Samsung NC20 User Review

TheSamsungNC10mayhavebeenalatearrivaltothenetbookpartybuthasprovedtobeverypopular.However,therearethoseuserswhofoundthe1024x600resolutiondisplaytobeaconstraintandcomplainedthattheNC10'stouchpadwastoosmall.TheSamsungNC20($478USMSRP)addressesthesecomplaintsbyprovidinglargermachinewitha12.1"display.SamsungdescribetheNC20asa"large-screennetbook"andthisisafairdescriptionsincetheunderlyinghardwareisasusedinothernetbooks(forexamplealowcostsinglecoreCPU).TheNC20includesanotherfeaturewhichsetsitasidefromthecrowd:Itusesthe<ahref="http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/processors/nano/">VIANanoU2250CPU[/URL]andassociatedchipsetandgraphics.

During the past two years I have looked at several ultra-portables: the Samsung Q35, the Sony G11, the Zepto Notus A12; the Toshiba R500 and the Samsung NC10 netbook. How does the NC20 compare with these? Is it a viable substitute for the ultraportable notebooks in terms of portability, performance and battery life? How does performance and usability compare with the Samsung NC10? Read on for my evaluation.

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The Samsung NC20 complete with glossy screen

The NC20 between the NC10 (left) and the 14.1" Dell E6400. This provides a good comparison of the sizes

What's in the Box?

The NC20 came in a smallish box containing:

• The NC20 netbook
• The PSU, a battery and a mains power cable
• A slip case
• An installation guide leaflet
• A safety instruction booklet
• A warranty information booklet
• A Using Samsung Recovery Solution booklet
• A system recovery media CD
• A system software media DVD

The user guide is an animated .SWF document pre-installed on the hard disk. I would have preferred a normal PDF file.

The box contents (except for the NC20)

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<!--pagetitle: Samsung NC20 Hardware Specs -->

Hardware Specs: Samsung NC20

The standard configuration comprised the following hardware and specifications:

• CPU: VIA Nano U2250 (1.3Ghz ) with VIA VX800 chipset
• Display: 12.1" WXGA (1280 x 800) glossy LCD with LED backlight (220 nits)
• Memory: 1GB (1 x 1GB) DDR2 PC6400 RAM
• Hard Disc: 160GB 5400rpm 2.5" HDD (Samsung HM160HI family)
• Graphics: VIA Chrome9 HC3 integrated GPU
• Optical Drive: None
• Keyboard: 84 key, 18.5mm pitch with Silver Nano technology
• Touchpad: Synaptics touchpad 70mm x 42mm
• Network: Marvell Yukon 88E8040 Ethernet
• Bluetooth: Broadcom 2045 Bluetooth EDR
• Wireless: Atheros AR5007EG (802.11 b/g)
• Ports: 3 x USB 2.0, network (RJ45), VGA, microphone, headphone
• Media card reader: VIA reader supporting SD/SDHC/ MMC
• Webcam : Namuga 1.3 Mpixel
• Audio: Realtek High Definition Audio with EDS (Enhanced Digital Sound) Effect and 2 x 1.5W loudspeakers and microphone
• 6-cell battery (11.1V, 5200mAh = 57.72Whr)
• 40W (19V, 2.1A) power supply with 3-pin mains power connector
• Dimensions: published:- 292.4 x 217 x 30.7mm, actual 292 x 217 x 29~40mm (11.5 x 8.54 x 1.14 ~ 1.57" (including 6 cell battery and feet)).
• Weight : published = 1.5kg, actual = 1.52kg (3.351lb) with 6-cell battery
• Travel weight including PSU and cables 1.95kg (4.30lbs)

The weigh-in: Without and with PSU and power cables (kilograms). Other countries with smaller mains power plugs or two pin connectors should get a lower travel weight

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Software

The NC20 comes with Windows XP Home SP3 preinstalled and with a recovery CD. The Windows sticker on the bottom of the computer says "Windows XP Home Edition LrgScrn LFD", whatever that may mean. Samsung also provide preinstalled software and a DVD which will need to be reloaded if the operating system is reinstalled. The Samsung software package is very similar to the other Samsung notebooks and includes:

• Easy Display Manager
• Magic Keyboard
• Play Camera
• Recovery Solution III
• Samsung Battery Manager
• Samsung Magic Doctor
• Samsung Network Manager
• Samsung Update Plus
• Easy Network Manager
• McAfee Anti-Virus (limited duration)

Detailed discussion of these would need another review. Readers can consult the user guide for more details of these programs. The only point I will note here is that Easy Display Manager is the program which makes the Fn key controls work.

