The Samsung NC10 [Portal page] is all the rage right now in the 10" netbook sector and it is starting to show up in more colors than just white. MobileComputerMag has some nice shots of the black variant, and they mention that they are starting to trickle out to consumers. A dark blue model should also become available eventually. Hit the MobileComputerMag link for a few more images.

[Electric Vagabond]

The Samsung NC10 is currently riding high. High in the UMPCPortal charts, the most searched-for laptop on a number European price comparison sites, number 2 on the Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de computer chart and rising quickly in many other countries. In my opinion, based on my hands-on and the numerous good reports out there, its one of the best consumer notebooks, yes, notebooks, there is and when I go to the UK in Dec, I’ll be keeping an eye out for a black NC10 with 160GB drive, BT and built-in 3G. If I find one (fingers crossed that this combination of specifications launches soon) then I’m swapping out my Gigabyte M912M and Medion Akoya. I’ll be sad to let the fast, touchscreen M912 go but battery life is more important for me and the NC10 has oodles of it.

Someone that has already bought one is Jez, a regular reader from the UK who I’ve been emailing with recently to find out about the status of the device in the UK. He bought it last week and immediately started to log his experiences on his ‘Unofficial Samsung NC10 blog.’ He’s also been kind enough to write an introduction just for us so before you pop over to the NC10 blog (and possibly never come back!) take a look at what Jez has to say about the NC10…

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The Samsung NC10 [Portal page] which is being regarded as one of the best netbooks you can buy, is finally available in the US from Buy.com in white or blue for $499. The netbook has been available in other areas for the world for a short period of time, but is just now coming to the US, just in time for the holidays! For anyone considering this device, be sure to check out the very favorable review by LAPTOP.

[Liliputing]

I’ve already posted about this, twice. Samsung have some great engineers.

I had the chance to look at an NC10 (#1 device on the portal right now) at the netbook meeting in Cologne on Saturday and the first thing I did was to measure the minimum drain of the device. Within minutes, I was seeing a fantastic sub-5W minimum drain.

This is lower than on most UMPCs and is a good indication that the electronics on the motherboard, the power components and the screen are well engineered. There’s no point putting in a low-power CPU if you’re going to lose the advantage it with crappy engineering. Take the Kohjinsha SC3. It uses the latest, lower clock, lower power CPU and chipset and yet even after hours of optimising, the base drain on it is no less than 7.5W. That’s 50% more than the, much bigger NC10 that doesn’t even use the low power CPU and chipset.

Battery life outweighs most requirements for me so considering that everything else on the device is up to scratch, I’m seriously thinking of getting a black NC10 as my only laptop and selling the M912 and Medion Akoya. They’re both excelent devices but neither of them are as well engineered as the NC10

Samsung NC10 links and specs in the product pages.

LAPTOP has gotten their hands on a Samsung NC10 [Portal page] that is fresh off the press (the ‘press’ being Korea). Not content to wait around for a US model, LAPTOP imported an NC10 and it sounds like they really like the machine. Just listen to the opening sentence of their review:

The Samsung NC10 has joined the ranks of 10-inch netbooks—including the Eee PC 1000H, MSI Wind, and Lenovo IdeaPad S10—and it beats them all.

You better believe the NC10 must be pretty good with a statement like that. The review is filled with a lot of positive comments about the NC10, specifically its keyboard and battery life. Back when we first saw the NC10, we had high hopes for the keyboard which appeared to be nice and big. The LAPTOP review says that the keyboard is 93% full sized, and the key placement is nearly perfect. This is great to know when several netbook alternatives have the extremely annoying tiny right shift key, to the right of the up arrow. Unless you are Raon and like to use optical mice to save space on your computers; a large keyboard means that you will have to sacrifice space for some other parts of the netbook, such as the trackpad. LAPTOP tells us that the trackpad is undersized.

In addition to a great keyboard, the NC10 also boasts an impressive battery. A 6-cell battery is standard on the NC10 and will provide you with 7+ hours of use LAPTOP tested the battery with continuous Wi-Fi web surfing and 50% battery life screen brightness; the NC10 responded with an impressive 7 hours and 34 minutes of run time!

Chippy’s Update: Laptopmag ran a second test with 100% screen brightness and got just under 5hrs of wifi-on surfing time. They will re-run the tests with 50% screen brightness to double-check that the screen backlight is having such a big effect. In my opinion, 50% screen brightness could easilty add 2W to the overall drain if it’s a big, bright screen and make a huge difference. Keep a watch on the Laptopmag NC10 review page 3 for updates.

