Just got my Samsung NC20...Pics inside...

Just received the NC20, 1st impressions are that the size is perfect for me. I am glad I didnt go for the NC10 it would have been to small. Actually the NC20 seemed smaller than I was expecting so the NC10 must be tiny!!

Build quality seems excellent, no creaking etc.

Just put it on charge as I have to go out now.

Any questions I will try and answer later











The screen is gorgeous. Only fired her up but the responsiveness in basic xp is great so far. Internet explorer was very quick.

Got a dilemma now tho. do I put Windows 7 or vista on or live with XP. I am a bit if a graphical tart TBH but also I dont want to kill the performance dead striaght away. Drivers im sure will be an issue.

It is very well made and had no hiccups so far apart from all the crap they put on, mcafee etc.

Update: shutting the lid into sleep then opening up and pressing the power button makes xp come back in about 2 seconds which i like

Battery at 83% says 5 hrs 29 mins remaining.

BBC Iplayer works smoothly. Just downloading 2 sample vids from microsoft. 720p and 1080p, the reef ones.

Just put it on max performance on the battery and it says the nano is running at 1.6Ghz now in system properties

 

Can confirm that the 720p movie runs perfect at full screen and looks amazing. 1080p runs 99% perfect, every few seconds you get the smallest of stutters that is hardly noticeable.

I must say the unzip on the 100mb file took about 4 seconds. I do not have any intel atom experience but it sure seemed quick.

This is on performance battery and no tweaking whatsoever.

 

Spitwroot - Great post - Thanks for taking the time!! +rep What kind of graphics does it have? I hope not GM945 but I assume so...

 

Thanks JellyGeo It is the Via Nano CPU with Via Chrome9 HC3 graphics chip.

Further testing shows:

YouTube HD is unwatchable and like a slideshow lol.

Strange thing is that Vimeo HD 720p runs ok full screen.

 

Win xp boot time not tweaked.

From pressing the power button to desktop showing it takes 33 seconds.

 

Very nice... congrats!

I'm pretty well set on the NC10 (just waiting for a price drop) but this NC20 does look good.

 

Best looking 12" netbook. Nice pics and review.

 

Awesome, its looking great so far. Does twofingerscroll work on the touchpad?

 

Thanks, any questions I will try and answer

Sorry its my 1st samsung, whats two finger scroll?

 

I doubt it, look on the right side of the touchpad, see the scroll markers?

Instead of scrolling on the side of the touchpad, some computers (like EEE's and laptops with synaptics drivers) you can use two fingers in the middle to scroll.

 

Putting two fingers on changes it to a crosshair. The scroll markers on the side work quite nice for scrolling.

 

The NC10 has those too, they are only for visual reference and can be disabled using the synaptics driver.

Download this for 2 finger scroll to see if it works

http://two-finger-scroll.googlecode.com/files/TwoFingerScroll_1_0_6.zip

 

Once you download and install that ZIP, be sure to go into the Mouse properties and disable Pinch zoom.

 

Hello,

I am considering buying one. Had a couple quick questions for you. Thanks in advance.

How much did it cost?
Where did you buy it from?
How is the performance when you multitask (word editing / firefox open)
How is the performance with tabbed browsing?
How is the sound quality from the speakers?
How is the keyboard?
How glossy is the screen? Is it a fingerprint magnet?
How does it handle normal vids, just a normal youtube vid.

Thanks so much!

 

wow thanks very much for sharing these pictures!! Would you mind if I posted up a couple on my Samsung Netbook community site? It's just a (sometimes very) amateur site for NC10 and NC20 owners !!

I actually think the NC20 is a nice size - what are your thoughts on portability? I think for it to compete against "low priced" full specced laptops it needs to really sell itself on size and style? As an NC10 owner I love the way it jsut slips into a small shoulder bag and you can carry it around with ease. I'm guessing the NC20 is not much different but with an extra couple of inches of space making a good difference?

I would also love to know the answers to the questions above. And on the off chance you fancy doing a "normal user" review then just let me know!

