Review by Amberrose Beal:

I know some people will use this aa a small form pc for everyday use, but I’m only reviewing this from a HTPC perspective. Right now its connected to my network wirelessly and Im streaming my movies to my flatscreen tv. Its great for viewing Hi def content, I thought theres no way a processor this slow could ossibly playback through HDMI clearly. I was pleasantly surprised, after a bit of setup it streams ANY format thrown at it through HDMI. I loaded windows vista on this because of windows media center wich really helps with managing all my movies, music and pictures. The only issue is viewing flash video online, dont get me wrong it plays the video reasonably well but you will notice the stuttering at times on the video. Flash currently is not configured to run on these new processors so viewing flash online will be an issue until flash 10.1 wich will be released some time early next year. The processor isnt strong enough to handle high end computing tasks like video editing or photoshop, but this isnt what this pc is made for. Coupple of notes about setup, it comes with windows xp home but that OS may not provide as much sophistication as most people would like, I installed vista on this pc pretty easily. You must have either an external dvd drive or a usb drive with at least 4 giggs of available space. If your using a usb drive you must load the OS dvd on a diferent pc and then copy the files over to the usb drive, afterwards connect to this pc and start setup while in windows xp. Also please remember to load all the drivers needed if you install a new OS. [...]

Review by B. Adair:

This is my third Nvidia Ion setup and I am rather suprised. My other two setups are Atom 330s (which does run a bit faster) not Atom 230s so I was a little apprehensive. I purchased this unit as a second HTPC to hook to a 1080i/720p 36″ LCD in our loft. My main HTPC has all of the music, recorded tv, and movies on it’s hard drives. I purchased this unit to stream video to over my Home Group (Windows 7 lingo for your secure home network). To start I registered the unit and upgraded it to Windows 7 Home x64 with one of my upgrades from a family pack. This can be easily done by copying the setup disk to an external hard drive and making the drive active. Then just change the bootup options in the BIOS (DEL key) to “Boot from USB” and the rest is a snap. Don’t forget to switch it back after your it’s first restart. There are detailed instructions on the web if you need help. I upgraded the memory to 2gb for which again was very easy. I really had to search to determine the memory setup out of the box for this unit. It comes with 1gb (all on one SODIMM card) of PC2 DDR2 800 memory. So the upgrade was just an additional 1gb SODIMM card. It took 5 minutes. I also changed the BIOS setting to use 512k of the memory for the GPU instead of 256k. While in the BIOS I set my computer to automatically bootup at 7:00 am. This is one of the big advantages of using an Ion setup, it uses so little power (less than 30 watts) so that you can leave it on all day. Of course, it drops into sleep mode (SP3) when not in use and I turn it off myself at night. I also added a 1gb flash drive and set it up to be used as a FAT32 Ready Boost drive for caching. Just helps it to run a little faster. So my total setup to a Windows 7 Media Center was about and well worth it. It works great on my TV and streams all my content easily over my Gigabit wired home network. With the coming release of Flash 10.1 this system will have no problem with web based HD also. I didn’t try 32 bit Windows 7 so I can’t say much about it. And this system has to have the extra 1gb to run 64 bit. It is realllllllly slow without it. I did also order a media center remote control for which works great. Get an external DVD drive (or Blu-ray drive), an external data source, and a wireless keyboard/mouse combo (I was perfectly fine with the wired version it comes with since my kids will trash it anyway)and you have a very good computer for very little money. These systems have no problem with web surfing or MS Office 2007 so they make great kid/dorm computers. Also, I have no problems with the HDMI output to a Visio LCD. Enjoy!

Review by Christopher Fox:

I have only owned this netbook for about 2 months but so far it is fantastic. i bought mine refurbished from tech for less. it runs great. webcam is sub par, the only reason i gave this 4 stars. I would totally make this purchase again. i go to a community college with a reputation for things getting stolen from vehicles. this netbook allows me to have a computer at school that i don’t have to worry about getting stolen as much as say a laptop notebook which is about double the price.

Most things you can do via usb these days and i have taken full advantage of the 3 or 4 ports available. i haven’t tried the vga output yet. my battery life is good, usually about 4 or 5 hours, watching video and everything, varies depending on what you do and how bright the screen is. Hot keys on this computer are GREAT. so easy to use. For example if i hold down the Fn button and press say the up arrow on the keyboard, it turns up my volume, everything is well labeled and well placed. I have also had problems playing video in HD from youtube. however its not to bad playing fairly memory intensive .mkv files which are high quality video files, i wouldn’t suggest it but its doable. internet has been great, i have used IE, chrome and firefox. i use iTunes and zune, no problems there. i also installed microsoft office 2007 without a hitch as well as [...]. both work great. i use a program called dameon tools to trick the computer into thinking there is a cd drive and mounting an .iso file to play certain games, i played starcraft and it worked great as well as the old command and conquer and red alery 1 and 2. i used an 1TB external hard drive with it, no problems. so far everything has been dandy.

also suggestions i have is to download a program called dropbox which allows you to store 2GB worth of stuff free and allows for easy transfer of files to netbook, its been awesome for me so far.