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<!--pagetitle: Samsung NC20 Build and Design -->

Build and Design

The NC20 features plastic construction and feels very solid with no flex or creaks. The white (slightly off-white) version has matte plastic surfaces so fingerprints are not a problem. The NC20 shares the NC10's shiny metal belt around the front and sides. Perhaps this is the "Protect-o-Edge chassis" described on Samsung's website as "ensuring reliability and durability, giving you added peace of mind." The NC20 shares the NC10's wedge shaped design with the 6-cell battery protruding from the bottom near the back. The hinges are very substantial.

NC20 side-by-side with the NC10. See the difference in display real estate.

During travel the display is held closed by spring-loaded hinges. It takes two hands to open the screen on my NC20. As new, the display has no wobble, although the hinges may loosen with time. The display back is very rigid and I found it almost impossible to create ripples on the screen by pushing on the back.

The bottom of the computer has small protruding feet about 1.5mm (1/16") at the front while the battery protrudes downwards at the back and contains two more feet. The bottom is well-endowed with air vents and there is a single removable cover for both the memory slot and the hard disk. The standard (the same battery as on the NC10) 6-cell battery fits at the back of the notebook and is held firmly in place by two latches.

Underside of the NC20: Both the memory and the hard disk are accessible. There are two loudspeakers near the front. The hard disk is held in a metal cradle.

Interesting writing under the RAM: I thought HannStar only made monitors. And who is Brighton? Next to the memory is an unused socket labelled "80PORT". I wonder what that is for?

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<!--pagetitle: Samsung NC20 Keyboard and Touchpad -->

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard has an almost standard layout including the highly desirable dedicated Pg Up and Pg Down keys. The Ctrl key occupies the almost standard position in the front left corner. There are 84 keys (83 keys on the US keyboard) which have grey markings on a white plastic background. The keys have an almost-standard 18.5mm pitch. However, there are some slightly unusual key locations: Fn by itself becomes the Windows menu key and the Windows key right of the space bar is the other windows key which is left of the space bar on most notebooks. The funny character key (`) normally located to the left of 1 is located left of the space bar and backspace becomes bigger.

The NC20's keyboard. Note that the port symbols are provided on the NC10's keyboard surround / palmrest.

The keyboard keys have reasonable travel but I would have liked a bit more springiness in the action. Perhaps my expectations have been raised by the keyboard of my Dell Latitude E6400. Samsung states that the keyboard has been treated with silver nano technology so that it is less likely to spread bacteria (they have been doing this since the R20 was introduced in early 2007). The treatment is not obvious and the keys look and feel like normal plastic.

People complained about the touchpad on the NC10 being too small. The NC20's Synaptics touchpad is a generous 70mm x 42mm. There is a one-piece touchpad button which is fixed in the middle and behaves like two buttons. This single button is easy to operate. The touchpad supports multi-touch gestures including chiral scrolling and pinching.

The indicator lights are clearly labelled on the palm rest

There are seven indicator lights on the front edge of the chassis with symbols on the front of the palm rest. The surround to the lights is glossy, which makes it more difficult to see the lights. As with many other notebooks, Samsung chose to put the NC10's lights where they are covered by the user's left palm. A central location in front of the touchpad would be much more visible. From left to right the lights are: Num Lock; Caps Lock; Scroll Lock; HDD/SSD Activity; Wireless On; Charge Status and Computer On.

Samsung provide the standard Samsung set of function key facilities, so they haven't reduced capabilities in spite of the low price. Fn F8 switches between three operating modes: Silent; Normal; and Speed. This control is hardly needed on the NC10 since the fan is very quiet but the Silent mode locks the CPU to the minimum speed which means the fan stays off except under sustained full CPU load. Something not mentioned in the User Guide is that pressing the Esc key during initial boot brings up a boot device menu. This is in addition to F2 for entering the BIOS setup.

Where is the power button? It is on the right side hinge and glows blue when the computer is on.

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Ports and Features

The port count is the same as on the NC10 although there are significant differences in the NC20's port layout. Samsung avoided squeezing ports so close together that they interfere with each other. Therefore all three USB ports can always be used. There are no ports on the front right side where cables can get in the way of a mouse. The fan exhaust is near the back on the left side. An HDMI port would have been a welcome addition since VIA claims that the Nano CPU is capable of HD playback.

Let's have a tour of the sides, clockwise starting at the front:

The front has the indicator lights and media card slot (with a plastic filler)

Left side from back to front: Network socket, USB port, fan exhaust, VGA port, microphone and headphone sockets

The back: Nothing except the hinges and the battery

Right side from front to back: two USB ports, power socket and security slot

Display

The display is a 12.1" 1280 x 800 (WXGA) gloss LCD with LED backlight. The label on the box says 220 nits brightness. There are eight brightness levels. The lowest level is barely usable but one step above minimum gives adequate lighting while extending battery time. The overall range of Viewing angles are typical for displays of this type with colours fading when viewed from above and inverting when viewed from below. Horizontal viewing angles are good. The backlighting is very even. Personally, I prefer a matte display because there are fewer problems with reflections.

