Customer Reviews

Samsung NC20-21GBK 12.1-Inch Black Netbook - 6 Hour Battery

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I wanted a netbook or laptop to replace an old laptop we used in our kitchen. I wanted something that was ...

1) Light weight and portable.
2) Easy to carry and/or pack when I travel.
3) Quick accessing the internet for news and email.
4) Would run Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
5) Had an easy to read screen, and
6) Cost less than $800.

I strongly considered 10" netbooks by several manufacturers (Samsung, HP, Asus, etc.) but decided I wanted a larger screen after I found myself "leaning in" to read the screen on the 10" netbooks. Laptops had bigger screens, but were LOTS heavier (>5.5 lbs) and would be much less convenient both in my kitchen and to travel with. Getting a 12-14" screen in a light weight laptop or a Mac was going to easily cost me more than $1000. The Samsung NC20 fit my criteria the best. I was a bit apprehensive to buy it though as I was unable to see one locally. In the end, I decided to take the plunge.

Boy am I glad I did. This computer is simply great. Perfect size, very portable and light weight. Screen is easy to read and very bright. One complaint I had heard about the NC20 was that the speakers weren't very good, but I would disagree with this; they're fine! The keyboard is easy to use, even with my big fingers. Battery life is excellent. In addition, the setup was a breeze. I've set up a lot of computers in my time (both PC and Mac), and honestly this was by far the easiest (even easier than my Mac's)! Microsoft Office went on fine, easy setup of my wireless network and file sharing with my desktop. I also loaded Norton Internet Security on it, and it runs just fine (no noticeable reduction in speed). It has handled everything I've given it just great!

I added a USB-CD/DVD drive and a USB-mouse (although it has built-in Bluetooth), and these work great. When purchasing I thought about upgrading the memory to 2GB but decided to wait and see. Now that I have it, I see no need for this currently (but it's nice to have the option for the future).

My NC20 is currently sitting on my kitchen table, running Microsoft Office just fine and accessing my emails and the internet like a champ! If you're looking for a secondary computer, laptop or netbook for doing simple tasks and travel like I was, I would highly recommend the NC20.

I'm a picky person when it comes to computers, as I spend pretty much all day on them - I'm a work-at-home programmer. I was in the market for a portable and light laptop that had enough battery power to last a good chunk of the day, while still having a decent monitor size and resolution. Since I was primarily interested in coding (which doesn't require very much CPU), the Via processor met my needs. This was almost the perfect laptop for me, but there's a few things that Samsung didn't do a good job at.

Pros:
- 12" screen with 1280x800 makes this comparable to a "real" laptop as far as screen real estate goes. Quite helpful if you work with programs that demand lots of space, and makes web browsing much easier. I use a lot of software that just cuts off dialog boxes half-way on my Eee, because of the tiny 1024x600 resolution. NC20 solves this problem, and many others.
- Very light, and while it's indeed 12", it still feels small enough to take anywhere you'd take a 10" netbook.
- Battery really does last almost 6 hours.
- Doesn't get very hot (compared to most laptops). Fan kicks in a bit more than I'd want it to even in an air-conditioned room, but it's never felt uncomfortable placing on my lap while doing ordinary tasks. You'd still want to put it on a lapdesk/laptop cooler when watching movies though.
- Easy to upgrade RAM and hard drive from the bottom.
- Cheap. (can buy 3 of these for the price of one MacBook Pro)

