Samsung Electronics Australia has partnered with Japanese industrial designer, Naoto Fukasawa, to bring the new N310 mini notebook to Australia.

Designed wholly by the award winning minimalist designer, the Samsung N310 notebook has a distinctive aesthetic design that is shaped by its frameless screen, pebble design keyboard, rubberised body and light weight form of only 1.23 kg.

The N310 also features an ergonomic design with optimised 17.6mm key spacing, making it 93 percent of a full desktop keyboard. Samsung claims that this new keyboard will be easier to type on in comparison to other mini notebooks.

“The Samsung N310 is a very welcome addition to our notebook range in Australia and a unique looking product we think consumers will love,” said Emmanuele Silanesu, Samsung Australia’s National Product and Marketing Manager for IT.

The 10.1in design makes the Samsung N310 small enough to carry in a handbag or backpack. It runs on an Intel Atom N270 CPU, Intel GMA 950 graphics, 1GB of DDR2 memory and it's available with either an 80GB or 160GB hard drive. It also includes a VGA port, 10/100 Ethernet, three USB 2.0 ports, microphone and headphone ports, an SD memory card slot, 802.11g WiFi, and an integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam. Bluetooth 2.0 with an Enhanced Data Rate (EDR) is optional.

Samsung also claims that N310 notebook offers a battery life of five hours with its standard 4-cell battery, or 11 hours with an optional extended six cell battery.

The Samsung N310 is available now from the Good Guys and has an recommended retail price of $799. Silanesu has confirmed that the Samsung N310 will be available through other retailers, but this is still under discussion.