Customer Reviews

Samsung N140-14R 10.1-Inch Burgundy Netbook - Up to 7.5 Hours of Battery Life (Windows 7 Starter)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I think I am the first to review this. Let me state I own the N120 and it is a great computer, we have had that one almost 5 months.

I just got the N140 yesterday. I will make good then bad things about the n140 - but all and all I love the matte screen, I wish they had a keyboard/screen option of WHITE rather than black, my wife's is all white and so easy to see everything in any room light.

GOOD and bad:

Same rugged Samsung body, you feel safe holding this 2.8 pound baby around.

They added a zippered case, a little thicker and nice printed SAMSUNG on the top so it doesn't get layed upsaide down and you always know where the front is.

Most all the ports (USB, VGA, POWER) are all on the oposite side of the N120 - I know the N140 was based on the N10 series, but the saddest feature which the sure could have stolen from the N120 is the WONDERFUL embedded Speakers surrounding the screen. It boomed out at you.

They moved the multireader card slot to the center which is a blessing, on the n120 it is to the right side and your palm just above the wrist catches it alot when typing.

I'm averaging (just in the last 2 days) over 8 hours of battery life - wow. I did thought add the SECOND GIG OF RAM (took it from the n120) and it speeds this Vista based OS well. I gig is really pushing what is required from SEVEN and a few small programs will use up all your RAM - either computer go for 2GIGS, but the N140 needs the upgrade and the N120 it is more a luxury item.

The Burgandy (so I assume most dark color exteriors) almost appear black in muted room light, only uder BRIGHT lighting can you see the true color you paid for.

I wanted to add about the Matte finish. It is a joy, much wider viewing angle from the glossy screen (glossy washes out from reflection of light and is hard to see from the sides, surely the viewing angle of the glossy is realist two close people from 6 to 8 foot away (which is far for a 10 inch screen).

The Matte passed all my viewing tests - look move your head from the perfect viewing angle and see where the picture loses quality, honestly from typing distance, I saw no side to side loss and very little from crouching to standing up.

I think that you have a 5 bar system in Win7, I have yet to have it show my signal strength. It is just 5 empty silos waiting to be filled - I show no bar activity at all. I know I'm connected and I think that I should be able to see my strength rather than an empty bar signal meter - hmmmm, need to play with that one.

Imporant!!!! If you watch the [...] Videos of the N140, look at the ENTER and the RIGHT SHIFTKEY - you will see TWO DIFFERENT TYPE, I assume in Europe or somewhere the combining of these two keys is aacceptable - BUT "Here in the USA" we need a FULL SIZED RIGHT SHIFT KEY, nothing less. The combokey has what is called a HALF KEY, a key the width of letters and numbers. A full key is ENTER/both SHIFTS and where this becomes a problem is:

When you type, your muscle memory knows where to put the fingers, often getting slowed down cause the people doubted what their fingers wanted to do.... If you type like so many of us do massively long letters, etc. Your finger will hit the UP ARROW intead of the RIGHT SHIFT nearly every time and is hard to break if you use more than on keyboard, whether at work or home.

Instead of hitting the Shift you hit that up arrow and your cursor leaves position and you have to move it back and if you miss it, you might be typing new stuff unthinkingly into th center of a non-related paragraph.

So FULL SIZED SHIFT KEYS may be one of the major things to keep in mind. As far as I can tell, all us purchased N140s have 2 full shifts, just check pictures if ordering online to be safe.

Please give feedback and stars if this has been helpful - please check out my insainely long review of the N120 when it cam months ago.



I think the speakers not being in the screen sides bugs me the most, those who ha that option LOVED it, in most room setups you didn't need external speakers or headphones with the N120, the N140 is NOT as loud, I only see a pair of stereo speakers in the front - in the N120, there was a subwhoofer there (which gave no base of course) but it did add to the loudness with the other two speakers blasting from practically out of the movie you're watching.

Speaking of which, I just swapped the memory up to 2GIG in the N140, so I haven't retried [...] and more importantly to me Fancast for our TV shows we watch every wee, but I haven't tried yet. I love Fancast because we can find a night I'm not working and both of us catch up with 3 or 4 one hour shows we know will be online and ready to watch, practically commercial free. That makes for a huggy night on the couch :)

My point, the N140 had a lot of problems with the high-def videos, where the N120 dosen't. I'm hoping to FIX the problem with the newly upgrade RAM, I'll add an updated post in a few days.

I can't rate it a 4.5 stars, which I would. Having Bluetooth available, the widest and most comfortable keyboards nd all Samsung made parts make it a steal at the $372, that includes S&H and it's $6 more cause of the Burgandy paint. The only other color available was this emerald blue, but it looked like a wallpaper image of a swimming pool. I chose the Burgandy. That is fine, I just want to make sure I grab mine and not my wifes, that's all.

