Samsung N110 Review

by Kevin O'Brien

The Samsung N110 is a 10-inch netbook offering an Intel Atom N270 processor and long-lasting six-cell battery with claims of up to 8.5 hours of battery life. The glossy black lid, red trim, and small profile design works for students or business professionals ... something that can't be said about all computers. In this review we try to duplicate Samsung's lofty 8.5 hour battery claim, and see how well it performs compared to other netbooks.

Samsung N110 Specifications:

• Operating System: Genuine Windows XP Home SP3
• Processor: Intel Atom N270 Processor 1.6GHz (533MHz FSB, 512KB Cache)
• Memory: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM (667MHz)
• Internal Storage: 160GB 5400 rpm Samsung SATA HDD
• Display: 10.1-inch diagonal LED-Backlit WSVGA+ (1024x600)
• Graphics: Intel GMA 950
• Wireless: Broadcom 802.11a/b/g, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Expansion: 3-in-1 media card slot
• Ports and connectors: (3) USB 2.0 ports, VGA OUT, power connector, RJ-45/Ethernet (Gigabit), stereo headphone/line out, stereo microphone in, 1.3 megapixel webcam
• Dimensions (H x W x D): 10.27" x 7.3" x 1.19"
• Weight: 2.78lb
• Power: 6-cell Lithium-Ion battery (5900mAh, 66Wh)
• Warranty: One-year standard warranty
• MSRP: $439

Build and Design
Our Samsung N110 has an attractive design with a slick black cover, red accent trim, and matte finish interior. The looks are classy, looking appropriate for business users or even a parent using it inside of a coffee shop. Samsung doesn't go overboard with the brand logo, with a simple chrome raised letter "Samsung" on the front cover and a white painted logo underneath the display. Inside I think Samsung could have gone with glossy black paint, since it looks great on the outside cover. You might have had to deal with fingerprints and smudges, but it would have looked incredible. Outside we see that Samsung went with a flush mount extended battery that sticks down slightly in the rear, instead of sticking out the back. It doesn't stick down as far as the extended battery on the HP 2140, which is perfectly fine by me. One interesting and helpful think Samsung thought of when they designed the location

Build quality is above average, with a very strong and durable chassis. When closed the screen cover does have some minor flex, but it doesn't appear to affect the screen. Inside the palmrest and keyboard are super rigid, with barely any movement when pressed on firmly. The screen hinges feel pretty strong, keeping the netbook screen secure in travel, and keeping it in position when open. The chassis has very few squeaks or creaks when tossed around, feeling like it should hold up well over time. The painted top appears to resist most light scratches and scuffs, which should keep it looking great well into the future.

For users looking to upgrade components, the Samsung N110 only gives easy access to the RAM module. The hard drive and wireless cards are housed inside, with no quick access panel for them. Even though this configuration of the N110 includes a 160GB hard drive with plenty of space, a common upgrade is installing a 7200rpm drive or SSD, which helps to speed up the computer. This would require the user to fully dismantle the netbook, which is much more involved than one or two screws for an access panel.

Screen and Speakers
The LED-backlit glossy screen on the Samsung N110 is slightly above average, but seems to not have super saturated colors like some of the other netbook panels. Reds, specifically, stood out as being somewhat muted, where glossy netbook screens seem to always be rich and vibrant. Pure black also seemed to be washed out, appearing more as dark grey at higher backlit levels. Outside of color saturation issues the screen looked pretty good. Vertical viewing angles were more than adequate, spanning 20 forward or back as you titled the screen. Horizontal viewing angles were good out to around 50 degrees off center, before we saw any color inversion. Backlight brightness scaled between very easy to read in a dark room to bright enough to be viewed in a office setting. Sunlight readability would probably be limited to areas of shade, with reflections off the screen overpowering what is being displayed.

