Samsung NC10

Battery life

Many of the earliest netbooks really suffered when it came to battery life - this was mainly down to the inadequate batteries that were being included. Ever since those early netbooks though, the price hasn't really dropped like you would have expected - instead, the trend we've spotted is that manufacturers have been including larger batteries on the newer models in order to boost battery life to more acceptable levels.

The Samsung NC10 packs a six-cell 5,200mAh battery, which means that it won't compete with the Asus Eee PC 1000's 6,600mAh battery, but that extra capacity does come at the expense of weight.

We ran a number of battery life tests on the NC10, using it in a variety of different scenarios. The first test that we ran was done at home, where we were browsing a typical selection of websites with the brightness set one notch above the lowest setting, wireless enabled and the volume at 50 percent.

The websites I browsed included Gmail, Facebook, bit-tech, BBC News and YouTube. The battery lasted for approximately seven and a half hours during this test, which was a pretty impressive result in my opinion.

The second test was done on a day I spent in London for a bunch of meetings, where I used the device in conjunction with my T-Mobile 3G USB data card to answer emails, proof read content and to take notes during the meetings I was in. The machine was set up in exactly the same way as before, although wireless was disabled this time. I'd used the machine on and off for about five hours before the battery ran out of juice.

The final test I did was similar to the first test, but this time with the screen brightness turned right up to 100 percent, as this is optimal if you're watching video. In this test, the battery lasted for approximately four hours 30 minutes before packing its bags and shutting down.

Conclusions

The Samsung NC10 is, quite simply, the best netbook money can buy at the moment. While there's no one feature that puts it head and shoulders above everything else out there, the combination of superb build quality and attention to detail gives the NC10 a distinct edge over the competition.

Things like the matte finish which doesn't attract fingerprints (I'm not a fan of the White, but there are Blue and Black variants as well), the excellent keyboard and one of the best screens we've seen on a netbook to date just demonstrate the thought and effort Samsung has put into this little device.

Of course, there are downsides like the trackpad and accompanying buttons, which we would have preferred to be a bit bigger, and we can't forget the performance limitations imposed on netbooks. Forget about watching high-definition video and doing other CPU-intensive tasks if you're not prepared to wait because, like every other netbook out there, the heart of the NC10 isn't designed with high performance in mind. Instead, the Intel Atom processor inside this device is all about delivering good enough computing and that's exactly what the NC10 delivers in spades.

Frankly, that's about all we have been able to come up with and, as far as we're concerned, if that's all that is wrong with a device that costs less than £300 (including VAT) then we're onto a winner.

• Build Quality
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• 10/10

• Features
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Ease of Use
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Performance
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

• Value
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• 10/10

• Overall
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• x
• -
• 9/10

Score Guide