Whether people like it or not, netbooks have been part of the portfolio of notebook manufacturers. Since Asus hit the nail on the head in 2007 with its EEE series, there has been much controversy around it. Are they worth the money or are they junk and should be replaced by something else?

I’ve come across comments about netbooks that they are completely useless. It got me thinking because I’ve been a happy netbook user for six months, in fact it is the only computer I used during this period of time and I’ve been satisfied so far. It does things it was never made for, and gets me surprised every day that technology can put this much power in such a small case. So I was wondering why people hate them so much, while they could be happy about their new mini computers instead.

1. People don’t educate themselves about the differences between netbooks and normal laptops. They buy them because they think the friendlier price tag only comes from the small size. It does not, there is much more into these portable bundles of joy than they’d think.

2. They don’t think about the screen size before they pay money. I’m wondering if they read the label looking for feature list before they spend their hard earned money at all. It would make sense to me to check out what the computer knows, how big the screen is before I take it to the cashier. The small screen doesn’t automatically mean that the computer doesn’t worth its price, but it is definitely a point of interest when making a decision.

3. They loathe the slow processor in their mini notebook. Netbooks are designed for what the name implies; browsing online content and keeping contact with people through the net. They are good for much, much more than that but if you expect them to play 1080p high definition movie, or Crysis, you will be disappointed.

4. They don’t think the computer is of high quality. There are manufacturers who don’t take netbooks seriously enough and they should leave the market while they can. Netbooks are not only for fun and browsing the net but getting serious work done, too. If I haven’t had my netbook I wouldn’t have been able to get any work done at all while on the move. It comes down to checking the product out physically before giving money for it. If you have the chance, shake it, try the hinges, and check if the keyboard feels quality you could spend time working on.

Netbooks can be a great companion for your travels, but unless you are patient or have another computer you can use in case the netbook fails to run your software well enough, don’t buy it, or at least think about other options as well.

Incoming search terms:

• acer netbooks
• notebook people

The HP Mini 311 promises the best possible netbook experience thanks to the use of Nvidia’s Ion graphics. Can this netbook with an 11-inch screen, HDMI, and a great keyboard overcome the limits of Intel’s Atom processor? Keep reading to find out.

Our HP Mini 311 (311-1000NR) features the following specifications:

• Operating System: Genuine Windows XP (32-bit)
• Processor: Intel Atom N270 Processor 1.60GHz (533MHz FSB)
• Memory: 1GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Storage: 160GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD
• Display: 11.6-inch diagonal WSVGA+ (1366×768)
• Graphics: Nvidia Ion LE
• Wireless: 802.11a/b/g
• Expansion: 4-in-1 media card slot
• Dimensions (H x W x D): 0.78-1.20 x 11.4 x 8.0 inches (including feet)
• Weight: 3.34 lb (not including weight of AC adapter).
• Power: 6-cell Lithium-Polymer battery
• Warranty: One-year standard warranty
• MSRP: $399.99

Build and Design
The HP Mini 311 looks like an obvious evolution of the HP Mini design. In fact, if it weren’t for the larger size of the 311 you could easily mistake this netbook for the old Mini 1000. In short, nothing substantial has changed in terms of the build or design of the latest generation of Mini netbooks. That said, this isn’t a bad thing. HP engineers did a lot of things right with the earlier Minis, and the Mini 311 likewise offers a nearly fullsize keyboard, large touchpad, and acceptable build quality at a low price. The clamshell-like design gives the Mini 311 a very clean look and the “Black Swirl” Imprint finish features a nice spiral pattern design that looks like either a bunch of black/silver galaxies bumping into each other or a bed of black roses. This Imprint design not only gives the lid a distinct appearance, but also helps protect the lid from scratches.