Thanks again!

 

Thanks for sharing your photos and initial observations.

My interest would be in performance, starting with the CPU (eg wPrime) since this Via CPU is a newcomer. The full set of tests as in my NC10 review would be very revealing.

John

 

How much did it cost? £390 inc vat
Where did you buy it from? Saveonsamsung
How is the performance when you multitask (word editing / firefox open) with word 07, excel 07, publisher 07, ie7 3 tabs and windows explorer open its instant switching between them
How is the performance with tabbed browsing? no complaints, seems faster then my quad core vista machine lol
How is the sound quality from the speakers? excellent and VERY loud
How is the keyboard? perfect tactile feedback
How glossy is the screen? Is it a fingerprint magnet? its glossy and i havnt touched it yet
How does it handle normal vids, just a normal youtube vid. had no problems with any vids apart from youtube HD which is unwatchable

Hope that helps. Must admit typing on my knee with the nc20 is a joy.

 

Jezza101, absolutely no problems with sing my stuff for you blog, dont do yourself down man. I followed you blog before I got my NC20 for info. Its awesome!! I am not a very good writer so a review might be a bit crap lol

Will try the benchmarking thing John but time is not on my side.

Edit: Just registered on your site Jezza101 with username Spit

 

Forgot to answer your questions Jezza, sorry.

I have no experience with the NC10 but I do have a 14" traditional laptop. Portability on the NC20 is great compared to that beast, obviously it is bigger than the NC10 but the screen size and more importantly for me resolution more than makes up for it. I use share dealing software so 1024x600 is out of the question and that is why i have resisted netbooks so far. I have a samsung q1 ultra UMPC that has 1024x600 so i know what fits and what doesnt for my use.

bit rambling but hope this post helps.

 

Is there any simple benchmark I can install that will help you guys? I dont want to be installing loads of big software.

 

Hi Spitwroot

Maybe you could try the CrystalMark which needs no installation.

Here's the link. Thanks for you kindly help!
http://crystalmark.info/software/CrystalMark/index-e.html

 

wPrime 1.55 will give a fair indication of the CPU performance and needs no installation.

I'm sure people will also be interested in PCMark05 (indication of general performance and 3DMark05 / 3DMark06 (indication of graphics performance), but those benchmarks are big files.

John

 

CrystalMark MaxBatteryLife Scores:

CrystalMark Result
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Display Mode : 1280 x 800 32bit (Normal)

CrystalMark : 20287

[ ALU ] 2898
Fibonacci : 1362
Napierian : 606
Eratosthenes : 346
QuickSort : 562
[ FPU ] 2136
MikoFPU : 333
RandMeanSS : 1028
FFT : 319
Mandelbrot : 434
[ MEM ] 1797
Read : 284.67 MB/s ( 284)
Write : 691.09 MB/s ( 691)
Read/Write : 292.15 MB/s ( 292)
Cache : 5086.20 MB/s ( 508)
[ HDD ] 6606
Read : 52.06 MB/s ( 2082)
Write : 47.26 MB/s ( 1890)
RandomRead512K : 19.21 MB/s ( 768)
RandomWrite512K : 32.22 MB/s ( 1288)
RandomRead 64K : 3.55 MB/s ( 142)
RandomWrite 64K : 10.90 MB/s ( 436)
[ GDI ] 2246
Text : 399
Square : 651
Circle : 937
BitBlt : 259
[ D2D ] 3901
Sprite 10 : 263.09 FPS ( 26)
Sprite 100 : 223.15 FPS ( 223)
Sprite 500 : 135.43 FPS ( 677)
Sprite 1000 : 91.58 FPS ( 915)
Sprite 5000 : 20.53 FPS ( 1026)
Sprite 10000 : 10.34 FPS ( 1034)
[ OGL ] 703
Scene 1 Score : 416
Lines (x1000) : ( 35337)
Scene 1 CPUs : ( 8)
Scene 2 Score : 287
Polygons(x1000) : ( 8135)
Scene 2 CPUs : ( 8)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
System Information
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OS : Windows XP Home Service Pack 3 [5.1 Build 2600]
Display Mode : 1280 x 800 32bit 60Hz
Memory : 1919 MB
DirectX : 9.0c

