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The NC10 is currently my top choice for a 10-12″ netbook/ultraportable. I need something with bluetooth, a high quality keyboard and preferably a 2.5″ SATA drive setup. A few questions-
1) The reviews are all great and I’ve read most of them. Are there any chronic problems people are having? I’ve browsed this and other forums and seen various issues, but no apparent show stoppers that seem to be prompting mass complaints or returns.
2) For those that have needed it, how is customer service? I’ve had such consistently awful experiences with HP that I wouldn’t buy another unless it’s through Costco, due to their concierge service. So, I’m curious to know how Samsung support is.
3) I have a 2.5″ Intel X-25M thanks to the employee purchase plan. It’s sitting in my desktop, getting little use as a gaming drive. I’ve seen the guide at laptopmag.com about swapping one in, so the hardware swap isn’t a big deal. What is the best way to setup a new drive? Is it as simple as using something like Acronis True Image like they say? Would it be better to do a fresh install to run faster? If so, what does Samsung include as far as Windows OS CDs, drivers, etc? I have an older USB 2.0 CD/RW drive if that would help, or maybe there’s a guide somewhere on how to do this from a USB memory stick, external USB drive or something?
Thanks in advance-
Darren
1. Some people have had blotched screens, but Samsung is replacing them. That issue is supposed to be have been resolved by now. Speakers aren’t loud enough in my opinion, but that’s typical of most notebooks. SD drives don’t fit flush with the laptop, but it can’t boot off them anyway, so it’s not that big a deal at the moment.
3. It’s as simple as using Acronis. I have the X25-m in my Thinkpad, and moved my OCZ Core to the NC10. Can’t say on the software side, I formatted to Vista Home Premium out of the box, never ran their software. I migrated from the 160gb drive to the SSD, performed the SSD relevant tweaks, and then reimaged my system with Acronis.
It does include 2 CDs, of which I would assume are the OS CD and Drivers & Apps CD.
If you have a USB optical drive, that’s all you need to get it on there.[quote1233044110=NcssryEvl]
It does include 2 CDs, of which I would assume are the OS CD and Drivers & Apps CD.
If you have a USB optical drive, that’s all you need to get it on there.
[/quote1233044110]
Fortunately, I’ve had no experience of Samsung’s customer services, but I have used the supplied CDs to reload Windows XP Home and have subsequently installed the other OSes I wanted to use.I loathe recovery partitions and preinstalled crapware, so I did a clean install of XP Home as supplied on the Samsung Recovery Disk using an USB boot drive created using WinSetupFromUSB as explained in the guide WinSetupFromUSB.
I reclaimed the 6 GB wasted space from the recovery partition and I have allocated the disk space (all primary partitions) on my drive as follows:
* 50 GB as partition hd 0,0 for WinXP
* 50 GB as partition hd 0,1 for Windows 7
* 3 GB as partition hd 0,2 for linux-swap
* and the remainder (about 46 GB) as partition hd 0,3 for Ubuntu 8.10
I installed the drivers from the System Software Media, but personally I haven’t installed any Samsung software – I reckon I can manage my NC10 using Windows Control Panel.
So far, I haven’t run into any problems.
Great- so it sounds relatively easy to put a new copy of the original OS onto a new drive, either from an external USB CD drive or by taking the stuff off what Samsung supplies and putting it onto a USB stick.
This way I can leave the original drive as-is in case I need to bring it into Costco. Is there an obvious sticker or seal that is broken when you open up the case to swap the drive, aside from the statement about the warranty in the manual?
No stickers, no seals nothgin at all!
just see the other thread on the screws in the back of the case and make sure you use the right size screwdriver!
In reference to your#2 question:
Wait time for customer service is relatively quick. Tech support level 1 is not as experienced (usually just reading from a script) but they do speak clear English (unlike certain Dell support). If you e-mail Samsung with your questions/concerns, turn around is 2 to 3 days but their response is right to the point (not just copy and paste from some manual). Although thankfully I have not needed to send in my Sammy for repair, from what I have read, Samsung does not forsake their responsibility by ignoring their consumers’ problem when there is one.Thanks for the responses-
I have a couple weeks to decide before I need to order to have it on my next trip. So far, sounds like a winner, but I’m still having a hard time making a choice lol. I need to read through some more threads for now. Thanks again.
Thanks again to everyone who replied. I have searched for an ultraportable. In the end, I just couldn’t justify paying double the cost of the NC10, especially when none of the options around $1000 seemed ideal.
So, I placed an order for the NC10 at Costco today after they dropped their price to $459. Not the cheapest around, but can’t beat the 90 day return policy and 2-year warranty with concierge service. Worst case, I decide that I need that 12″ 1280×800 display and I can return the NC10, but I think it will be perfect.
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