Blogging With The New Netbook

I Just bought myself a nice little Samsung N120. I’ve been thinking about getting a netbook for a while now. It’s been too long sing I have had a computer to use while on the go. Since I’m taking a two week vacation to California in a couple of days it seemed like the perfect time to buy one.

Before buying this little guy I went to the local Frys and Best Buy to check out the feel of different models. I tried all the popular ones like the ASUS models and the Acer models. Some had features I liked but lacked others that I wanted.

After spending several weeks testing different netbooks and trying to decide which features I needed, I decided that the most important thing was having a really comfotable keyboard. I’m not just talking about the feel of the keyboard but also the size. Almost all of the netbooks that had 10 inch screens also came with tiny little keyboards that, for the life of me, I couldn’t type with. The 11 inch screen netbooks had better keyboards, however, to make up for the extra power drain from the large screens they had slower CPUs.

Now netbooks aren’t meant to be power houses but the Intel Z520 which is found in many 11 inch netbooks is just too darn slow even for basic functions like browsing the internet. Intel’s N270 was what I wanted for basic performance.

So I needed at least a N270 CPU, with a large keyboard, and a really great batter life. None of the retailers carried any such netbook so I went online to see what they had. I finally came across the Samsung N120. This little beauty had a 10 inch screen, a large keyboard, a N270 CPU, and was rated at over seven hours of battery life.

Since I couldn’t test it out in the store, I took a risk and bought the machine after reading many great reviews. I’ve always had faith in Samsung products so I wasn’t too worried. Well this is my second day of using the little guy and I must say that I am very satisfied with its performance. The keyboard is great, I can actually type faster with it than I do with my desktop. I haven’t plugged it in since the initial charge, and that’s after listening to several hours worth of podcasts and installing all my “on the go” software.

As far as gaming goes I haven’t had a chance to try anything yet, but I’m going to be testing Plant’s vs Zombies. If I can get Geometry Wars running I on here I will be quite content. Also Eve Online will be something to try as it is supposedly supported on very low end systems.

Anyway if any of you are thinking about getting a netbook for on the go computing I highly recommend Samsung’s N120. It retails for around $380. About $100 more than you super low end netbooks, but for the excellent build quality and the features I think it’s worth the extra money. If gaming with a netbook is a must, then perhaps you should wait for the ION platform netbooks to hit the market, although those are supposed to retail for around $600 which is a bit steep for a netbook in my opinion.