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On September 16th I purchased a black Samsung NC10 netbook from BestBuy, after discounts, for c$360 (with 2 year warranty), I’m very impressed with it and plan to keep it. I compared it with the HP mini 1030NR (c$230 refurbished with 90-day warranty) with a 16GB SSD and a white Samsung N120 (c$330). The NC10 will be used for note taking, web browsing, checking email, instant messenging, communicating via Skype, playing music and videos, and web site updating; it will supplement my main laptop and desktop computers.
I really liked the size and visual design of the HP but found it ran very hot and 16GB simply wasn’t big enough for what I needed; I didn’t like the position of the touchpad buttons; I found the screen viewing angles were not very good; the camera was simply unuseable; I also started getting software error messages after updating the system software to the latest versions; in addition, it would have cost another $80 to upgrade the warranty and at least $60 to get a 6-cell battery, which would have brought the price to around $370. I liked the N120 but didn’t like white and its overall size, so I decided to try the NC10.
I think the NC10 has a better screen than the N120 and the HP mini 1030NR, the keyboards are about the same (excellent), it runs very cool, and it is very responsive. I’ve had no issues with the touchpad and find it very easy to use. My NC10 came with a Western Digital 160GB hard drive and 1GB RAM (Samsung PC6400 6-6-6); since I already had a 2GB PC6400 6-6-6 SODIMM, I replaced the 1GB with 2GB and set the virtual memory to 0 (because of shutdown problems, changed to System managed size (system sets to 2GB). Added an external USB-connected LG DVD drive (GE20LU10), CopytoDVD, DVD Shrink, DVD Decrypter, and PowerDVD.
I set up the 160GB Western Digital hard drive with 6GB (for recovery, hidden), 30GB (C drive for OS and programs) and 113GB (D drive for data) partitions. The 30GB OS and program partition enables me to reinstall the OS and programs without affecting my data files (which I’ve already found useful). The 6GB hidden recovery partition will enable me to restore the PC to its initial factory status by pressing F4 during Boot up (F4 starts the Samsung Recovery Solution III program which can be used to restore the C drive to its initial or a backup state). I then installed all the XP and Samsung updates, Internet Explorer 8, Avast Anti-Virus, Skype, Advanced SystemCare, SmartDefrag, FreshDiagnose, OpenOffice 3.1, Antidote, WinDLG, Acronis True Image, K-Lite Codec Pack, K-Lite Video Conversion Pack, Media Player Classic – Home Cinema, KMPlayer, VLC media player, IrfanView, FoxitReader, Quicktime Alternative, Realtime Alternative, SnagIt, MapEdit, Easy Graphic Converter, and Dreamweaver MX.
After everything was installed and running well I used the Samsung Recovery Solution III program to backup the C drive to my D drive. I’ve already had to use the backup!
All my programs, MP3 and AVI files are running smoothly, battery life is between 5-6 hours (mixture of browsing and playing videos), and overall the system is very responsive. Battery life: 6:31 to 6:52 hours using Battery Eater Pro set to “Reader test” history.txt (2GB RAM, Bluetooth off, screen auto-dimming off; monitor off, harddisk, sleep, hibernate: Never; Brightness: 3 bars; WiFi on; Avast running).
writedoc,
Welcome to the site and forum. In reading your post, it appears you’re off to a great start. Enjoy and good luck.dockehr
HI there writedoc. I think you win the mostly smartly dressed forum member award ;)! Unless anyone cares to prove otherwise lol!
Good to see the NC10 is still competitive almost a year after release, mine is still going strong and I feel no need to replace it!
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