Customer Reviews

Samsung NC20 12.1-inch Mini-Laptop (VIA Nano U2250 1.3 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, Bluetooth, Windows XP Home, Black)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I've had my NC20 for about a month and it's a great little machine.

Firstly, delivery with Amazon was excellent. It arrived in 3 days from point of order, with super saver delivery.
Unfortunately the first one we got had an intermittent fault with the network adapter, however Amazon had a replacement with us within 2 days, so wasn't a problem at all.

As for the machine itself, it does everything I'd hoped for. It's small, compact and light, but the screen is a really great size to work on. More importantly the resolution (1280x800) is MUCH better than on 10" netbooks, no problems viewing webpages and no excessive scrolling.
We're using it daily, so it makes all the difference. I personally think 10" netbooks are just too small for regular use.

Speed wise, it's absolutely fine. It's no dual core desktop machine sure, but it's not supposed to be. It runs browsers and office programs with no issues. I can also output to my 37" TV and play Divxs with no issues at all too.
I've actually got a program called 'Labview' (a programming program)which is pretty demanding and it runs quicker on here than on much higher spec machines I've used it on.

One thing I've done however is ditch the McAfee software. This pretty much halved the boot up time and makes it run loads quicker under normal use. I'm sure it does its job, but it makes the machine run soooo much slower it's just too annoying.

Generally Im very pleased with it.
The only downside is the gloss finish on everything. Finger prints are left on the top and on the screen (if you were to accidentally touch it) and you find yourself constantly wiping them off. It'd like a black car... looks lovely when clean but gets dirty in the blink of an eye.

I find this little Netbook perfect for my needs. I wanted a PC to sit on the sofa with at night and surf/work on & this is ideal. First one was faulty but Amazon were 1st class and a replacement was gained painlessly. The screen size is just right for me. I think the 10" NC10 would have been a bit too small for me as the NC20 is still a very lightweight, compact PC. I have loaded Office 2007 Professional on and it is still flying. All in all highly recommended.

I was looking for a light weight notebook at an affordable price. The 10" netbooks were not suitable for me for few reasons (10" does not have a comfortable key board, too much scrolling, Intel Atom processor is not good for movies). So I was left with two choices. Dell Mini 12 or a long wait for Samsung NC20. I waited and waited for the black one. This is an excellent notebook. I call it a notebook since it is powerful enough to do little processor intensive tasks. The keyboard is very comfortable. 160GB hard disk is sufficient for me. When it fills up, i can replace it with a higher capacity hard disk if I want to which was not possible in Dell mini 12. The display is sharp and bright. The finish of the laptop is excellent. While watching movies the processor is not overloaded unlike atom. That gives a smooth movie experience on a comfortable screen size. The battery life is 4 hours plus is quite an advantage. I do not take the charger with me. That saves about half kilogram in weight. I do not know of any other laptop/netbook weighing less than 2 kilograms with 12" or more screen size with 4 hours battery life for less than £400. So I am quite happy about what I waited for. I was using an old notebook with its page-up/down keys on the top right hand side corner. In NC20 it is near the up/down arrow keys. This is more convenient but took a few days to adjust myself.

But there are few things that I would like to have differently.
1) The charger and its wires are heavy, messy and not flexible. It could have been better, thinner and more flexible. The charger output is 19V, 2.1A. That means about 40W. Its mains wire is as thick as that of a 1kW iron box. Remember that there is no space for this charger in the sleeve Samsung provides with NC20.
2) I would like to have a small pouch for charger and its wires.
3) It looks to me it is like taking long time to charge the battery to full (2 hours or more.)
4)The short right shift key and the position of backslash key near right shift key is a trouble at least at the beginning.
5) Samsung should have given an official upgrade to 2GB RAM.
6) Linux users will have some trouble with the display drivers. Openchrome is not stable yet for NC20. Jaunty does not install out of the box. WLAN also does not work out of the box in NC20. This is one reason I can not give top score to NC20.
7) Samsung could give an Ubuntu version of NC20. It would have saved me money as I an not windows user. I have all the free productivity/office tools in Ubuntu.
8) Sometimes it is difficult to feel the boundary of touch pad. A little different texture of the touch pad would have solved it. Until then they could fix the big Samsung sticker on the right hand side. It will act as guide for right handers like me.
9) The sleeve that comes with NC20 is very convenient and light. But it may not protect the netbook as it is very thin.
10) I think the processor (VIA Nano) heats up a little bit. There is a fan running. This is one disadvantage compared to Dell Mini 12 which I guess is fan-less.

