Samsung N310 netbook Samsung has never been a supplier of cheap and cheerful netbooks, and the consumer-oriented N310, which expands the range beyond the more seriously styled NC10, NC20 and N120, still comes in with a suggested price of a pound under £400. For that, you’d expect something very special. Samsung N310 The N310: you'd never guess …
All those big rounded corners and bright colours had me hoping they'd designed a neoprene or silicone covered netbook that could take a tumble. A ruggedised model would go towards justifying that price.
But as J 3 says above, wake me up when there's something new...
...you know radical stuff like higher resolutions or more than 1Gb RAM, or a browser that thinks it's an operating system ;)
Apart from a few honourable exceptions, the quick break for freedom and revolution when the first netbooks appeared has been all but stomped out by the jackboot of monopoly (not sure whether it's Intel's or Microsoft's - or both?!), restricting the hardware specs to pretty much identikit machinery...
Needs an Atom 330, Ion graphics and wireless N. Not to mention one of those nice higher res displays. And a 6 cell battery.
And at least 2 gigs. And Windows 7.
Then we'll talk.
(Oh, and a pony.)
I'm liking the vaguely utilitarian chunky design, though. So, that's something, I suppose.
Show a few pictures.
Write the somthing similar to the following;
"Samsung has released a new "Netbook". It is exactly the same as all other current netbooks with the following exceptions:
1) It has a crap battery life.
2) It comes in four colours.
That is all.
"
The majority of this article was totally superfluous, especially the benchmarks. It is a netbook, not an uber l33t gaming rig FFS.
A NetBook was a cheap, lightweight 'laptop' which could do enough to keep you happy when about town or on public transport. They sure had limitations but they were compensated for by cheapness and weight. And, TBH, they were not as under-powered as they seemed when compared to what we were using as desktop PC's a decade ago.
Then the potential user's who "didn't get it" started moaning that it didn't run Windows Vista, had no 7-core processor, hadn't got 4GB of Ram nor a 1TB disk drive and wouldn't allow them to edit their DVD's in real time while rendering fractals and streaming HD video. Well d'uh !
Sadly, the manufacturers saw a market for a NetBook-Plus, with bumped-up capabilities and attached a well bumped-up price tag, and left those who "did get it" out in the cold while they pandered to the 'Laptop with NetBook name tag' market. After all, there's more money to be made, and it seems everyone has jumped ship and true NetBooks are now long gone.
To me - and I suspect many more - price was the key element of a NetBook. I am sure there is still a market there. It's a shame that it's not being supplied. I guess the "maximise profit" motive will ensure that continues. After all, profit comes above satisfying needs.
Wake me up when the sub-£150 NetBook is back on sale. I can buy any £300+ Laptop anywhere.
Absolutely - my eee701 does'nt run Vista, or paintshop, and it won't edit videos.
It is, however, cheap, rugged, very portable, surfs beautifully and handles gentle office tasks.
The netbook must be one of the best, shortest lived niches in history - its gone from a brand new concept to boring notebook alsoran in what? 18 months? :(
I had been pining over a Dell Mini 10v, mostly for the 1366x768 screen, but then I added the better CPU, bluetooth, and before I new it I was close to Samsung money.
Then an email arrived from eBuyer for an Aspire A150 for under £150 all in. I installed my MSDN XP Pro on it and I've not looked back. As others have mentioned the spec is completely adequate (1.6Ghz/1Gb/120Gb).
I needed the harddrive to install the apps I use and also to card music + video about. I completely accept the battery hit. I just wish it could boot off of one of the SD slots so I could fall back to Linux to squeeze that life back. Oh and built in 3G would be nice...
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