I guess the last differences noticed externally:

The power switch is now a slide switch to the righhand under the front of the touch pad - you simply slide the switch all the way right for about 1 second and it turns on - boot up about 45 seconds (30 on the N120) You can only really hit it by accident if you pick up the computer and place you fingers over the switch - but the switch is strongly made, has good resistance to accidental switching and I think I like it better than the N120 which was near the lid hinge, on the right rear, you could easily push the power switch as yhou enter it into the case.

As you can tell, I'm into the ergonomics and structure of the machine, lots of people can detail the speed. Again, I haven't done anything with the extra GIG of RAM yet although it is installed - I will need a followup, but it displeases me that SAMSUNG couldn't have made the N140 a "TWO GIG" factory shipped Netbook, people would gladly pay a reasonable cost difference if you get that kind of performance increase.

UPDATE IMPORTANT FINDINGS

After a few days, I re-review the N140 and drop the rating to a FOUR STAR only for the following reasons.

First, I have two gigs in this (borrowed the 2 gig chip which is compatable from my wife's N120 - but even with 2 GIGs the N140 still isn't as fast as the N120 using XP.

I thought the whole idea of Win7 was to give faster, slimmer and more XP friendly user features. The N140 comes with Win7 Starter (a bad thing for them to do, it should have at least home installed, even if I need to pay licensing difference) but the starter is OK if you choose to use STUFF that isn't typical Word, Excel and Others - I prefer Open Source like Open Office and [...] which work fine in both netbooks.

So, Win7 Starter is NOT as fast with the 280 chip using 2 GIG RAM, as the N120 is with 270 chip and 1 GIG RAM. I was hoping at least a tie, but I prefer the XP speed and reliability over the WIN7 - which is really limited with the features you expected to get with Win7. Be careful ordering and look for options with Win7 Home (it may not be an option, Windows has tight restrictions on the Netbook Market, including chipset options, etc.
Hind site, should I have bought a second N120 - the thought is a valid one, although I hope that upgrading Win 7 (gonna cost $70 or so) will make it more functional to me as a medium skilled user. That is what I have been waiting for after all.

Samsung STILL DELIVERS A GREAT PRODUCT - this MATTE SCREEN is AWESOME, a definite 9 out of 10 review from me. The keyboard is a pleasure to use as far as ANY NETBOOK GOES. It just has a Operating System that isn't ideally made for a 1.66 GHZ Processor, that is what I think the issue is.

So you need to be a little more patient when speed is your issue, the XP'ed N120 kicks the tail of the N140 with Win7 Starter. Because it is a bad choice to give a computer owner, literally forcing many into paying for the upgrade, rather than just opting it as a luxury item - I give the new review a 4 out of 5 stars, I sadly take back what would have been a 4.6 out of 5 if they allowed it until I dealt with slow processing of programs.

Otherwise, still a GREAT GREAT MACHINE - it is kinda seeing a nearly perfect movie, except one stupid out of place scene tosses the a big monkey wrench in the plot - as least as you see it. Others may not catch the the plot screw up and to them it is a perfect movie, I get picky when testing out new items like these awesome Netbooks - which are extremely nice to have around as a family second or third computer, available to how ever grabs it.

In todays world, having this much technology in such a portable package, if you can afford it, the $370 these cost is likely the smartest thing a growing family or someone on the go could really make great use of - enriching their life, awesome stocking stuffer for the whole family.

Had just missed the big box $280 black friday deal by a few hours. Really wanted one so orderd this for more from Amazon on cyber monday evening. Arrived 3 days later via UPS free ground shipping. After playing with this a few days now, wife and I really appreciate the larger keys and non-glare screen. (great at breakfast table near a window) Got the touch pad dialed in to suit (still get the occasional unexpected movement). Anyway a couple of problems here. You can't use this netbook right away because when you first turn it on it still has to finish installing the OS. Then it wants to partition the 250gb drive. (I moved the slider to set mine to 40gb for the OS as drive C:/ and the rest as drive D:/) Then a bunch of updates and assorted unknown nonsense. Finally after about an hour you can use it. But it'll seem terribly slow until you do some further updating of various drivers, etc. Mine kept dropping connection to my wireless N router. Was finally able to keep it connected long enough to update internal wireless adapter receiver, good solid connection after that. A bit bland, Win7 Starter does not allow you to change your wallpaper nor is there any aero transparent glass, no media center or other such goodies. Quickly did the "anytime" on-line upgrade thing to Win7 home premium. Big difference. Nice and pretty and more enjoyable now, matching the slick chrome trim of the unit. Also dumped mcafee in favor of microsoft security essentials. Re-skinned with the burlwood design [...]. This little netbook with the N280 processor does work well with Win 7 whereas my Acer Aspire One (N270 & 2gb) was a bit sluggish even with a clean install. Highly recommend this Samsung netbook. Just keep in mind: the manual is in software only, under Start>All Programs>Samsung>user guide. There doesn't appear to be any blue tooth functionality with this unit that I can find. Also for best performance with streaming videos (such as instant play netflix movies) press Fn&F8 at the same time to change power settings. Also be sure to install the 2gb memory upgrade, periodicaly go to Samsung's web site and get any desired updates including bios. Keep it defragged and virus free and have fun!

