Samsung N148. Review on Samsung NP RV411

Let me tell you first, a net-book is not for everyone. You have to define your requirement, before you go for a net-book. Its not a workstation, its just good for browsing, some word processing, presentation and e book reading. And even the makers doesn't claim more. For me the uses were just the same. So I decided to choose a net book to replace my old broken down laptop. For anything more than that, I can use my desktop.

Almost every computer manufacturers have net books, so selection was a bit difficult. Sony presented the more expensive ones, and the bottom line were presented by likes of MSI. It was around the time Samsung came up with a few models like N148, N150 and N210. The hardware were almost the same, but the difference was with the OS. 148 came with DOS, 150 with Windows XP and 210 with Windows 7 starter. In addition, 210 sported a blue-tooth device too. Samsung models offered decent battery duration, in addition to reasonable pricing. So I decided to go Samsung. Recently I was using Ubuntu in my desktop and was happy with that. So I chose N148 and saved a grand.

I don't have to mention the specifications here, for its available at a lot many sites. I will just tell my experience with it.

Usually the major concern with a net-book is its miniature keypad and screen. Key pad they say is about 85% of standard. I don't feel much restricted in use, for I am not a fast typist. The screen is of course smaller than we used to, but I think hitting F11 occasionalywill help a lot.

These note-books are designed with Win 7 in mind. As you know, it cant make much difference, but many a short cuts will work only with Win 7, like adjusting the brightness, switching on and off Wifi, screen LED etc. But if you can forget them, I believe Ubuntu is good enough. For that matter even XP wont provide these advantages.

I use Ubuntu Net-book remix 10.4. It comes bundled with Open Office, Firefox browser, PDF reader etc. So I didn't had to worry about softwares. If I had any more requirements, Ubuntu software center offers lot many of them absolutely free! Even though, my version of Ubuntu was the most recent, I had to download about 300 MB of updates. So make sure you have a broadband access.

Ubuntu boots up and shut down much faster than Win 7. Almost all softwares are provided or available free of cost. There are no hazzles with licensing or piracy. Vernacular font handling and typing are much much better than windows. If you blog in any Indian language, its the one for you. Moreover, this note book remix, they say, is specially made for net-books considering their limited hardware capacity. As its now, we don't have to worry about viruses and other malwares.

But there a flop side too. First is, not all web pages load well with this. Examples, Samsung registration sites, my on line trading site. etc. For that matter Safari, my default browser in desktop too failed. Some pages, it seems work only with IE.

Video handling is not that good as with Win7. With Win7, the computer manged to play HD video of 720 neatly, but there were video-audio streaming disparity with 1080 format. Still there were fluid streaming. But Ubuntu's movie player failed miserably even to play 720. It came up like a slide show with fair audio output.(But it was as good as windows in desktop)

The touch pad tap sensitivity is comparatively poor with Ubuntu. That was excellent with Win7. Win 7 offers no software to use the built in web cam. But the Ubuntu have a SW named Cheese, which allows still and video capture, even though it take a bit to load and run.

Service. Registering with Samsung is a bit complicated procedure. You will need to enter one unique number provided by them which is quite big and I bet you will forget it.(Of course you can retrieve it from the service) But this time I couldn't register my net-book for it was not included in their drop down list.(Sorry, we cant just type it in) I contacted the on line service, and got a prompt computer generated reply. And even after 2 weeks nothing more happened. I hope nothing will go wrong.

So, am I happy with the product? Of course, I am. It performs perfectly well for the tasks which I intended it for. What I paid is only half the money(Rs 16000)it required for the fancy mobile phones which does only a fraction of things a net-book can do.(Leave aside call function, for that a Rs 800 phone is good enough!) So Happy Net-booking.