Samsung NP305U1A Review

January 26th, 2012 § 2 comments § permalink

This review is long overdue. I was busy and lazy, but it’s more on the latter.

I bought a netbook October last year so that I could have my own portable computer. We already have a very basic PC in the house, but my brother and sister and mother and cousins and people all over the universe use it.  It is extremely annoying to discover one day that you can only view pages on half of your browser’s window because countless toolbars were installed, unknowingly, by your kin. They just blindly accept the ToS of whatever program they downloaded and choose the recommended installing option which involves adding a shortcut in the desktop, a shortcut in the taskbar, a shortcut in the Start Menu, a search bar on your browser using the program’s partner search engine; allowing the program’s official website to take over your default homepage, inserting a slab of a toolbar in all of your browsers, installation of an anti-virus program and many more of similar nonsense. Aside from that, it’s time to purchase my own computer because I receive from and send sensitive data to my clients.

Now, I already know what I was looking for before purchasing Samsung NP305U1A. I heavily considered ThinkPad X120e for its no-nonsense look and rugged built, however, it is not available in the Philippines. You can buy this netbook from online merchants but the price is almost doubled it’s highway robbery.

You may be thinking why I chose to purchase a netbook instead of a full-fledged laptop. First, I don’t like carrying around heavy things. According to Ryan Bingham in the movie Up in the Air, “The slower we move, the faster we die.” Second, I am not a programmer, i3/i5/i7 processors will be such a waste of energy and processing power. I don’t winrar large chunks of files. I don’t encode and edit videos, create music or anything that puts a heavy load in the processor. I just write. That’s it. Lastly, I’m on a budget. I no longer benefit from any kind of financial support from my family and that started RIGHT AFTER my college graduation.

My life is on me now.

Aside from ThinkPad X120e, I also considered ASUS 1215B. But during that time, it is not yet available and I had to have a portable computer immediately to bring with me to my vacation in Boracay. YEY!

Also, HP dm1z received a lot of praise and is considered the best of its class, hence I wanted to purchase one. It was such a close call, but it has three things I really hate: the touchpad from hell, the glossy finish and screen, and it is an HP product.

 

Now, let’s stop rationalizing the greatness of my netbook by shooting down its competition. It’s time to talk about my netbook. Before we start, I call my Samsung NP305U1A, Bestfriend. So I’ll be using Bestfriend instead of Samsung NP305U1A to cut things short.

 

Build Quality

I don’t quite understand why people love their gadgets being glossy. Glossy finish makes the device a fingerprint magnet, a smudge festival. Well, in some degree I do understand the love for everything glossy when it comes to laptops’ body but, for your eyes sake, not the SCREEN. First, glossy screens are of lower quality. Manufacturers use it to cheap out on you, people. Bestfriend has matte screen and matte finish from lid to everything. It has this aluminum finish that makes the netbook look expensive.

However, it’s made of plastic. It’s not the worst kind of plastic out there but it will suffer in the hands of people like me. I just throw my netbook on my bed or on the couch. I just smack it inside my backpack. I bought a sleeve yesterday because it has scratches on the lid already. The scratches are barely noticeable but should I wait for them to be noticeable?

Keyboard, Touchpad and Screen

These are what I was looking for a netbook:

  • A matte screen, so that I won’t be blinded by white light when I use my netbook outdoors.
  • A great keyboard, for typing thousands of words for thousands of Pesos.
  • A great touchpad, so that I won’t get irritated by the cursor flying all over the screen because it’s too sensitive or dragging it down from one place to another because it’s too insensitive.

Bestfriend has amazing island keyboard that doesn’t show any flex at all. It all also has rubbery fill so it feels good typing on it. The touchpad is your basic touchpad, no multitouch or anything. It’s large and responsive, it’s perfect.

The screen is at 1366×768 resolution, it could be better but I can’t complain. It’s not hideously glossy so it is not hurting my eyes. The bezel also is thin since Samsung rammed in a 12-inch screen on an 11.6″ netbook.