When open, the glossy black plastic extends around the glossy 11-inch screen. The entire exterior of the chassis is a combination of glossy black plastic, glossy silver plastic, and matte black plastic. Obviously, whenever we look at a laptop with this much plastic we’re concerned about build quality … and the Mini 311 was a bit of a mixed blessing. On one hand, the keyboard feels nice and firm with no flex. Likewise, the screen and rear of the netbook feel quite solid even under significant pressure. On the other hand, the front of the netbook suffers from some annoying “creaking” in the plastics of the palmrests. if you pick up the Mini 311 from either palmrest you will hear some unpleasant creaking sounds and feel some uncomfortable flex in the plastic. That said, we suspect the Mini 311 will hold up about as well as any plastic netbook priced below $400. The various parts of the chassis come together with tight seams and good attention to detail. The Mini 311 is also available in white just in case black isn’t your color of choice.

Screen and Speakers
The new 11.6-inch screen on the Mini 311 is a nice LED-backlit display panel with a 1366×768 native resolution. The glossy screen surface helps to improve color and contrast, but we noticed the colors look a bit “washed out” or “pastel” compared to what our test desktop background looks like on other laptops. Although the 1366×768 resolution is a nice step up from the 1024×600 resolution seen on most netbooks the washed out colors made the viewing experience less than perfect. Vertical viewing angles are average with some color distortion when viewing from below and some over-exposed colors when viewed from above. Horizontal viewing angles are better with colors remaining unchanged at extremely wide viewing angles; you won’t have trouble sharing a YouTube video with friends using this display.

The built-in speaker performance on the Mini 311 is extremely good for an 11-inch netbook. I’m not a fan of the location of the built-in speakers since they’re located on the bottom front edge of the netbook, but the audio quality is quite good. The speakers produce excellent volume (enough to fill a small room) and there is minimal distortion even at higher volume levels. The speakers lack much bass, but the range of highs and midtones are perfectly enjoyable.

Granted, most audiophiles will want to use external speakers or headphones for a better listening experience … but the built-in speakers work well in a pinch. The audio output from the dual-function headphone jack/microphone jack produced some high frequency background noise/distortion with some of the headphones we used during testing, but other headphones worked fine with no distortion.

Keyboard and Touchpad
As previously mentioned, the HP Mini 311 features a nice and large keybaord that is 92% of full size. Most of the primary keys are the same size as the keys you’ll find on a typical notebook and the spacing is likewise normal, but the space bar and some of the keys that are used less frequently are smaller than normal. If you prefer the shape and feel of traditional keys then you’ll probably like this keyboard. That said, I personally prefer the “Chiclet” style keyboard used on many netbooks and ultraportables since there is more space between the keys to prevent me from accidentally hitting the wrong key when working in tight quarters. Still, the keyboard on this netbook is quite usable and should be perfectly fine for typing quick emails or editing documents while traveling.

The ALPS touchpad used on the Mini 311 is a multitouch gesture-enabled model that allows you to use multi-figure gestures such as “pinching” your fingers together or “pulling” your fingers apart to zoom in or out. The ALPS control panel in Windows also allows you to customize these gestures as well. Sensitivity and tracking seemed accurate even when you move your fingers quickly over the touchpad surface. Speaking of which, the touchpad is covered in a glossy smooth surface that sometimes makes it east to slide your finger across the surface and other times causes your finger to “skip across the surface because of the lack of texture/traction. The left and right touchpad buttons are located beneath the touchpad and each button has shallow feedback with loud clicks when pressed.

Input and Output Ports
In terms of port selection the HP Mini 311 offers a few more bells and whistles than your average netbook. You get three USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 media card reader, dual-function headphone/microphone jack, Ethernet port, and two video out ports in the form of VGA and HDMI.

Performance and Benchmarks
The performance section of a netbook review is generally the most boring part because all netbooks have virtually identical performance. That said, HP hopes the Mini 311 will change that thanks to the use of Nvidia’s Ion graphics. In this case, our test configuration comes with Nvidia Ion LE … basically standard Ion with some of the features crippled via software. Despite this, our performance benchmarks indicate Ion indeed gives the Mini 311 a nice boost over netbooks that use Intel GMA 950 graphics.

