Samsung notebook-not-netbook gets VIA Nano CPU
NC20 eschews Atom, C7-M
Samsung has become the first netbook maker to unveil a machine based on VIA's Nano processor - as predicted.
Samsung's NC20: VIA Nano on board
VIA has often said the Nano is aimed at full-size laptops, leaving the new chip's predecessor, the C7-M, for netbooks, and to be fair, the Samsung NC20 - follow-up to the popular NC10 - does come with a 12in display.
Notebook size, netbook spec
That gives it a notebook-not-netbook 1280 x 800 screen resolution. But beyond the 1.3GHz Nano U2250 processor, the NC20 has a typical netbook spec: 1GB DDR 2 of memory, 160GB hard drive, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, 10/100Mb/s Ethernet, three USB ports, three-in-one memory card reader, Windows XP Home pre-installed.
Additionally, the NC20 has Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and a 1.3Mp webcam.
6.5-hour battery life, Samsung claims
Samsung claimed the NC20's six-cell battery is good for six-and-a-half hours' runtime - not really any better than the Atom-powered NC10's battery life. The whole thing weighs 1.52kg and measures 292.4 x 217 x 30.7mm.
There's no specific word yet on NC20 pricing and availability, but we expect it to arrive any day now for around £400. ®
Reviews
Samsung NC10 netbook
e Samsung S1 Mini 1.8in external HDD
VIA Nano Preview
COMMENTS
Hooray, a higher-resolution display at last!
At last, a netbook with a higher-res display and XP. The significance is that Microsoft must have been persuaded to stop trying to cripple or kill off the sector by restricting the hardware on which they'll supply XP. At least with respect to the display resolution.
As for this hardware, I think it's too heavy. Others may think it's too big. What I really want is for someone to back-port the higher-res screen to a 10-inch model, ideally weighing in under a kilo but 1.25kg will do.
Looks
Looks great in the first picture, looks like a 5-year-olds look-at-me-i've-got-a-laptop-and-it-reads-me-stories-and-makes-funny-noises-laptop from the side.
Why can't anyone beside Apple make a laptop look half decent.
Not beautiful, not sexy, I don't want curves or sticky out bits, I just want it to look good.
the problem with netbooks
is that they look like small notebooks.
I suspect most people would be happier with a 13" notebook.
Maybe we just need a physical switch to turn off power-hungry devices - 3d graphics, higher-res screens (go from 1280x1024 to 1024x768 or 640x480), slow the disks down, in order to get netbook battery-life from better devices.
I know it isn't a small, cheap computer anymore. I haven't missed the point, I just suspect the real market for netbooks is smaller than people think. A higher price is better than a disappointed customer.
@ AC 'Congratulations'
Either you read the wrong review, have a very warped understanding of the English language, or skimmed the article so much you only saw the very minor negative comments. How can a review scoring 90% and closing with a comment 'All hail the new netbook champ' be scathing?!
Well done!
@ HD Capable
You're missing the point, even if it had enough pixels at 12" screen size to display HD res., you'd not be able to discriminate that much detail at that pixel pitch.
What is instead important, is that it have the hardware accelerated ability to run HD video resolutions realtime, then resampled to native screen resolution, so you're not re-encoding everything to a lower resolution just to get it to play on your netbook-performance-level ultraportable.
