The Samsung Go N310: A Review

Our 14 year old son has been begging us to get him a laptop computer. While I wasn't really sure I wanted to give him an expensive fully fledged laptop, we did some research and found something that would serve him just as well. The Samsung Go. The Samsung N310 model has some impressive features, and won't break the bank.

We found the Samsung Go at Circuit City for the ridiculously low price of $449.99. Of course the hard part for my son was to decide what color he wanted.

The Samsung Go comes in some colors that frankly, reminded me of M&M candies. You have a choice of Midnight Blue, Jet Black, Sunset Orange, and Mint. He decided the Mint and the Sunset Orange were too"girly" (his wording) so he chose the Midnight Blue.

The Samsung Go is small, with a 10 inch screen, but the resolution is quite sharp, for such a small screen. The screen is a backlit LED style with a scratch resistant glass covering.

The heart of the Samsung Go is the Intel Atom 1.6 GHz processor and 1GB of memory. (This is upgradable to 2GB) It's not going to play graphic intense video games, but he can use it for his school work which is what my wife and I prefer.

The Samsung Go has 802.11 wireless and Bluetooth capability so our son can get online at school and from our home network quite easily.

(A note to parents, always supervise your children when they are on the internet. There are a lot of strange people out there. End of Public Service Announcement)

The Samsung Go has great battery life. We gave it a full charge, and then had our son put it through its paces for a few hours. He eventually got tired and went to bed; my wife and I were able to play around with it for a couple more hours. The six Cell Lithium-Ion batteries are rated to last about ten hours. Obviously, our son should have no problem with the battery dying on him at school.

The keyboard on the Samsung Go is slightly smaller than normal (93%) but the keys are spaced widely enough to make it relatively easy to type without making mistakes. Of course our son has been typing on a computer keyboard since he was 4, so he doesn't make too many mistakes anyway.

One minor complaint is that there is no optical drive; however there are USB ports, so plugging in a portable drive is one option.

Overall we are impressed with the Samsung Go, and so is our son.