Processor , Graphics and Sounds

I also made sure the netbook I’ll be purchasing is armed with AMD Zacate processor. This is AMD’s combo of processor+GPU in one. Bestfriend has E-450 clocked at 1.6GHz paired with Radeon HD 6320 enough for me to play NBA 2k12 in low settings but more importantly can handle heavy Flash gaming. I work as a quality control at ArcadePreHacks.com as well as two other Flash-based browser games portal.

I play a minimum of 10 Flash games per day so a capable graphics solution is mandatory. However, I failed to recognize this: I am a multitasker. I open a lot of tabs, listen to music, play Flash games, write documents, use spreadsheets, edit ID3 tags, download large files via Orbit, watch video clips, capture screenshots using SnagIt, chat through Skype, stalk people in Facebook; all of these at the same time. The E-450 and 2GB of RAM cannot handle such set of daily activities. I could change my ways, but I can’t, huhu.

The speaker is ok. It is not the best, but it is not bad either. It’s below average leaning to average.

Connectivities

Bestfriend has all the necessary ports, 3 x USB 2.0 (one of which is powered for charging gadgets through USB even if the netbook is shut down), Ethernet and HDMI. A USB 3.0 should have been included. The inclusion of HDMI is great, however, I don’t have an HDTV yet so it sits useless as of this moment. There is Bluetooth and card reader too. Very handy.

Software and Battery Life

This is where problems came crashing in. Bestfriend is powered with a 3-cell battery life for a God-awful three hours of autonomy. My previous laptop, MSI EX460, just gave me around 2 hours of battery life, so I thought this won’t be an issue. It is, actually. It’s just annoying to be looking for the charger and the nearest outlet every three hours. This greatly disturbs me from my favorite working position, lying down on my bed. Recent units of Samsung NP305U1A is now available with 6-cell battery. The hell with you Samsung.

That three hours is not three hours exactly, sometimes I get only two hours, sometimes three hours and a half. But on average, it is around two hours and forty minutes of autonomy.

Bestfriend, out of the box, is running on the worst combination of OS and hardware ever conceived in mobile computing history: Windows 7 Home Basic 64-bit on a machine with 2GB of RAM. Seriously!!! COME ON! Installing a 64-bit version of a mightily crippled OS on a machine with 2GB of RAM is like moronic across the board. Plus, Bestfriend come with bloatwares pre-installed like Norton, Samsung Services, etc, etc. I reinstalled a fresh OS of Windows 7 Home Premium from my old laptop so that I could finally use Bestfriend without it slowing down to the pace of bureaucracy.

Warranties and Freebies

I bought Bestfriend with the Kuya Salesperson throwing in a free gaming mouse worth around 200 Pesos. The mouse is nothing special. The unit also comes with a laptop bag that is too girlie for my taste and gave it away immediately to my sister. The usual 1-year  full warranty comes and a seven-day unit replacement warranty was promised. Bestfriend did not come with factory defects so I didn’t have to use the latter.

Price 

This is the first ever purchase of mine that breaks my college career monthly allowance exponentially at 22,000 Pesos in cold hard-earned cash. Samsung NP305U1A is now available around 19,000 with six-cell battery. I hate you world.

Therefore, I conclude 

Bestfriend is a good netbook that rightfully serves its purpose. I haven’t used the 500 GB HDD (I really prefer SSD, even if it’s only 160GB, I’d take it) much since I use this netbook mostly for work. It is a must-buy if you want quality netbook with a sufficient power for your basic needs. This is on the premium side, there are cheaper netbooks with the same capabilities but it’s hard to find a netbook of this price range with matte screen.

 

New Year’s Resolution

December 29th, 2011 § 1 comment § permalink

Ningas-Kugon: flashy but dies quickly. Happens all the time during New  Year with firecrackers and New Year’s resolutions. I am not big on drafting promises, so have reasonable expectations as you read on. In fact, this is the first time that I would take this thing seriously. The primary reason I decided to take this passing fad seriously is because of age. I am entering my mid-20s and sometimes, some things got to change.