Display viewed from different angles - it is best when pushed back a little

Compared to the NC10's display, the NC20 seems to have a slightly yellow tint. At the default settings it also lacked contrast. Fortunately, Samsung have included the S3 ScreenToys control panel which enables users to make fine adjustments to the display and it is worthwhile using this to fine-tine the appearance.

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<!--pagetitle: Samsung NC20 Speakers and Audio -->

Speakers and Audio

The NC20 contains two loudspeakers located on the bottom under the palm rests and the specification states these are rated at 1.5W. The overall audio is much better in both quantity and quality than on my Dell E6400 and slightly more powerful than the NC10's speakers. The audio output quality is slightly improved by both the Samsung Enhanced Digital Sound and the equalizer option in the Realtek audio manager.

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Performance and Benchmarks

The NC20 is unusual among the current crop of netbooks on account not being powered by the Intel Atom N270 CPU and Intel 945GSE chipset. Instead it uses the VIA Nano U2250 with the VIA VX800 chipset. VIA's website states that the U2250 has an idle power of 200mW. However, it does not state the maximum power consumption for the U2250 CPU although the 1.6GHz version has a TDP of 17W. VIA's White Paper mentions a 1.3GHz CPU with a TDP of 8W. Comparison of power consumption with the CPU on idle and under full load indicates a difference is about 10W. In contrast, this difference for the NC10 is less than 5W. So, while the VIA Nano can compete with the Atom on idle power consumption, the full load power consumption is significantly higher. The chipset is capable of addressing more than 2GB of RAM so, although there is only a single memory slot, there is the possibility of using 4GB of RAM when those modules become affordable.

One of the interesting features of the U2250 CPU is the rated speed of 1.3GHz . The actual maximum speed seems a little unclear: CPU-Z and SiSoftware Sandra indicate a speed of 1.5GHz while PCMark05 reports 1.6GHz. The S3 ScreenToys splits the difference with 1.54GHz.

Hard Disk

The supplied hard disk is a 160GB 2.5" 5400rpm Samsung HM160HI using the SATA interface. This HDD uses one platter with a maximum transfer rate of 64.5MB/s and an average of 51.1MB/s. Both the hard disk and the interface performance are similar to a full-sized notebook. Results for HD Tune and HDTach are below.

wPrime

The Nano U2250 ran the wPrime 32M processor performance benchmark in 174.765s. This is less than one second faster than I measured for the Atom N270 when running one thread, but the hyperthreading in the Atom provides a major performance boost if wPrime is set to run two threads.

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Samsung NC20 (1.3 GHz VIA Nano N2250)	174.765s
Samsung NC10 (1.6GHz Intel Atom N270)	125.562s
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	114.749s
Asus N10 (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	126.047s
Acer Aspire One (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	125.812s
MSI Wind (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	124.656s
Toshiba R500 - (1.20GHz Core Duo U7600) XP	70.500s
Fujitsu S6120 (Pentium M 1.6GHz)	113.705s
Sony Vaio VGN-G11XN/B (1.33GHz Core Solo U1500)	124.581s
Dell E6400 (2.4GHz Intel P8600 / Intel GM45 / 2GB RAM PC6400)	32.53s

PCMark05

The PCMark05 score for the NC20 was 1,401 PCMarks which is slightly lower than other netbooks with similar hardware. Increasing the NC20's RAM to 2GB improved the PCMark05 score to 1455. The table below compares the PCMark05 test result with some other netbooks and notebooks.

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Samsung NC20 (1.3GHz VIA Nano U2250, VIA VX800 chipset)	1,401 PC Marks
Samsung NC10 (1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, Intel GMA950)	1,515 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,535 PCMarks
Asus N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,531 PCMarks
Asus N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,851 PCMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,446 PCMarks
Asus Eee PC 1000HA (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,527 PCMarks
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,555 PCMarks
Toshiba R500 - (1.20GHz Core Duo U7600) XP	1,953 PCMarks
Sony Vaio VGN-G11XN/B (1.33GHz Core Solo U1500)	1,554 PCMarks
Apple MacBook Air (1.6GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P7500, Intel X3100)	2,478 PCMarks
Sony Vaio TZ90HS (1.2GHz Core 2 Duo ULV U7600)	2,517 PCMarks
Samsung Q35 (1.83GHz Core 2 Duo T5600, Intel 945GM)	3,059 PCMarks
Samsung R20 (1.73GHz T2250 and ATI 1250M chipset / GPU)	3,498 PCMarks
Dell E6400 (2.4GHz Intel P8600 / Intel GM45 / 2GB RAM PC6400)	4,357 PCMarks

It is revealing to look at the individual PCMark05 components to see how the Nano U2250 compares with the Atom N270. I have also added my Dell E6400 with its dual core 2.4GHz P8600 CPU as a further comparison.

