14 DAY TRIAL // Since the technology for absorbing solar energy has finally reached the stage where it can actually provide a relevant amount of power, Samsung has decided to put it to work.
Samsung recently said that it had every intention of becoming the greatest supplier of laptops worldwide.
The NC215S netbook, like the yellow Series 7 gaming beasts, may or may not figure prominently into those plans.
Moving to the point, NC215S (now tested) is an entry-level mobile personal computer which, though it doesn't have very unusual internal components, does possess an unusual one on the outside.
Samsung basically built some solar panels into the lid.
That said, the black casing houses a 10-inch matte LCD (liquid crystal display), whose native resolution is 1,024 x 600 pixels.
The central processing unit is an Intel Atom N570, not at all surprising for this sort of machine.
Said CPU is backed up by 1 GB of RAM (random access memory) and paired with an HDD (hard disk drive) of 250 GB.
Needless to say, the company also tossed in all other necessities, like WiFi, Bluetooth (3.0) and Ethernet (10/100 LAN).
The Samsung NC215S netbook runs Microsoft's Windows 7 Starter OS (operating system) and weighs 2.9 pounds (1.3kg).
Online retailers should already have it up for order at a price of $399 (315 Euro, give or take). One hour of keeping the lid exposed to the sun should net about two hours of runtime (or the other way around, depending on what product review one stumbles upon).
For those who don't feel like spending the extra cash on the sun lid, Samsung is selling the NC110 for $329 (260 Euro).
Solar power-harnessing technology has been slow to develop, but the past few years saw some visible advancement.
Hopefully, it won't be long before everything from the smallest gadget to the largest industrial factories can survive and thrive exclusively on this practically inexhaustible power source.
