There's a lot to like about the Samsung NB30 netbook. This 10 inch mini-laptop has a semi-rugged case design that helps protect it from scratches and fingerprints. The keyboard is spill-resistant, and reasonably easy to type on. And there's a hard-drive sensor which shuts down the disk temporarily to protect it from damage in the event of a fall.
The Samsung NB30 also gets reasonably good battery life, although there are a number of alternatives on the market with longer-lasting batteries. And while the touchpad is decent, I was unimpressed with the mouse buttons below the trackpad.
Samsung sent me a demo unit of the NB30 to review, featuring a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor, 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 1GB of RAM, and 160GB hard drive. The laptop has a 6 cell battery, runs Windows 7 Starter Edition, and sells for about $340
Design
The netbook has a wavy textured pattern across the plastic lid. It doesn't easily show fingerprints, and the touch plastic is pretty hard to scratch, although to be fair, I didn't try too hard to mark up the review unit. There's a little bump at the front of the lid (or the top of the display, depending on how you're holding the laptop) that makes the case a little easier to open and close.
While some Samsung netbooks are available in a choice of colors, the NB30 is only available in black at the moment.
Around the sides of the netbook you'll find your usual array of ports including 3 USB ports, Ethernet, mic, headphone, and VGA jacks, and space for a lock.
At the front of the laptop there's a SD card reader and a power switch — which blends in well enough with the overall design of the laptop that it actually took me a second to figure out how to turn the thing on the first time.
The bezel around the display features a two-toned design, with shiny black plastic just outside the screen and a lighter, matte black surrounding it.
The screen is matte instead of glossy, which means that while some colors might not look quite as vibrant, the screen doesn't reflect a lot of glare, and doesn't turn into a mirror when used outdoors or in bright sunlight.
There's a single access panel on the bottom of the NB30 which you can open up to replace or upgrade the RAM. You'll need to disassemble the laptop if you want to perform more complicated upgrades or repairs such as replacing the hard drive or installing a 3G modem.
The 6 cell battery juts out a bit from the bottom of the laptop, which raises the keyboard a bit so that the rows on the ZXCVB line are a little lower than those on the QWERTY line. But the battery doesn't stick out nearly as far as those on some netbooks.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The Samsung NB30 features a spill-resistant keyboard with a chiclet-style layout, meaning there are flat keys with a little space between each one. It also features a spill-resistant design, meaning you should be able to spill a glass of water over the keyboard without causing any serious damage to the laptop — a nice feature to have, but not one that I would recommend testing just because you're bored one day.
The keyboard looks virtually identical to the one on the Samsung N210 I reviewed recently — but for some reason, I did much better on a typing test with the NB30.
My guess is it's because I've now spent a fair bit of time using this keyboard layout. Either way, while I scored 85 words per minute on the Samsung N210, I got a score of 103 words per minute on the NB30. That's about as fast as I can type on
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