Swing by LaptopMag.com for the full review.

Jkk has managed to find a short story on the ‘Nebraska Library Commission Blog‘ that mentions a list of libraries in the state that are getting hardware courtesy of the Gates Foundation:

The Nebraska Library Commission is proud to announce that the following 48 Nebraska public libraries have been awarded WiFi Connectivity Grants, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Each library will be receiving a Linksys WiFi Router and a Dell laptop or Samsung Q1 Ultra UMPC.

Interesting to say the least. There isn’t much detail on what the Q1Us will be used for at this point, or specifically which model they received, but I would imagine they would be a good tool for taking to the shelf and referencing books without having to return to a stationary computer to look up Dewey Decimal information. A few pictures of the Q1Us and some other donated hardware can be found at this flikr page.

We showed you the upcoming Samsung netbook last week, and now we have some additional information regarding the unit. Samsung is going for the 10" screen range, and the Samsung netbook’s screen will be 10.2" to be exact. Specs don’t really differ very much from what we predicted last week, but here is the latest info (from Pocketables.net):

• 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor
• 1GB RAM
• 10.2" screen (1024 x 600)
• 80GB/120GB/160GB hard drive options
• Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 1.3MP camera
• 3-in-1 card reader
• 2.9 pounds
• 6-cell battery

Anyone could have guessed the specs and Samsung unfortunately isn’t brining anything new to the table this time around. They could have at least strived for low cost, however it seems as though the netbook, which should release some time in October, will cost about $550 USD.

WhatLaptop.co.uk seems to be the first to have gotten two official images of the Samsung netbook. Click the image in this post to view it full-sized; swing by the site link if you are interested in the keyboard image. The specs and images look so remarkably similar to the Acer Aspire One that I’m typing on right now, that I feel like I’m already using the Samsung netbook… I hope they give it a name soon so I don’t have to continue to call it ‘the Samsung netbook’!

[Liliputing]

Jkk has posted about a story from Aving.net about a forthcoming Samsung netbook. What does Samsung have to offer the bandwagon? Well for starters, the unit looks pretty slick. The bottom of the casing is curved and it appears to be quite thin. As far as I can tell from the translated page, the unit was announced at a WiBro event, so you can expect some WWAN in there (for US consumers that will most likely mean WiMAX through Sprint). The rest should be familiar to most of us by now, 8.9" or 10" screen (probably 1024×600), Atom CPU, built-in webcam, VGA output, 3x USB 2.0, ethernet port and mic in/audio out (from what I can see in the images).

It’ll be up to the quality of the keyboard (which does look nice), and battery life to determine whether a potential customer will pick up this netbook, or go with one of many other choices. According to the story, the Samsung netbook will be launched in late October. Click through to jkkmobile for pictures.

[Aving.net] (translated)

Forget the low cost PC market Samsung, there’s a million people out there that could benefit from a bit of SSD love on their daily compute.

"We’ve refined our manufacturing techniques and redesigned our low-density SSDs to get what the @low-priced PC market is looking for in the way of improved cost"

What I suspect is happening here is that Samsung have designed a product that can be made in the millions for direct sale to netbook OEMs. You might find these on Ebay at some point but don’t expect them to be easy to get hold of for the average punter.

"Samsung’s new MLC-based SSD at 32GB capacity will read data (sequentially) at 90MB/s and write it (sequentially) at 70MB/s – performance levels much greater than low-density SSDs on the market today. The 16GB reads at 90MB/s and writes at 45MB/s, while the 8GB reads at 90MB/s and writes at 25MB/s."

VIA GottabeMobile. Source AkihabaraNews.

Last week I posted some tips on how to squeeze 3 hrs browsing time out of the Kohjinsha SC3. The method was a bit of a trick as it utilised a mobile phone data connection over Bluetooth but it was the only way to achieve 3 hours on the 20wh battery. It equates to an average 7W drain which is, even in UMPC terms, very efficient but it’s not as good as I hoped from a Z-series Atom-based system.

