Netbook Reviews : Best Price : Best Buy

Product Description

Life happens in places other than home. And life happens in colors other than shades of gray. That’s why we created the Samsung Go™ netbook. The Samsung Go is a compact, lightweight netbook computer that’s ready to go whenever, wherever. Feel like working at the park? You’re there. Think you’d be more inspired at the lake or beach? Get going. Just want to work in the backyard? That’s okay too. And since your life is fun and exciting, the Samsung Go netbook comes in four fun and exciting colors: Sunset Orange, Midnight Blue, Mint Blue and Jet Black. In fact, everything about the Samsung Go says fun and easy. Smoothly rounded corners simply look and feel better. A pebble-textured keyboard facilitates flying fingers, even those slippery from suntan oil. A spacious hard drive lets you bring along all your favorite music, photos, videos and movies. A 10.1″ wide LED-backlit LCD display is brighter than ever. And with a 10-hour battery, the Samsung Go is always ready to go, go, go. Are you ready to go? The Samsung Go ntebook makes the journey more fun.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43 in Personal Computers
• Color: Mint Blue
• Brand: Samsung
• Model: NP-N310-KA07US
• Dimensions: 7.30″ h x 10.30″ w x 1.10″ l, 2.70 pounds
• CPU: Intel Celeron 1.6 GHz
• Memory: 1000MB SODIMM
• Hard Disk: 160GB
• Processors: 1
• Native resolution: 10.1
• Display size: 10.1

Features

• 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor
• 1GB DD2R RAM
• 160GB Hard Drive
• Windows XP Home, Up to 9 Hours of Battery Life (6 Cell 8850mAh)
• 10.1″ wide LED-backlit LCD display

Customer Reviews

One amazing little netbook!
I chose the Samsung GO because I like the layout of the keyboard, and I liked the ease of slipping in the 2GB memory upgrade. Undo one screw, open the door at the bottom of the case, unlatch two clips and slip the memory board out of the netbook. The upgraded memory board slipped right in, close the latches, close the little door and replace the screw that holds the door closed. Easy, simple, quick. Upgraded memory works great!

One small note: the photos show a soft, pastel mint blue case. Not so. The actual color is a vibrant, eye-popping turquoise that you’ll either love or not. It’s distinctive, it’s unusual, and it is not everyone’s cup of tea. Those who like it (like my wife) really like it a lot. Others think it’s a bit on the wild side. But whether or not you may like the color, there’s just no denying that this is a great little netbook. Keyboard feels solid and sturdy, and is a bit bigger than the keyboard found on most netbooks (92% of full size as opposed to 89% as found on most). The difference is in the key spacing, and it is noticeable. Typing on the Samsung GO is easy and comfortable.

This is an easy netbook to like. A lot. It fires up in seconds, connected perfectly to every wireless system where I’ve tried to use it, gives a bright, clear display that’s far easier to read than you might expect, and packs in all the features I really need when surfing the internet. The Bluetooth connectivity is great, and I do use a Bluetooth enabled mouse when I’m working on projects using this netbook. Otherwise, I use the touchpad, which is sufficient for surfing the internet or just sending emails.

Feel of the netbook is amazing, sturdy and solid and very well built. Nothing flimsy about this machine. It comes packed with software, and you may want to remove some that you might not use often. I download files to a memory key that I can transport from computer to computer, so the 160 GB hard drive is more than sufficient for my purposes. And the battery life is awesome … I do get nearly nine hours when using it in battery-saver mode. Almost six in the faster normal mode. That’s plenty of time for most of my purposes.

Compare this to the others and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. There are many good netbooks out there, all are small and convenient. The Samsung GO is more expensive than most of the others, but it just feels more solid and better build than most. It is incredibly lightweight at less than 3 pounds, and comes in a variety of striking colors for those not afraid to be noticed. Burnt Orange, Midnite Blue, Black and the “Mint Blue” which is anything but a subtle pastel … all but the Black case will stand out in a crowd, and even the Black Samsung GO is distinctive. If you have a chance to touch one on display somewhere, check this netbook out. It is as different from the others as it would appear to be in the photos with this article.

I give this one five (5) stars. It’s a keeper!

A solid performer
After quite a bit of looking around, ended up with the N310 for a variety of reasons. I have a three year old notebook but it’s a pain to lug around. Made sense when I first got it (big screen, plenty of power) because I was consulting (after retirement). Now smaller makes sense since the netbook will be used primarily as a communications device when we’re on vacations.

