Acer Review, Asus Review – Netbook 10

Samsung’s pretty excited about netbooks, and has a bunch of new ones in making. According to Boo-Keun Yoon, president of Samsung’s Display business, netbooks are the fastest growing unit within the company (via CNET).

One of the things Samsung has in store for us is an 11.6″ X120 netbook – nope, not the 11.6″ NVIDIA 9400m chip bearing N510 we’ve been expecting. but another one, part of Samsung’s X series of ultraportables, which includes its 14″ sister and 15″ brother. I guess that questions whether the X120 passes as a netbook, but we can leave the pedantics for another day :)

The Samsung X120 comes with a dual core processor (say goodbye to Atom!) and Samsung promises a 9 hour battery life on a 6 cell battery (which according to Samsung UK will last you on a plane trip from Paris to Barcelona). This is amazing considering the faster processor, but pithy when compared to Asus’ 11.6″ 1101 HA which promises 11 hours. The Asus 1101 HA is also a lot cheaper in the $400 price range, as compared to the Samsung X120 which will cost about $1,000 (whew!).

With both devices sporting similar form factors, the question is – do you want a low powered fare-more-affordable netbook, or a higher powered mini-notebook? How you intend to use the net/note-book will also play a deciding role. Is it going to be a secondary device to be used primarily for cloud computing? Or the primary computer which may need to bear the strain of more power intensive desktop apps?

The Samsung X120 is sleek, but comes with standard features: Wifi, Bluetooth, an SD card reader and HDMI. It also sports an HD screen and a multi-touch touchpad. The Samsung X120 will be shipping in Europe and Asia sometime this month – which means it won’t be pre-loaded with Windows 7 (which is a bummer).

No word on a release date in the US.

Samsung X120 Specs

Processor – 1.3GHz Intel Pentium ULV SU4100 with 800MHz FSB, 1MB cache

Chipset – Intel GS45

Graphics – Intel GMA 4500

OS – Windows Vista

Display – 11.6″ glossy screen (1366 x 769)

RAM – 2GB

Storage: 250GB HDD

Connectivity – 802.11b/g/n  Bluetooth

Ports – 3 X USB , HDMI, VGA, 3-in-1 flash card reader

Battery – 4 hours/4 cell, 9 hours/6 cell

Dimensions – 11.7″ x 8.2″ x 1″ (with the 4 cell battery)

Weight – 3lbs

Colors – black, white, silver

UK Product Page

Related posts:

1. LG Netbooks – LG X110 Netbook + LG X120
2. Samsung NC10 Netbook Review – Samsung 10″ Netbook
3. Samsung NC10 Netbook + Samsung NC10 11PBK Special Edition
4. Samsung and Lenovo both delay 12″ ION-netbook launches
5. Samsung NC20 Netbook Review – Samsung NC20 12.1″

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