I run numerical/symbolic math software on it: Mathematica, Maple, Matlab and it works just like my desktop or my presario laptop.

Main pros:
* 6 cell battery with 6-8 hours lifetime and it doesn't look ugly like some others
* bright crisp screen
* big comfortable keyboard, easy to touch-type on it
* completely adequate speed for 95% of the users
* has bluetooth
* very silent fan
* excellent Samsung customer service. I am talking from experience - if a repair is needed they give you a 'transaction number'. You go with your netbook and that number to UPS store and they do the packing for you and send it to the Samsung repair facility with 2-days Air completely free.
* excellent support forum at sammynetbook dot com where you will find lots of valuable information to resolve problems or improve performance of your Sammy

Cons (all with workaround):
* touchpad is small vertically. Solution: Enable the momentum function in the NC10 trackpad settings and disable the pinch function, vertical, horizontal and hyral scrolling. The momentum makes the pointer glide "by inertia" after you flick the trackpad so you can cover bigger distance with less effort. For the scrolling, I downloaded a modded synaptics driver that lets me do two-finger scroll like on Mac's. If you can't do that, download and install a free program TwoFingerScroll that will allow you to scroll by dragging two fingers up and down like on Macs.

* speakers are weak. Solution (under Windows XP with the original Samsung software installed):
go to control panel -> sound devices -> realtek
uncheck the karaoke voice cancellation if it's on
the karaoke has to be at zero level
go to the equalizer and put all frequencies on the maximum

* some hard drives are noisy when parking the head - some antivirus programs cause that every 5 seconds and it can get really annoying. The sound is like popping a bubble or breaking a small guitar string. NC10s come with several types of drives, the noisy type is usually Fujitsu. Solution: send it to Samsung for repair and tell them you want a quiet hard drive. All the info on your hard drive will be lost so either do that from the very beginning when there's not much of new info or back the drive up.

* the glossy lid shows fingerprints easily. Solution: don't touch it on the lid, just on the periphery OR buy a WHITE NC10, it doesn't show fingerprints.

Keep in mind the WHITE NC10 is not as attractive or 'expensive looking' as they say. If this color is 'expensive' so is my toilet bowl LOL First of all, it's not snow-white like MacBooks but a DULL white+grey mixture. Second, I've had both the blue NC10 with the black keyboard and the white NC10 with the grey keyboard and definitely think the black keyboard with the contrast white symbols on it is MORE visible in low light than the grey keyboard with the pale grey symbols on it. So the public opinion turns out wrong again ...

I find the design of Lenovo S10 more attractive - it's slimmer, more rectangular, screen borders are narrower than Samsung NC10. The deal breaker is that Lenovo S10 has a noisy fan that kicks on and off all the time and its 3-cell battery is weak - 2-3 hours at most. The 6-cell battery is about 6 hours but it looks like an ugly tumor protruding from the back and kills the nice design that S10 has with the 3 cell battery. Get more detail about Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook - 6 Cell Battery.

Order Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook - 6 Cell Battery

This is my first Netbook, although I have worked with "portable" computers since they were the size of, designed like, and weighed as much as a mechanics tool box.

I have been using it exclusively now for about two weeks and I couldn't be happier. It is very peppy, the keyboard is exceptionally comfortable and it is portable enough to stick in my hydro-pack for those days I feel like working in the great beyond. The battery lasts for the entire day+ as long as I shut the lid when I am not engaged or I'm not wired to an external drive that sucks power.

The only draw backs are so minimal that they are only worthy of mention in that there is an easy solution. The touchpad is small and takes some getting use to, but that is easily eliminated by using a mouse and turning the touchpad off (Function/F10). The screen is small but headers and task bars and be easy toggled on/off (F11), as was pointed out to me by another reviewer. The speakers do leave something to be desired, but they will do in a pinch. The solution however is a good Bluetooth headset, as the built-in Bluetooth offers easy paring with several devices. Partitioning the harddrive on initial set up was not something that I was familiar with so I let it do its own thing and the 50/50 split works well for me as it offers another level of organization (I like my ducks in a row, otherwise I get lost).

I can't offer a great technical review, as I am a computer user, both in my personal life and my professional life, not a technician. This machine is however worth looking into from a user level, bigger, more powerful, and with all the gadgets is not always the way to go. I just wanted a computer that I didn't have to share with anyone, that I could leave on my nightstand for insomia induced inspiration, take with me and have enough juice for the day without taking the power cord or crashing into people with a heavy, oversized bag, and I didn't have to break the bank for the system or necessary add-ons that are only "necessary" once a year(borrow them). I do have an external HDD where I keep my photos, music, memory intensive programs, and personal files, but that stays at home. And somewhere in the house there is an external CD/DVD if I really feel incline to watch a movie or need to download a new program.

If you work on the go there couldn't be a better solution than a Netbook and from my limited experience, Samsung has it figured out, This is a keeper and by all means an acceptable primary computer.



Get more detail about Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook - 6 Cell Battery.