Samsung NC110 review

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Verdict:

A well-built netbook with a great keyboard, but it suffers from the usual netbook problems: limited power and a low-resolution screen

Review Date: 18 Jul 2011

Price when reviewed: £280

Supplier: http://www.currys.co.uk

Reviewed By: Barry de la Rosa

Our Rating 4 stars out of 5

User Rating

Samsung’s new NC110 is typical of Samsung’s laptops. Stylish and well-built, it’s not quite as cute as the more expensive NS310 but it’s still a cut above the ordinary. Sadly, netbook specifications haven't moved on recently: inside you’ll find a 1.5GHz Intel Atom N550 with 1GB of RAM and Windows 7 Starter Edition.

Unlike the first Atom processors, the N550 is a dual-core model with Hyper-Threading, so to the operating system it behaves like a quad-core processor. Unfortunately this doesn't mean it's fast. An overall score of 13 in our benchmarks means that it will run basic office and web applications fine, as long as you don’t open too many browser tabs or keep multiple applications running at a time.

Due to the restrictive Windows 7 Starter license, Samsung can install only 1GB of RAM, even though it supports 2GB. Although it's fairly easy to upgrade, you'll have to remove the existing 1GB module.

As well as limitations to the RAM, netbooks tend to be light on expansion ports. Video output is limited to an analogue VGA port, and the NC110’s Intel GMA 3150 graphics chip has a puny amount of power, barely managing to decode HD content, so an HDMI port isn't a huge loss. The network port only supports Fast Ethernet, but there’s also 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth support. None of the three USB ports support the newer, faster USB3 standard.

Samsung has stretched the keyboard to fit the entire width of the case, and the keys feel far bigger than you might expect. The layout is fairly standard, with a double-height Enter key and extra-wide left Shift key, although the Backslash key is out of place. The keys have a light action and provide excellent feedback for touch-typists. The touchpad, although on the small side, is smooth and responsive. The single see-saw button is very narrow but sits on the edge of the case where your thumb naturally rests, and has a light action.

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User comments

fantastic for the price

great keyboard, amazing it works windows 7 with 1mb of ram, battery great, no complaints... though I did not know the windows that came with the laptop did not support dual screen vga output, which is why I bought it... so had to install another version of windows7.

By fredphoesh on 6 Nov 2011

A very tidy machine indeed!

My husband recently bought me one of these little net books for our anniversary. I love it! I am glued to it, I thought that net books were only for internet but this seems to do everything!
A tip for anyone looking to save a few pounds, a company called GO GO DIGITAL offer this in "box opened" condition for cheaper than a retail. I was scared this would mean that the net book is second hand, but the one we bought for our daughter was looked pristine just like my new one. You can see them here:
http://www.gogodigital.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/
?q=nc110

By shirley1961 on 1 May 2012

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