PCMark05 Component	NC20	NC10	Dell E6400
XP Startup	6.34 MB/s	6.75 MB/s	7.91 MB/s
Physics and 3D	31.52 FPS	30.43 FPS	88.48 FPS
Transparent Windows	88.55 Windows/s	60.99 Windows/s	227.47 Windows/s
3D Pixel Shader	3.99 FPS	8.45 FPS	39.65 FPS
Web Page Rendering	1.5 pages/s	1.38 pages/s	4.01 pages/s
File Decryption	24 MB/s	14.72 MB/s	68.33 MB/s
Graphics Memory - 64 Lines	414.05 FPS	292.2 FPS	522.45 FPS
HDD General Usage	3.94 MB/s	4.25 MB/s	4.82 MB/s
Audio Compression	531.16 kB/s	575.59 kB/s	2745.62 kB/s
Video Encoding	77.28 kB/s	105.8 kB/s	437.78 kB/s
Text Edit	28.92 pages/s	22.95 pages/s	161.68 pages/s
Image Decompression	6.39 Mpixels/s	6.45 Mpixels/s	33.57 Mpixels/s
File Compression	1.1 MB/s	1.56 MB/s	5.59 MB/s
File Encryption	5.78 MB/s	5.97 MB/s	31.03 MB/s
HDD Virus Scan	16.47 MB/s	39.51 MB/s	35.02 MB/s
Memory Latency	6.23 Maccesses/s	5.61 Maccesses/s	9.09 Maccesses/s

The NC20 and the NC10 get similar scores for most components. However, while the NC20 is faster with transparent windows it is much slower at pixel shading. It is faster at file decryption and the graphics memory test but slower at video encoding, file encryption and the virus scan. The Dell E6400, as would be expected, is typically four times faster for tests involving the CPU and GPU but the HDD test results are similar to the netbooks.

3DMark06

The 3DMark06 result was where I would expect - near the slow end of the table. It shows a useful improvement on the NC10 but it is still only suitable for older and less demanding games. Increasing the RAM to 2GB did not change the score for this benchmark.

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
Samsung NC20 (VIA Nano U2250 Chrome9 HC3)	132 3DMarks
Samsung NC10 (1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, Intel GMA950)	89 3DMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	92 3DMarks
Asus N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	73 3DMarks
Asus N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,417 3DMarks
Asus Eee PC 1000HA (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	95 3DMarks
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	122 3DMarks
Toshiba R500 - (1.20GHz Core Duo U7600) XP Pro SP3	141 3DMarks
Sony Vaio VGN-G11XN/B (1.33GHz Core Solo U1500)	148 3DMarks
Samsung Q35 (1.83GHz Core 2 Duo T5600, Intel 945GM)	106 3DMarks
MSI Wind (Intel Atom @ 1.6GHz)	112 3DMarks
Zepto 6024W (2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7300 and Intel X3100 GPU)	561 3DMarks
Dell E6400 (2.4GHz Intel P8600 / Intel GM45 / 2GB RAM PC6400)	944 3DMarks

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<!--pagetitle: Samsung NC20 Battery, Power Supply and Cooling System -->

Battery, Power Supply and Cooling System

Samsung took a backwards step, in my opinion, in providing a power supply with a 3-core mains cable instead of the thinner and lighter 2-core cable provided with the NC10. Other than the mains lead and socket on the PSU, the power supply is the same 40W (19V, 2.1A) unit provided with the NC10. The PSU draws negligible mains power when the computer is off. There is no indicator light on the PSU to show that it has power but a light on front of the computer glows green when the power is connected and blue when it is operating.

The 6-cell battery is rated at 11.1V, 5200mAh = 57.72Whr. It is the same battery as used as in the NC10 which, in the longer term, will simplify the sourcing of replacements. There are reports that the US version of the NC20 will have a larger capacity 5900mAh battery. The charging rate is up to about 20W when the computer is operating but is reduced if necessary when the computer is under load in order to keep within the PSU's 40W rating. The charge rate increases to about 30W (34W drain at the mains socket) when the computer is off. Recharge only starts when the charge level is below 98% in order to reduce the number of charge cycles used for small top-ups.

