2009-11-27

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


I purchased this capable, small netbook about a month ago--for travel, and as an "extra" computer for times when my wife and I are both in need of a computer at the same time. Since then I've used it daily.

One of my main concerns was ergonomic: would the keyboard feel familiar to me (I'm a fast touch typist). I find the keyboard to be comfortable, and as fast as I need. I like having a little cluster (lower right side) of arrow keys, as well as page up/ page down.

The screen, though just 10", is very, very bright, with excellent resolution--I used it mostly outdoors on my trip--and it's easy to work with, even on a bright day. I can't judge the processor speed (I'm not technical) but we watched video of the inauguration on it (no English coverage where we were) and it pulled in the video-cast of CNN no problem.

The battery life is double that of any laptop I've ever used--or more. If you charge this machine at night (it takes under an hour to fully charge) you can work on it all day without plugging it in.

This machine has two weaknesses that may or may not be serious, depending on where and how you use it. It's WiFi reception is slightly weaker than my Dell full-sized laptop--not a problem for many people, probably, but the difference is enough to make the machine unable to connect to the internet in my kithcen (where I like to work) at the very fringe of my other laptop's range. And on my trip I stayed in a place where I'm used to picking an unsecured network from the neighboring house: this laptop couldn't quite pull it in. At other sites (Starbuck's, etc.) it's just fine.

The second weakness is that the touchpad is too small for all the functions that it has. The "pinch" function is very useful when you want to enlarge a piece of a ms. you're working on--but on such a small touch pad it can be difficult to control. Even the scroll function on the right side of the touchpad (or, it can be moved to the bottom) can kick in annoyingly when you don't want it, because the pad is small. I've dealt with this issue by simply disabling the "pinch function" and sometimes the scroll function, and simply using the touch pad without any other features--and then it's fine.

I think the HP netbook has a slightly bigger feeling keyboard and bigger touch pad--but this machine has far better battery capacity. It's also heavier by perhaps 6-8 ounces because of the six-cell battery, but I found it a delight to carry around, compared to a full-sized laptop.

Finally, it seems to be very well constructed; and it's attractive with its glossy dark-blue finish. The (imitation?) leather carrying case is all you need to wipe off finger prints and shine it up. Some have complained about fan noise, but the fan seems to be extremely quiet, almost inaudible. It hasn't crashed, but I suspect that the feature that enables you to use one half the drive to keep a mirror image of your operating system and files would be useful, if it did crash. With the few caveats above, I'd recommend this machine.Get more detail about Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook - 6 Cell Battery.

2009-11-26

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


I'm very impressed with the NC-10. Set-up was easy. Got my Skype and Roboform loaded and up-graded the software and I was off to the races.
The blue color is very appealing and the size is perfect for a lap and easy chair. Battery life is impressive and it runs cool -- no hot thighs.
It's also very quiet and the large keyboard is a nice break from my iPhone.
The response is also a surprise - quick boot-up and strong WiFi connection.
If you're looking for a portable internet connection, this is your ticket.
Oh yes, 160GB give you a very nice closet. 1GB of RAM, $20 will get you 2. Highly Recommend.
Got my Kindle, iPhone and Sammy. All is well.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


I would start off to say that the Samsung NC10 is a fine computer. The only problem I have encounterd was the monitor screen. My first order the screen was scratched badly. I sent it back. Ordered another Samsung NC10, the screen on this one had dark shadows on it. So I sent it back, ordered another one Samsung NC10. The first thing I did was check the monitor screen, guess what? It to was scratched. So I gave up on this product until they get their quality control people back to work. I could not give any stars at this time. If the monitor screen had been normal, I would have given this product five stars. Anyone buying this product should check out the monitor screen carefully.Get more detail about Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook - 6 Cell Battery.

2009-11-25

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


I purchased this little guy about a month ago. I work in IT and do a lot of things with computers and networking. My previous laptop that was big and bulky, cost me about $1600. The NC10 does almost everything that old laptop did, with more disk space to do it. The only things it has trouble with are highly graphical games like EVE Online. The game runs fine, and you can even play most of it, but doing battle with more then one other ship is not recommended since the calculations will tax the CPU and GPU.

I have also upgraded it with the Crucial 2GB memory available here on Amazon. The memory works great, as usually expected from Crucial. As other posters have mentioned, it won't void your warranty, but any memory-related issues will not be under warranty (which makes sense).