The reason why it’s not as good as I expected (and the reason why i’m not using the SC3 to write this post in my tent while the rain beats down outside) is that the Samsung Q1 Ultra (with SSD mod) is just as efficient with the previous generation Intel platform. As I write this post, perfom (try it, start->run->perfmon. Its fun to watch the battery drain) is telling me that the average drain is 6.9 watts. Meebo is running in the background, Friendfeed is updating, CPU utilisation is averaging 20%, brightness is set at 25% and I’ve got a LED lamp attached to the USB port to give me some light. With the standard battery, thats over 4 hours of online time. I’ve got the extended battery here which is showing 5.5 hrs @ 61%  battery. (9hrs total)

With a refresh to a 1.33Ghz Atom processor and some tweaks to the motherboard, I’m sure Samsung could shave 20% off that drain figure and produce a 5-6 hr, 600gm device. They’ve proved themselves as one of the best at electronic design with their Q1 products and it excites me to think about what they might come up with next - as long as it has a lighted keyboard!

It seems like half a year since I added the HSDPA-capable CMXP version of the Q1 Ultra to the database. Oh, it was!

Samsung have finally announced it in the US but unfortunately the price seems to have risen to $1449 which I find a little but over the top for a year-old, $1000 device that many people have already retro-fitted with a $150 HSDPA card.

It’s almost the same story with the Q1 Ultra premium. It’s been available for months with XP but only now have Samsung decided to announce it. Maybe Kevin Tofel’s reports convinced them.

Now seems a good time to mention that the Q1 Ultra with XP is a good performer, has excellent battery life and can be upgraded a home-built SSD drive. I’m still using mine although I am missing the keyboard that I’ve had on the M704 and SC3 recently.

Via Engadget.

[This pre-prepared and auto-posted as I'm on holiday - Back soon. Chippy.]

The Gigabyte M704 has really surprised me. I wasn’t really expecting anything too exciting due to having tested the older version of the hardware last year but the vastly improved screen, the better mouse layout and the 1.2Ghz processor have made an impressive difference. So much so that I consider it to be up there with the great all-rounder, the Q1 Ultra. But cheaper! It should definitely be on your shortlist if you’re looking at the Q1 Ultra.

The video below goes through most of the differences with the device and the only thing I can really add is that both devices perform as well as each other. The Q1 Ultra has the edge on video playback and on battery life but the M704 is a much nice machine to input text into. Where might only write a very brief ‘i’ll get back to you later’ email on the Q1 Ultra you’ll find that you can make a detailed response in comfort on the M704.

Anyway, take a look at the video and let me know if you have any questions. The M704 has gone back to Mobilx now but I’ll still be able to answer questions when I get back from holiday on Monday.

There’s no proof that this is the same browser as on the iPhone but it’s an interesting one to note. The Samsung L870, an S60-based device, will feature Apples Safari Browser. The phone itself is also quite interesting in a UMPC-partner kind of way. An N82 killer?

Does this mean that Apple could release the browser for other mobile operating systems? Windows Mobile? How will it implement zoom on non-multitouch devices? Will it be as fast and complete as on the iPhone?

Source: Phonearena

Its great to read this article. Samsung are going to continue developing the Q1 in the UMPC market and are aiming to have a refresh available for early 2009. According to the first in a series of articles over at TechRadar, Samsung sold 100,000 units in 2007 and are apparently happy with this result considering that the device is in a category that "put simply, many just aren’t convinced by."

I’m convinced and I hope others will be too because with a refresh, the Q1 Ultra that I consider to be the best all-round UMPC there is, will get even better. I picked up the news via jkOnTheRun where Kevin asks the question ‘how would you improve the Q1.’ I left some comments about what I would consider a good set of improvements that went something like this

• Backlit, improved keyboard.
• Atom 1.6 or 1.8Ghz platform and aim for a 4-hour standard battery life
• 5mp AF HQ cam on a premium Intel-Core version
• A low-cost entry level version running Ubuntu Mobile. $499 for 1Gb/40GB.
• A real docking port and docking station.
• Slicker looking design. Show the MBA fans what a slick mini computer can look like.

The big problem I see coming up though is the lack of Windows XP. The standard Q1 Ultras are useless with Vista in my opinion.

While we fuss about MID pricing, the cost of UMPCs is dropping quickly around us. The Q1 Ultra EL which comes with the 800Mhz processor, 1GB RAM and 40GB drive but leaves out the Bluetooth and cameras is available for $659 at Buy.com right now. With the lowest pricing in Europe at around 1500 dollars I’d recommend everyone in Europe who wants a Q1 Ultra to make friends with someone in the U.S. and get them to ship it over. Even after paying the tax, you’re going to save over $600.