Dec. 28 2009 update

Things are still working great. I hooked it up to the back of a 22 inch LCD monitor at my house and it works fantastic, didn’t lose any clarity and since I will be moving out soon this will be my only computer for awhile. So anyone who is worried about hooking it up to a larger monitor, fear not. The samsung software that comes with the netbook runs updates every once in awhile. I’m not sure if the resolution size came with the netbook or if it was part of an update. I also tried skype on the netbook and it worked great, the webcam on the netbook is far from perfect but sound from the netbook’s mic was clear and video not as grainy as I thought it would be. So, good for those who use skype as well.

Feb. 20 2010 update

I have had a few instances using this netbook when the screen has gone white momentarily. I did not know about this problem until it happened to me and found that there are others who have had the problem and that it gets worse and worse until eventually they have had to send it to samsung to get fixed under warranty. All the things I read said that the process of sending it to samsung was quick and easy, sometimes taking less than 48 hrs, but i think that this problem should be made known to those in the market for a netbook. I’m sure they have fixed the error with the newer models, its a problem with the cord connecting from the screen to the motherboard i believe. mine is one of the older ones, but the white scree thing hasn’t happened for about a month and only happened on 3 occasions in the 5 months i’ve had it. i use this netbook frequently so thats not bad. not sure what caused it but i decided not to send it in. I am also currently hooked up to a 23 inch asus lcd monitor and it is working great. the netbook is good for when i travel and when i get home i can use this on a 1920×1080 resolution screen which is just fantastic. completely fills almost all my computer needs for a fraction of the price and i get the portability of a netbook. one complaint i do have is that it has a hard time playing youtube videos in the HD setting, same for facebook. HOWEVER i have read up on this and it is a problem with ALL netbooks, the 1.6ghz processor just can’t handle streaming video at that quality. however if you download the youtube video and then play it through windows media player for example, it runs flawlessly. Hope that helps anyone who is currently in the market for a netbook, i would still say this is one of the best purchases i have made.

Review by Love-to-Travel:

No complaints whatsoever. I was concerned the keyboard would be too small, but I adjusted quickly and now have no trouble typing. I can do everything on this little machine that I did on my 15-inch Compaq. In fact, I even do some C++ programming (for work) and have found that the small screen size is not a serious liability. Definitely buy a wireless mouse … it makes it far easier to navigate. Also, my computer came with Internet Explorer 6 …. I upgraded to version 8, because this version has a zoom/magnification feature that allows you to zero-in on a particular area of text and enlarge it. If you learn this trick, the small screen will begin to feel much larger.

Review by D. Smith:

This will not break PC speed records, but it is no slouch either. It will probably still be faster than your average 5 year old computer that you may be using right now.

More details on what’s inside:

The DVD-RW drive is a standard easily replaceable/upgradeable 5 1/4″ SATA drive. Also the hard drive is also a standard SATA 3.5″ replaceable/upgradeable drive. As far as the memory goes, it is a standard desktop 240pin, 800MHz/667MHz DDR2 module (Single Slot) which can be upgraded to 2GB if you were so inclined to do so. (NOTE: To get to the RAM you have to remove the side panel of the case -2 screws-, the front bezel of the system -2 clips-, to dismount the DVD drive -2 screws-, in order to gain access to the single RAM slot on the motherboard which is populated with the default 1GB module.) The power supply is an external module exactly like a laptop power supply which also helps to reduce the size and heat inside the system. One con I noticed with this system is that the little cooling fan in the back of the system will kick in a very high rate of speed (Loudly) when the internal temps go up which is good for cooling, but can be unnerving if you don’t expect it. Also there is no active cooling (Fan) on the processor/chipset itself so I am unsure of its longevity in warmer environments. The model that I received did have a dial-up modem (Green RJ11 Jack) in the single pci-e 1x slot of the computer so I am not sure what the other reviewer was talking about. Also keep in mind that this system does not have an Antivirus pre-installed so be sure to load it with your favorite Antivirus before going crazy w/ online browsing. That is actually one of the good things about the system too, in that it does not come preloaded with tons of Promo-Ware (Limited Usability Promotional/Advertising Software) like other systems. It is pretty much a straight forward XP install with very few Compaq-ware items. The mini keyboard and standard optical mouse was a nice throw-in.

Review by Jeffrey Chan:

Works fine as a web terminal, casual-use home computer, etc. A tremendous value with a dual-layer DVD writer, reasonably large SATA drive, etc. Full-sized Western Digital SATA hard drive is a bit noisier than I’d like but not overtly noisy. Case is very small, and case fan noise is not too obtrusive. Measures about 30 Watts of power consumption, a small fraction of full-sized desktops which usually use 100 to 200 Watts. Analog video on VGA connector is appropriate, but adding a HDMI could be useful for connecting to a digital TV. Probably HDMI is not available on the nettop/netbook chipsets typically used with the Atom CPU.

Performance is adequate. Doesn’t quite feel as quick as the Atom can after adding AVG antivirus and particularly Zonealarm firewall software. Still fast enough for casual web surfing, etc.

Overall very good for its intended purpose. Computers needn’t be big, expensive or power hungry to meet the needs of most home users, and this is a good example.