How does the NC20 compare with excellent battery performance provided by the NC10? First, the NC20 needs to illuminate a larger screen. The difference between 10.2" and 12.1" doesn't appear to be much, but the latter is 45% greater in area. Minimum power consumption of the NC20 is around 8W but, when under load, power consumption increases more (~10W) than with the NC10 (&lt;5W). In addition, the NC20's backlight power consumption varies over a range of about 4W. The highest power consumption I saw for the NC20 was between 26W and 28W while playing a DVD on a USB-powered DVD drive. This would drain the battery in about two hours. However, I played a copy of the 3 hour long Dances with Wolves DVD from the HDD at half brightness and the NC20 got to the end with some power to spare.

Four to five hours of light usage appears to be a reasonable expectation for the NC20 compared with the six to seven hours from the NC10. I use Firefox with Flashblock to stop animated web pages from increasing the power consumption. Flash content on open web pages will continue to run in the background even if the computer is off line and that page is being used and cause substantial extra power consumption.

What about heat and fan noise? The NC20 needs to dispose of more heat than the NC10 but does so in a very quiet manner. The first fan speed is almost inaudible. Sustained work can results in the fan speed increasing but this is also barely audible. Samsung's wedge-shaped design for their netbooks makes it easy to incorporate a relatively large fan that can be effective but quiet. (The small fan in my much slimmer Toshiba R500 gets noisy under load). If anyone doesn't like the minimal noise there is always the Silent Mode option in the BIOS while Fn F8 steps through three performance options with the Silent setting locking the CPU to minimum speed. Overall, heat is not a problem with the NC10 although the maximum CPU temperature I observed is a warm 68C. The fan disposes of the heat effectively and the outer casing does not get unpleasantly warm.

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Warranty and Customer Support

Samsung (in UK) includes a standard one year collect and return warranty. A sticker on the NC20 states that it has an international warranty and a booklet lists the international service locations. Samsung also offer an optional two year warranty extension. However, the cost is the same across the whole notebook / netbook range.

Conclusion

I concluded my NC10 review with the remark "However, there will still be a demand for the ultra-portables from those people who want their only notebook to be as small and light as possible." Is the NC20 as, Samsung say, a large-screen netbook or is it a low cost ultra-portable notebook? Based on internal hardware and performance, the NC20 sits firmly in the netbook category. However, in terms of usability, with a 12.1" display, good-sized keyboard, reasonable weight and reasonable battery life, the NC20 offers what many people seek from an ultra portable, at an attractive price. The performance is adequate for tasks such as web browsing, emails and simple document work. Whereas the 10.2" and smaller netbooks are usually purchased as a second computer, the usability of the NC20 makes it a viable main computer. There must be many people with older notebooks which meet their performance needs but their computers are suffering age-related wear and tear. The NC20 is an affordable replacement for those older notebooks.

The NC10 sitting on the NC20. Which size do you want?

Pros:

• Solid construction with good styling and attention to detail
• Bright and sharp WXGA display
• Good sized keyboard including dedicated Page Up and page Down keys
• Generous touchpad
• Good hard disk capacity and speed
• Three USB ports and media card reader
• Good styling with excellent attention to detail
• Cheap compared to an ultra-portable

Cons:

• Glossy display (but some people see that as a good thing)
• No WWAN option (at the moment)
• Slightly uneven brightness on display
• An Express Card slot would have increased the upgrade options

 

Nice review, John. The NC20 is definitely a decent machine - it meets expectations and has something other than the typical vanilla netbook specifications. At least it doesn't have the joke of a resolution most netbooks have; 1280x800 is both usable and acceptable on a 12" display.

 

Good job on the review.

My 1.5yr old, VAIO TZ190 has been relegated to netbook and travel duties since i purchased my Dell SXPS16 for home use. Something this size, with enough power and screen rez, is definitely doable as a primary computer.

Most netbooks have low rez screens because it is a requirement to get the WindowsXP licence. Intel has its own hardware restrictions on how manufacturers can use the Atom.

 

Nice review! Any ideas if this thing can play 720p video¿

 

Great review.

Kev, I've heard some owners on my NC20 community forum report that they have not had much luck with hi res vid. The NC10 semeed to get on better in that respect. I don't have one so can't say for sure though.

 

Excellent Review! 'Bout time some company gave a concerted effort to produce a Nano-based netbook. I'm so sick of the Intel Atom, I was dissapointed to see Via delay release of the Nano. We need more x86 competitors! I must say I was surprised to see the better 3DMark06 score since that particular Nano is clocked lower and I know the Chrome graphics are nothing to write home about. I'd like to see what people come up with as far as gaming on that netbook goes, make an interesting Nano vs Atom argument, although we already know that clock for clock the Nano is better than the Atom at most things.

 

Very thorough and professional review. The size is bigger than a netbook, that's for sure, but the weight is very generous for the price.

