While the internal hardware for Netbooks can be recited like the McDonald’s Big Mac jingle (runs on Atom chip, 1 gig RAM, 10-inch screen, Intel graphics on a Win 7 platform), what caught our attention was how Samsung added an interesting twist with the new Fast Start feature.

Though most of us are familiar with Windows sleep and hibernation modes, since Vista, Microsoft has offered the new Hybrid Sleep option. It stores the system state on both the harddisk and RAM in order to give the fast bootup of sleep with the stability of hibernation. Through a series of optimizations, Fast Start leverages on Hybrid Sleep and allows the new Samsung N230 and N150 Plus Netbooks to start up within 3 seconds. While Hybrid Sleep requires power to maintain the system state in the RAM, this is a minor concern as the N230 and N150 Plus are rated with uptimes of 7 hours and 10 hours, respectively.

Samsung N230

Intel Atom N470 1.83GHz processor
10.1-inch (1,024 x 600) display
Integrated graphics
1GB RAM
250GB HDD
Three-cell battery (up to 7 hours)
1.03kg
Windows 7 Starter
S$699 (US$507.40)

Samsung N150 Plus

Intel Atom N470 1.83GHz processor
10.1-inch (1,024 x 600) display
Integrated graphics
1GB RAM
250GB HDD
Six-cell battery (up to 10 hours)
1.24kg
Windows 7 Starter
Comes in red, pink and black
S$599 (US$434.81)

At the same time, new laptops in the form of the Q330 and R440 series laptops were officially launched for the Singapore market. The S$1,699 (US$1,233.30) 13.3-inch Q330 is a sleek, optical drive-less thin-and-light running on a Core i5 chip and switchable graphics. The 14-inch R440 comes in two flavors and targets the mainstream market. The S$1,199 (US$870.35) R440i runs on Core i5 and sports integrated graphics, while the R440e sports a discrete video card and starts from S$1,299 (US$942.94).

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