Samsung NC 20 vs. Dell Mini 12

In an earlier article Claire wrote all about the fashion side of mini-notes. However for some of us more practical types its all about the performance. So we’ve decided to do a little benchmarking of the Samsung NC20 and compare it to the Dell Inspiron Mini 12 to follow on from our video first look at the Samsung NC20 the other day.

Both the Samsung NC20 Mini-notebook and the Dell Inspiron Mini 12 are 12” form-factor mini-notes and their product specifications are as follows:

Samsung NC20	Dell Inspiron Mini 12

CPU & System Peformance

Our first couple of tests are the SuperPI and CrystalMark benchmark tests.

SuperPI is an attempt to calculate the mathematical value of PI and the software basically only stresses the CPU on your system to perform those calculations, so its a reasonably decent way to compare CPU for CPU performance on a system. In this case we're comparing the 1.3+GHz VIA Nano processor to the 1.6GHz Intel Atom  processor. The faster your computer performs those calculations, the better, so a lower score is preferable.

CrystalMark is a test that stresses a broader range of elements of your computer including your overall CPU, system memory (RAM),  storage drive, graphics and video performance. So its a better overall guage of your complete system's performance. CrystalMark measures performance by creating an overall score, so larger is better.

Internet Performance

There are many different ways to measure your sytems "internet performance". The Google Chrome browser for example has its own task manager that you can open in one of your Chrome tabs and you can see how much processing power is used by that page. Not surprisingly if that page has a flash video running on it for example, like you might find on Youtube, that page will use more CPU performance to display the content properly than a plain vanilla HTML webpage.

In our case here we've used a test program called V8 Benchmark Suite which by visiting this page will automatically run it's series of tests in your browser ,on your system. Try opening that same page in different browsers to test your computers performance in different browsers.

From the V8 Google Code website:"This page contains a suite of pure JavaScript benchmarks that we have used to tune V8. The final score is computed as the geometric mean of the individual results to make it independent of the running times of the individual benchmarks and of a reference system (score 100). Scores are not comparable across benchmark suite versions and higher scores means better performance: Bigger is better!"

Wow, you can see that the Samsung NC20 outperforms the Dell Mini 12 in all browsers but there sure is a huge difference in scores depending what browser you use!

Entertainment Performance

CINEBENCH is a test that stresses both your CPU and graphics. From the MAXON CINEBENCH website:

"CINEBENCH is a real-world test suite that assesses your computer's performace capabilities. MAXON CINEBENCH is based on MAXON's award-winning animation software, CINEMA 4D, which is used extensively by studios and production houses worldwide for 3D content creation. MAXON software has been used in blockbuster movies such as Spider-Man, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Narnia and many more.

MAXON CINEBENCH runs several tests on your computer to measure the performance of the main processor and the graphics card under real world circumstances. The benchmark application makes use of up to 16 CPUs or CPU cores and is available for Windows (32-bit and 64-Bit) and Macintosh (PPC and Intel-based)."

In the case of CINEBENCH a higher score is rated better. The CINEBENCH test shows 

While mini-notes aren't targeted at gaming and 3D graphics intensive applications we thought we'd run an older MMORPG game Final Fantasy X1 that we were enjoying on the Samsung NC20 just to get some comparision. Unfortunately the Dell device wasn't even able to record a score.

Battery Life

Battery life on your mini-note is one of those variables that's difficult to measure because we all use our mobile products in different ways. Something as simple as how bright you like your screen while its running on batteries can greatly change  your battery life. There is however a test called BatteryMark from Ziff Davis that is commonly used.

So with an off-the-shelf purchase of the 2 machines you're going to get a significantly longer battery life on the Samsung NC20 and you'd have to buy an additional 6 cell battery for your Dell to get anywhere near the batterylife of the Samsung NC20. It was also reported here that the Samsung NC20 that will be sold in the US will have an even higher capacity 5900-mAh battery for even longer battery life.

Conclusions

There are a slew of different benchmarks you can run on your mobile device beyond the one's we've shown here, but it's been our attempt to give you a general look at the performance differences between two complete systems in a few important categories.  As a user of numerous mobile devices over the years the stylish design, the higher resolution screen, and the larger keyboard would have me going for the Samsung NC20 right off the bat, but the overall better system performance and its excellent battery life would be the clinchers!