 

Great review... thanks!

 

Samsung must have negotiated something with Microsoft. I'm sure that some people will try to run Vista on that hardware, but I doubt if it qualifies for a "Vista capable" sticker.

Yes, that's something I forgot to mention. I tried a 720p sample and it handled it very smoothly. The next thing people will want is an HDMI port.

Full details of the VX800 chipset (which includes the GPU) are here. It offers a lot of features but, I think, uses a bit more power than the Intel chipset when using those features.

John

 

Thanks a lot for your efforts.

 

Nice Ratsey,

I have to say the NC10 looks like it has a superior screen in the color area the whites looks white and the blues look blue. Still if i had to choose i think id take the NC20 that 1280 x 800 is hard to resist

 

Nice review,thx!

 

as more makers move up to 12"

im' wondering when if ever we'll see UXGA screens under 5lbs

this was a decent looking system but for most users the 720p question

coupled w/ the comfort of the keyboard makes or breaks the experience


still waiting until the quality of the systems improve

 

thanks for great review...

I personally would get N10 instead of N20 for longer battery and portability.

 

Great review. It's good to see a netbook without Atom. Something to mix it up a bit...

One of the best movies I've ever seen.

 

Thanks for the excellent review!
It's just too bad NC20 got a glossy screen - who needs a mirror outdoors??

 

it's good to see some competition for atom.

 

That matte white finish makes the NC20 look like a child's toy. Especially coupled with that super boring keyboard.

Great specs but seriously, Samsung need to bring their Touch of Colour design to their netbooks.

 

That may come if the basic hardware sells well. Did you see the N110 and N310?

John

 

Maybe in a few years when OLEDs become more feasible. Although, i remember there was a 10 inch 1080p LCD prototype floating around a few years back. And the Sony P has the crasy 1600x768 in an 8 inch form factor. Also, the Sony Z has the 1600x900 in the 13 inch and 3-4 lb range.. so not far off.

 

Nice review, seems to be a well built notebook =D

But i think in the screen section when you said:
"The backlighting is very even. Personally, I prefer a matte display because there are fewer problems with reflections."

Did u mean less reflections?

 

??? 80PORT ???

I bet that plugs in a test display to show BIOS codes pushed out to I/O port 80h. That can be really handy when debugging.

 

Good review with lots of useful stats, thanks. I question Samsung's decision to move the tilde key to the left side of the spacebar. Nonstandard keyboards are my biggest complaint about netbooks, next to their diminutive display resolutions. Samsung resolved the latter nicely, but unfortunately it looks like they still couldn't fit in a standard keyboard. Disappointing, since the 12.1" Lenovo X200 manages to pack in a full size standard keyboard (depending on whether you consider their left control key/function key placement standard). Perhaps the NC20 just requires a thicker chassis, due to the plastic construction. It's not fair to compare it to the X200, it's like comparing apples and apple pie.

One nitpick: in your review, you say "The backlighting is very even." in the display section, but in the pros/cons wrapup, you say "Slightly uneven brightness on display." Which is it?

 

Hey, when is this going to be released in the U.S.? thanks

 

Great review! All the questions I had about the machine are answered. John Ratsey is the best reviewer here.
Big kudos to Samsung for finally offering a decent 12-inch netbook. The only competition, I believe is Dell, but that one is rather slow (HDD version) and only 3-cell battery. Glossy display is big bummer for me, though. Why wouldn't they make it a matte one? Still on the fence. Or maybe fork up a pile of cash for a Sony.

 

Thank you. There was even more detail in the review as submitted, but the editorial team must have been worried that it was too much for most readers.

John

 

Please refer to the following if you want to make NC20 faster.

As a result of I borrowed power of Crystal CPUID this time, and the awakening of new microcode adaptation nano compared MSR of NF77 with design VB8001 of the possibility, and having tried it earnestly for the time being

http://crystalmark.info/download/index-e.html

MSR
0x00001203

EDX(63-32) EAX(31-0)
0x00000000 0x24000218
↓
EDX(63-32) EAX(31-0)
0x00000000 0x24000018



NC20
It is before awakening


After awakening


In addition, even NF77 bios A03 is the same.
The use by a self-responsibility（I do not understand what value it is）

 

That looks very interesting and gives a substantial boost to the CPU performance.

John

 

I really don't get it!

How come the performance boost so much by only modifying the Microcode?

Sorry I don't know what it really is so...Could someone explain this?

 

Not really sure what's going on in that Microcode post -- can anyone better interpret what's being done here?

BTW, first review of the North American version of the NC20 went up yesterday: http://computershopper.com/laptops/reviews/samsung-nc20

Doesn't have the scope of John Ratsey's awesome piece here, but gives you an idea about the larger battery's capacity and has some compartive photos in the slideshow with 10" and 17" notebooks.

