Hello again.

Since I’ve lost the use of my MacBook Pro for a week or two, I’ve had to fall back to the NC10 for every evening use. Before now, whilst having used it for an hour here or there, but usually a lot less, I’d not really built up a great picture of how good this little laptop really is.

Yes, it’s been a bit of a wait for drivers to be written to support the NC10 specifics, but that really is the last 2%. I’ve been doing some web design front end work, running TextMate, Espresso, CSSEdit, Safari, Transmi, Firefox, iTunes (natch) and even Photoshop in the mix with great success.

Yes, the little laptop would be sweating it’s nuts off at times, having only 2GB and all those apps open. And yes, the screen is a little short (for a stormtrooper) but it wasn’t enough to *not* do any work. I’ve not even tried the virtual desktops of Spaces yet, as I like my workspace cluttered. If you could see my real desk right now you’d understand…

Since the drivers for the audio hardware and the new trackpad drivers have come out, the Samsung NC10 has become a very usable pretender to the Apple throne. For £300, I have a system I can work on if needed, listen to music, watch movies, wardrive with, email, socialise and surf with very few drawbacks.

No. No I won’t be using this for an extended period of time. I’ll get my MacBook Pro back and enjoy the screen real estate, as it usually sits on the desk and doesn’t move too far. But the NC10 has done brilliantly to step up to the plate. I’ll be taking it to Canada with me next week.

The long battery life means I can watch at least 2 films on the plane if the inflight ones are crap, plus I can wardrive from the airport to Guelph, then have a small laptop on hand should I need to do more while there. It’s turning into an essential little piece of kit!