First, went to retail stores to see netbooks. In general, all available there (ASUS, Acer, HP) looked flimsy at best. Most of the demos had keys missing already. Keyboards (and I don’t have big hands) didn’t seem that good. Second, we have other Samsung products in the home – it’s a brand I’m likely to buy because our experience with it. Third – the N310 looked to be pretty solid (and it seems so now – much more of a solid feel than any I saw in retail) with a rubberized cover and a chiclet keyboard. Fourth, my wife – who is not too technology oriented – liked the look of this netbook (she suggested the mint blue). While she’s unlikely to use it, she’s into what technology looks like. I considered the Toshiba and the ASUS models, but in the end chose Samsung. I can’t say I was able to compare them side by side.

One question was whether it made sense to wait til Windows 7. It is likely that it might have. But then again these machines are matched to a pretty specific need – and it’s not necessarily high tech. For me it’s e-mail and occasional Office work. I put OpenOfficeo on and the VLC media player in addition to Firefox. Net there’s a lot you can do with XP and are likely to be able to do for quite a while. That and XP is familiar.

Had it running in no time (although 48 XP updates had to be applied). I did upgrade the memory – trivial. Don’t think I had to but it seemed to make sense given the life cycle. I ordered from Crucial rather than Amazon after using Crucial’s wizard – it’s recommendation didn’t match the Amazon Crucial part. So far (a week+) very happy. Really appreciate the solid feel. Doesn’t appear to have a lot of junk software that has to be removed. Battery looks to be impressive. No real problem with the keyboard. I guess it’s also fair to say that cost wasn’t a major factor – this is a bit more than alternatives but given the prices for netbooks, plus or minus 10% isn’t a issue factor for me. I know it is for others. I’d suggest durability may justify the extra cost and who knows what people will pay for “style”.

cutest, most portable thing out there!
I love just about everything about I’ve experienced with this ‘mint-blue’ netbook since I received it a few weeks ago. I only have a couple complaints, which are really more like slight annoyances. For one, I’ve noticed that when using Wi-fi, I get about 1 bar less than any other laptop right next to me. I’ve compared it to 4 other laptops of various ages and abilities and they all get better reception. The only other thing that is really quite minor, is that when i;m using the netbook unplugged and the screen dims after a period of un-use, the screen will flicker slightly. It really shouldn’t bother anyone but people like me who get annoyed by very minor things, but I thought I should point it out.
Other than that, I have found my Samsung N310 to be quite the companion, and it really hasn’t left my side since I got it. I really enjoy the long battery life and still haven’t quite gotten used to not having to plug it in every couple hours. Its so freeing!
Also, if I weren’t so dependant on internet, I would give it 5 stars, but it has become a bit of a hindrance.

Product Description

Life happens in places other than home. And life happens in colors other than shades of gray. That’s why we created the Samsung Go™ netbook. The Samsung Go is a compact, lightweight netbook computer that’s ready to go whenever, wherever. Feel like working at the park? You’re there. Think you’d be more inspired at the lake or beach? Get going. Just want to work in the backyard? That’s okay too. And since your life is fun and exciting, the Samsung Go netbook comes in four fun and exciting colors: Sunset Orange, Midnight Blue, Mint Blue and Jet Black. In fact, everything about the Samsung Go says fun and easy. Smoothly rounded corners simply look and feel better. A pebble-textured keyboard facilitates flying fingers, even those slippery from suntan oil. A spacious hard drive lets you bring along all your favorite music, photos, videos and movies. A 10.1″ wide LED-backlit LCD display is brighter than ever. And with a 10-hour battery, the Samsung Go is always ready to go, go, go. Are you ready to go? The Samsung Go ntebook makes the journey more fun.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #32 in Personal Computers
• Color: Midnight Blue
• Brand: Samsung
• Model: NP-N310-KA04US
• Dimensions: 7.30″ h x 10.30″ w x 1.10″ l, 2.70 pounds
• CPU: Intel Celeron 1.6 GHz
• Memory: 1000MB SODIMM
• Hard Disk: 160GB
• Processors: 1
• Native resolution: 10.1
• Display size: 10.1

Features

• 1.6 GHz Intel Atom Processor
• 1GB DD2R RAM
• 160GB Hard Drive
• Windows XP Home, Up to 9 Hours of Battery Life (6 Cell 8850mAh)
• 10.1″ wide LED-backlit LCD display

Customer Reviews

First Impressions
I own and use both a Toshiba Satellite notebook for windows applications and a Macbook Pro for apple applications (I prefer a separate windows machine over rebooting into boot camp and also for the additional hard drive space for my multimedia applications).

Recently I saw the netbooks at a local department store, and asked myself why I would want one. The reasons boiled down to:

1. Long battery life.
2. Portability.
3. Light-weight.
4. Ability to play Netflix on-demand movies.
5. Ability to play Real Arcade games (or similar web-based games).
6. Solid build.
7. Somewhat decent speakers for listening to Rhapsody or other subscription based music programs.
8. Responsive speed for Microsoft Word 2003 (not 2007).
9. Chatting with my children who are away at college.