 

Not the performance boost but this is an original performance of nano.
For reasons of something, a performance is limited in microcode incorporated in nano shipped comparatively recently such as nc20 or bios A03 of NF77.

The operation mentioned above threw it open.
It is the maximum and is nano of 1.5GHz to be built in nc20.
Because a performance of nc20(1.5GHz) got closer to a performance of nano of 1.6GHz, you may understand it.

 

Seriouly I still don't understand. Let the number talk, shall we?

Maybe some CrystalMark tests comparison before/after applying the Microcode...."Patch" will tell?

 

CrystalMark
before

after


An awakening procedure
samsung nc20 Awakening
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YA7O4v1QWe0&fmt=18

 

, that's really hot.

 

can anyone rerun the tests with the new cpu settings like that? i am so tempted to grab one if this gives a decent boost in overall performance as it looks like it will. i personally think a 10" is just to small. for me a 12" is perfect for a netbook

 

I've got round to trying the Crystalmark CPUID edit. Whatever it does change has a significant impact on the SiSoftware Sandra CPU Arithmetic benchmark, a small effect on the Sandra CPU multimedia benchmark, wPrime drops from 175s to 169s and SuperPi is unchanged. It looks as if any overall performance boost is quite small.

Note that these changes are relative to my original test results but the BIOS and video drivers have also been updated, which might improve performance.

Edit: I've now run PCMark05 with the Crystalmark CPUID fix and added the result to the table below, which was in my NC20 review until zapped by the editorial team, presumably because they thought readers didn't want the detail. The table shows that the NC20, even without the CPU fix, is a match for the NC10 in most aspects of performance.

PCMark05 Component	NC20	NC20 + Crystalmark CPUID	NC10	Dell E6400
Overall Score	1401	1480	1515	4357
XP Startup	6.34 MB/s	6.86 MB/s	6.75 MB/s	7.91 MB/s
Physics and 3D	31.52 FPS	32.14 FPS	30.43 FPS	88.48 FPS
Transparent Windows	88.55 Windows/s	88.72 Windows/s	60.99 Windows/s	227.47 Windows/s
3D Pixel Shader	3.99 FPS	3.99 FPS	8.45 FPS	39.65 FPS
Web Page Rendering	1.5 pages/s	1.61 pages/s	1.38 pages/s	4.01 pages/s
File Decryption	24 MB/s	25.09 MB/s	14.72 MB/s	68.33 MB/s
Graphics Memory - 64 Lines	414.05 FPS	413.67 FPS	292.2 FPS	522.45 FPS
HDD General Usage	3.94 MB/s	4.27 MB/s	4.25 MB/s	4.82 MB/s
Audio Compression	531.16 kB/s	547.98 kB/s	575.59 kB/s	2745.62 kB/s
Video Encoding	77.28 kB/s	82.21 kB/s	105.8 kB/s	437.78 kB/s
Text Edit	28.92 pages/s	31.39 pages/s	22.95 pages/s	161.68 pages/s
Image Decompression	6.39 Mpixels/s	6.45 Mpixels/s	6.45 Mpixels/s	33.57 Mpixels/s
File Compression	1.1 MB/s	1.18 MB/s	1.56 MB/s	5.59 MB/s
File Encryption	5.78 MB/s	6.33 MB/s	5.97 MB/s	31.03 MB/s
HDD Virus Scan	16.47 MB/s	20.88 MB/s	39.51 MB/s	35.02 MB/s
Memory Latency	6.23 Maccesses/s	6.23 Maccesses/s	5.61 Maccesses/s	9.09 Maccesses/s

John

 

see i have the chance to get a clevo m72r setup with t7250, x3100, 250gb hdd, intel 5300, 4gb ram for under 400$ shipped. but the battery life is 1.5 hours at BEST with the 4 cell. im sure it would be much more capable than the samsung but battery life sucks. im trying to find another 12" with that kind of pricing and i think this and maybe the asus would be my only other options but both use the atom or via and much lower than even x3100 gpu

thoughts?

 

You are wanting the performance of a Ferrari with the price and power efficiency of a Fiat. That can't be done, at the moment.

The NC20 benefits from a lower cost CPU / chipset and a cheaper version of Windows compared to a dual core CPU in an ultra-portable.

John

 

yeah i grabbed a couple of the clevo m72r models. for under 400$ i got the following:
m72r barebones
4gb ram
250gb hdd
intel 5300
t7250 cpu
dvd burner
bluetooth
webcam
12.1" screen
intel x3100 (not great but still will do anything it needs to in these)
4cell battery

then i ordered 2 additional 8 cell's for 90$ each

so 490 shipped for each of them..

id say that was sweet

 

I used the info from this thread to test out the performance on linux and I can confirm similar performance gains by updating the msr register. It's not a massive jump across the board but significant nonetheless.

