It’s tough to improve on the Samsung NC10. Even a year after its release, there is very little on the Netbook market that beats it.

BUT – if you’re really fussy – and you’re desperate to find a way to improve it – we suggest powering it up with a 9-Cell battery.

Why would you want to extend the already huge battery life?

The NC10’s battery life is awesome, but there is always room for improvement. Imagine a guaranteed work day with no need to charge? Or how about going away for a weekend without your AC adapter?

Well here’s the stats on the difference between your standard battery & a 9-Cell:

In other words – under the heaviest use – your standard battery would last 4 hours 46 minutes, while the 9-cell battery would last a massive 7 and a quarter hours.

I don’t know about you, but my standard battery lasts around 5 and a half hours under normal use, meaning I get around 9 hours from the better battery.

• Buy the White 9-Cell Battery at Amazon (£69.99)
• Buy the Black 9-Cell Battery at Amazon (£69.99)
• Buy the Blue 9-Cell Battery at Amazon (£69.99)

The screen is tiny (around 10 inches), but Samsung have cleverly allowed it to link to most standard monitors.

Here’s a selection of the best larger monitors available from Amazon.

* samsung nc10 dual monitor photo by smemon

Are you using the NC10 with a larger monitor? Let us know what you think!

Thank god they didn’t include a CD drive with the NC10: You’d be dragging an extra 600g around everywhere with you, just for the 1 time every few weeks you need it.

Having said that… when you do need an external CD drive, there are some decent options available. Here’s a selection of the cheapest external CD, DVD and DVD-RW drives around for the NC10:

CD-ROM Drives

If you just need to install software and turn your CDs into MP3s, these drives are simplest and cheapest.

• Black External USB CD Drive – £19.99
• White External USB CD Drive – £17.99

CD-RW/DVD Drives

These drives let you read DVDs & CDs. They also let you burn CDs yourself – great if you need to transfer stuff to & from your NC10.

• Black External USB CD-RW/DVD Drive – £39.99
• A Cheaper Black External USB CD-RW/DVD Drive – £35 inc shipping!
• White External USB CD-RW/DVD Drive – £34.99

DVD RW Drives

Read & Write DVDs, and read & write CDs too. If you want a totally flexible drive for reading & writing DVDs, go for one of these. As they only cost a few pounds more than CD-RW/DVD drives (if that) these are your best bet if you’re not sure what you’ll need.

• White Dual Layer DVD+/-RW Drive – £39.99
• Black Dual Layer DVD+/-RW Drive – £39.99

Internal Resolution

The Samsung NC10’s 10.2″ screen has a 1024 x 600 pixel display (ie. the picture is made up of 1024 horizontal dots & 600 vertical dots). To put that in perspective, a standard 17″ monitor usually has a 1280 x 1024 resolution.

Attaching the NC10 to a Monitor

The NC10 has a standard VGA output, meaning you can plug it straight into most external monitors, almost all projectors, and many TV sets. Many other netbooks lack this and you need to buy special adapters.

All you need to buy to do this is a standard VGA cable (amazon link).

When you’re using your NC10 with an external monitor there are 3 modes you can use:

1. Single Display – just use the external monitor. ie your NC10 screen will be blank and everything will be displayed on the external screen.
2. Cloned Display – your NC10 and the external monitor show the same thing. The best reason for doing this is for a presentation. For example, you might be stood in front of an audience using the NC10 in front of you. Behind you is a projector screen showing the same content as your screen.
3. Extended Desktop – The external monitor acts as an ‘extension’ of your NC10 screen. EG, you could have photoshop displaying on the external monitor and Word displaying on your NC10 screen. You can move the mouse between the two.

To switch between different modes you just hit the ‘Function’ (Fn) key and F4 at the same time.

Changing resolution

The NC10 supports a resolution up to a massive 2048 x 1536 pixels.

Once you’ve hooked up your external monitor, you may want to change the resolution. This is just as easy as connecting the second monitor:

1. Click ‘Start’ then ‘Control Panel’
2. Click ‘Appearances & Themes’ then ‘Change the screen resolution’
3. You should see a window showing two screens: ‘1′ & ‘2′
4. Click on ‘2′ (which should be the resolution for the external monitor) and then use the ‘Screen Resolution’ slider to increase/decrease the resolution
5. Click ‘apply’ to check that everything works ok. If it does, hit ‘OK’

BUT, if you hook up an external monitor, it supports a maximum resolution up to 2048 x 1536.