Unfortunately, Nvidia’a Ion graphics can’t do anything to overcome the performance bottleneck of the Intel Atom processor. Although the latest version of Flash Player supports GPU acceleration, we didn’t see much (if any) improvement in HD Flash playback because of the weak processor. When we tried to watch Hulu HD on this netbook there was significant lag and the video and audio playback was out of sync. In fact, if you watched a Hulu HD clip with a man and woman having a conversation the audio was so out of sync that it looked like the woman’s voice was coming from the man and the man’s voice was coming from the woman.

Overall performance with the Intel Atom platform is very reasonable for daily activities like web browsing, email, using Microsoft Office, listening to music, and even watching standard definition movies. If you’re in a bind you can even use photo editing software like Photoshop or GIMP for basic image editing. Unfortunately, the Intel Atom N270 processor still feels painfully weak for general computing … which means multitasking. Typical multitasking (such as switching back and forth between a full-screen web browser and Microsoft Office) was sluggish at best and frustratingly slow at worst.

All of the synthetic benchmarks we use to rate the performance of a laptop show the HP Mini 311 offers slight improvements over typical netbooks, but “real world” use is still limited by the weak processor. For example, games like World of Warcraft play flawlessly, but games like Counter-Strike: Source dropped to an unplayable 12-15 frames per second at the lowest detail settings whenever the CPU had to handle a large level map.

Heat and Noise
Temperatures on the new HP Mini 311 are quite comfortable and typical of most current-generation netbooks. Temperature readings taken from the outside of the plastic chassis remained “lap friendly” during normal use. The only time that temperature readings spiked was when I stressed the GPU and CPU when playing games.

The cooling fan often kicks on, particularly when the netbook is plugged in, but the noise wasn’t particularly loud. If you are very sensitive to noise then the fan might bother you in a quiet room, but chances are you’ll never notice it.

Battery
Battery life with the integrated 6-cell lithium-ion battery . In our test with the screen brightness set to 70%, and wireless active, the Mini 311 stayed on for 6 hours and 18 minutes of constant use. Although some netbooks offer closer to 10 hours of battery life, the battery also has to feed the power-hungry Nvidia Ion graphics and larger 11-inch screen. All things said and done I think it’s safe to say 6 hours of battery life will be fine for most people.

Conclusion
At the end of the day HP created a very nice netbook with an 11-inch screen, reasonably powerful graphics, and a nice keyboard … and then crippled it with Intel’s Atom processor. If all you want to do is very basic web browsing, email, social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and play World of Warcraft then the HP Mini 311 is a great ultraportable laptop.

Unfortunately, the Intel Atom N270 processor is still painfully weak for general computing. Although the latest version of Flash Player supports GPU acceleration, we didn’t see much (if any) improvement in Flash playback because of the weak processor. Translation: don’t try to watch Hulu HD on this netbook. Typical multitasking (such as switching between the web browser and Microsoft Office) was sluggish at best and frustratingly slow at worst.

In short, the HP Mini 311 gives you a netbook that’s better than a typical netbook (one that uses Intel GMA 950 graphics) but still suffers from one of the same problems as other netbooks: a weak processor. Although the Mini 311 is a nice netbook we have a hard time recommending this netbook at this time considering that there are a number of Intel CULV-based ultraportables and soon a variety of AMD-based ultraportables for the only $50 to $100 more.

Pros:

• Nvidia Ion graphics boost performance
• Improved port selection
• Good battery life

Cons:

• Still using weak Atom processor
• Good graphics limited by CPU
• Touchpad surface isn’t great

The Inspiron 11z is a new netbook from Dell, hoping to change the way we think of the ultra-portable segment. Instead of using the long-favored Intel Atom processor, Dell decided to use the new ultra-low voltage Celeron 723 and the GS45 chipset. On paper the processor has more grunt, and when paired with X4500 integrated graphics, it has a huge advantage over Atom machines. In this review we take an in-depth look at the new 11z, to see if it is the netbook we have all been waiting for.

