Samsung's Solar Powered Netbook Goes Russian

In May we learned that Samsung had made a solar-powered netbook called the NC215S for the African market.

Now that very same netbook is featured on Samsung's Russian site bearing the same model number. As can be seen in the picture, most of the screen lid is consumed by a solar panel. The addition of the solar panel stretches battery life to 14.5 hours, though of course that must vary depending on lighting conditions.

The machine itself is quite low-power to begin with, packing either an Intel Atom N570 or N55 CPU at 1.6 GHz with GMA 3150 graphics. The NC215S has a 10.1-inch LCD at 1024x600, 1GB of RAM, VGA out, mic in, headphone out, an Ethernet port, three USB, and a 4-in-1 card reader. Storage choices are either a 250 GB or 320 GB HDD.

All of that weighs in at 1.3 kg or 2.9 lbs and will retail for 13,999 rubles (or around $479).