I also installed the latest version of VMware Server on it, which runs as a service in the background, and have spun up several VMs including one to test Windows 7! I currently run Ubuntu Server Edition in a VM and you wouldn't even know it was running unless I told you (or you knew what process to look for).

The laptop also goes in to sleep mode quickly, and comes out of sleep lightning fast (sub 2sec). Hibernate also works quickly as the disk IO is very good. The disk in mine is a Toshiba MK1652GSX and has an average read speed of 52.5MB/s bursting to 101.8MB/s.

Samsung uses a few different disks, my previous one was a Fujitsu, which brings us to the next part of this....

A bit of a story. This is the second NC10 I've purchased. The first one I was carrying around with me on Superbowl Sunday. I was picking up some friends at their house and had to make some room in the back seat of my car. I placed the NC10 on the roof above the back seat door and moved things around. She sat down, I closed the door, walked to the drivers side, and drove away. The NC10 and its power supply were sitting on the roof for a little while, but fell off. We found the power supply, but not the NC10, so someone was happy for about 7 hours hehe. Anyway, it just goes to show how much I like this little thing, I bought it twice!

The only reason not to buy this, is if you just want to save money. If you have the money, buy this one, its worth it. It is a very well-built device and I trust it to give me years of service. I did a lot of research before deciding which netbook or laptop to purchase. My previous one was in my car, parked on the side of the road, when it got rear-ended on the interstate. My car was totaled, the NC10 got thrown around, but still ran fine up until I lost it :)
Get more detail about Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook - 6 Cell Battery.

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I've read every review on this product on Amazon before I made the decision. I don't want to list pros/cons here again. Just want to tell my experience.

This little baby is everything I want. Very fast, super quiet. I don't want a big laptop anymore. I want to tell my manager "Save your two thousand dollars, all I want is a netook, a samsung netook". My intended use of the netbook is for leisure activities, youtube, slingmedia, email, web surfing, and maybe(A remote distant maybe) some light office duty. Basically, a computer to distract me when I visit the bathroom. :-D

So far, I've installed and tried:
1. Google two finger scroll software and followed someone's online instruction which disables a whole bunch features of the finger pad. After that, it's natural, intuitive and with plenty room.
2. Mounted my desktop DVD/CD drive on the home network and use it to install office 2007. Everything works great, lightening fast.
3. Installed google pack, pctool doc and Norton are the things I want. I tried google earth. The motion and graph is nice and smooth.
4. Installed sling player. how nice it is to play video on this baby, smooth and crystal clear.
5. I'm very afraid of the blue blotch issue. So the first thing I tried is to download a screen test program. Tried everything there. The screen is nice, bright and defect free. Beautiful.
6. When I started initializing the machine, I zeroed out D drive and left everything for C. Who cares about backup and restore on this machine. This is my bathroom machine. If it's gone bad, I'll just install everything again.
7. Someone here complained the network connection. In my try-out, I got excellent connection. The wifi network wizard picks more networks in the neighborhood than my laptop and desktop(Installed PCI wifi g card).
8. Watching netflix instantly play, youtube, hulu, etc, excellent experience.
9. I thought the speaker might be weak as someone mentioned. But I guess that person is deaf or at least hearing damaged. Plenty volume for me.
10. After installed everything, I replaced the 1GB dimm with 2GB. I have to say honestly that I didn't notice any speedup. If you don't want to spend the extra 20 dollars, you might just as well save it, in my opinion.
11. The keyboard is plenty big. My typing is adjusted right away. Great.
12. This is a very well engineered machine. solid, quiet and engineers pay attention to details.

In all, this netbook is a natural for me. No single one thing uncomfortable to use.

Netbook is the future!!!

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2009-11-24

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


about a week after getting this netbook, i upgraded the ram to 2 gigs (but not sure if it really needs it). i've been using it nightly after work when i get home to check email and do some web surfing...all while on my couch and watching tv. i can go 4 to 5 nights without charging since it comes with a 6-cell battery standard, giving a rated 6+ hours usage before it has to be recharged. i've also purchased gps hardware and software for use on this netbook. it's fantastic to have a large 10" screen instead of a small 3" screen from a dedicated gps device. i haven't tried to use this as an ebook reader because i already own a dedicated ebook reader. but i'm sure it will serve that purpose as well. the size makes it very convenient when i have to tote it to starbucks or on one occasion, to a friends house to diagnose some computer network problems at his house. i'm very happy i bought this netbook.Get more detail about Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook - 6 Cell Battery.