Our Dell Inspiron 11z Specifications:

• Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1, 32-bit)
• Intel Celeron 723 (1.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 1MB Cache)
• Intel GS45 + ISH9M chipset
• 11.6″ WXGA LED-backlit display at 1366×768
• Intel X4500 Integrated Graphics
• Dell 1397 ABG Wireless
• 2GB DDR2-800 SDRAM (1 Slot)
• 250GB 5400RPM Hard Drive
• 65W (19.5V x 3.34A) 100-240V AC Adapter
• 3-cell 28Wh 11.1v 2420mAh Lithium Ion battery
• Dimensions (WxDxH): 11.5″ x 8.43″ x 0.92-1.02″
• Weight: 3.05lbs
• 1-year limited warranty
• Price when purchased: $399 (Currently $449)

Build and Design
The Dell Inspiron 11z has a very simple design, with a plain black glossy screen cover, matte black chassis, and a silver painted palmrest. When closed the shell is nearly flat, with few items sticking out the bottom cover, making it easy to slide into a slipcase or backpack. Inside the 11z has no superfluous features, just the touchpad, keyboard, power button, and power indicator. There are no media buttons outside of function keys on the keyboard, and there aren’t even activity lights or touchpad buttons. Dell really tried to take out unneeded or cluttering features to make this netbook as clean and easy to use as possible.

Build quality is average, with a few minor annoyances we noticed out of the box. With most computers you don’t see chassis flaws right out of the box. What you do notice are cosmetic flaws, which even if they are minor are still depressing to see on a brand new machine. Our 11z came with a battery preinstalled that looked like it had been tumbled around in a box with other batteries up until the assembly stage. It was scuffed and marred all over, which was easily noticed since it has a fine matte finish. The rubber bumpers on the screen were also incorrectly installed. They are square pieces of rubber designed to fit in square holes, but installed crooked like diamonds. In the entire scheme of things these are minor problems that don’t affect the durability of the notebook, but needless to say don’t instill confidence in the end-user.

The chassis felt durable with strong internal support under most structures. The palmrest and keyboard showed very few signs of flex under strong pressure, which is a must for a good typing experience. Outside of the marred battery, the screen cover and chassis resisted scratching and other wear. The screen hinges felt durable, and kept the screen securely shut even when held in a vertical position.

Internally the design of the 11z is very friendly for users wanting to upgrade or replace components. At first you might notice there is no bottom access to components, with a solid panel covering the bottom. Instead Dell put all user-accessible components underneath the keyboard, which can be removed by three screws. With the keyboard off you have access to an open WWAN slot, the system memory, hard drive, and heatsink assembly. The WWAN slot was functional, recognizing the Verizon card borrowed from my D630; but it lacked antennas to allow the card to send and receive data.

Screen and Speakers
The 11.6″ screen on the 11z was an excellent change from the common 1024×600 netbook screen. With a resolution of 1366×768 you have as much screen space as full-size notebooks, meaning that menus and other items that need more vertical space are no longer a problem. The panel looks great, with good color reproduction and very even lighting thanks to the LED-backlighting. Contrast was average, and varied depending on the vertical viewing angle. The viewing sweet spot didn’t allow for an entirely black screen to be viewed, instead you either had some shift at the top or some at the bottom. Brighter colors didn’t have this problem, and looked fantastic in everything from viewing images to just browsing the web.

Vertical viewing angles were average, with a 15-20 degree viewing sweet spot before colors started to significantly distort. Horizontal viewing angles stayed true even at very steep angles. Viewing brightness was fine for use in bright office conditions, but outdoor viewing was limited unless you found a shared area.

The speakers sounded slightly better than average when compared to other netbooks. Instead of no bass and midrange, you could hear a hint of lower tones that might be completely passed over on smaller netbooks. Peak volume was fine for watching a movie or listening to music. For a larger room or to enjoy movies to their fullest potential, HDMI out is the best option. It can pass both video and digital audio to your home theater system, which even the worst stereo will sound better than most notebooks.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard on the 11z is basically full-size and very comfortable to type on. The layout is easy to follow, taking no time at all to transition to and start typing at full speed. The key design is flat, similar to Chiclet style keyboards, but without an inner bezel dividing the keys. Individual key action is smooth, giving off a soft click when pressed. One odd feature Dell has been transitioning to on newer models is the reversed function key layout. If you want to adjust brightness, you press the correct button and the brightness changes. To hit F5 to refresh a page, you now need to hit FN+F5. Thankfully this feature can be disabled for more advanced users.

