Imo a lot of this is due to Samsung's revised standing in the European market. Back in the 80s they were a by-word for cheap, nasty electronics, mainly sold in supermarkets and low end, independent electrical stores for ridiculous markups.

In the last ten years though this has changed, infact completely reversed. Their phones, TVs, hard discs, camera, printers – wherever you go in Europe you will rarely see their really budget products, it's just average stuff/below average prices and above average stuff/average prices – which has always been the key to European middle class markets.

Same goes for the netbook space. They stayed away while Asus we're pumping out rubbish like the eee 700/900, poor desktop parts pushed into uneconomical, poorly conceived laptops. Instead they waited until the Atom market had matured and dropped the NC10 – an absolute marketing masterpiece which, while hardly the Holy Grail, beat everyone one of it's competitors in some way for the same price.

And so it's gone with their follow ups, they're all average/above average for the market space and priced well (after their initial two month markup anyways).

They know how to play Europe from both marketing and technical angles in ways neither Asus or Acer ever have and as long as they stick to the current formula it'll only get better.