I then went on a week-long research into the different machines, read the reviews, played with them at the store, typing to see which one would fit my large hands, listening to the sound, picking them up to see how they felt in my hand, and how much they weighed. I didn’t care if they had the Atom N270 or N280 processor as long as they met my criteria listed above. At first, I didn’t care if the 10.1″ screen was at 1024 x 600 or 1366 x 768. But after a bit, I began to prefer the 1024 x 600 resolution over the reduced, but sharp, images of the 1366 x 768. With the 1024 x 600, I didn’t have to get close to the screen to see what was being displayed. And since I have a tendency to write short paragraphs when composing my next trash-can masterpiece, I preferred seeing part of the page of Microsoft Word over the whole page.

I finally settled on the Samsung Go (Midnight Blue) mainly due to form and the fact that I like Midnight Blue. And the reviews I read seemed to indicate that it would meet all the criteria I listed above.

The first thing I noticed when I lifted the unit out of the box was the way it felt. It has a slight rubber feel to it, and it was a little heavier than (as my wife pointed out) her Macbook Air. But for what I was used to carrying around, it felt great. The keyboard was also large enough for comfortable typing, although, I kept hitting the “=” key instead of the “Back Space” key when I want to correct my spelling errors. This is something that I know I’ll get used to — not correcting spelling errors — but learning where the keys are when I am typing on a smaller keyboard.

The first thing I did was charge the battery up to 100% as instructed. It didn’t take long as the battery already had a charge when I received the unit. I then begin to redownload my Real Arcade games to test them out. So far Luxor 3 and Rebound Lost Worlds have run like a charm. I also installed Starcraft, and didn’t have, or expected, any problems running it. I installed Yahoo Messenger and chatted with my children. Made a YouTube video with the included CyberCam. Installed and played around with Microsoft Office 2003 Professional without any problems. I watched two Netflix movies and noticed only a slight stutter in some frames, probably due to the wireless connection (how far I was from the router). When I plugged in the Ethernet cable from the router, I had no problems at all watching the movies. But it wasn’t enough of a performance difference that I wouldn’t be just as satisfied watching movies using only the wireless connection.

All in all I’m quite pleased with the purchase, and am happy that I selected this netbook as my first netbook.

Now to my only quibble, and it isn’t really much, but the sound is…well…tinny. But with headphones, it is quite nice and bearable. I installed SRS Audio for additional enhancement, and although it helped some, for a netbook, I felt it was the best I could do. For watching YouTube videos or chatting or casual game playing without headphones, the audio is adequate. And since I wasn’t expecting an audiophile experience when I bought the Samsung Go, I am more than pleased with what sound quality it musters.

So far, my rating is five stars. If anything changes, I’ll come back and revamp my review.

And one last thing — the battery life is amazing. I have seen five hours so far, and I keep running the cursor over the battery icon to see how much more battery life is left. It’s more than enough battery life for my portable needs.

One Word: Amazing
I can’t express how happy I am with this product. The battery easily lasts 9 hours in battery saver mode, probably 6 or so in regular mode, which to me is great. The keyboard with raised keys is cool and easy to type on even with my slightly big hands. The glossy screen i thought would bother me but it’s quite beautiful. It is not only aesthetically pleasing, but the casing is very durable and has a good strong feel especially for such a light machine. All in All, I think this computer is awesome.

Just the Ticket for Travel
This is the third netbook our household has purchased. The Samsung is far and away the best of the lot (previous: Asus and Lenovo). The keyboard is outstanding and the main reason I selected this model. There is a Ctrl button on both sides. The keys are fully separate from one another. This is as close to a full-sized keyboard I’ve used. Very little hunt and peck, unlike the previous machines.

The Samsung is unbelievably quiet. Even when the fan runs it is virtually inaudible. This is a big plus for me. I disagree with criticism offered by some others of the display. Even though it isn’t non-glare there is very little reflection in the glass; there is actually more in the black plastic surrounding the display. The image is crystal clear and doesn’t have the fuzziness sometimes associated with non-glare glass. Very bright and sharp.

I upgraded the memory to 2 gb and this is a modest cost that is well worth it. A simple exchange of modules does the trick. Overall the machine is quite speedy for what it is; I use a Verizon modem when away from home or a free WiFi site and get very good results. The internal WiFi card is very fast.

All in all, exactly what I was hoping for: a very light, compact, well-designed machine with an excellent keyboard, to take on my trips out of town one or more times a month. The overall performance is very good.

Highly recommended.