The speakers are bottom-firing drivers that are located below the palmrest. Sound quality is average compared to other netbooks, sounding tinny and lacking most bass and midrange. When it is placed on a hard desk surface you can clearly hear the speakers without any sound being blocked, but if you place it on your lap you end up completely covering the speakers. If you could imagine putting a pillow over normal notebook speakers, that is what it ends up sounding like. For private listening, or if you just want better sound quality, headphones are a great accessory to pack with this netbook.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard on the Samsung N110 was comfortable to type on, but still not as impressive as other alternatives on the market. Samsung stuck with a condensed keyboard design that feels kind of cramped, where other netbooks like the HP Mini or ASUS Eee PC SeaShell give the impression that you are typing on a larger notebook. Keyboard support is great, with no flex under hard typing. Individual key action is smooth and responsive, with no wiggle of the key top when moved side to side. Each key makes a lightly audible click when pressed, which is great for not making noise in a classroom or meeting while taking notes.

Samsung includes a responsive Synaptics touchpad on the N110, which is easy to use and has no noticeable lag. The touchpad size is about average compared to other 10-inch netbooks, with only a few standing out as being larger. Toshiba has a large touch surface on the NB205, but it also has more space available on the palmrest. The surface on our netbook has a light matte finish, which is easy to glide across even if your fingers are slightly wet. The touchpad buttons share the same rocker style switch, which can sometimes be problematic, but this one seems to be flexible enough that both buttons can be triggered at the same time.

Ports and Features
Port selection is on par with most 10-inch netbooks, with the N110 offering three USB ports, VGA out, audio jacks, LAN, and a Kensington lock slot. Samsung also includes a SDHC card slot on the front edge of the netbook. It is not spring loaded, but it is almost flush mount when the card is inserted.

Front: Activity LEDs and SDHC-card slot

Rear: Battery

Left: AC-Power, LAN, and two USB

Right: Audio jacks, one USB, VGA, Kensington lock slot, and power button

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Performance
The Samsung N110 uses the older 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, instead of the newer and slightly faster 1.66GHz N280 with a faster bus speed. In terms of real world performance difference we didn't notice anything that stood out that made this model feel slower than others, outside of looking at the benchmark results. Boot and shutdown times were quick, and with the computer resting at an idle desktop screen shortly after you logged in. The netbook easily handled internet browsing, playing mp3s, watching streaming video, and 2D gaming without any hiccups. HD video played fine as long as it was 720P content or below. 1080P video pushed the Intel Atom N270 over the edge with many dropped frames and unsyncronized audio.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Sony VAIO TZ (Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76.240 seconds
HP Pavilion dv2 (AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 @ 1.60GHz)	103.521 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	114.749 seconds
Toshiba mini NB205 (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	115.891 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	116.030 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	116.421 seconds
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	123.281 seconds
Samsung N110 (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	123.422 seconds
Dell Latitude 2100 (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	124.062 seconds
Acer Aspire One (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	125.812 seconds
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (2009) (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	126.406 seconds
ASUS Eee PC T91 (Intel Atom Z520 @ 1.33GHz)	141.031 seconds
Samsung NC20 (VIA Nano ULV U2250 @ 1.30GHz)	173.968 seconds

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Sony VAIO TZ (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	2,446 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv2 (1.60GHz AMD Athlon Neo, ATI Radeon HD 3410 512MB)	2,191 PCMarks
ASUS N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,851 PCMarks
Toshiba Portege R500 (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	1,839 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,637 PCMarks
Dell Latitude 2100 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,588 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,564 PCMarks
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,555 PCMarks
Toshiba mini NB205 (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,538 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,535 PCMarks
Samsung N110 (1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, Intel GMA 950)	1,511 PCMarks
Samsung NC20 (1.30GHz VIA Nano ULV U2250, VIA Chrome9 HC3)	1,441 PCMarks
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,437 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC T91 (1.33GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,292 PCMarks

We selected a family-friendly movie trailer and downloaded three different versions in 480p, 720p, and 1080p resolutions. We used the CCCP Codec Pack for decoding and Media Player Classic Homecinema (version 1.1.796.0) for playing all of the video files.

Video Playback Performance:

Video Resolution	CPU Usage	Playback Comments
480p	34%-44%	Plays flawlessly
720p	54%-61%	Plays flawlessly
1080p	75%-90%	Unwatchable

HDTune for the hard drive performance:

Heat and Noise
Under normal duties the N110 was comfortable to use, since it consumed very little power and thus put off very little heat. The fan didn't have to do much work to keep system temperatures within reasonable levels, and usually defaulted to off or spinning at a very slow speed. Noise was minimal at worst.

