Samsung NC10 reviewed, trumps competition with 7 hour battery life

Thus far word on the street about Samsung's NC10 has been good, but not exactly enough to distance it from the crowd. Laptop Magazine's full review of a Korean unit, however, found it to be exemplary, calling it "the most well-rounded 10-inch netbook on the market." The netbook earned high marks thanks to a bright screen, comfortable keyboard, and amazing battery life of 7:34 with WiFi turned on. (That's a bit suspect, though, as on a repeated test with screen brightness raised to 100 percent only 4:48 passed before it all went dark -- another re-test at 50 percent is promised.) The only real complaints were a somewhat dainty touchpad and mediocre disk performance. Sadly no benchmarks were given to indicate how the thing performs against phlegmy fingers, so you'll just have to test that for yourself this flu season.

[Nouman @ Oct 29th 2008 9:35AM]

A netbook that could last me an entire day at school without a charge?

Awesome, but I'll wait for the benchmarks to get in.

[Jash Sayani @ Oct 29th 2008 4:11PM]

Even the ASUS EeePC 1000H has 7hrs battery life... Its a good one... Planning to buy it if MacBook prices dont go down soon.....

[Tony @ Jan 13th 2009 5:13AM]

Samsung NC10 get really good feedback from customers. Read customer reviews and look at the VDO in this link http://www.bestdealsonar.com/good-and-cheap-samsung-nc10-netbook/ .

For me, Samsung has done a great job for NC10!! Great Battery Life, Excellent Size Keyboard, Better design than many other netbooks in market. ( I hate Asus design.)

[strider_mt2k @ Oct 29th 2008 9:39AM]

Considering that most netbook users will most assuredly have WiFi turned ON, who exactly do they think they're kidding with their battery life numbers?

Set everything where you'll use it and the battery life will no doubt be exactly the same as the rest.

[Matt @ Oct 29th 2008 10:24AM]

Did you even read the article? It says that the WIFI was on:

"The netbook earned high marks thanks to a bright screen, comfortable keyboard, and amazing battery life of 7:34 with WiFi turned on."

[strider_mt2k @ Oct 29th 2008 1:15PM]

How about that?

Sorry people!

Yeah everybody sucks sometimes.

[Juxterium @ Oct 29th 2008 9:39AM]

I've been looking for a netbook and so far it has to be said this looks great, very competitive price tag and many good/great features that beat the competition.

[fraggo @ Oct 29th 2008 9:43AM]

Only 4:48? Who wouldn't love a netbook that gives 4:48 STANDARD(yes 6-cell) at full brightness and wifi on. Seven hours shouldn't be surprising. I look at this netbook as a better deal than the HP mini 1000, considering you get everything you'd want for $500.
The keyboard is a toss up but the 6-cell comes standard(without the bulge, thanks), you get a bigger faster 5400rpm 2.5" HD compared to HP's slower PATA and smaller SSD(hope the mini's SSD is FAST), and also it comes with bluetooth.

[htd @ Oct 29th 2008 9:57AM]

the battery life shouldnt differ that much from the 6 cell 6600mAh eeepc 1000ha

[Valgas @ Oct 29th 2008 10:03AM]

i love the look of this netbook. this is mine.

[Mik @ Oct 29th 2008 10:04AM]

Do we know when this is launching in the US and Canada yet?

[Canoo @ Oct 29th 2008 10:43AM]

http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/14/samsung-readies-premium-laptops-for-us-soup-lines/

doesnt sound like itll be anytime in the near future :(

[Canoo @ Oct 29th 2008 10:45AM]

spike says they're available. i might be wrong.

[thequinox @ Oct 29th 2008 11:20AM]

I hear that this might be coming near the end of November, stateside that is. Unfortunately up here in Canada Samsung has yet to even add computers to their web site, so I am even sure if it will launch here. That being said, there has been no mention of when or if the black model will become available in the US, only blue and white so far.

I would like to know the answer to these questions as well. Anyone have more information on this?

[Alexandre Emond @ Oct 29th 2008 10:06AM]

"7:34 continuous Web surfing over Wi-Fi" is VERY suspicion to me.

[vigilante.killer @ Oct 29th 2008 10:57AM]

It says the wifi was on, not that they were actually using the netbook for anything. I don't see anything surprising about that.

[Alexandre Emond @ Oct 29th 2008 11:19AM]

@ vigilante.killer:
Read the original review, P3. It says "continuous Web surfing". That means loading and rendering pages one after the other.

[Tom @ Oct 29th 2008 11:34AM]

I wouldn't define continuous surfing as that - in fact it's the 'surfing' bit which clarifies the situation. When you 'surf' the web, you're not constantly loading and rendering pages - the majority (hopefully) of your time is spent reading and interacting with them.

