Samsung NC10 10.2-inch Netbook (Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD, Windows XP Home, Blue)

Grab yourself a coffee, this is a long 'un (but detailed I hope).

I'd been looking to get a netbook for a while, but after purchasing the Asus 901 I was disapointed due to how underpowered it was. After searching around and waiting some more I stumbled across the NC10, and I've wanted one ever since.

The NC10 can handle everything I've thrown at it, from Notepad++ and GCC compilers (programming) to Photoshop (runs albiet slowly). The battery life is amazing and it runs better than my old 15.4" laptop thats about 3-4 years old.

The keyboard is perfect size, I have relatively large hands and fingers yet I could touch type after only 30 minutes, and I'm writing this review without issue. The only minor niggle for me is the left shift is larger than standard, while the right shift is smaller than the right (not normal), and the fact that the \ key has been moved from the left side to the right. I would be supprised if this affected many people but being a programmer and Linux user it gets a bit confusing at times.

On to Linux - this machine runs Ubuntu 8.10 like a dream, much smoother than XP, much nicer to look at too. Almost everything worked out of the box, the remainder was easy to setup, the only thing that still won't work is turning off the wlan.

XP is slightly laggy at the lowest clock speed (800MHz), so if you are trying to keep your machine alive be prepared to wait a little, Linux doesn't have this issue as you can turn on the "on-demand" option to run at whatever speed is needed.

As for screen size, its perfectly adequate although some applications on XP are hard to use as their OK/Apply/Cancel buttons are off screen; again Linux doesn't have this problem.

The touchpad is fine to use, the edges are a bit hard to determine but if you by a good leather book-style case that'll mark the edges fine.

The wireless is more powerful than my powerhouse PC and can pick up many networks which that can't (due to the PC having an ariel not a radial signal), its fast and reliable.

A word of warning, some people have found that turning on their NC10 for the first time enables the numlock, I too had the same problem and you'll find yourself scratching your head over the issue when entering a password or something similar. To disable the numlock press fn + F11

Easthetically, the blue colour is very nice, its a dark blue. I would suggest shopping around to see if you can talk some nice sales person into showing you a blue model, just to make sure.

I have no problem with carrying this around, its light and compact, very portable and I've already done work on the bus journey home.

The build quality is very good, everything seems sturdy and unlike most netbooks, a firm tap on the back of the screen won't send ripples over the screen, so it should be harder to break the LCD. The keys are nice to use and the touchpad is a nice surface. You can't turn the power on without the screen being opened (the power button is on the side) so theres no worries of accidentally turning it on when travelling. Finally the hinges are very well made, my last laptop after a couple of years cracked at the hinges, they looked weak when I purchased it and it turned out to be true, the hinges on this are big and sturdy so I shouldn't expect they would crack as soon.

Finally, don't upgrade the RAM, the tiny bit of speed you'll get is hardly worth the money, instead invest the same money into the nice leather case I suggested. I got mine from eBay for £21 and its fantastic, the brand is Ultimate Addons if anyone is interested.

Yes Netbooks, only been around a year or so but already a huge market with mature products such as this NC10. If you, like me have read all you can read on Netbooks, then you will know that the NC10 is the best of the 10" netbooks around. Having used a few and ended up buying a blue NC10, I can confirm that it is.

The reasons are simply the spec (bluetooth, 160gb disk and 6 cell battery), the keyboard (almost full size), and the life of the battery (I can get 6 hours regularly with normal use).

However, I can't leave it there without mentioning something very important that is missing from most reviews of Netbooks. This is called a 'netbook' for a reason. Do not make the same mistake as me and equate this with a laptop. It simply cannot compete on 2 main counts. Processing power and screen.

A typical laptop these days has an up to date CPU such as a Core2 Duo or similar. A netbook has an Intel Atom which is a VERY underpowered CPU. Even when upgraded to 2GB RAM this will be a very slow PC. Don't expect to do anything except emails, internet browsing, image viewing and basic office apps. And one at a time too, don't try to run two big apps together as it struggles. Yes, but a couple of years ago, an expensive ultra-portable laptop such as a Fujitsu P7000 or Sony TX was running with a Pentium M, also underpowered to save battery life, right? Yes, but that brings me onto the second BIG netbook limitation:

The screen. This has a 10.6" display running 1024x600. Yes, you read that right, Netbooks run WSVGA, not even XGA resolution. A P7000 or Sony TX has WXGA, 1280x768, which is much more real estate, over 37% more if you want to be pedantic. All this means much less scrolling, which is not very easy on the NC10s touchpad, even with the scroll bar. Editing docs and especially spreadsheets with large toolbars or ribbons is very frustrating. Some programs I tried needed XGA and therefore didn't work at all.

As long as you are aware that this, like all netbooks, has these limitations then this is an excellent buy. It's an occasional PC, not a mobile workhorse, unless your work is writing a few emails and browsing the web with a bit of skype!

Blue looks fantastic too. I upgraded to 2GB RAM but frankly it didn't improve performance much, it is still a slow PC. Great battery life though!

Ordered it from amazon and paid for evening delivery.

Wonderful out of box, works well, relatively user friendly, and I like the samsung recovery III that creates mirror images of your hard drive so that data can be recovered in the event of a crash.

Screen was small (downgrading from a 17' sony VAIO) but was brighter than my former £1200 VAIO.

Webcam also works better than the sony inbuilt webcam, but alarm bells started ringing when I realised that this was the ONLY laptop that I have ever seen with a webcam but no warning light. Ie, you could be broadcasting webcam and not realise that you are on webcam as there is no warning light beside the camera like what most other laptops have.

Word processing is a slight pain as you can see very small area of the document. Fortunately, graphics card can support a large external screen. I managed to stick a sony 19 inch screen or a dell 19 inch screen onto it and its as good as any desktop, as long as I dont try to play some 3D game.

But overall, I am happy that I waited and got this instead of the eeepc 1000 which I had tried and found very disappointing.