So I've got a Samsung NC10 coming tomorrow

Rik · Mar 05, 2009, 16:56:12

... any tips? I plan to upgrade the memory to 2GB, but I've heard the 'door' is a bit fiddly, any advice?

Curious thing, I tried to order from Amazon, but although saying it was in stock, they quoted 1-2 months for delivery. So, I bought it from Misco, same price, but went back to the Amazon site this afternoon for another reason and just re-checked, now they are offering delivery tomorrow.

Glenn · Mar 05, 2009, 17:10:10

They had heard how dodgy you are and don't want your business

Rik · Mar 05, 2009, 17:14:26

After all the Le Creuset we bought from them?

Steve · Mar 05, 2009, 20:10:05

Have you seen this Rik? At least its got a door/flap with the advent 4211 you've got to take the whole back off and not loose any of those tiny screws. I wonder why are you upgrading the memory? Surely you can't be thinking of using Vista

My Advent 4211 has had to go back to the menders, only had 5 months use and I am fairly sure its got a hardware fault with frequent crashes and bsod's which are not rectified by several destructive reinstallations using the EISA partition and the USB recovery disk. Even a known functioning backup on the WHS still crashes.

If the Samsung has an EISA partition I would strongly recommend creating the USB recovery disk first off.

Lance · Mar 05, 2009, 23:28:26

Quote from: Rik on Mar 05, 2009, 16:56:12
... any tips? I plan to upgrade the memory to 2GB, but I've heard the 'door' is a bit fiddly, any advice?

That's you busy for the rest of tomorrow then!

Sebby · Mar 05, 2009, 23:30:20

Let us know how it goes, Rik.

JB · Mar 06, 2009, 09:01:17

Quote from: Sebby on Mar 05, 2009, 23:30:20
Let us know how it goes, Rik.

Ditto.

Very interested to hear how you get on with it Rik and your overall impressions.

Rik · Mar 06, 2009, 09:08:32

Thanks, Steve. The memory upgrade won't be immediate as I plan to use the Crucial scanner, so haven't ordered yet. More thoughts in due course.

Steve · Mar 06, 2009, 09:09:04

Obviously you will have no cd\dvd drive but never had any issues copying the software install disks to usb stick and then preceding with the installation,This forum and wiki has some useful info for the msiwind which is a very similar atom based netbook

Rik · Mar 06, 2009, 09:12:37

Thanks, again, Steve. I'm just busy copying stuff to a flash drive as we speak.

Steve · Mar 07, 2009, 10:29:31

Well! City Link not been yet?

Rik · Mar 07, 2009, 10:40:22

Oh yes, it was here about 9:30 yesterday, and I've just upgraded the memory to 2GB thanks to excellent service from Crucial.

My first impressions are entirely positive, they keyboard is about on par with a normal notebook, the screen is excellent, sharp and bright enough for use outside. Wireless reception seems effortless. It did appear to auto-detect and join my LAN, but I'm not sure whether I imagined that. Similarly, it appeared to auto-detect a Laserjet which runs off the router.

My only complaints are (1) the touchpad, but I never get on with those and (2) the number of Windows updates I needed.

I've nearly got it whipped into shape for real use now.

Steve · Mar 07, 2009, 12:05:54

Good , The trackpad is small but I managed to adjust the settings on my netbook to make it usable. I suspect mine will go to one of the spotty ones when it returns from the menders

Rik · Mar 07, 2009, 12:09:21

Have you discovered a way to turn off Bluetooth to save power, Steve? I've got it stopped, but I'm not sure that saves power. If the battery meter is right, though, it may not matter - it's promising 7 hours. The 2GB of RAM from Crucial arrived this morning, and is now installed.

Simon · Mar 07, 2009, 12:10:45

Glad to hear it's working out well, Rik.

Rik · Mar 07, 2009, 12:11:28

I even managed to get the screw back into the memory cover.

Sebby · Mar 07, 2009, 12:15:37

Rik · Mar 07, 2009, 12:20:41

Yes, miracles do happen.

Steve · Mar 07, 2009, 15:35:29

Quote from: Rik on Mar 07, 2009, 12:09:21
Have you discovered a way to turn off Bluetooth to save power, Steve? I've got it stopped, but I'm not sure that saves power. If the battery meter is right, though, it may not matter - it's promising 7 hours. The 2GB of RAM from Crucial arrived this morning, and is now installed.