The touchpad on the 11z is the first one that I absolutely can’t stand to use. Some notebooks have laggy touchpads which might be annoying, but they are still usable. This is not the case with the all-in-one touchpad on the 11z. Dell decided to copy Apple by going with integral buttons under the touchpad surface, but didn’t design the hardware or driver support correctly. On a MacBook if you have a finger resting on the touchpad surface to trigger the button while selecting text or moving around objects, it can tell the difference. It knows that finger shouldn’t be recognized as a variable in the multi-touch movements or standard movements; the Elan touchpad can’t.

If you hold one finger on the touchpad over the left or right button and try to move around the screen a few things might happen. Either the cursor will pop into a corner, usually the start menu corner without warning, or sometimes the top right. Another problem is unwanted zooming, which now controls the size of icons on the desktop, viewing size of documents, and even the size of webpages. We experienced everything except the zooming of documents roughly 10 minutes after turning the 11z on for the first time. The last problem which isn’t as important, but still annoying, is the speed of the X and Y axis input. Moving your finger side to side makes the cursor move more than if you travel the same distance up and down. A simple test is drawing a circle on the screen with your finger, where the 11z makes wide ovals instead.

Ports and Features
Port selection is average for most netbooks, with the exception of HDMI in place of an older VGA port. Dell included three USB ports, audio jacks, an SDHC-card slot, and LAN connector. Users might also notice that Dell went with a full-size power connection on the 11z, the same shared with every other Dell notebook. The power adapter is another change over most netbooks, as Dell included a 65w thin power brick with this model. On one hand it is nice to get a high quality power adapter that will probably hold up better over time than most netbooks’ adapters, but on the flip side it is pretty big.

Performance and Benchmarks
We had very high hopes coming into this review that the Inspiron 11z would finally be the netbook that wouldn’t be as limited in processing power. While the Atom is fine for some tasks, multimedia is not its strong suit. Flash video tends to bog it down, and HD streaming video is impossible to watch. Right out of the box we navigated to YouTube to see how well the 11z would perform. Sadly it still gets a very high processor load watching SD flash video, and lags severely watching HD flash video. Hulu showed the same problems, as well as a few we haven’t seen before. While loading a Hulu video, if you scroll up and down quickly on the touchpad and release, the computer continues to scroll up and down for 5-10 seconds.

Turning to benchmarks to find out how the Celeron 723 compared to the N270 and N280 Atom, we found that it was actually running slower than expected. wPrime, which just tests the processor, was actually giving results slower than both Atom processors. Running PCMark05, the Celeron and X4500 graphics combo was able to come out about 100 points above the fastest Atom machine, but still not a huge improvement. The main area the 11z was able to flex its muscles was in 3D performance, scoring well above another netbooks in 3DMark06.

In our HD video tests the 11z was able to play all of our video trailers. The 480p and 720p videos played with no problems at all, and after some minor tweaking the 1080p trailer would play smoothly. Playing 1080p video puts it above other netbooks we have tested, but in the real world most users won’t be watching 1080p video on a netbook that is barely above 720p in its native resolution.

Heat and Noise
Temperatures stayed within reasonable levels when the 11z wasn’t being stressed out. As soon as you started performing more processor intensive activities, the chassis did form a few hot spots, which were centralized around the exhaust outlet.
Noise levels from the heatsink were minimal, and only noticed if you put your ear up to the exhaust outlet. The only annoying noise the 11z produced was a high pitch whine when it was fully turned on or in its sleep mode.

Battery Life
The included battery with the 11z is fairly small, with a rated capacity of 28Wh. This is almost half the size of most netbook batteries today, as many manufacturers go with 6-cell models for extended battery life. In our test with the screen brightness set to 70%, Windows Vista set to the balanced power profile, and wireless active the 11z stayed on for 3 hours and 32 minutes. Users looking to get all-day performance won’t find it from this configuration, but may have better luck with an extended battery when Dell makes it an option.

