Samsung N310 renamed Go, befriends bacteria

Pre-order availability of this netbook has turned into a full-blown US-wide shelf invasion. BestBuy and Newegg are ready to ship you one right now, with the latter offering the better price at $449. Now known as the Samsung Go, the N310 pimps the oh-so-standard Atom N270, 1GB RAM, 160GB HDD internal spec with a 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 resolution display. There's also a 1.3-megapixel webcam, WiFi, Bluetooth, MMC/SD card reader, and a pebble / chiclet / isolation keyboard. What seems to be missing from the Euro version is the anti-bacterial keyboard coating, which may be an accidental omission or it may indicate that using Silver Nano Technology proved more costly than a gimmick ought to be.

[Via Portable Monkey]

[Derek @ Jul 16th 2009 6:41AM]

I still don't understand the purpose of a netbook?

[Markarian @ Jul 16th 2009 7:05AM]

It's having a sub-notebook for a reasonable price. You should try it sometime.

[Level 5 @ Jul 16th 2009 7:44AM]

Markarian - $449 isn't even CLOSE to a reasonable price for this hardware. An MSI Wind offers almost identical hardware for a shade under $300.

[NLI @ Jul 16th 2009 8:01AM]

Go to Slashdot.org and look for "askSlashdot" thread about taking a computer for a round the world trip or for long vacations. It was more than 2 years ago and back then the suggestion was: don't take any computer with you, they are too fragile and expensive to risk damage.

[strider_mt2k @ Jul 16th 2009 9:23AM]

My Mini 9 ROCKED on our latest vacation. (We tend to just...rove)

Between IT and the GPS I managed to enjoy some scenery while I was driving for a change!

[teej @ Jul 16th 2009 10:49AM]

nice icon, Markarian.

[3Djesus @ Jul 17th 2009 12:49AM]

@ strider_mt2k
Agreed. Just took mine with on a week-long trip to Yosemite NP to save photos and vid to the SD card. The wifi in the lodge was great for a daily net fix. It also gave me a chance to put finishing touches on a business plan I have been working on, which was a lot nicer sitting around in the woods than somewhere in my house.

[bolmedias @ Jul 16th 2009 6:42AM]

Samsung: proving that Americans like short names. There are at least a thousand products on the American market called 'GO'. Why, Samsung, Why?

[Derek @ Jul 16th 2009 6:43AM]

At least it's not iGO

[bolmedias @ Jul 16th 2009 6:47AM]

Point taken. And besides, Toyota would sue if anyone used the name iGO.

BTW Derek, we both seem to have far too much time on our hands today :P

[Orinjz @ Jul 16th 2009 9:06AM]

Probably because actual brand names stick in the consciousness of the average consumer much better than the model names. Ask a random person in the street to say their laptop's name and most times they'll probably just give you the company name rather than the actual model number.

Calling this laptop the Samsung Go is a smart move considering it's touted as a fashion-oriented device; model numbers aren't teh secksay, so it makes sense to play into the vain, dumb nature of the target audience by following that old KISS principle.

[~:Dhruv:~ @ Jul 16th 2009 6:47AM]

How is different from their previous offering ????

Hmmmm.... well atleast the color seems nice. No mention of battery options though.

[bolmedias @ Jul 16th 2009 6:50AM]

Didn't you read the article, man? It kinda is their previous offering, just renamed and made slightly worse.

[~:Dhruv:~ @ Jul 16th 2009 7:06AM]

Hmmm... i dont think the article states this is as their previous model , does it ?

[s.e.j.ramsay @ Jul 16th 2009 6:53AM]

We wash our hands more often in Europe.

[wodahS @ Jul 16th 2009 6:56AM]

Wouldn't it be the opposite? Europe gets the antibacterial coating not USA.

[bolmedias @ Jul 16th 2009 6:56AM]

I've got a 2 year old Samsung Q70 at home. It has the same Silver Nano thing. You really don't notice a difference, but it's nice to have it.

[ProfessorKaos @ Jul 16th 2009 7:31AM]

I almost died and crapped my pants that was so funny and smug of you! BRAVO!!!!

[Danny @ Jul 16th 2009 7:03AM]

With the matte outside, flush screen, chicklet keyboard and nice, almost rugged looking, design would make it's exactly what i am looking for - if only
it had a higher resolution (i'd love to see somebody offer a 900px tall option),
more ram
and ideally.. a screen just going a tad more towards it's edges..

[Danny @ Jul 16th 2009 7:07AM]

My grammar got messed up beyond belief.. sorry.

[Salvador @ Jul 16th 2009 7:17AM]

We don't get antibacterial coating because it's based on silver nanoparticles. Nanomaterials are considered potentially harmful by some scientists and thus are banned in Europe (or in some countries like France for instance)

[John Stracke @ Jul 16th 2009 10:33AM]

Ha! I wondered if that was it.

Antibacterial coating on a laptop is pretty bizarre anyway. I'm the only one that touches my laptop; any germs that may be on it almost certainly came from my hands.

[ProfessorKaos @ Jul 16th 2009 7:29AM]

Bring on the germs bitch

[ProfessorKaos @ Jul 16th 2009 7:29AM]

I almost died and crapped my pants that was so funny and smug of you! BRAVO!!!!

[HorizonSmoker @ Jul 16th 2009 7:50AM]

Still waiting for ION, LED (at least 12-Inches), SSD, Win 7 (atleast upgrade option), and something faster than 1.6 atom.

[SewerShark @ Jul 16th 2009 7:54AM]

Damn people, stop the bacteria phobia. You not gonna die from touching things.

[ryan @ Jul 16th 2009 8:09AM]

looks kinda like a re-colored hp mini

[SJay @ Jul 16th 2009 10:14AM]

Looks like it belongs to Toys-R-Us.

[Dr. Evil Genius @ Jul 16th 2009 10:33AM]

I can see it now:


Introducing the Samsung GO (to the hospital)!

[omegahelix @ Jul 16th 2009 11:28AM]

boring.... Why do these netbook makers keep expecting us to get excited over a paint job. Same crappy cpu, same crappy screen resolution, same crappy graphics, same crappy hard drive. It wouldn't be hard to get me that interested either. Bump the screen vertical resolution to 768, throw in some NVidia graphics. Offer a cpu upgrade that's just a few megahertz more. Just because a netbook is "low end" doesn't mean you have to keep scraping the bottom of the hardware barrel until your fingers bleed you brainless laptop makers you.

[Dan @ Jul 16th 2009 1:35PM]

Do you engadget editors just copy and paste those specs from other stories, or do you actually type them for each netbook story? :) I would just copy and paste it

[Wes Steele @ Jul 16th 2009 2:48PM]

Wow such an original name. How do they think of these things?

[BarneyBoy @ Jul 16th 2009 3:41PM]

@SJay who said "looks like it belongs to Toys R Us"

You are spot on. Im in the UK and saw one of these at the weekend in Selfridges (large department store) and they just look like a childs laptop and were about £300 so about $480.

When closed they honestly look fairly hideous - but each to their own - all i would say is that if you are interested in one of these you ought to consider seeing one before you buy

[Bobby @ Jul 17th 2009 6:27AM]

The earlier 4 cell has been discarded alongwith Samsung's 'silver nano' (anti bacterial coating) on the keyboard in order to accomodate a 6 cell battery that gives a 10 hour + usage, so am thinking a 7 n half hour at least can be expected. This trade off was required to keep the price tag similar to the 4cell version. Looks like Samsung doesn't wanna breach the $500 mark even with delivery charges. It looks smooth but seems to be the fasionable performance-competitor for N110 with the new spruced up battery. Good work overall !!