When you boot up for the first time you have the option to change the partition sizes of the hard disk. Do so, as you can increase the C:\ drive significantly. This is your only opportunity to do so I understand.

I increased mine to the limit but still leaves room for the recovery drive. Worth doing for that extra space.

The notebook itself is a class little product, looks classy and is robust as well.

I could not handle the smaller notebooks, the screens are far too small for me to see clearly without effort over long medium/long periods but on this 12.1" notebook the screen is excellent, and when your looking at documents you can read them in one screen without having to scroll horizontally to read the right hand side of the page.

I wanted a notebook rather than a laptop because of the size but did not want to sacrifice readability/usability of the screen and keyboard. The Samsung does not sacrifice these basic needs, whereas on the smaller models that will certainly happen.

I've upgraded to 2GB, very simple but not sure if has changed much, the performance is still as good as before, no better that I can tell but prefer to have done so.

I've loaded the full package of Microsoft Office 2003 with no problem and it works fast with this processer.

I'm very happy, I think I have the best of both worlds with the NC20 - convenience of a notebook and the usability of a laptop (I've tried both notebooks and laptops). However, my 2 desktop PC's are my main working tools.

The NC20 is for relaxing in front of the tv on the sofa and travel. It does what I need it to do very well. Battery is excellent.

Very happy!

Bought this to use in a motor home and after a four week trip it has been excellent. As a non-tech person I found the machine so easy to set up and use. I doubled the memory and having newer done this before just followed the instructions in the very helpful user manual which is stored on the machine. We used the netbook for Internet access, and, having added Office Home for word processing, power point etc.

The wireless connection was A1, picking up all across Sweden and Denmark and adding a TV dongle we were able to pick up local TV. As other people have said the screen is a bit 'shiny' but that is pretty minor. Very good value for money, worked fine. Unlike the one poor review I have not found the machine to be appreciably slower than my PC at home.

I wanted a small screen laptop/netbook for general surfing and occasional business use which could be easily transported to replace my aging 15.4" Acer laptop.

I seriously concidered the NC10 but felt the screen was too small. The NC20 has an adequate size screen whilst retaining compactness for travel. I have owned the NC20 for 2 weeks.

Good Points:
Very Light, but feels well built. Compact. Large Key Keyboard. Good Battery Life (so far). Easy Set Up. Large HDD. Good Samsung Utilities. Good Sound Quality.

Bad Points:
Why do they supply this with only 1GB RAM (reason why 4 stars as you have to replace the RAM not add to it - I bought with the 2GB Upgrade). Shiny screen is very relective (same problem as on my old Laptop). Gloss outer lid shows up fingerprints.

One other point: I had difficulty finding a suitable carry case for a 12.1 screen however eventually bought the Belkin Neoprene Messenger Bag for Netbooks up to 12.1-Inch Jet/Cabernet, which is a snug fit but ideal

I replaced my old ACER laptop with this Samsung netbook, laptop was old and I travel regularly so wanted something very portable.

Was considering whether to replace with a laptop or netbook, heared about Samsung releasing the NC20 with 12" screen and already liked their NC10 and the only thing holding me back from buying that was the screen size. Opted to go for the NC20 and haven't been disappointed at all.

Good build quality, good battery life, nice keyboard (although some keys in funny positions takes some getting used to), excellent screen although very reflective as mentioned in other reviews.

Very few negatives as far as I am concerned, sure lid attracts fingerprints but it can be cleaned. If you want to do lots of image editing, edit movies or intensive stuff you should buy a higher spec laptop or desktop. Netbooks are designed for basic connectivty and be highly portable and this machine is perfect.

I upgraded mine to 2GB straight away and is a worthwhile upgrade 1 GB too little memory really.

It's fast, light, easy to set up and has a lovely screen. The screen is perfect size and looks fantastic.

I would definitely recommend it.

This is a great piece of kit, very quick, quiet and has a long battery life, excellant bright screen. Buy it.

My old laptop was dying. I don't need a great deal of processing power and the only thing that had bothered me about the old machine was the short battery life... so I went for the NC20.

It's great. It's much more portable, does everything I want it to - including playing DVD quality movies (720x576) with ease. The keyboard is a little cramped but not a bad compromise.

On a recent flight, it played two full films and then beat me at backgammon until we were about to land which makes it the best portable I've ever had.