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


UPDATE:

I recently bought a Microsoft Bluetooth wireless mouse for $39 at Frys Electronics for this device. This little mouse works well, and doesn't tie up any USB ports, which is a plus.

A minor gripe I have is when you insert an SD memory card, the card will stick out noticeably, and is not flush with the device. I wish the SD card would go in all the way, but since it doesn't, I don't like to keep the card inside.

I still have only the original 1GB of memory out of the box, and even after installing many, many programs, including Photoshop 7.0, this device still runs well on 1GB of memory. I'm debating whether I really need 2GB of memory at this point.

When you tweak the built-in speaker settings (example: "Living Room" "Powerful", "Bass", etc) this really makes a difference in sound quality both from the built-in external speakers, as well as using headphones. When using only the built-in external speakers, the sound volume is plenty loud enough after making said adjustments. By the way, I think I have the "Karaoke" setting at Zero, which may make a difference.

I ended up buying (yet another) carry case for this netbook. I got one made for DVD players (for screen size 7-10") which has shoulder straps, and is a bit thicker with extra pockets for more stuff (eg: packing my external DVD burner). Got this bag for around $30 from Frys Electronics. Don't remember the brand name at the moment. Go check out the DVD player section at Frys.

This Samsung netbook is really built well. I'm happy with this device. It's worth the extra cost compared to other current netbooks.