Conclusion
The Dell Inspiron 11z was one of those notebooks that looks like it could be the perfect machine on paper, but once you get it in person you find out it has some fatal flaw. The build quality was great in terms of the overall construction of the netbook, but lacked in its cosmetic condition out of the box. The processing power of the Celeron performed  below our expectations, being slower than the Atom processor. The strength of the 11z came mostly from its much better GS45 chipset, including the X4500 integrated graphics which excelled compared to the GMA950.

With all of the stuff listed above the 11z would be a slightly better than average netbook, offered at a reasonable price, with an excellent 11.6″ WXGA screen. Unfortunately, once you include the flawed touchpad, it turns into a netbook that is very hard to recommend to anyone without a massive overhaul of the hardware and driver support. I can honestly say that before we received our Inspiron 11z, multiple editors in our office were considering purchasing it for a travel notebook. Now we are waiting for the next machine, or updated 11z which has the same or better features with a functional touchpad.

Pros:

• X4500 integrated graphics with HDMI out
• Perfect screen size and resolution for a netbook
• Comfortable keyboard

Cons:

• Worst … Touchpad … Ever
• Small stock battery
• Weak performance from the Celeron 723
• CPU whine when off and in sleep mode

If you hold one finger on the touchpad over the left or right button and try to move around the screen a few things might happen. Either the cursor will pop into a corner, usually the start menu corner without warning, or sometimes the top right. Another problem is unwanted zooming, which now controls the size of icons on the desktop, viewing size of documents, and even the size of webpages. We experienced everything except the zooming of documents roughly 10 minutes after turning the 11z on for the first time. The last problem which isn’t as important, but still annoying, is the speed of the X and Y axis input. Moving your finger side to side makes the cursor move more than if you travel the same distance up and down. A simple test is drawing a circle on the screen with your finger, where the 11z makes wide ovals instead.

For the majority of the reviewing process we had to resort to using an external mouse exclusively. While the average user could easily do this, it takes away from the portability of a netbook and really shouldn’t be required.

Ports and Features
Port selection is average for most netbooks, with the exception of HDMI in place of an older VGA port. Dell included three USB ports, audio jacks, an SDHC-card slot, and LAN connector. Users might also notice that Dell went with a full-size power connection on the 11z, the same shared with every other Dell notebook. The power adapter is another change over most netbooks, as Dell included a 65w thin power brick with this model. On one hand it is nice to get a high quality power adapter that will probably hold up better over time than most netbooks’ adapters, but on the flip side it is pretty big.

Front: Power/Sleep indicator

Rear: Battery

Left: LAN, HDMI, one USB

Right: SDHC-slot, Audio jacks, two USB, AC Power, Kensington Lock slot

Next Page (2) >

EMAIL DISCUSS (85) PRINT

Categorized as: Dell

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+ (1024×600)
• 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.

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.

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

Incoming search terms:

• disassemble Samsung NC110
• nc110 disassemble
• nc110 disassembly

Toshiba’s first consumer-oriented netbook in the United States, the Toshiba mini NB205, promises to be one of the hottest netbooks for 2009. Like most of the low-cost companion PCs available in stores, the mini NB205 helps you stay connected with a simple laptop that easily fits in a purse or backpack. This netbook certainly offers a lot with a nearly full-sized keyboard and touchpad and all-day battery life, but is it the best $400 netbook on the market? Let’s take a closer look.

Toshiba mini NB205 (NB205-N310/BN) Specifications:

• OS: Microsoft Windows XP Home SP3
• 10.1″ WSVGA (1024 x 600) LED-backlit display
• CPU: Intel Atom N280 (1.66GHz, 533MHz FSB)
• Graphics: Intel GMA 950
• LAN onboard 10/100 Mbps Ethernet controller
• Wireless: 802.11b/g and Bluetooth V2.1
• Memory 1GB (DDR2 533MHz)
• Storage: 160GB hard drive (5400rpm) and SD/SDHC media card reader
• Webcam: 0.3 Megapixel
• Dimensions 10.4 x 8.3 x 1.0/1.27 inches (W x D x H)
• Weight 2.93lbs with 6-cell battery
• Battery: 6-cell Lithium-Ion
• Warranty: 1-Year Parts and Labor, 1-Year Battery
• Price as configured: $399.99 USD

