This being my first netbook, I was unsure what to think about this machine. I bought it as an on-the-go Ubuntu running computer to lessen the time that my $2500 Mac laptop spends on the road.
The build quality is solid. I'm not worried about scratching or pieces falling off. The one spot that I'm a bit annoyed at as far as physical design is the mouse button. It rocks back and forth when clicking and feels a bit silly.
The keyboard is the real star of this computer. It's NOT full size, but it's big enough that it's hard to tell the difference. I'm not sure what "silver" does for cleanliness, but I'm sure it's great [as a buzzword]. I'm a Dvorak keyboard user, so it was important to me to find a netbook that has a standard keyboard layout with all square keys so that it can be rearranged. This machine is one of the few that I've seen that fits the bill, and it rearranged perfectly.
As far as Ubuntu goes, I think that a few updates need to be created before the user experience will be seamless, but it's not terrible. There is no trouble for experienced users. Wireless doesn't work out of the box. I had to compile a driver and get the driver to auto-load and unload on sleep. Sound has a small issue where the speakers don't shut off when headphones are plugged in, but there's a fix around for this. Finally, the display brightness is a bit of an issue. Brightness has to be set before the OS boots up and then can be adjusted in the OS. If the brightness is low when the OS boots, that's the highest brightness that it can achieve. The brightness, wireless, overclock, trackpad, and battery keys do not work. I don't see this as a big issue. Keep in mind that these things are just problems with Ubuntu running on the machine right now as of Ubuntu 8.10's release. I'm not changing my five star rating based on Ubuntu's problems.
I'm quite happy with my purchase of this computer, and I hope to get quite a lot of use out of it.Get more detail about Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook - 6 Cell Battery.
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