Model: Samsung N310
Price: AUD$699
Rating: 7 out of 10
Web: www.samsung.com.au
The new Samsung N310 has a bit of the old clamshell Apple iBook from 2000 look about it although it doesn’t come in quite the same range of colours.
It’s not particularly new under the bonnet with Intel’s 1.66GHz Atom N280 processor combining with 1GB of memory and a 160GB samsung hard drive handling the major features. Microsoft’s Windows XP Home Edition SP3 is the operating system.
It comes with a standard 10.1-inch 1024×600-pixel widescreen LCD panel. Unfortunately, it only includes a small 29-watt-hour Lithium-ion battery, which on our testing, lasted only 2hrs48mins. With some netbooks now pushing five hours thanks to newer Atom N450 processors, the N310 is struggling to compete, particularly with its Australian price tag of $699.
The difference here is that Samsung has done a deal with Australian telco Telstra to bundle it with a 3G wireless modem via retailer Leading Edge Telecoms. The deal works out to be $699 for the N310 plus $29.95 per month for Telstra’s Bigpond Liberty 400 wireless plan (400MB of data) and $299 for the modem – or $71.46 per month for the deal.
We much prefer Samsung’s N210 with its vastly better battery life. The 3G deal isn’t great given that 400MB of data doesn’t last as long as it use to do.