We were all surprised by Samsung's plans to ditch Intel's popular Atom processor in favour of VIA's Nano alternative in its next netbook, but it's definitely happening.
Samsung's NC20 netbook, pictured right, is the company's successor to its Atom-powered NC10 and features VIA's 1.3GHz Nano processor and VX800 chipset at its heart. Accompanying the unique innards will be 1GB of DDR2 memory and graphics courtesy of VIA's Chrome9 HC3 IGP.
We're yet to see real-world benchmarks and can't therefore comment on how performance compares to an Atom-based alternative, but Samsung's NC20 does offer a few niceties. It's armed with a larger-than-usual netbook display, measuring 12.1in and providing a useful 1,280x800 resolution.
Elsewhere, it's very much so a standard netbook affair. There's a 1.3 megapixel camera, a 160GB hard drive, Bluetooth, Ethernet and Wi-Fi connectivity and Microsoft's Windows XP Home serves as its operating system.
Unfortunately, there's a downside, too. The bump in screen size also translates to a bump in price. Samsung's NC20 is expected to arrive in the UK on February 9th and is available to pre-order at a cost of £391. That's nearly £100 more than the existing NC10.
