Samsung NC10 Netbook

For more photos of the NC10 including the packaging, installing Windows 7 via USB and assorted other photos, you can check out the set I have created on Flickr HERE.

A couple of weeks ago I took the plunge and bought a netbook computer.  This new wave of small, ultra ultra portable and perhaps most importantly CHEAP machines seem to be bridging the gap between a high powered smartphone and a full sized laptop.  I must admit that sometimes I do stick my head in the sand a little when it comes to technology trends.  I know that may sound rather daft considering what 90% of this site is about, but while I may always know what’s hot in the world of HDTV and videogames, I don’t really want to know everything about the computing market given that it’s what puts food on the table and toys in the house.

Netbooks are big business now, and I quite often want to break out a machine to look something up quickly online but don’t want to fire up the laptop, and the iPod Touch screen doesn’t always cut it.
I turned to the PC Pro A-List, which is always my first port of call when it comes to chosing new technology.  I’ve been reading PC Pro ever since my first job in IT and it is by far my favourite non-internet based source of IT information.  Whenever I pick a PC, hard drive, router or whatever it is I need to purchase, that’s where I look.  It just so happens that the Samsung NC10 is currently at the top of their list, so that’s what I bought.

The NC10 is a typically slick piece of Samsung hardware.  It’s glossy, well made, feels good and is very well priced.  I now realise that in recent times I have become something of a Samsung whore, with two 24″ monitors and a 37″ LCD TV adorning the office.
The NC10 comes equipped with 1Gb RAM, a 160Gb hard drive and all the usual extras such as multiple USB ports, a webcam, b/g wireless yadda yadda.  Now one of the key reasons for buying this is that I wanted to try out Windows 7 on it.  Vista is way too pudgy for these machines, and most of them right now either come preloaded with Linux or Windows XP Home.

Microsoft have been making a lot of noise about how Windows 7 is leaner and faster than its predecessor, and they are keen for it to be the OS of choice for netbook consumers (and let’s be honest, bundling an operating system that is coming up on eight years old probably wasn’t high on the list of wants for the Redmond concern).  Anyone who has loaded Vista onto new hardware with only 1Gb RAM knows that it’s hardly nippy, so being able to run multiple applications on a machine that costs the same amount of money as a 32Gb iPod Touch seems like the dreams of a madman.

First things first, the NC10 does indeed come with Windows XP Home SP3, and a few bundled applications.  Restore, application and driver CDs are included but as there is no optical drive in the unit then you’ll be needing a USB DVD drive if the need ever arose to restore the system.  Even then, you would only need this in the event of a catrastrophic failure as Samsung have included a machine imaging tool that will backup the machine to a secure partition.  System Restore can’t get you out of a fix?  Then just reboot the machine into recovery mode and restore.  Simple.

I went through the usual setup process for XP, patched it up to its eyeballs, installed a few applications and then imaged it, knowing I would rather hack off any of my appendages than use it again.  I took a complete system image using Acronis True Image 11.  Acronis’ suite of products have been my weapon of choice for machine imaging for several years now.  Ghost may have been the first popular machine imaging tool, but I switched to Acronis as it’s just so straightforward and easy to use.  Seriously, everyone who buys a PC should get a copy of this to go with it.

So to the business of installing Windows 7.  You can install it from a USB DVD drive, but where’s the fun in that?  It’s way faster to do it via a USB thumb drive and you get extra geek points for doing so.  For information on how to prepare a USB stick to install Windows 7 check out THIS VIDEO over at Technet Edge which gives step by step details.

Installation for Windows 7 took around twenty minutes, and to my amazement all of the internal hardware was found with one exception: the LAN driver.  The wireless adapter was detected without any problems, and before setup was completed 7 performed a search for wireless networks automatically so it was all set when it booted to the desktop for the first time.

I won’t talk about my impressions of Windows 7 here, I have already done that in THIS POST.  Suffice to say I am very impressed by how it runs on the NC10.  I loaded it up with the usual applications I use on a daily basis (Office 2007, Firefox, Twhirl, Live Messenger) and it will happily run multiple applications simultaneously without complaining.

It will also run the Windows Aero interface, and all of the new visualisation techniques that Windows 7 uses work perfectly.  It even passed the notoriously difficult “Spousal Acceptance Factor” test.
One thing of note though is the keyboard does take a while to get used to.  Typing on it is fine, it’s a nice and responsive keyboard but the positionment of some of the keys can lead to intense frustration.  Having been using the machine for nearly a fortnight I still keep finding myself missing the right hand Shift key.  I know, practise makes perfect.  It’s not as if I’m going to be writing anything substantial on the NC10, at least not until I become more used to the keyboard layout.  If I were to write this post on it I probably would have put it through the window by now.

Something else to point out to anyone who wants to install Windows 7 on the NC10 is that you will need to install the function key drivers that control the display brightness.  By default when you are unplugged the screen brightness will be at its lowest setting.  This is fine in situations where you have artificial light, but if you are sat in a bright room on a sunny day you are going to have problems.  Fortunately, the XP driver that comes with the NC10 works perfectly under Windows 7.  All you have to do is be able to get the drivers from the CD to the netbook.  I copied mine onto a NAS but any of the usual methods will work just fine (share the CD drive in another machine, USB CD drive, copy to USB stick, etc).  I did try getting the drivers from the Samsung web site but with no joy, so it’s worth being aware that you may need to do some fancy file copying.

Before I finish up I have to give bonus points to the screen, which won’t be to everyones taste at only 10.2 inches but what do you expect for around £285 (+ the VAT if you pay it)?  The screen is beautifully clear, far clearer than many business laptops I have used just recently.  Of course it helps that Samsung makes an awful lot of display products but that doesn’t always mean you’re going to get something special.

It’s easy to see why people are raving over these netbooks.  They’re relatively cheap, and give you the functionality of a decent laptop but they won’t weigh you down.  The NC10 is a fantastic machine and well worth a look if you are looking to join the ever swelling ranks of netbook owners.

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Category: Reviews, Tech Stuff