[Knives_Out @ Oct 29th 2008 10:34AM]

1024 x 600 is a bag of fail.

[Patriks7 @ Oct 29th 2008 11:11AM]

No no no! You obviously don't get the new trend! Whenever you use the word "bag" it can only be used in the sense "a bag of hurt". God says so at least.

[Spike @ Oct 29th 2008 10:39AM]

@ Mik: It's available for pre-order already on Buy.com and Amazon, slated for sometime early-mid November I think.

Pity there's no black available in the US. The UK gets the black model, why can't we?!

[Canoo @ Oct 29th 2008 10:44AM]

ooo really? i didnt think they sold too many samsung notebooks/netbooks/whatever-you-wanna-call-em in north america.

http://www.engadget.com/2008/10/14/samsung-readies-premium-laptops-for-us-soup-lines/

is that just for higher end ones?

[K Nang @ Oct 29th 2008 10:44AM]

i been looking into getting the aspire one with XP and 1GB ram but now this has come along, it's making me think twice!
is this much bigger than the aspire one?

[LATERZMAN @ Oct 29th 2008 10:50AM]

test the 50% brightness !

like in all equipment maximum performance

equals maximum power consumption.....

we can always find a bug if we really want to

[bidur @ Oct 29th 2008 11:03AM]

reagarding heat distribution, and hard ware quality samsung laptops are not good. . korean laptops ( lg or samsung) are not upto quality ..

[Juxterium @ Oct 29th 2008 11:50AM]

Actually in my experience Korean manufacturing quality far surpasses that of Taiwan and China (where western manufacturers outsource). However neither of our points matter because anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal and irrelevant to any purchasing decision.

[FRZ @ Oct 29th 2008 11:15AM]

If the price is right, that just might be the right gift to get that girl I've been drooling over.

[shane @ Oct 30th 2008 5:01AM]

Go get 'er, Tiger!

[Ian @ Oct 29th 2008 11:55AM]

So they tested the laptop once and got a time of 7h 34m at 50% screen brightness and WiFi turned on ("continuous web surfing").

They were surprised, so they tested the unit again at 100% screen brightness and WiFi turned on, and got 4h 48m.

However, they STILL plan on re-testing it. Why didn't they just retest it a 3rd time and publish the story afterwards? Couldn't they wait an additional 5 hours to publish the story?

[monteb @ Oct 29th 2008 1:44PM]

Are we still not over these cheap tat effectively recycling 5-year-old ultraportables?

I understand there are people who can't afford decent machines or those who just go for something which looks nice because they have no real idea about computers but jeez, does the entire tech blog world have to be netbooks or Apple, or why Apple isn't doing netbooks?

Not everyone is on a struggling blogger's salary - for many people interested in tech it's not actually a big deal to spend a few thousand bucks every couple of years or so on a well-built, nice machine which actually runs a current OS properly.

Can we have less clogging of the tubes with these toys for the broke and perhaps less cynical reporting on truly current machines not from the ignorant "ooooh, it's shiny! I love it" blogger's favourite fruit-flavoured maker?

[phanbouy @ Oct 29th 2008 1:52PM]

yeah. what he said. and get off my lawn, peasant!

[sam @ Oct 29th 2008 8:10PM]

Wait - there are people who still want ginormous horrible laptops that weigh half a ton and need to be carried in a special briefcase? And the battery only lasts an hour? We have plenty of those at work and they're a completely half-arsed idea, however nice the screens are. Literally all it ever needs to do is run Powerpoint and a web browser.

So it's not about price, it's about convenience and the fact that people are realising computers are actually fast enough now; your carry-around computer that you're going to use for web browsing and email and maybe typing out a document on the train doesn't need to be particularly powerful, and in fact it's much better if it isn't, because then it can be smaller and (case in point) have longer battery life.

The reason there's so much buzz about 'netbooks' is that as time goes by they are probably going to largely replace the monster laptop in sales, in the same way that monster laptops replaced the 'luggable'. It's just a really nice form factor. Sorry if you've got some kind of strange emotional investment in a 17" diplodocus with graphics card fast enough to run Crysis and water-cooling, but the rest of the world is moving on from that.

Or to put it another way, it's nothing to do with 'starving bloggers' being poor. It's because they're rich enough to have (at least) two computers: a main computer, which is powerful enough to run complex software and probably has a nice 24" screen attached, and a laptop, which does everything you need when you're on the move. And they're smart enough to realise that the second of these doesn't need to be big and heavy any more.

[Ajastha @ Oct 29th 2008 2:05PM]

WTF!
Why does this look so closely to the Macbook????
We want something original, come on.

[VladImpaler @ Oct 30th 2008 9:05AM]

Looks nice! But I am very happy with my ASUS EeePC 1000H !!!