 

MaxPerformance settings and plugged into the mains:

CrystalMark Result
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Display Mode : 1280 x 800 32bit (Normal)

CrystalMark : 28248

[ ALU ] 5411
Fibonacci : 2500
Napierian : 1153
Eratosthenes : 658
QuickSort : 1078
[ FPU ] 4050
MikoFPU : 635
RandMeanSS : 1952
FFT : 612
Mandelbrot : 829
[ MEM ] 2778
Read : 485.19 MB/s ( 485)
Write : 956.96 MB/s ( 956)
Read/Write : 355.66 MB/s ( 355)
Cache : 9606.99 MB/s ( 960)
[ HDD ] 6759
Read : 52.77 MB/s ( 2110)
Write : 50.55 MB/s ( 2022)
RandomRead512K : 19.31 MB/s ( 772)
RandomWrite512K : 32.12 MB/s ( 1284)
RandomRead 64K : 3.54 MB/s ( 141)
RandomWrite 64K : 10.77 MB/s ( 430)
[ GDI ] 3835
Text : 667
Square : 1052
Circle : 1666
BitBlt : 450
[ D2D ] 4248
Sprite 10 : 259.14 FPS ( 25)
Sprite 100 : 218.82 FPS ( 218)
Sprite 500 : 129.74 FPS ( 648)
Sprite 1000 : 86.93 FPS ( 869)
Sprite 5000 : 24.26 FPS ( 1213)
Sprite 10000 : 12.75 FPS ( 1275)
[ OGL ] 1167
Scene 1 Score : 686
Lines (x1000) : ( 72825)
Scene 1 CPUs : ( 16)
Scene 2 Score : 481
Polygons(x1000) : ( 17171)
Scene 2 CPUs : ( 16)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
System Information
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OS : Windows XP Home Service Pack 3 [5.1 Build 2600]
Display Mode : 1280 x 800 32bit 60Hz
Memory : 1919 MB
DirectX : 9.0c

 

MaxBatteryLife: Wprime 1.55 Score 32M Speedtest: 331.765 sec

MaxPerformance: Wprime 1.55 Score 32M Speedtest: 173.781 sec

 

Looks very similar to the Atom N270, some tests like GDI, D2D, and OGL are much better. It's good!

And the memory reminds me somthing: the VX800 chipset supports maximum 4GB memory. Does NC20 have only ONE memory slot?

Thanks a lot, Spit!

 

Nice one spit, thanks for the continued feedback! I'll probably sumarise your points later today on my blog and link back to this notebookreview.com thread too so people can join the conversation.

Cheers.

 

Great stuff jezza. Would be good to see my name in lights LOL.

Glad to hear the nano is just as good or better.

One thing the nc20 has done so far has made it nice an easy to do this blogging. My umpc touchscreen was great for trolling but not participating.

 

Thanks for the wPrime score. That's almost the same as for the Atom N270 in the NC10 when running one thread so it's good given the 1.33GHz processor speed. However, the the N270 does support hyperthreading which gives a useful performance boost under some situations. Can you check whether the wPrime score for the NC20 improves if you select 2 threads?

We also need some graphics benchmarks which can be compared with other reviews. The GPU in the NC20 is claimed to be better than the GMA950 used in most netbooks.

John

 

Thanks so much for answering my questions. Also, just a general question for everybody; when will the NC20 come to USA?

Thanks.

 

Is it comfortable to type on NC20 when you sit on the couch with body upright, not leaning back and screen maximally opened? Does it open enough so you can easily see what you type without need to tilt your body backwards or tilt the whole machine forward so your viewing angle gets closer to perpendicular to the screen?


