This article is more than 1 year old

Samsung NS310 netbook

There's life in the old dog yet

Soap box?

The NS follows the N’s bar-of-soap styling and, so as not to interfere with the curves, the Ethernet port is partially enclosed by a flip-down cover. Thankfully, the N310's rubberised exterior has been ditched in favour of a metallic and much more attractive finish.

Samsung NS310

Thinner form factor has battery life implications

No matter where you measure it, the NS310 is only 25mm thick and weighs little more than 1kg thanks to a flush-fitting 2,250mAh three-cell battery. But what you gain on the size and weight swings, you loose on the battery life roundabout.

Looping a standard definition H.264 video at full screen using VLC drained the power pack in 175 minutes. That’s nothing to shout about even if it does equate to around four hours of less demanding use. Of course, you can always opt for the fatter, heavier 4,4000mAh battery which should double that figure.

Ports and sockets are the netbook standard fare so you get 3 USB2, VGA and 10/100Mb/s Ethernet but no HDMI. Wireless and Bluetooth are up to spec though with 802.11n and 3.0 respectively though the wireless card is a 2.4GHz 1x1 affair.

The combination of Windows 7 Starter, 1GB of RAM and a 1.5GHz CPU, albeit with two cores, is never doing to set your hair on fire but everything chugs along at an acceptable, I’d even go as far as to say brisk, pace.

Samsung NS310

More about

TIP US OFF

Send us news


Other stories you might like