On the Advent Fn F11 toggles bluetooth and wireless on/off .Certainly when indicator light is not lit neither function is available

Rik · Mar 07, 2009, 15:42:36

I can turn the wireless adaptor on and off via a function key, Steve, but not Bluetooth, nor is there an indicator for it.

Steve · Mar 07, 2009, 16:00:28

I presume you have therefore disabled broadcom 2045 in device manager? If you search for the Samsung with another device and don't find it one would think you've succeeded. Not sure how much of a battery drain bluetooth is on this machine

Rik · Mar 07, 2009, 16:05:58

Neither am I, Steve, as it doesn't even offer it as a power saving option in DM. I think what I'll do, now I've finished setting it up and fine tuning it, is run the battery down, see how much time I get from it, then disable BT and repeat.

mynnydd · Mar 08, 2009, 19:19:06

Quote from: Rik on Mar 07, 2009, 16:05:58
Neither am I, Steve, as it doesn't even offer it as a power saving option in DM. I think what I'll do, now I've finished setting it up and fine tuning it, is run the battery down, see how much time I get from it, then disable BT and repeat.

Hi, Rik. First up nice work on the forum

I have had my NC10 for a month now. It is so good I sold my 2coreduo, 2 GBram, widescreen laptop and desktop!
I find the built-in bluetooth great, because I text with the netbook through my mobile using the bluetooth connection. You might also consider a bluetooth mouse, seeing how you are not keen on the touchpad.
I use a microsoft bluetooth notebook mouse 5000 with mine. It is small, perfectly formed and very accurate.
Here are a couple of forums with some good advice on the NC10.
http://forum.pocketables.net/forumdisplay.php?f=76

http://www.sammynetbook.com/plugins/forum/forum.php
I have also had VISTA running on it with no problems

Simon · Mar 08, 2009, 19:23:21

I don't know why you were missed before, but have a welcome karma, mynnydd.

Steve · Mar 08, 2009, 20:14:46

Useful links not come across the first site before.

I note there is a thread for 2 finger scrolling which sounds a great idea on a small trackpad. Have you tried it all?

Rik · Mar 09, 2009, 09:48:43

Thanks for that mynnydd, I'll go take a look.

I must confess that I can see my laptop becoming redundant, I just like using the NC10 so much more - especially the screen. Weirdly, when I switch from the 24" monitor on my desktop to the NC10, I don't find it odd, but coming back from the NC10 to the desktop, it all looks so big.

Steve · Mar 09, 2009, 11:30:07

So one redundant laptop and 24" Eizo monitor for sale

Rik · Mar 09, 2009, 11:31:32

No chance, Steve, at least as far as the Eizo is concerned. The lappy might go though.

Steve · Mar 09, 2009, 11:53:20

Well my Advent 4211 has had to be sent away for repair due to a hardware fault. Its reassuring as I was convinced it was a hardware issue and not software related. I suppose one does worry about the longevity of these products the intel atom does tend to run pretty hot and one wonders about the quality of the cooling.

Rik · Mar 09, 2009, 12:02:19

You mean I should get a spare, Steve?

Steve · Mar 09, 2009, 12:10:01

Hopefully Samsung build quality is better than Advent but I expect the internals will be the same. It probably got dropped by someone.

Rik · Mar 09, 2009, 12:27:13

I haven't managed that yet.

Steve · Mar 09, 2009, 12:30:55

Interestingly I did plug into a Cambridge Audio USB DAC , sound quality was not bad at all.

Rik · Mar 09, 2009, 12:33:41

I've tried it with the Bose QC3 headphones and was quite impressed - the speakers are adequate, but not any use in a noisy environment.

mynnydd · Mar 09, 2009, 15:28:52

Quote from: stevethegas on Mar 09, 2009, 11:53:20
Well my Advent 4211 has had to be sent away for repair due to a hardware fault. Its reassuring as I was convinced it was a hardware issue and not software related. I suppose one does worry about the longevity of these products the intel atom does tend to run pretty hot and one wonders about the quality of the cooling.