Cons:
- Bad keyboard layout (no Windows key on the left side, Backtick/Tilde key directly left of the spacebar, half-sized left/right keys share space with PgUp/PgDn).
- Power cable plug is on the middle of the right side. If you use a wireless mouse next to the laptop, the cord will get in the way quite a bit.
- The hard drive that it comes with is pretty slow (benched at ~52MB/sec buffered reads, whereas my Eee's drive benches almost 70MB/sec). I opted to try a OCZ Vertex 2 SSD instead, which made startups insanely fast - even faster than my C2Q Q9550/10k RPM Raptor desktop setup).
- Atheros AR5007EG card usually had bad performance with my D-Link DIR-655 router, even with the latest drivers. From a local SMB server, I get read speeds of 1.5-2MB/sec, with lots of packet loss - where my Vaio (Intel Wifi 5100) and Eee (also Atheros AR5007EG) don't. Streaming H264 movies is pretty bad, even with a 3,000ms buffer.
- Hardware acceleration on video playback makes Xvid, MPEG4, etc. is decent; however, I have mixed reviews about how H264 fared. Generally, there would still be dropped frames (<10%) even when played off your hard drive. Of course, you typically don't buy "netbooks" for these tasks, so I'm not complaining too much about it.
- Video sites using Flash are disastrous. YouTube only plays in SD (HQ usually drops to < 10FPS, HD is a slideshow). Sites using H264 codecs in their Flash movies just were miserable to try watching on. Given the prevalence of Flash and H264 in Web 2.0 sites, it's my opinion that Flash performance is also a very important factor of "netbook" performance. After all, netbooks are supposed to be for browsing the web. Shouldn't have to switch to a desktop just to watch some short clip on [...] without major lag.
- Sites with a lot of text and JavaScript (e.g., Slashdot) scroll a lot slower on Firefox than on my Eee 900HA, which uses the Atom N270 CPU and GMA950. I guess this is where the Via chipset just doesn't excel at.
- Specific to the laptop I received from Amazon: Mine had 3 dead pixels (two very minor ones that can't been seen very easily, near the edges, and one grey one right in the middle that shows quite a bit against a white background). Also, probably a defect, but about once every day, it will completely freeze up (mouse locks up, then a single PC speaker beep - hardware failure?).

While I almost loved it, it's not something I can happily keep, and am exchanging it for a MacBook Pro 13" since I guess I'm a bit pickier than the price bracket can afford.

However, if you mostly use computers for text-browsing and the sites you frequent are light on Flash animations, this "netbook" may be the one for you, especially if the 10" netbooks with 1024x600 resolution are too small for your tastes.

I have now ordered and tested six different netbooks (via my university). This includes two different ASUS models (1002HA,1002H) the MSI Wind, the HP Mini, the Samsung NC10, and, last, the NC20. All have delivered fine performance and various members of my department are very attached to each. For me, however, the NC20 is my clear favorite and the one I will be using from now on.

The reason is simple; the extra size of the screen and the keyboard makes the NC20 much more usable to me than the others. Given my aging eyes, that is hardly surprising. What was surprising to me was that the extra size did not make the NC20 any more difficult to travel with than the others, nor was there any appreciable difference in performance or battery life.

I just came back from a week-long research/conference trip and used the NC20 every day and on a 4+ hour plane trip. I barely used 50% of the battery power on the flight (WiFi off) and found the screen and keyboard to be delightful. I also had zero issues running MS Office 2003 with some moderately large data sets and everything ran just fine.

So, as much as I like my previous netbooks, this is the one that I will be carrying with me from now on.

A 10.1 inches monitor was definitely something too small for my eyes, now I am 53... and for a 12.1 monitors you had to choose one of those expensive notebooks. But this Samsung NC20 appeared and I simply went for it without waiting for other customer reviews. I read some reviews on other sites, all of them OK, and followed my daughter's advice: she has a 10.1 NC10, the pink one (perfect for a young girl) and is always telling marvelous things about her tiny netbook
Well, now I can start doing the same. It's a great computer, perfect for what it is meant to.
The chasis is solid, the system keeps cold, has long battery life (5 hours or so, I am not enough disciplined to measure it with minutes and seconds), a clear and comfortable keyboard and a silent processor/disk
Two small cons:
1. The monitor is too glossy for my taste.
2. The cover traps all your fingerprints, mercilessly.

