Samsung N210

The netbook market has seen an influx of new models across the last four years. From Asus’s market-inspiring Eee PC line of ultra-portables to high-end portable machines like the Macbook Air, laptop users worldwide have moved the market away from bulky gaming beasts and further towards ultra-portable pieces of electrical engineering.

But who says lightweight has to mean low-end? While netbooks aren’t renowned for performance, a number of manufacturers are doing their best to buck the trend. One of those developers is Samsung, who’ve recently put out the N210 netbook – an ultra-portable netbook that boasts truly incredible battery life and mobile workstation power.

When the most recent line of Macbooks came out, their 7-hour battery life was a coup for the industry. Now it’s a benchmark. Samsung’s N210 netbook boasts a claimed 12-hour battery life for standard tasks and basic word processing, although under test conditions it’s failed to completely live up to its claims.

Still, almost all basic workstation tests have resulted in over 10 hours of continuous battery power, an incredible achievement for a machine that weighs less than 1.5kg. The slim chassis sacrifices durability to achieve its incredibly low weight, although the N210 doesn’t feel particularly thin or lacking in strength.

Furthering the simple but effective design is a separated keyboard, using the same built-in key arrangement that has become standard across the laptop market over the last two years. While the numeral, punctuation, and function-based keys have been shrunk to a frustratingly small size, the rest of the keyboard is surprisingly comfortable.

The N210 is obviously far from an office workstation, yet it still provides a level of mobile workability that’s impressive for its category. Due to the limited processing abilities, multitasking and complex media work is quite difficult. However, basic word processing, presentation, and web browsing applications run without fault, save for the occasional slowdown during Flash video.

A matt finish is applied to the N210′s TFT screen. While colour depth and brightness is significantly limited as a result, mobile users will appreciate the lack of glare or light reflection. For media users, the N210 is far from the ideal netbook – both the limited processing power and poor screen result in a computer that’s unappealing. However, users that need function over on-screen beauty will find the N210 worthwhile.

Both Windows 7 and a Linux-based platform are included, giving technical users a second platform to use for tasks. While Windows 7 performs relatively smoothly on the Intel Atom processor, it’s not particularly difficult to notice the processor’s limited ability while switching between applications.

As an ultra-portable netbook, the Samsung N210 is very much worth its purchase price. The lightweight chassis, incredible battery life, and non-glare screen make it the ideal workstation for on-the-go professionals. However, for high-performance media and graphics work, the N210 is not the answer. Samsung have designed this netbook with mobile professionals in mind, and for their purposes it’s difficult to find anything better.

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