Light Computing Off-the-Grid with the Samsung NC215S

"Back in May, Samsung reportedly unveiled a solar powered NC215S netbook over in Africa. No word back then if this would even see the light of day. Not today as Samsung officially launched the netbook over there as well as in Russia. You’ll be able to get one too! Liliputing got word from Samsung that the NC215S is coming to the US on July 3 priced at $399. Currently no places with pre-orders up."

I've been wondering when (or if) we'd ever see a small laptop or netbook with solar charging. I do like the idea of a six-cell 40W battery that works for (claimed) 14-hours - with a solar charger in the lid. Any guesses as to how rugged this technology will be? Under the hood is a pretty traditional netbook weighing 2.9-pounds/1.3kg, with a 1024x600 10.1-inch display, an Intel Atom dual-core N570 running at 1.66MHz,  250GB hard drive,  and 1GB RAM. No information anywhere on OS (that I cound find). Poking around a bit, I also read that two hours of charging via sunlight gives you one hour of battery life. For casual use, this looks pretty good, but for heavy use, probably a bit too gimmicky, and underpowered. I also can't find any information as to whether this can (also?) be powered with an AC-adapter.