Battery Life
The Samsung N110 blew me away with its battery life. When we generally think of insane battery life figures from netbooks, we think of huge batteries with cells sticking out in every direction. It usually ends up being a hand grip of sorts. Samsung made an almost-flush mount 66Wh battery for the N110, which that in itself is pretty impressive. The manufacturer battery life claim was 8.5 hours, which is pretty good as is, but we managed to go longer. In our standard test where the screen brightness is reduced to about 70%, processor set to automatic, and wireless active the Samsung N110 stayed on for 9 hours and 44 minutes. This beats out the ASUS Eee PC 1005HA, which only got 9 hours and 37 minutes. Power consumption varied between 6 and 9 watts during the test. This is almost the perfect definition of all-day battery life, since it was turned on an hour or so after I got into work, and turned off two hours before I went to sleep later that night. With light usage this could easily last an entire weekend.

Conclusion
The Samsung N110 impressed us in a lot of categories, but we also found some areas that could be improved. The keyboard felt cramped compared some other netbooks and the screen felt washed out in some aspects. On the other hand the build quality was excellent, the design was great, and the battery life was phenomenal. The price is somewhat high when you look at some of the larger 11.6" and 12" netbooks on the market, but it does lead the way in battery life. If unplugged performance is the most important thing you are looking for the Samsung N110 easily has you covered.

Pros:

• Classy looks with high-gloss black paint
• 9 hours and 44 minutes of battery life
• Nearly flush mount battery

Cons:

• Keyboard could be more spacious
• No easy access to hard drive

 

Now THAT is a sweet looking netbook ... be even nicer if it had the chiclet style keyboard ... but still ... very nice!

 

• If you want a bigger keyboard then there's the N120.
  
  
  If you want a chicklet keyboard then there's the N310.
  
  John

 

Dont waste your money. The superior Atom n450 platform will be in netbooks in less than 2 months....

 

it has its own days but other netbooks have evolved and it is just another netbook now..

 

i wish samsung and LG sold some of their full fledged non-netbooks here in the states.. but yeah i'm waiting for next the new netbook processors.

 

I wish all the netbooks had this kind of battery life. I want 10 hours. Then I'll be interested.

 

I don't mean to be rude, but why even bother reviewing a bog standard netbook like the N110? It's August 2009 and there's hardly anything about the N110 that stands out at this point. (Aside from the battery life, that is.)

A review of the AMD-powered Gateway LT3100 series netbook, or perhaps the Lenovo S12 with the VIA Nano, would be a bit more out of the box. Another Atom N270 Netbook with an undersized keyboard isn't worthy of a review anymore, in my opinion.

 

But what would you do for a WHOLE 10 hours?

Really though, i think this netbook helps solidify Samsung near the top of the netbook game.

 

We finally picked one of those up at BestBuy for the office. So that should be in the works soon.

 

It got pushed back to Q1 2010.
http://news.google.com/news/more?pz=1&ned=us&cf=all&ncl=dvSCsPh35OvA2lMVgZ61-p9xLUCmM

MSI Wind U115 gets 13 hours and has been out for 6 months. Surprisingly it doesn't get much attention.

 

The specs are virtually identical to the eee PC 1000HA, which comes with the vastly superior chiclet keyboard and is about $100 cheaper.

Why anyone would buy this Samsung is a mystery to me, if before doing so they actually did some comprehensive comparison shopping.

 

I wouldn't call the Asus keyboard superior to the Samsung. The opposite is more true imo.

Weight and battery life of the N110 are better than the 1000HA.

I agree N110 is overpriced.

 

Great! I'd be very curious to hear what you think of it.

Cheers.

 

I was about an inch away from buying one when I first saw it. I am waiting to hear back from JR on his impressions (he bought one for himself) before I acquire one. The keyboard is excellent, as well as the 11.6" display, but it is powered by AMD. If the dv2 is an indicator, battery life will probably be half of comparable Intel systems.