Best regards
Rodarias

Overall, I rate this product (NC20) as excellent for my purposes. My requirements were: 1) Portable (light weight, small size) 2. Purpose: simple, inexpensive notebook to do word processing, powerpoint presentations, and internet (email, research, skype and other communication options, shopping etc.). I do not need 500+ GB of storage, nor complex game requirement graphics and response time.

The NC20 does exactly what I want, and what I have wanted for years. I have long desired a portable 12-13 inch screen that does not cost $900+. My only question is why did it take so long for the companies to realize that the demand is high for this notebook niche. There are so many business people, like me that only need word processing and the internet without the more costly bells, whistles, and GBs. OK another question is why does it have to cost more than $400. A great machine for the above cited purposes, but cheaper cost (e.g., $400) would be fair for what you get. To charge $480 (what I paid), Samsung should have included a 2GB RAM instead of the 1GB, and 400 GB HDD instead of 160 GB. I purchased a Western Digital My Passport 500GB as a peripheral for video and photos (that stays home while traveling), but the 160 GB are more than enough for programs and work.

If you are not sure about screen size, try out the 10 inch screen versions for a couple of hours. I did this and found that 10 inch screens are too small for my eyes. My eyes are 53 years old with near-sightedness. I travel internationally often (1 week per month), and therefore do a lot of computer work on the road/in the air. This 12.1 inch screen size is great for these purposes. Both the 12.1 inch screen, and the almost full size keyboard are just right for the "keep it small and portable, but as fully practical as possible" trade-off. Any smaller on both the screen and keyboard, begins to detract from the practicality I want.

Actual weight comes out at 1.5kg (3.3 lbs.).

Of course you probably know (or should know) there is no CD/DVD drive in the NC20.
I use an external drive, downloads, and network imports to compensate.

I have used expensive Dell travel notebooks (1.7-2Kg, 12 and 13 inch screens)for 20 years, and this NC20 is just as good for my purposes (better in some respects) without the higher cost.

Final Note: Don't spend a lot of money on Microsoft office - Home and Student. I use Open Office (free download) which is very similar, works great, and creates documents that are fully compatible/interchangeable with the microsoft office program, e.g., when using other PCs.

I will compare to the NC10, the NC20 is bigger, heavier, less battery life but still good around 3:30 of regular use maybe more if you change the brightness on the screen settings, excellent screen resolution (1280 x 800)for 12.1" !and better/higher sound for sure. Just be aware that the left side of the laptop generate a flow of mildly hot air. Of course the screen is the main thing here and I think is worth it if you want to use the laptop to see movies or read Open Office documents. It is very easy to open and upgrade the hard drive or the memory 2GB max. The trackpad has the same size of the NC10 black special edition but bigger than the regular NC10. The keyboard is great as the all NC10. note: They changed the position of the windows icon on the keyboard. The VIA Nano performs very similar to the Intel Atom.

I also owned a Samsung NC10 Netbook.
So here my my review on the two netbooks.

Pro:

Very nice 12" screen.
Faster then the Samsung NC10 Atom chip.
Play most HD video.
Very big mouse-pad compared to the NC10
Easy to upgrade hard drive and ram.
I rather spend $80 more to get this then the smaller NC10.

Con:

Can't play some HD video.
A little big,..almost 1 pound heaver then the NC10
Run warmer then NC10
Start up is slower then NC10,..even with the 2GB upgrade.

Also the NC10 can't play any HD video,..CPU run at 100%.
So get a NC20 if you watch HD,...is a little choppy sometime but a lot better then the Atom chip.

NANO is the bomb!!!!

FYI just update to a 80GB SSD,..boot up time is less then 15 seconds!
I highly recommended upgrading to a SDD hard drive,. its getting little cheaper now.

