Samsung Notebooks: The Revenge of the Fallen (Netbook Lineup)

Earlier in the week, Singapore saw the return of the Samsung notebooks and I am among the many who are surprised. One of the little known fact is that Samsung is actually in the local notebooks market as recent as 2006. They dropped out of it following some bad sales. The local notebook market has more than double since. Throughout this time, Samsung has also continue to manufacture and sell notebooks in other part of the world including the US. 

In recent years, Samsung has created a outstanding brand name dozing innovative stylish design. And surely their notebook lineup will be going down the same route, is currently a strength of HP’s notebooks. The new lineup includes two 10” netbooks (N Series) and three 14.1” notebooks (X and R Series). In this post, let’s check out the two notebooks by the Korean brand.

Samsung N120: S$799

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Samsung N310: S$899

 

Wah lao… Gotta say they are not that cheap. Value for money or not depends on actual reviews, which I think there will be quite a few soon, but judging by the specifications alone, these are actually on a high side. N120 is cheaper of the two, by … S$100. With an additional two blue colour notes, you can actually get the following:

• Much slicker design (My personal opinion lah…)
• Sony – style keyboard (If you actually tried one before, you will loveeee it… N120’s is 4% larger than N310’s.)
• A longer battery life (Not by much, maybe 1 hour)
• A rubber-y external surface

And if you want to save that 2 notes, you will miss the above and get the following:

• Sub-woofer (nice… entertainment notebook)
• Slightly lighter

	Samsung N120	Samsung N310	tsgts says…
Colour	Black and White	Black and Navy Blue
Processors	Intel Atom N280	Intel Atom N280
Display	10.1” LED	10.1” LED	LED is different from LCD and is much brighter and energy saving
Ram	1GB	1GB	RAM is cheap, no issue
Network	Draft-N and Bluetooth	Draft-N and Bluetooth	Wooo! Wireless-N, eh… but I only have Wireless-G router leh…
Hard Drive	160GB	160GB
Battery Life	8 hours	9.8 hours
OS	Windows XP Home	Windows XP Home
Weight	1.28 kg	1.35 kg

 

At the end of the day, these two new fellows are both strong in their respective ways and probably, just about worth their price tag. Both includes features of the new generations of notebooks, longer battery life and wirless-n. Not forgetting 90%+ keyboards. Strong return by Samsung, hell yeah… But… can sell cheaper anot…

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Dell Swarm: Are you a Swarm-er?

If you are not one of the many Singaporeans who would go to great heights to find the ‘best’ notebook deal in town (such as squeezing your way through the crowd during the IT/PC shows), then DELL Swarm is simply perfect for you. From my perspective, it combines the following;

1. Purchasing a brand new DELL notebook with a price that another fellow S’poreans would not laugh at
2. Purchasing a DELL Studio notebook with considerably good specifications
3. Purchasing the notebook in a unique way directly from DELL. No worries of warranty and all sort of retailers problems.
4. Doing the above in the comfort of your home

WTH is DELL Swarm: Official Explanation - Link 

WTH is DELL Swarm: My Explanation

• Every swarm has an objective (ie. To buy a particular DELL notebook @ a special price)
• If you are the first to lead the swarm towards the notebook, you get an EVEN better price.
• You can spread the news of each new swarm to others via social networking tool or SMS to gather more swarm-ers.
• Each swarm closes when there is 15 swarm-ers or when the time is up for the swarm’s mission (72 hours mission) and all will buy at the same price (apart for the swarm pioneer).
• The rule of the mission? The more swarm-ers per swarm, the more successful the swarm is (ie. Lower price for everyone in the swarm)

Not too difficult to understand eh?

My opinion? Price is the almost the single most important attraction here.

I have to say that if DELL Swarm is going to be around for long, they will need to put several REALLY POWERFUL deals and promotion… because… the business model requires widespread support and I am … not… seeing anything about DELL Swarm on TODAY… the paper that probably has DELL advertisement as part of their trademark. Not a good sign that DELL is 100% behind this…

But still, DELL Swarm is something any potential DELL customer should look at nevertheless.

Link

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Apple MacBook

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SG Tech/Gadget Sources!

If Singporeans are so Tech-Savvy, then why are there so little Singapore Tech Webs out there? Time to round them all up and increase your daily dose of tech feeds. And if you think I am missing something here, email me at the following... thesingaporegadgettalkshow@gmail.com

 

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This is a blog/podcast/videocast.

The Singapore only Tech Podcast. Has video reviews of gadgets every week. Very professionally done in all aspects. And always seem to have the latest gadgets on their hands. Show me!

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This is a website/forum/market place.

Need no introduction. Has a forum with wide range of topics. The forum is jammed up badly during IT fairs. Best place to ask questions on gadgets since the community is so large. Show me!

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This is a website/forum/marketplace.

Very identical to Hardwarezone except maybe its a much smaller community. Will not jam during IT fairs. Show me!

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This is a website with blogs.

The earliest tech web in Singapore. CNET represent Computer Net I think. Has evolve over the years to be very gadget-oriented. Feels like and look like a mainstream media. Has blogs embedded in the web. Has the widest range of reviews, mostly coming from CNET, their sister web. Reviews are pretty surface though. Show me!

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This is a forum.

If you own a smartphone or pocket PC, surely you cannot miss this forum. Good place to ask questions too. Show me!

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This is a forum.

So niche. Relatively unknown. Not just restricted to headphones. Basically all audio equipment. Show me!

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This is a blog.

The bloggers are former editors under SPH I think. Interesting things from time to time. Show me!

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This is a website/forum/marketplace.

The place where all Singapore photographers, pro/casual, are. One of the best source to learn photography or camera's specifications. Show me!

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Something to Hoot…

Hi guys its me again… After working at my new job for one month finally i got my first pay… not much but its still enough for me to buy something… hahaha…

First thing that comes to my mind is Solid State Drive. What i heard and see from the internet SSD is getting better and better.

It has almost zero seek time and as technologies advances the read/write speed is getting faster and faster but to get a decent one now is impossible for me but i found this.

While i read on the net. If my laptop supports booting from the Express slot i can totally do without my HDD. It is said that it will fit into your laptop without any protruding part. Although this is slower than most SATA SSD out there but it still supports vista readyboost.

Another thing i really wanna buy is a notebook cooler. i have 2 different models that really captures my attention. one is from Acryan and another one from Zalman.

As my laptop has a different way of drawing cool air i need to really see which type of cooler will suit my laptop. the white cooler is from Zalman and the black one is from Acryan.

Zalman is a korean brand which sells high quality cooling products so this is pretty expensive for a notebook cooler but the way it pushes air from the bottom is wat i need for my laptop.

For this cooler it has 2 unique features. Firstly it allows the user to change the fans to wat they like for example mxing fans with different colour lights. Second feature is the Hush-Rush feature. while is Hush mode the fans rotate at around 900rpm but in Rush mode it doubles the speed at 1800rpm. but i’m still thinking how is this possible with a 5volt usb port running 2 fans of 12volts. it could be a step up transformer i think.

After thinking for so long i still can’t decide which to get. but once i buy you guys will sure hear about it.

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