Build and Design
The Toshiba mini NB205 is the first netbook (low-price, low-performance, ultraportable laptop) from Toshiba, but the design is certainly one of the most attractive we’ve seen in the netbook category. Toshiba offers the NB205 in multiple colors, but the silver and “Sable Brown” color combination in our review unit looks quite nice. The screen lid is made of thin textured plastic with the Toshiba logo front and center in silver metalic plastic. Toshiba engineers made the interesting choice of placing the power button in the middle of the screen hinge where it is exposed even when the netbook is closed. At first I was concerned this might not be the best position since it means the power button could be accidentally triggered inside a backpack or laptop case, but the button is disabled if the screen lid is closed.

Build quality was less than impressive despite the attractive exterior of the NB205. The thin plastics used in the construction of the chassis are prone to flex and the plastics make annoying “creaking” noises if you squeeze the netbook between your fingers. The full-size keyboard looks fantastic, but as soon as you apply typing pressure with your fingers you begin to feel the keyboard flex and bounce as you type. Unfortunately, the only area of the mini NB205 that feels nice and firm is the tension on the screen hinges.

The bottom of the netbook chassis shows an abundance of air vents to help with cooling (more on that later) and a pair of easy access panels for the RAM and hard drive. We’re happy to see more and more netbooks with easy access to the internals for upgrading the memory or storage, and Toshiba makes it very simple to complete these upgrades after removing three screws.

Screen and Speakers
The Toshiba NB205 uses a nice and bright 10.1-inch widescreen LED-backlit display panel with a 1024 x 600 native resolution. I wish Toshiba offered the mini NB205 with a higher resolution screen such as the ones available from Dell, HP, and Sony, but considering the $400 price point we can’t complain too much. Vertical viewing angles are average, with obvious color inversion when viewing from below and some over-exposed colors when viewed from above. Horizontal viewing angles are very good with colors only starting to shift at extreme wide viewing angles.

The built-in speaker performance on the mini NB205 is acceptable for listening to system sounds or very short online video clips, but overall the speaker quality is sub-par for a netbook. The built-in speaker is located on bottom front edge and can’t produce enough distortion-free volume to push sound up toward the user. If you want to use this netbook as a mobile entertainment portal then you need to invest in some good headphones. On the bright side, the audio output from the headphone jack is good when paired with earphones or a good set of external speakers.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The NB205 uses a new full-size keyboard that is quite massive for a 10-inch netbook. At first glance the NB205 looks to have one of the best keyboards on any of the current-generation netbooks. Unfortunately, that opinion quickly changes once you start typing. Although the keys are nice and large with excellent spacing to prevent typos, the keyboard falls victim to the same thin and flexible plastics used in the construction of the chassis. If you apply anything more than light typing pressure you will feel the keyboard “bouncing” under your fingertips as the plastic keyboard frame bends under the weight of your hands. If Toshiba engineers places a support frame under the keyboard this problem could easily be fixed.

On a much happier note, the mini NB205 features the single best touchpad we’ve used on any netbook to date. The touchpad measures roughly 3.2 inches wide by 1.8 inches tall with standard-sized touchpad buttons that go all the way to the front edge of the netbook. In short, Toshiba made perfect use of the available space and gives users a “real” touchpad rather than the half-sized touchpads used on most netbooks. The touchpad itself is an ALPS model with excellent sensitivity and only minor lag. The scroll zones required a bit of adjustment in our review unit, but once we increased the scroll speed everything seemed fine.

Input and Output Ports
The port selection on the Toshiba mini NB205 is pretty basic for a netbook. The NB205 includes three USB 2.0 ports, VGA out, Ethernet, microphone and headphone jacks, and a SD/SDHC media card slot. One extra little feature is that one of the three USB ports is a “Sleep and Charge” port. This allows you to charge a cell phone or MP3 player using the USB port even if the netbook is turned off. The only potential problem with this feature is that if you’re running on battery power and forget to unplug an iPod you might end up with a dead netbook battery … if you change the default settings.

