Samsung introduces Notebooks, Netbooks in India

Digital technology major Samsung India Friday announced its foray in the portable personal computer (PC) segment with a lineup of Notebooks and Netbooks priced between Rs.28,000 and Rs.115,014.

Netbooks are ultra-compact laptops that have come into the mainstream in the past two years followed by the success of Asus EE PC.

"With its entry into the Indian Notebook market, the company, which was only in the IT peripherals space, is providing a complete PC solution to its customers," Samsung India's information technology director Ranjit Singh Yadav told reporters here.

The comprehensive Notebook range being launched reflects Samsung's design and manufacturing leadership, with upto 75 per cent of the components going into the Notebooks manufactured by Samsung.

The X360 and X460 are 13.3- and 14.1-inch premium ultra thin-and-light notebooks.

The X360 is "lighter than air" weighing in at 2.8 pounds and achieving up to an incredible 10 hours of continuous usage, and both support Samsung's latest 300nits SuperBright LED backlit LCD display.

Samsung's NC10 is a netbook with a 10.2-inch wide SuperBright LCD, enhanced capacity battery and huge 160GB hard drive and it will be available in white or metallic blue color options.

It will feature such high-end specifications as a 160GB hard drive and a 10.2-inch wide1024 x 600 displays. It will also come with a full host of I/O ports and 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR and a built-in 1.3 mega-pixel webcam.

Most impressive is the 93 per cent full-size keyboard and its standard 5200mAH high capacity 6-cell Lithium Ion battery, providing up to eight hours of use on a full charge.

Samsung's netbook, unlike a notebook, is designed for consumption rather than creation. With that in mind, a focus on usability and data consumption resulted in the decision to include a large hard drive and make sure long battery life was a key component.

'The company plans to capture the market share in double digits by 2010,' Yadav said.

Samsung India posted a 30 percent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) and plans to grow more than 30 percent with this launch, he added.

The company will initially offer these products from its existing retail outlets and could follow it up standalone showrooms later.

"With the launch of Samsung Notebooks, our focus in the coming years will be to enhance our consumer interface for our IT products," Yadav said.