You can try it out yourself by loading the msr kernel module and then grab the msr tools package for your distro and use rdmsr and wrmsr.

 

Hi all

I like this netbook alot and thinking of buying it when it comes to my country. But I am a little afraid of the non-multi-tasking-thing.
I would like to run Windows 7 as OS.

Can anyone tell me how it runs with more applications at the same time? For example I like to watch a movie, just H264 encoded, not 720P, AND work in Dreamweaver at the same time?

Or watch a movie a working in Photoshop at the same time?

Can any tell me of your experience with this?

 

Hi simonselmer. I run linux on my nc20 so I don't use the same applications as you do but I can vouch for the general multitasking ability of the machine. I watched a couple of movies encoded with Xvid using VLC whilst I was compiling a kernel, which is a very strenuous task for any machine. I think it's a very capable machine but bear in mind that I have upgraded it to 2GB of memory (very cheap and easy to do) and this might be a factor in what I observed.

I was also impressed with the benchmarks that I ran including super-pi and openssl. I can imagine that it'll fly with XP and 2GB of ram and I'd recommend that you enable hardware acceleration in your media player if at all possible. On my windows laptop I enabled direct3d based acceleration in VLC so that the video processing was part shunted onto the graphics chipset, leaving the cpu with more cycles for your normal work.

 

No HDMI? No eSATA? No chance...

damn! oh well... maybe the NC30 will be the one

 

Hi John,

Are you able to answer the following questions regarding the VGA output:

1 Can the OS be ROTATED 90 degrees on an external monitor?

2 What's the MAXIMUM RESOLUTION that can be displayed on an external monitor?

I'm wanting to plug the NC20 into an external monitor to work with PDF's and Word docs in portrait mode... so hoping that the video card can push out at least 1280X1024, which is the optimum resolution of my DELL 17" pivoting monitor.

 

The attached shows a rotation option on the S3 Graphics Screen Toys.

One of the hardware reports I created for the NC20 lists a maximum resolution of 1600 x 1200. I would see that as a minimum since the graphics RAM is 128MB.

Unfortunately, myself and the NC20 are currently in different continents. If you would like a second opinion then I suggest you post your question in the NC20 thread.

John

 

I've recently bought an samsung nc20 and read the procedure for the "awakening", though i"ve got one question left. Once the hex value has been submitted are the changes permanent? Or will i have to re-submit after a restart?

Im really satisfied with my nc20. even some of my co-workers are considering to get one. The biggest plus for me is its screen size and resolution. the glossy screen is not that bad as some would expect. Atm i"ve been sitting for 2h on my terrace on a shiny day (with 2h 1/2 battery left) and have no problems writing/reading through sites/forums.

The Performance is great, i would recommend to get a 2GB ram dimm for additional 27 bucks. I got myself a short cl one from mushkin http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820146848

 

You need to do that each time you restart the OS. I mainly use linux on my nc20 and I have a script to set the msr value at startup. Does the crystal cpuid program have a command line interface? You could write a small batch script to run at startup if it does.

 

Yes. Rotation is available (90, 180 and 270 degrees).

I tried it with a 1440 x 900 screen and that worked OK (although I had to manually set the resolution). There was also an option of 1400 x 1050 but I didn't see 1680 x 1050.

My tests (reported previously) suggested that the "awakening" didn't bring much real life benefit. You may want to see if you can notice the difference.

I think the glossiness problems depends on what you are used to. My main computer is a Dell E6400 with an excellent matte screen, so I notice the reflectiveness of the NC20 (with and without it being turned on).

In terms of performance, yesterday I was playing with a 5 year old Fujitsu S6120 (1.6GHz Pentium M, 512MB RAM and 40GB HDD). The NC20 seems fast in comparison (but I think the S6120 would get a noticeable boost by dropping in more RAM and a modern HDD).

John

 

I guessed so, back in the days of windows 2000 i had a "setmsr" tool for windows, which would run in background to remove a oem-limitation of the bios. Tried googeling it, came up with no results. Im gone install ubuntu as 2nd os soon, gone play and compare than =)

Your are right, so far i couldn"t really tell the difference.

That might be true lol, i work in the it&t dep. and have seen really bad screens in the last 10 years. Though my home rig is attached to a samsung 27" display (brilliant matte) and when i get tired of the work screens i relax to that.

 

Do you think your yellow tint problem is common to all of these notebooks? It's quite profound in the sample images you took.. other than the screen this looks almost perfect..