I've had my NC20 for almost three months. I love it! I bought it to use while my HP laptop was being repaired and found that I now have no use for the HP laptop; it's sitting on a shelf gathering dust. The NC20 is lightweight and portable, has a long battery life, has a great screen (in terms of both size and picture quality), and a keyboard size that I find easy to use. Once I adjusted the settings on the sound management programs, the sound is also great--loud and clear. The processor is plenty fast for word processing, spreadsheets, e-mail, web browsing, and simple photoshopping of graphics files. I upgraded the RAM to 2 GB and added a 500 GB hard drive; both upgrades were very simple and inexpensive. To me, the NC20 is more than a netbook--it's a light inexpensive laptop/notebook that meets all of my needs.

I've had the Samsung NC20 for about a month and it's working pretty well. My father got the NC10 for his business, and since that was working so well (and my Dell Laptop was 5 years old) I decided to give the "big brother" a try.

Definitely does Not perform as well as the NC10. I decided to upgrade the memory right away. Startup was taking way to long (and I'm not demanding of my computers) for a new system. I'm not a computer wizz, but it seems like Via's Nano processor uses more memory than Intel's Atom (NC10); 1.9 GBs available for the NC10, while only 1.75 GBs for the NC20 after the 2 GB upgrade in both.

Don't even think about gaming on this computer, it already has trouble running SD videos. And forget HD videos. I'm sure for some shots where the isn't constant movement it would perform alright, but I watch a lot of clips that have constant, fast motion. Most of the time SD is fine, but occasionally gets choppy.

Battery life is really good. If I turn the computer on in the morning, use it sporadically throughout the day and just close the screen down (putting it in sleep mode/hibernate) when I walk away for more than 10 minutes, I usually only have to recharge once a day or even every other day if I'm not watching to many videos or anything else that will suck up battery life. I'm sure just typing out notes and what not wouldn't use up much battery life and would last a day at the office/class/where ever.

The keyboard is a good size. I've grown up typing, so I adjusted a bit easier than some, but the keys are really not that close. Samsung could have made it a bit larger (there's about 1 cm of space around the edges vs 5 mm or so on the NC10), but it's still comfortable to use. The mouse track pad is fine as well. I love the scrolling area (both vertical and horizontal) and, unlike the NC10, is large enough to use regularly. I haven't even bothered to plug in a usb mouse.
Note: I have large hands, my fingers are a little bit larger than sharpie markers and from the base of my palm to the tip of my middle finger is about 8 inches. I'm sure most people will be more than comfortable with this keyboard.

The 12" Screen Size is Perfect! The NC10 seemed a bit small for regular use, but I didn't want the bulk (or price) of a full size laptop. For the price this is a great medium. I did get an external dvd drive, but I haven't taken it out of the box. Just wanted to be prepared in case I need to run a disc. You could easily set up a network and run them over that, which I did for the NC10, but I may need to run discs away from home, so I just wanted something on hand.

This is a really functional and affordable computer, just don't expect the best performance. If you're going to use it for typing, web surfing and some videos you'll be OK. I would have given it 3 1/2 stars, but lean more towards 4 since there are no halves here.

Edit: Also, the speakers are absolute rubbish. Most videos I can barely make out what is being said even with all volumes at 100%. Music sounds horrible and sadly there is no where to insert a better sound card to allow the use of external speakers. Plan on using headphones...

I like just about everything about this laptop. The keyboard feels great - not too small, not too touchy, & not too hard. The 12.1" screen is a good compromise between a big heavy laptop and a tiny netbook. I tried the Samsung NC-10 netbook with a 10.2" screen, and the screen felt too small: it required too much scrolling for a small amount of text.

Another good thing about the NC20 is the battery life. It really does last over 5 hours. Also, it doesn't heat up nearly as much as my old HP laptop did. It's a good looking piece of equipment, even though the case picks up a lot fingerprints.

I have two minor complaints: it's a little hard to open the case because the hinge is stiff, and there isn't a good way to grip the top. And the touchpad is so sensitive that sometimes I end up scrolling when I don't want to.

All in all it's a terrific laptop. It's also my only computer at home - I don't have a desktop computer, so I use the Samsung NC20 for everything. Everything for me is pretty much email & internet.