I bought the white version Samsung NC10 at a local store for $459.99 after reading all the rave reviews on this website. I also bought a white color LiteOn external DVD writer to go with the netbook for $90.00. I was almost going to buy this netbook through Amazon for a lower price (and in black color), but in the end, I couldn't get myself to buy a netbook sight unseen without having tried it out personally. A local retailer had a display Samsung NC10 model for me to play with and compare against other competing models. In the end, I chose the Samsung model over the Lenovo, Acer, and Asus models. What peeved me about some of the other models is the right shift key being "out of place" as so many others have pointed out. I am a fast typist at over 60 words per minute, so I can really appreciate a good keyboard, which I find the Samsung NC10 to have. Plus, I held the Samsung in my hands, and found it to be built very solid. This is truly built very well in terms of sturdiness, and I get a sense that this will hold up to future wear and tear with no problem. I also wanted to get the Samsung NC10 for its rave reviews on long battery life. Yes, I too have found this to be true. When I click on the battery icon, it shows over 6 hours of life when fully charged (at the Normal brightness setting, less life if at the Maximum brightness setting). The screen is very bright and sharp, and I can easily see the screen even if viewed off to the sides. Even better, I don't see any screen imperfection at all on my model, none of the "blotches" at bottom of screen as some have reported, nor any dead pixels, nor any scratches whatsoever. I'm a bit anal about having a clean screen, so I'm happy my screen is just fine right out of the box. I find the Samsung NC10 to be very responsive and quick, even with the standard 1GB of RAM memory. I was tempted to buy additional memory at the time of purchase at the store, but I was curious to see how responsive the device would be at 1GB of memory after I've installed all my various software. I have loaded lots of software, and just recently installed Photoshop 7.0 too. Surprisingly, Photoshop runs pretty quickly on this machine! Even my favorite Photoshop plugin filters such as NIK Efex 2.0, NIK Sharpener, Dfine, iCorrect, all run pretty quickly too. Additionally, I also have various image browsers loaded such as NikonView, BreezeBrowser, ACDSee, and these all work quickly without problems. I also have various compressed video files installed, such as Star Wars, etc, and videos appear to run pretty smoothly. Even sound quality is pretty decent too, given its small size. I can hear the volume pretty well on my machine, so I don't know why others are complaining their volume is too low. I'm actually using this netbook as a complete laptop, not just simply for surfing the internet. Regarding the internet, I have found the Samsung NC10 to work very well for suring the internet. Currently, I'm using my netbook with a Sprint Sierra wireless USB card, and I'm able to surf the internet anywhere where there is Sprint service...works great! I'm also able to surf the internet wirelessly using my Sprint Treo 755p (Palm PDA smartphone) along with PdaNet installed in my netbook. PdaNet is a 3rd party software developer from June Fabrics, and will turn my Treo 755p smartphone into a modem, thereby giving my netbook (or any laptop or desktop computer) internet access. I've also used the WiFi capability on my Samsung NC10, and this too works well for wireless internet. I've also installed AOL AIM instant messenger, and this works just fine. I recently installed Skype, but I haven't had a chance to try this out with anyone yet. What is my biggest gripe about the Samsung NC10? I would have to say the mousepad. It takes some getting used to the mousepad, as it's a bit too small, and plus the single button for doing both right and left clicks takes getting used to. I need to do some tweaking on the mousepad controls to make it more to my liking. If not for this minor gripe about the mousepad, I would give this netbook 5 stars instead of 4. If I could give 4 1/2 stars, I would probably do this too. My other minor gripe is that the screen lid is overly tight, and it requires both hands to open the laptop lid/cover. My left hand is holding down the bottom of the netbook and my right hand is opening the screen...that's how tight the screen lid is! Is this normal? As an aside, the other day, I inadvertently rotated the entire screen to the right side by accident. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how to get the screen back to right side up. I'm talking about the entire desktop screen got rotated to the side. I ended up calling my local retailer that sold me this netbook, and the salesperson told me to simultaneously press the Control, Alt, and Up arrow key in order to get the screen rotated back to the normal orientation. If you were to instead press the Right arrow key, the entire screen gets rotated to the right, and conversely, if you press the Left arrow key, the screen gets rotated to the left. This drove me nuts for 15 minutes trying to figure out how to un-do the screen rotation! By the way, I will qualify my computer experience by saying that I'm pretty computer saavy, having owned numerous desktop and laptop computers over the past 15 years. I can still remember my earliest laptop purchased 11 or 12 years ago that cost $6,000 for a Toshiba Tecra 700 model! Why did I purchase this particular Toshiba model? Because the next closest competing model by IBM cost $8,000 at the time! Wow, has prices come down over the years! Imagine buying a Samsung NC10 netbook for only $450.00 a decade ago! Even as recently as 3 years ago, I had purchased a Sony Vaio VGN-TX670p laptop (with 11" screen and built-in optical DVD disk drive) for over $2,500.00!! Would I do this again? Heck no! Granted the Sony VGN-TX670p laptop does include an optical disk drive built-in, and has a larger screen at 11", and is only 2 1/2 pounds, but the Sony model costs an arm and a leg, and a few fingers too, given today's prices! I actually compared my Samsung NC10 against my 3 year old Sony VGN-TX670p, and the size dimensions and weight are very similar. My Sony laptop has 1.5 GB of memory, but I swear the thing is pretty slow in processing speed, and sputters pretty often especially when multi-tasking. My new Samsung NC10 with only 1 GB of memory easily beats my 3 year old Sony model in speed in almost every respect. Granted, my Sony laptop is loaded down with software and is 3 years old (also running Windows XP), but the Sony laptop was always relatively slow in processing speed, even when it was brand new. Whereas, my Samsung NC10 is very speedy and responsive brand new out of the box. As a matter of fact, I would say that my Samsung NC10 is pretty much as responsive and fast as a late model 17.1" Toshiba Satellite laptop I recently bought from Circuit City 6 months ago for $929.00 on sale (also running Windows XP). You might ask, why do I have 3 different laptops? (Samsung, Sony, Toshiba). Because I keep the large Toshiba 17.1" laptop stationery at home (the monster weighs 9 pounds), my portable Sony 11" laptop stays at work, and my new Samsung NC10 is my "disposable" carry-around laptop to and from different locations. Even though I have many software programs loaded into my Samsung NC10 laptop, I intentionally have virtually no important or sensitive information installed (such as contacts, account numbers, names/addresses, etc). I intentionally keep my Samsung netbook free of all personal information just in case it were to get lost or stolen, which is something I'm always worried about. Plus at only $450, the netbook is not something that will break the bank and can pretty easily be replaced quickly. Conversely, both my Sony and Toshiba laptops have all my sensitive information loaded, and this would cause me grief if it were to be lost or stolen, hence I don't like to carry around these particular laptops due to personal information contained within. Lastly, the included Samsung case/cover is pretty much nearly useless. I have a hard time even slipping the Samsung netbook into the included case/cover because it's such a tight fit. I ended up buying a CaseLogic 10" carry case (with carry handles) for about $30 from a local store, and this works fine, although I wish it also had shoulder straps. I'm considering buying an extra battery (white color), does anyone know where I can order one for the Samsung NC10? Is it even available?




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