I love to do work on my couch instead of chair so I hope NC20 doesn't require special position to see the screen well. I remember NC10 required a little tilting of the machine in order to see the screen well - it was just too short and the opening angle a bit too little.

 

Nice review. Thanks!

One question.

How is the fan noise?

The fan of the Acer Aspire One really bugged me. I hope the NC20 is near silent.

 

There's a fan control for the Acer Aspire One, since the fan is not supposed to come on when it did.

 

Thanks, though I am aware of that. There are actually 2 different Windows software programs specifically designed for that.

But, I guess my real question would be, how much heat does the NC20 produce???

My AA1 would be ok, but after 30mins, it would run hot, and fan control software became useless

 

Hi Spitwroot

Can you measure the height and width of the usable screen so i can get an idea of how would it look on paper?

 

congrats this is a great thread + rep thank you for spending your time to show this

I also love that Via Nano sticker

 

The 12.1" is a standard size screen will be 10.26" (263mm) wide x 6.41" (163mm) high. You can see how it compares to the NC10 by looking at the photo of NC10 next to Toshiba R500 in my NC10 review. The R500 has a 12.1" display.

John

 

Are you just watching downloaded .wmv HD videos? Do you have any 1080p decent bitrate h.264/x.264 you can try? Do you have CoreAVC codecs? I'm very interested in the capability of the VIA Nano to playback 1080p.

 

chrome graphics haha. it even sounds crappy

 

I just downloaded the files to test. I have no intention of watching 1080p videos on this device as its not suitable. I have my quad core and 24" dell screen for that.

I really do not think you guys should get hung up on this. Buy a samsung 610 laptop with blu ray for that. This device is awesome for web browsing, office work, converted dvd's, older games etc. and a great battery life to match.

 

I thinkyou will find it better than the current Intel Netbook offerings apart from the Asus NJ series

 

Thanks for all the info and excellent pictures. It seems you've got an excellent machine, just what Dell should have made with their Mini 12.

 

Your welcome

Seem to be getting just over 4 hours on max performance, 1.6Ghz cpu

 

But see... the NC10-11PBK has much better battery life, nearly the same keyboard, and fixed the touchpad issue. And if the NC20 doesn't offer an increase in processing power that translates into something usable, I don't see the point of getting it instead of the NC10-11PBK.

I just think it would be really convenient to have a machine that is capable of outputting 1080p and is small, portable, with a long battery life.

 

1280 x 800 instead of 1024 x 600 display would be, for me, the main reason.

John

 

for me the 1280X800 screen size is also super awesome. I just found out about this notebook last week and am totally liking what I see.

I just dont really understand why people would want to play 1080p videos on a screen that can only show 800 vertical pixels. This is unless you plan to output it on a large monitor or a TV...but HD video on a 12 inch screen just does not sound right to me.

And that battery life sounds good. 4 hours at maximum. I wonder how well it could handle games?

Spitwroot definitely got a really nice computer there!

 

I agree, the built-in screen can't do justice to a normal DVD, never mind HD. But there is obviously a demand for the ability to output to HD TVs.

I would not be optimistic. The Chrome9 HC GPU is #178 on notebookcheck's table - lower than the GMA950. However, the low results may be in association with an old and slow CPU. I have got the impression that the NC20's graphics performance should be a bit better than the NC10s.

The only way to find out is to get one and test it (which is in my plans).

John

 

, wish i had got one of these. that 1280x800 screen is perfect for certain games which dont work on the nc10 because of the 1024x600 rez

id be extremely interested in 3dmark06 benchmarks on the via unichrome compared to the gma950.

i can run LOTS of games very well (albeit most are older games.) on the nc10.
although i always want more, and as i said the res stops some that i want on the machine.

 

Note, however, 1280 x 800 has 67% more pixels than 1024 x 600, so the GPU in the NC20 will need to be 67% faster than the Intel 950 in order to match the NC10's FPS.

John

 

The res was the single best thing that made me go for the nc20 over the nc10. I use some share dealing software and it would be restrictive on the 1024x600 screen, its perfect on the nc20.