Samsung NC110 10.1" review

What do you do when you want to catch the eye of people torn between the growing domination of tablets such as the Apple iPad 2 or Motorola Xoom and a much more user-friendly, but far less trendy, netbook? You bring out a netbook that's so cheap you can't possibly pass it by – and that's exactly what Samsung has done with its NC110.

It's a real foot in the door of the market at $283.99 – cheaper than the likes of the Asus Eee PC 1018P, the Packard Bell Dot SE or even the Acer Aspire One 522. In fact, it's the cheapest netbook around.
You honestly wouldn't be able to tell the difference between this – a PC from the bottom of Samsung's range – and one of its premium laptops, such as the Samsung SF310. It's an amazing feat, then, that the Samsung NC110 is also ultra slim, light and nicely designed, with a thoughtful location of buttons and ports, as well as a choice of different colours for the base and lid.
The keyboard on the Samsung NC110 is also excellent quality, with nicely spaced keys that react to inputs with just the right amount of sensitivity, and the same goes for the touchpad – it feels absolutely spot on.
Samsung NC110 come with a 10.1" screen. The 1024 x 600 resolution is pretty standard for a netbook nowadays. It's a little bit on the grainy side but is reasonably bright and, thanks to its matte finish, there's next to no reflection whatsoever.
The only real gripe that can be levelled at the Samsung NC110 is the lack of adjustability in the screen – it really doesn't go back far enough, so if you're sat on a train with very limited space, you're not going to be able to angle the screen right up to your face.
There's a webcam nestled in the top of the screen too, for capturing live video in chat. You wouldn't expect much from it but it's actually not too bad – the video is smooth and the picture quality, even in low lighting, is quite crisp.
It does, however, come with a decent 802.11n Wi-Fi adapter, so you can be sure to make the most of your home's wireless network, providing you're running a compatible Wireless N router.
Annoyingly, the Samsung NC110 comes pre-loaded from the factory with a huge range of software that will really bother some people when it pops up from time to time.
There's also an app to optimise performance, including startup time, and it's all completely free.
Samsung boasts up to 10.7 hours of life from the standard six cell battery found in the NC110, and although it wasn't far off achieving that, all that could be squeezed out of it during mixed use was about seven hours from a full charge.
The 250GB hard drive is decent, and will certainly suffice for most of the files you'll want to carry around with you during a day, but it isn't anything to shout about in this category.
Samsung has grabbed the rest of the netbook-producing market and turned it upside-down with the NC110, setting the bar high in a market that already seemed to be saturated to the maximum. We've genuinely been surprised by the Samsung NC110's abilities.