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US retailer Best Buy is taking orders for the Samsung N310 netbook. I mean sure, the item is listed as backordered, and you may not be able to actually get one for a few weeks. But this makes Best Buy the first company in the US that I’m aware of to actually stock the N310. It’s already available for order in the UK for £399. Best Buy is selling it for $479.99 in the US.
This netbook packs a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display. It has a 6 cell battery which Samsung claims could run for up to 11 hours on a charge.
Is it worth about $100 more than laptops with similar specs? I’ll leave that to you to decide, but if the netbook comes even close to getting the promised 11 hours of run time, that’s pretty spectacular. It also has a unique rubberized design, which has made for some pretty intriguing advertising opportunities.
via Little Laptop Deals
I liked the rubberized look from the start, and I too like the simplicity of design. It has a unique look and feel, I just wish it came with NVIDIA Ion or some A/V power boosting.
I don’t have an opinoion on ‘chicklets’ either, I have never tried that sort of keyboard before. All I know about Chicklets is the gum, and that the old boxes when empty made wonderful kazoos.
I fumbled one of these yesterday. The rubberized feel and the shape is totally nice, but I don’t like the keyboard. I make a lot more typos on my new Apple keyboard than I did on the previous version; those chicklets are not for me..
But worst of all is the price: €479,-. As if exchangerates just don’t exist. This does include 19% VAT, but that should have made the price more like €400. In US$ it would be $562,- without taxes. Totally NOT getting one.
I really like the rubberized case coating and design. Somehow it even makes all the odd colors acceptable. I want one in school bus yellow 🙂 Score one for “form following function” for a change, rather than fashion.
There’s something “honest” about a netbook that’s the same thickness all over rather than knife-sharp on the edges and extra fat in the middle, as if we were too dumb to notice it wasn’t thin all over.
And, oh yes! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this would start a trend away from all the glossy smudge magnets. That would be worth at least $50 or $75 extra!
I would like to have a 9 inch version of this. But I’m not crazy about chiclet keys either, though I can’t really say that they increase my typos.
Yeah, possibly the nicest netbook design-wise so far; one step closer to what “Thinkpad netbook” should end up like…
With the Apple chicklet keyboard, I often lose my home-position, so I will start typing with one hand positioned one key to the left, right or even top and bottom, resulting in really weird stuff…