I think I already wrote an ample introduction, so here are my resolutions with their estimated completion / integration time.

  1. Be Slim, Stay Slim: I’ve reached 175 lbs. this year, I am not going to repeat that feat next year. First, I couldn’t breathe when I am sitting and my diaphragm gets crushed by the layers of fats that are clinging on my torso. Second, my nose bloats with my weight; I am just a dark underarm away from pregnancy. Lastly, I believe in this equation, slim=hot. Disappointed that I am as shallow as everyone else? Well, you are a damn hypocrite yourself. (Two Months)

    Like Friendster before us.

  2. Stop Smoking: I’ve stopped smoking for six months around four years ago when my asthma flared up on me big time. Yes, I am an asthmatic individual but my sheer willpower is able to withstand all of the attacks, I am able to lead a rockstar life. During those trying times, I had an inhaler and medication that costs twice my monthly allowance. So I decided to stop such expensive practice and use the money instead in drinking and smoking. This will be hard. (Forever…Trying)
  3. Organize Life: audit expenses, set goals, complete objectives, beat deadlines, get rid of physical and emotional clutter and buy me some organizer. And for the love of money, learn Excel. (Day 1 of 2012)
  4.  Read More, Blog Often: Haven’t finished reading a book for almost a year now. Or more than a year. I am not sure anymore. I would blog more often too since I would give justice to Paolo Granada Lim’s webspace and the 500 Pesos he paid for my domain name. I’ll try to blog at least twice a week, daily blogging is just too damn impossible to pull off without looking like a lifeless Internet inhabitant. (Now)
  5. Be a Better Boyfriend: I am actually a great lover, however, I am a disappointing boyfriend. I am going to ask all my male friends on how they handle their relationships and do exactly the opposite of what they’re going to tell me. HAHA. (Until the relationship ends)
  6. Stay the Same: There’s a popular adage in sports as well as in business: The best trades/deals are the ones that are never made. I am already complete and doesn’t need fixing, I have no issues other than monetary. I am perfect for who I am. (Eternity)

Christina Nights

November 4th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink

Christina Nights is not a porn star, as far as I know. She is not even a person. It is an event that can be summarized as an all-out drop-dead drunkenness that does not conclude in regrets and sighing proclamations of “Never will I drink again!” early at noon the next day. This is one of my (together with my best friend) recent neologizing for this year. Christina Nights, I will reiterate this, is not inspired from a woman. Sure, there are women involved that certain night when the term is created. However, Christina is just the name of the venue. Christina is a village.

I just love how Christina Nights unfold. It is full of danger, it is taken with reckless irresponsibility (mainly encouraged by not being burdened with loaded responsibility). Empty fun is fittingly served. It is the no-holds-barred celebration of freedom highlighted by CENSORED. HAHA. Joking.

Maybe, this is just a withdrawal symptom. Believe it or not, for almost a month now, I was not drunk, not tipsy, not even pingis.

Sad state of mine, I craved for blogging and I am not even drunk or completing my thesis. The eagle-eyed knows my situation is at its most dangerous: blogging not out of anger, fanaticism or necessity. As of this writing, I write because of immense need to reflect. To be shaken with emotional instability is so not Jasper Nikki De La Cruz post-December 19, 2007 aftermath.

Can't help but to insert a popular Friendster artifact as visual reference.

 

It is impossible to complete a Christina Night without liquor, friends, strangers and a night without rain. Honestly, I am not planning to pull a Christina Night as of this moment or the near future. But tonight, I hope that when I wake up, it’s a Christina Morning: battered, exhausted, broken and totally worth it.

Publicity Settings

September 1st, 2011 § 4 comments § permalink

“Contrary to popular belief, I am not friendly.”

 -Jasper Nikki De La Cruz, 2011

The recent changes in Facebook’s privacy policies are worthy of a class action suit. They’ve changed the default settings of my future posts. They’ve also changed the visibility of my profile. I am not being dramatic. I am being paranoid. I don’t like my personal activities and details being spilled out to the public.

