4 New Netbooks : Samsung N110
4. Samsung N110
The Screen
The 10.1'' screen with a TN panel is the same as the one on the N120. Unsurprisingly, we found the same colours dominated by blues. The viewing angles are too narrow, with colours that darken when you look at them from below, and lighten when you look at them from above. The glossy finish on the panel is still just as irritating as it always has been when you use the computer anywhere else than in the dark. You need to pay attention to where you put lights and lamps, and, of course, using a computer like this outside is a nightmare. The black levels and contrast are both poor. We measured blacks of 0.81 cd/m² and 0.52 cd/m² for whites between 195.6 cd/m² and 126 cd/m² respectively. That produces a contrast ratio of 242:1.
The successor to the famous Samsung NC10, this new N110 is the smaller brother of the N120 that we also tested. These last two netbooks are identical, right down to their 10.1'' 1024 x 600 pixel screen, Intel Atom N270 CPU and 1 GB of RAM. Only the case and exterior design has changed.
Handling & Connectivity
The Samsung N110 is entirely white with matte surfaces. It's great not having to constantly wipe away greasy fingerprints that usually appear on glossy surfaces. It's been carefully put together.
- N110-12PBK Netbook...
The N110 has a large keyboard, but each key is just a little smaller than it would be on a normal keyboard. Typing is very firm and responds well, but it's still less comfortable than on the bigger keyboard of the N120.
The touchpad has a matte surface, and your finger slides over it easily and accurately. There's no revolutionary increase in size which is still relatively small because of the narrow space available in front of the computer. It's still bigger than the one on the Samsung NC10.
The webcam manages pretty well. The colours are accurate, and movements are fluid. We would have appreciated more precision in lower light levels. The microphone doesn't start well because it's directly above the keyboard, and therefore picks up the sound of typing, and leaves voices sounding stuffy.
The connectivity includes just the bare minimum: three USB 2.0 ports, one Ethernet port, a pair of mini-jacks, a VGA output and a memory card reader.
Underneath the netbook, a flap gives access to the RAM.
Processor Power
Computers that share an identical configuration should perform the same way, but to check, we ran the same tests on the N110 as we did on the N120. The results were generally similar.
The two laptops have Intel Atom N270 and N280 have very similar performances. In general, it's still below the capacity of a standard laptop computer. To help you compare, converting two dozen audio tracks to MP3 in iTunes would take 110 seconds on a Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo Xi 3650, 596 seconds on the Asus Eee PC 1000HE but 602 seconds on the Samsung N120.
That means you can forget about HD video on this netbook--and all the others that rely on the pairing of the Intel Atom processor and the 945GSE built-in chipset.
Audio
The sound is the same as we've found on the majority of netbooks. The speakers exist, at least, and produce a dry, sharp sound, without any bass. You can't make much use of them for listening to music or watching films, unless you think the sound quality from a mobile phone is good enough. The audio output from the headphone jack is reasonably clean.
Portability & Battery Life
Although it's 20 grams lighter than the N120, the N110 is still 220 g heavier than the Asus EeePC 1000HE. The battery life is excellent, with 6 hours 4 minutes of video playback (with WiFi turned off and the brightness at 100 cd/m²). As astonishing as it sounds, that's 25 minutes more than the N120, and 11 minutes better than the 1000HE. It's an excellent result, even though it's still a long way behind the MSI Wind U115 and its 7 hours 10 minutes of battery life.
| Specifications | ||||
| CPU | Intel Atom N270 1.6 GHz | Dimensions | 261 x 185.5 x 30.8 mm | |
| RAM | 1 GB | Optical Drive | No | |
| Screen | 10.1'' (1024 x 600) | Weight | 1.26 kg | |
| Hard Drive | 160 GB |
| Pluses | Minuses |
|---|---|
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 The N110 is a worthy successor to the NC10. It's lighter, lasts longer and has a bigger touchpad. Unfortunately, it suffers from a poor quality screen, which has also gained a glossy finish. That's it's only major fault and the one that costs this netbook its fifth star. | |
That Toshiba looks pretty nice . . .
If you're on the fence about buying a new netbook - wait until next year. The Intel Pine Trail will use half the power of the existing solution - no fan required, lighter, longer battery life
I can't seem to find any info on the MSI Wind U115. Is it in production yet?
@ProDigit80: I have the MSI Wind U130 and that has the 9 cell battery. Check that one out.
Lacking the BlueTooth also means increased battery performance on the ASUS 1005HA Eee Pc.
I ran some benchmarks and give more detail about what you can expect performance wise from the ASUS 1005Ha netbook in this review: http://bit.ly/44CHFm
Quieter than my other 3 laptops.
Purchased this for my daughter to bring back and forth from school. It looks great (dare I say almost Apple-like as we have the white version).
Getting 6+ hours on battery which whomps both my HP laptops.
Not sure where your noise criticism comes from. This Asus is way quieter than either of my HPs or my 1 Dell laptop.
You should re-test another one to be sure.
And the glossy screen works just fine here. No complaints at all.
Anyone who purchases one of these for gaming, blue-ray watching or high quality 7.1 surround sound experience, is in the wrong category. Seems odd to throw into the review like that.