'So in most respects, the only real difference between a netbook and a notebook is the use of an Intel Atom processor. This is smaller, cheaper and a lot less powerful than a Celeron, Pentium or Core chip, but it also runs cooler and provides much better battery life. There are some PCs with Atom chips that the suppliers say are not netbooks — examples include the Asus N10 and Sony's pocketable Vaio P-Series — but generally the distinction holds.' jack schofield@ 'the Guardian' 5th March 2009.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/05/netbook-intel

I guess it is in the design; I started with an Acer Aspire One, now that felt hot

Steve · Mar 18, 2009, 17:50:31

Quote from: stevethegas on Mar 09, 2009, 11:53:20
Well my Advent 4211 has had to be sent away for repair due to a hardware fault. Its reassuring as I was convinced it was a hardware issue and not software related. I suppose one does worry about the longevity of these products the intel atom does tend to run pretty hot and one wonders about the quality of the cooling.

Back from the menders in working order. Interestingly hardware fault was found to be faulty onboard ram 1GB and the motherboard they quote has been replaced.Looking in bios which is the same relatively out of date version which makes me slightly suspicious however they've stuck a 2GB stick in so shouldn't complain even if it is the same motherboard with the onboard memory disabled or should I?

Rik · Mar 18, 2009, 17:54:26

If it's working, why worry would be my approach, Steve.

Steve · Mar 18, 2009, 18:18:42

Don't think I will its working fine, the WHS did its stuff so fully restored to 3 weeks ago. Interestingly there was comment quoted from the Guardian earlier in this thread about the atom running cool. Mine sits at around 71 -73 degrees C using CoreTemp with the Tjmax set at 125. Thats not cool to me however the TDP is only a miserable 2.5 watts.

Rik · Mar 18, 2009, 18:20:36

I haven't even checked mine, Steve, I'm trying not to clutter it with software.

Steve · Mar 18, 2009, 18:29:44

Its a useful piece of software if your worried about coretemps following a system build,fan change,overclocking etc it can be set to write a logfile.

Rik · Mar 18, 2009, 18:32:34

I'm definitely not over-clocking.

Steve · Mar 18, 2009, 18:35:09

Incidently the MSI Wind has an overclock function enabled in bios

Rik · Mar 18, 2009, 18:36:52

That would be the 'wind up' feature, would it.

Steve · Mar 18, 2009, 18:42:48

or its blowing tonight Delilah

Rik · Mar 18, 2009, 18:43:56

quandam · Mar 18, 2009, 18:50:36

Quote from: Rik on Mar 18, 2009, 18:20:36
I haven't even checked mine, Steve, I'm trying not to clutter it with software.

I've had my NC10 since just before Christmas and have found it to be an excellent bit of kit. Haven't noticed it running hot.
My main complaint (only complaint) is the touchpad should have had a raised edge around the pad to 'identify' its extremities. Other than this it is really outstanding and the 6 hour (approx +or-) battery life is a real plus.

Samsung have certainly come up trumps and makes it a really good purchase

Rik · Mar 18, 2009, 18:53:45

I agree.

psp83 · Mar 18, 2009, 22:51:55

A question for you lot with this machine,

Would it be any good for a web developer to write code on?

I often sit in bed at night not being able to sleep and come up with ideas but i normally cant be arsed to get out of bed and get my laptop out my bag. I'm looking for something smaller and lighter than a 15.4 laptop that i can just pick up and put down and write code with plus browse/chat.

Lance · Mar 18, 2009, 22:53:35

I know Rik is impressed with the keyboard and screen, Paul, so i would imagine that they might be just what you need.

quandam · Mar 19, 2009, 08:15:27

Quote from: psp83 on Mar 18, 2009, 22:51:55
A question for you lot with this machine,

Would it be any good for a web developer to write code on?

I often sit in bed at night not being able to sleep and come up with ideas but i normally cant be arsed to get out of bed and get my laptop out my bag. I'm looking for something smaller and lighter than a 15.4 laptop that i can just pick up and put down and write code with plus browse/chat.

I would say it is ideal for your purpose. Perhaps Rik will have more to say technically on the subject, but the thing is real fun to use, so easy, fires up in seconds, as I say a great piece of kit. Go for it!

Rik · Mar 19, 2009, 08:42:46

I couldn't put it better myself. The only limitation is the 600 pixel vertical resolution, so you do scroll a fair bit

psp83 · Mar 29, 2009, 00:05:34

Quote from: Rik on Mar 07, 2009, 12:09:21The 2GB of RAM from Crucial arrived this morning, and is now installed.

Rik, What memory did you get? I should be ordering the netbook this week and will be upgrading the RAM aswell.

I looked in loads of shops today and everywhere was sold out

Rik · Mar 29, 2009, 00:49:31

I just ran the Crucial scanner, Paul, and ordered what it said - sorry, can't remember off hand what that was.