Review Samsung n310 netbook

Quite by chance I received the specified device for the weekend. A colleague bought it as a gift for his son for the New Year and, so as not to carry it ahead of time, he asked me to take it on the weekend in order to put the necessary software on it. And since I was just about to sit this weekend at home and finally recover from the flu, I decided to ask him for help. In addition, netbooks as a class have long been of interest to me, but here is the opportunity to use it and decide if I need such a device. Since the n310 is a whole class of devices, I’ll say right away that the N310-WAS1 got to me, the main difference from which is WiMax.
I apologize in advance for the quality of the photos, I don’t have a camera, so everything was photographed on a nokia e66.
Next, a lot of pictures and, accordingly, traffic.

Packaging.
The device comes in a cardboard box that shows the possible color options for the device.

In my case, the netbook is dark blue. Other possible colors are orange (judging by the image on the box with a fair amount of red), blue and black. During transportation, the netbook is wrapped in a plastic bag, fixed in the box with seals. Nothing special, in short.

In addition to the device itself, you can find in the box:
A few manuals, a warranty card, 2 CDs (and when will flash drives come with devices without cd / dvd drives?) And of course the power supply.


The power supply has a fairly compact size, so there will be no problem taking it with you if necessary.




Let's look at the device itself

At the top, the netbook looks like a rectangle with rounded edges and a large Samsung inscription on the cover (some even attribute this size too large to the minuses of this model, but this is a personal matter for everyone). Netbook size 282x184.5 mm. As the material of the case, plastic is used. I don’t know how anyone, but I don’t like the rounded forms of this model. I would prefer a classic design without any rounding.

Size Comparison:


Side view: (28 mm thick)

There are 2 USB sockets on this side, a VGA-connector for connecting another monitor (covered with a rubber plug that can be easily lost) and a connector for connecting the power supply.

On the other hand:

There are: a Kensington lock, another USB connector, a Lan connector that closes with a plastic plug (this one is attached to the case so it won’t get lost), a ventilation hole, as well as a microphone output and speakers.

In front, nothing interesting except for an SD / SDHC / MMC card reader is not observed


Bottom:

Battery, RAM compartment, several ventilation openings, a licensed Windows XP Home sticker and 4 rubber feet on the edges that help this unit to not slip on almost any surface.

Open:


In comparison with the 23 "monitor:


The first thing you look at after opening the netbook is a 10.1" screen with a resolution of 1024x600.


The screen is covered with a protective glass, forming a single surface with the body, there are no edges at the edges.
Viewing angles: horizontally sufficient, but vertically could be better. I will explain. When you work with text, everything is fine, but you have to watch the video from a strictly defined angle, deviation from which almost immediately leads to poor visibility. It is not possible to check the behavior of the screen in sunlight due to cloudy weather in recent days.
In my opinion, the screen is the main minus of the model. Ask why? The protective glass is glossy and very cool glare. Although maybe it's just that I'm used to matte screens? Yes, the glossy surface is still very dirty.
Above the screen is a 1.3 Mpx camera eye and a microphone hole.

Let's look at the keyboard.


I do not know about you, but at first glance I had an analogy with Makovsky. Apparently this is due to the fact that the keys are spaced a couple of millimeters apart. I liked the keyboard, the key travel is not too hard and not too soft, the clicks feel good.

Under the keyboard are the touchpad and activity indicators.

The touchpad is very slightly recessed into the case, the button under it is double. I did not have any problems with the use, despite the fact that the experience of using touchpads is extremely small.
There is nothing special to say about the indicators, they are lit in blue, except for the red indicator for connecting the power supply.

The device turns on with a small round button in the upper right part of the keyboard, which after pressing starts to light up in blue.



Above the keyboard are the speakers. Expect something special from them is not worth it, but enough to watch the video in the absence of extraneous noise.


Battery life.
The device is equipped with a 4000 mAh battery, which I managed to discharge 2 times. The first time the netbook was connected to the network via wi-fi and pumped out updates to the operating system, when a little more than 2 hours passed, I watched the latest series of House without interrupting this process. In total, about 3 hours passed, after which 10% of the charge remained. The second time, the netbook was again connected to a wi-fi network and downloaded something + I climbed in the browser. Total 4 hours + the same balance in 10% charge. In both cases, the brightness was set to 3 divisions out of 8 possible. Judging by the reviews of the owners of other netbooks, it turns out to be slightly above average.

Let's look "under the hood."

Like most devices from other manufacturers, the device has an Intel Atom N270 processor with 1 physical core, Hyper-Threading technology involved and operating at a frequency of 1.6 GHz.
For web surfing and watching movies, this is enough. When viewing the heaviest available video material (HDTV rip with a resolution of 1280x720), the CPU cover was 90% maximum (h.264 video, aac audio, ffdshow decoder, MPC player), there were no lags. When watching dvdrip, CPU utilization is 40-60%. Of the games World of Goo was tested , of course no problems arose).

By default, the device has 1 gigabyte of RAM, which can be increased by a maximum of 2 times.


The device is equipped with wireless modules Wi-fi, WiMax and Bluetooth. Wi-fi was used all the time the device was working, it perfectly caught both my network and some neighboring network (to which I tried unsuccessfully to connect to it at first, taking it for mine =) since my router ignored my desire to turn on wi-fi on it, but I didn’t look at the indicator). Supported a / b / g protocols. There are no complaints. WiMax in our "village" at the moment is not and is not expected. So, unfortunately, I can’t say anything, except that Intel WiMAX Link 5150 is used as the WiMax module. Bluetooth also did not test, and it makes no sense, there are hardly any problems with it. The stack is used from Broadcom.

The hard drive in the SATA device is 160 GB, 5400 rpm., The manufacturer is divided into 2 sections of 71.5 GB (as for me - not too optimal).
Graphics - Intel® GMA 950, nothing more to say about it.
The device is also equipped with a Marvell Yukon 10/100 Mbps network controller.

Build quality.
On this point, I have no complaints about the device, the netbook feels like something monolithic. No backlash, nothing dangles.

Sound at work.
Actually, the device does not create almost any noise during operation. To even hear something, you need to bring your ear almost up close, so there’s no problem.

Weight.
The netbook weighs 1.23 kg, which is almost 1 in 1 matches the weight of devices from other manufacturers.

Price.
According to price.ru, at the moment the price of the device is from 14,790 to 15,600 rubles, which is not so cheap. All the same, there are analogues and cheaper, although without WiMAX, but yes it is unnecessary to me.

What is the result?
I liked the netbook more than not. Assembly, keyboard, good working time, noiselessness. The downside is the screen, the price, and the overall design (this is for me personally, for many it will probably become an incentive to buy a device).

That's all, after reading to the end, thanks for your attention =).