Yes, I am egocentric, and so is everyone. But I work and complete transactions online. Once my email address falls into some shady character’s hands, my inbox would accumulate hundreds of phishing emails and cheap Viagra offers. Just last week, someone registered my email add to some financial news website with the username “Chang”. Maybe one of my friends pulled an Internet prank on me, but hey, everything is better done in real life.

I don’t play FB games and use any of those third party apps like God wants you to know… (technically a blasphemous thing if you are subject to the Judeo-Christian belief, congratulations on treating a Deity like an automated fortune cookie) because you give up your information to the app developers. God knows what will they do with your information. Don’t be surprised if you receive newsletters from sites you don’t remember signing up for subscription. Aside from collecting your personal information, these apps will ask you to abandon https and then use http. I am not a programmer so I won’t comment on this further. But the idea is that https is more secure.

Identity theft is pretty common in the Internet. Hackers, scammers and trolls are constant dangers. But I want to shield myself from the greater threats– people I am not interested in dealing with.

Public posts are ridiculous. Write a freakin’ blog if you want to flaunt something publicly. People will just google your name and be directed to your blog if they want to stalk you. If you are not eloquent enough to write long “whineded” posts, there is Twitter.

This is not a problem if only Facebook does not perceive their userbase as having a case of attention-deficit disorder en masse, but they do. I find it annoying that once a friend of mine is being tagged by his / her other friend, their entire conversation appears in my stream. A lot of other privacy options are being obfuscated too.

It seems like I am being anti-social in a social network, but I am not. If I could only choose, Skype is enough for me. The problem is 80% of my treasured friends and contacts is only exclusively available in Facebook. The nature of my work also requires me to run Facebook, Twitter and Google+ accounts as well as other social networks and message boards.

I only have 190 FB contacts, mirroring my real life friends. I just want to maintain my established relationships. If someone wants to be part of my life (and subsequently one of my FB contacts), they should have earned the spot.

 

Finally

June 16th, 2011 § 0 comments § permalink


Jason Kidd with the Kiss

The Miami HEAT already gave up two minutes before the final buzzer sound. Jason Kidd won a championship ring. I could barely believe it. I walked around the house with a blank mind. I didn’t know what to think. I was not happy, I was not sad, my heart kept on racing, and the world was in searing light. What was that?!

For nine years, I was a loser. Nine years, I rooted for only one team, Jason Kidd’s team. Waiting for a championship was a gruelling task, an exercise of futility because nothing else I could do to help (maybe pray?). I couldn’t control what happens on the court.

Jason Kidd’s teams qualified for the playoffs every year, it was more painful because of this. I had to watch them lose after fighting too hard. I’d wait for half a year for the next season. I watched as many regular season games as I could, only to witness them get eliminated again and again in the playoffs. I was being unfair to myself by personally investing such emotion to a sports figure.

This year, Jason Kidd finally won it all. It was as sensational as sober sex at noon. I could get greedy and wish for more championships. I could torture myself again if I want to. But I’m already drained. I should rest now…until the start of the next season.

 

Reboot

April 8th, 2011 § 6 comments § permalink

Paolo Granada Lim

Paolo Granada Lim in the mid-90's.

I decided to reboot this blog because of several reasons. One of them is I, actually, destroyed my blog because of incessant WordPress experimentations. I am not a programmer but I did edit several lines in the previous incarnation of this blog and *blam*, destroyed. Also, before I hit my 23rd birthday I would like to wipe my virtual slate clean. I re-established my Facebook account and got rid of several junk social networking accounts (e.g. Friendster) and email service (Yahoo!). I also deleted Public Moves, my personal blog way back in college to clean up my Internet visibility. It’s not really nice to remain tied to outdated virtual rants and juvenile collegiate shenanigans.

*Special thanks to Paolo Granada Lim, as he continues to let me squat on his webspace. I’m actually occupying his webspace that hosts his upstart projects and he paid for my domain name. He is my best friend.