What's more, being a VIA-based system means it doesn't have to play ball with the Intel 945G graphics chipset, going instead for an S3 Chrome9 GPU. Now that's definitely no pixel-pushing powerhouse, but the VX800 chipset supports HD video decoding and is more than a match for 720p video playback – something traditional Atom-based netbooks simply aren't up to.

That's obviously going to be a battery-life killer and something you'll generally only be using when plugged in, but it's still a decent feather in the NC20's cap, lasting nearly four hours chuntering away on HD video.

So, inevitably, we come to the matter of pricing. As much as small-form factor is important, a lower price has been one of the main reasons for the successful netbooks. Samsung's NC10 comes in at a thoroughly respectable £310 – a price-point matched by the current long-lived darling, Asus's Eee 1000HE. The NC20, though, is around £70 more expensive and all you're getting for that extra outlay is a larger screen and the possibility of 720p playback on the move.

With the machine hitting desperately close to the £400 mark, the person picking it up in favour of its predecessor or the Eee 1000HE is going to have to really want those extras. However, the latest Eee Seashell has also shipped at around this price and you'd be a vain mug to go for a machine of the same cost without the NC20's impressive feature set.

Personally, I'd buy it for the screen alone. The 12.1-inch size is definitely the sweet spot in terms of screen real estate and portability, and of all the netbooks released so far, this is the one that's genuinely blurring the lines between primary and secondary laptop. You could quite happily use this machine for your media on the move and have no problem making the odd spreadsheet on the train or bashing out a few pages of a Word document without giving yourself the traditional netbook headache in the process.

Machines with smaller screens may fit more happily in the bottom of a record bag, but if you actually want to use it regularly the bigger screen is the way to go. The VIA chip is no limiter either – indeed, it even gives you the 720p playback over a traditional netbook. It's a lovely machine, but whether you want to spend that extra £70 depends on how often you're realistically going to use your netbook.

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