I purchased the Samsung Netbook and it worked fine except for the wi-fi. It dropped out Alot. It didn't drop the router it dropped the DNS or the internet info and I was constantly having to do a repair on the wi-fi to get back on the internet. I returned it to Amazon and they returned my purchase price in less than a week. I will buy from them again as this was the fastest I ever had money returned from any retailer.

I ordered this for a trip to Europe - I didn't think that I could really do what I needed to do on an iPad. This little netbook is a real winner, it is light, but sufficiently powerful. I loaded it up with Office 2010 and Quickbooks Pro 2011. Although it is not as fast as I would like, it does the job well. I have also used it with remote desktop access. The keyboard is full sized enough for my big fingers. I'd recommend this for someone who is set on a windows based netbook and not an iPad. One note - Windows 7 starter edition is a little limited.

I just purchased the Samsung n140 net book and I have to say that I am quite pleased with the over all packaged of this product. I have owned many net books in the past seeing as I am a repair technician and need constant internet access when I am in in the field. So coming from a piratical and industrial use stand point I have to say that the n140 stacks up pretty well.

The design is very ergonomic, its sturdy and has a nice tactile feel to it. Its stylish yet not overpowering in curves and proverbial 'bling' many net book manufacturers are putting on the shelves as of late. It comes in many colors so choosing something you like will not be difficult.

Hardware wise, it is very accommodating, although it pretty much comes with the specs as any other entry level net book, which for the Atom processor is good enough. The screen is bright and very easy to look at being an LED. The keyboard is very easy to type on and the touch pad is wonderful. I would have to say that the touch pad and layout of the mouse buttons is a huge strength for the net book. Overall the keyboard and mouse are very responsive and feel great when being used. As usual the arrow or directional keys are a little too small for my taste, for some reason I end up using them more often then not. The layout of the USB ports is again standard, one on the left and two on the right. The advent of bluetooth and the left USB having the ability to charge something even when the net book is turned off is a great feature and I know I will be using it quite a bit.

The battery life is superb! Technically it should be getting about 11 hours, however after twitching the BIOS settings to a higher consumption but better performance and using full brightness I get seven to eight hours of use which is the most I've ever had in any laptop or net book!

Most impotently is that this net book has a fan on the processor! That is an amazing feature and was a huge purchasing factor. Having the fan severely decreases heat and increases performance! As a matter of fact the design of the net book it self seems to be thought out quite well for proper air circulation as the bottom of it has vents and when the battery is in place it is slightly raised of the surface for better air flow.

However, there are three points about this net book that I do not like. First is the BIOS itself. I mentioned it before, however, that option in the BIOS is the only that can really be altered to effect the performance of the computer. It is lacking in any other options and is relativity uncustomizable. Second is the Atom processor itself. Its a relatively higher end model but forget about multitasking, this net book can only do one maybe two things at a time. Anything further and it starts to severely lag. It does come with 1gig of ram around 800mhz but that in and of it self is pointless because the front side bus for that Atom is 533mhz making an upgrade to 2gigs pointless as well. Although I do have to say even with the performance of windows set to best appearance it is still quite smooth thanks to that fan and that little tweak in the BIOS.

The biggest problem with this net book is, regrettably Windows 7 Starter Edition. If you have the ability to upgrade to Home Premium or higher to so immediately! 7 Starter is a joke and inhibits the full potential of this net book. Did you know that the option to set or change the wallpaper in 7 Started is completely disabled! You're stuck with whatever it comes with initial or whatever default color it is set to. Awful! And forget about rendering video in 7 Starter, it has a very hard time especially on YouTube.

I also did not like all the additional software it came with, but that's just nitpicking. Overall its a great and inexpensive net book that will get the job done. Even with Windows 7 Starter Edition surfing the web and text editing is a breeze and for someone like me that always needs the internet every where I go, its a great little machine! I recommend this over any Acer or Dell.

What are you guys smoking? Has amazon gone crazy? Or is it just the resellers?

Just to keep things in perspective - a new netbook should retail for around 300 USD. A used netbook for around 200 USD. 1200 USD would buy me -
1. a top of the line 13" laptop
2. a Macbook
3. 2 iPads with 3G