A Samsung NC10 Review from a Real Normal User

There are plenty of “professional” reviews out there on the internet involving hardcore lab tests and technical expertise. If you are looking for such a review then you have come to the wrong place! I am not a technical writer, I am not a professional journalist (pff it’s not that obvious is it!), but I have grown up with home computers and as an IT professional I like to think I have the capacity to get the most out of a little box of tricks like the NC10!

Build up
The first 10 or so posts on this site pretty much cover the initial difficulties of tracking down a black Samsung NC10 right now. Hopefully things will ease up and you’ll be able to jump into amazon etc and pick one up without having to worry (If you are looking to buy, check out these direct links to the different NC10 colours!). And if you are reading this a few months down the line then you will be wondering what all the fuss was about!

I was contemplating doing an “unboxing” but then I realised that I’m just not geeky enough to film myself opening a box – sorry guys! However I was geeky enough to take a few photos! Check out the gallery for some NC10 snaps!

First Impressions

• Very shiny! This made taking photos a little tricky as no one wants to see a reflection of my ugly boat in the photo!
• Compact and beautifully formed.
• Picks up finger prints easily – annoying but I can live with that!
• Keyboard seems the closest to a normal keyboard of any netbook Ive seen to date
• No printed instuction manual other than some standard Samsung instuctions on how to sit up straight when you type (I’m currently slouching like a trooper – my chiropractor won’t be impressed!)
• Carry sleeve doesn’t look all that flash!

Getting Started

This was very easy. It really required little thought and although I’d like to think I’m pretty tech savvy(!) I think no one will have any problems getting things going for the first time!

• Setup Windows
• Run the recovery backup routines
• Sign up to McAfee

Now Ive read mixed opinions about McAfee but I understand the new versions are much less resource hungry than they have been in the past. So I thought Id sign up to the free 90-day trial that comes with our new NC10s and see for myself. I will report back at the end of the 90 days and let you know whether I stick with it. Let us know your own NC10 AV stories! But I have to say performace has been pretty snappy so far so it’s not causing me any problems.

It must have taken maybe 30mins or so to get going from the first switch on? I wasn’t really paying attention at the time as I was uploading the photos I had just taken. It was that easy to get going!

Features

Trackpad:I think a common bugbear we’ll see is that the trackpad isnt ideal. As much as I want to say the NC10 is perfect I have to be honest and say I’m not a fan of the trackpad. Still, this is no show stopper! It is still totally usable and functions well, so you won’t be held back on the move. If you’ve shied away from learning keyboard shortcuts then now is the time to learn some. Even on your desktop you’ll find shortcuts will change the way you use your PC. And if all else fails – plug in a mouse! I attached my old intellimouse directly into the USB port, it recognised it instantly, and I was away!

That said, it is well worth a read of the manual and a play with the touchpad settings (this can be found under Control Panel->Mouse->Device Settings->Settings). With a little customisation I think the touchpad will be fine. After a week of practise I am now finding it much more comfortable to use but it’s just not as usable as a mouse – I don’t think that will be news to anyone!

Keyboard: One of the big reasons for going for a bigger 10 inch netbook was for the chance to have a more useful keyboard. What would be the point of having an operational PC but not ever wanting to use it as such? If a keyboard is not a priority then I’d suggest buying a mobile internet device (MID) instead. But I can honestly say, as I sit here typing out this review on my NC10, that the keyboard is fine to use. It’s not the same as a full size PC keyboard – that’s for sure, but the user experience is positive. The keys are large enough to hit and responsive enough to know you’ve hit them. All the right keys are there and there some extra functions too:

• Battery Capacity Indicator
• Switch to external monitor
• Back light on/off
• Volume on/off
• System Diagnosis
• WiFi on/off
• Touchpad on/off
• Volume Control
• Brightness Control

WiFi: I had no problems connecting to my WiFi network for the first time and it has been stable ever since. I think this is one thing which will provide a different experience for different people as your Access Point is going to be a significant variable. That said, my router is the “free” one supplied by my ISP so nothing special. After entering my WPA key I was connected and on the net straight away. I’ve had a couple of disconnects since then but nothing too painful. One of those disconnects was actually testing outside and down to the end of a long garden! Unsurprisingly at that point I did lose all signal – although I could still see my neighbours BT Home Hub so that suggests it was a problem with my router – not the Sammy!

Webcam: The webcam looked better than I expected although the screen grabs were nothing special. They looked clearly like they were webcam captures and not something you’d want to publish. But for MSN cam chats or quick uploads to YouTube the Webcam will be great!

Screen:Another problem with the smaller netbook is the necessarily small screen size. The NC10 makes the best of it though with a 1024 by 600 resolution allowing a perfectly acceptable horizontal view. This means that the vertical view is smaller than most will be used to but this is actually much less of a problem than I thought. This is where the touchpad “mouse wheel” functionality starts to come in handy during browsing. Aside from that, the screen is clear and bright (depending on your brightness settings!) and looked good outside (on a dull British autumn day!).

A question that I had asked in various places but struggled to get a sound answer was how well do netbooks work when connected to television? So yesterday I connected my NC10 to my TV via the VGA port. Fortunately this telly has a built in VGA in so hooking it up was very straightforward. Getting it up and running was fairly easy and just involved some tweaking of screen resolutions under “display properties” in Windows. The ultimate test was to sit back and watch this weeks Heroes on iPlayer using the hi-res stream connecting via WiFi. It worked fantastically! The NC10 can output to a second monitor at higher resolutions than its own screen, ideal if you wish to use it with another monitor when “docked”.

Practical Computing

So enough of the details, what is this thing actually like when it comes to running software? In general I find the Samsung NC10 very snappy and responsive, strangely even more so than my Quad Core desktop machine when it comes to light tasks. For general browsing I do recommend installing Chrome and ditching IE. Chrome proves to be much quicker in every respect, from simply loading up standard pages and as expected in online applications too.

It takes 27 seconds to boot to the windows front user selection screen and from there another 30 seconds to get Chrome started. I’ll be interested to see how that changes as I begin to load more software onto the machine. But for now I’m impressed by that start up time, it’s quicker than my desktop!

The Samsung NC10 to date has handled everything that I’ve thrown at it with very reasonable performance. I am fast getting the impression that this little netbook will be able to run everything that I need on the move and do it a solid fashion. However I am only part way through installing applications at this stage and there is plenty more to load on and only time will tell if my initial comments hold out! And all this without performing a 2gb NC10 Ram upgrade yet!

Final Thoughts

• Connectivity is fantastic operating at full wireless speeds
• Camera is good quality
• Good weight,
• Powerful yet cool and quiet
• The LEDs look cool, and that’s what really counts
• Keyboard is great, there are a couple of keys that feel out of place but you’ll get used to it quick enough
• Scrolling up and down isnt ideal with the trackpad, get learning all the keyboard shortcuts! Or plug in a mouse!
• Boots relatively quick

Over time I will be looking at more of these things in detail and sharing my tips on how to get the most from your netbook!

Now go buy an NC10!
Love it!

For more information, check out our NC10 area.

Click through below:

19V 2.1A Replacement Samsung NC10 & NC20 Lapto... £12.99	Samsung NC10-14GB 10.2-Inch Blue Netbook - Up to 8...
COOL BANANAS EVA Hardcover case in black with remo... £24.95	Samsung NC10-13GB 10.1-Inch Blue Netbook - Up to 6... $479.10
Samsung NC10 10.2-inch Netbook, Atom N270, 1.6GHz,... £235.00	Samsung NC10-14GBK 10.2-Inch Black Netbook - 6 Cel... $400.00

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