Sporting the dark horse VIA Nano CPU, Samsung’s 12.1-inch NC20 looks like it might be able to shake things up a bit. Sascha from German site NetbookNews.de got his hands on the soon-to-be-available ultraportable computer and lets the world watch him open the box.
Some initial thoughts:
- It definitely looks more like a notebook than the stereotypical netbook. Notebook/netbook – big deal. We continue to see the line getting blurred. The big screen means that there’s a usable resolution: 1280×800 – nice.
- The keyboard! It’s undoubtedly larger than a netbook keyboard but it still looks a little cramped to me for some reason. It’s gotta be the edges on either side. Hopefully it’s just an optical illusion.
- The trackpad looks usable. Sascha notes that there’s still a single button (it’s capable of right and left clicks, though).
- The six-cell battery adds a little hump on the bottom but nothing too unwieldy. There appears to be a slot for future 3G options underneath the battery.
- Boot-to-XP time seems to be around 40 seconds or so. Not too shabby.
It’s a little bit thicker than I thought it would be, but it still seems relatively portable. The 3.3-pound travel weight is nice and will hopefully be a fair tradeoff given the bigger screen and keyboard. That keyboard may ultimately be a deciding factor for most people. The one on the NC10 has been received pretty well so the one on the NC20 ought to be nice too.
NetbookNews.de [via SlashGear]