The Samsung NC20 Netbook Now Available At A Premium

Samsung will launch the follow up to its existing netbook, the NC10, on Monday and uninspiringly called it NC20 and upped its price to a whopping £391, that's a £100 premium.

The netbook comes with a Via Nano U2250 processor running at 1.3GHz, 1GB memory, a 160GB hard disk drive and a 12.1-inch LCD monitor - capable of displaying 1280x800 pixels -  which is 30 percent bigger than traditional (i.e 8.9-inch) displays.

Other notable features include an integrated webcam, a 6-cell battery, Bluetooth 2.0 compatibility and a card reader.

Samsung chose to bundle Windows XP Home, a not-so-surprising decision. What startled us though is Samsung's choice to put a VIA Nano processor instead of an Intel Atom CPU, which the Korean company claims is four times faster than "previous generation".

Last year, HP chose to go VIA's way with the Mini Note 2133 only to adopt Intel with the new Compaq Mini 700 and the brand new Mininote 1000.

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In what appears to be a definite step towards a more traditional format, the NC20 boosts a normal size, netbook style keyboard, a far cry from the cramped keys of the early Asus EEE PC series; this partly explains why the netbook weighs a whopping 1.5Kg.

The netbook (which resembles more of a sub notebook) is part of Samsung's Kinetic Elite range and is available on pre-order at BT Shop (AKA Dabs) for only £391. 

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A HSDPA version of the notebook will also be on sale for £416.63 and will also come with an Atom Processor (rather than VIA). Digitimes reports that VIA expects up to 200,000 units of the netbook to be sold in the first quarter of 2009, an admirable feat given the fact the NC20 is released in February.

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