Performance and Benchmarks
The Toshiba mini NB205 offers similar performance to most netbooks, but that shouldn’t be a surprise to most of our readers. The performance section of a netbook review is generally very boring compared to a full-featured notebook because most netbook have virtually identical specs. All Intel Atom-based netbooks have nearly identical performance in terms of actual real-world use. Overall performance with the Intel Atom platform is very reasonable for daily activities like Web browsing, email, using Microsoft Office, listening to music, and watching DVD-quality movies. If you’re in a bind you can even use Photo Editing Software like Photoshop or GIMP for basic image editing.

The one and only performance-related issue that we encountered during our testing of the NB205 was related to bloatware. Toshiba decided to include some “helpful” applications for the webcam, battery monitoring, wireless controls and Norton antivirus … all of which strain the netbook’s limited resources and make the NB205 slower than it should be. While most netbooks finish booting into Windows XP (including launching all startup applications) in less than 45 seconds, the NB205 takes more than 70 seconds to finish loading all the bloatware during Windows startup.

The use of Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics is probably the only major limitation for netbooks. This integrated graphics processor (IGP) is powerful enough to handle displaying a PowerPoint presentation on a projector or watching DVD quality movies, but if 1080p video playback or video editing is your primary concern then you’ll want to look elsewhere. 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.

Heat and Noise
External temperatures on the NB205 are what I consider to be “lap friendly” over most of the netbook’s surface. The areas near the GPU, RAM, hard drive, and Wi-Fi card showed up as obvious heat spikes, but nothing that was too hot to handle. Temperature readings taken from the outside of the plastic chassis remained mostly in the 80s and 90s.

Below are images indicating the temperature readings (listed in degrees Fahrenheit) taken inside our office where the ambient temperature was 74 degrees Fahrenheit.

The cooling fan inside the mini NB205 is louder than we like to hear from a netbook. Whenever the CPU is under stress (such as when watching a YouTube video) the cooling fan kicks on and sounds like a weak hair dryer. It’s loud enough to be moderately annoying in a quiet classroom or office. Considering the abundant air vents built into the NB205, I’m a little surprised the cooling fan has to work so hard.

Battery
The 6-cell lithium-ion battery included with the NB205 has a 5800 mAh rating and delivers excellent battery life for a netbook. Toshiba promises 9 hours of battery life, but we never managed to get quite that much out of a fully charged battery. In our test with the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and XP set to the laptop/portable power profile the system stayed on for 7 hours and 38 minutes of constant use. This isn’t as high as some of the latest Asus Eee PC netbooks, but the Toshiba NB205 should have more than enough juice to get you through a full day of web browsing and email.

Conclusion
The new Toshiba mini NB205 is an attractive netbook that offers a fantastic touchpad, large keyboard, and easy access for upgrades. The battery life of the NB205 is among the best in class and should get you through a full day at school or the office. At a price of just $400 this might be a popular netbook for the back-to-school season.

Still, despite these nice features, it’s hard to overlook the flex and sound of weak plastics, the extremely flexible keyboard, and the weak speakers. Most netbooks have surprisingly firm keyboards, so we’re more than a little disappointed that the keyboard on the NB205 practically “bounces” while you type on it. Most netbooks don’t have particularly great speakers, but listening to music or online videos wasn’t fun on the NB205. If you’re looking for a good netbook for $400 or less the Toshiba mini NB205 deserves a close look, but there are many alternatives to consider in this price range.

Pros:

• Easy access for upgrades
• Large touchpad
• Good battery life

Cons:

• Weak plastic construction
• Severe keyboard flex
• Unimpressive speakers

Incoming search terms:

• oldest mobile phone
• first cell phone invented
• history of the first cell phone
• first wireless
• parts of cell phone
• first wirless
• first cell
• the oldest phone ever invented
• firt cellphone ever
• about first cell phone
• first motorola cell phone
• phone of 1975
• first cellphones
• Motorola cellphone with base
• picture of phones from 1975
• cell phone images
• cell phone history
• the very first cell phone
• photo editing on toshiba mini
• martin coopers cell phone