Samsung Offers Memory Upgrade Deal with N310 Netbook

I received an email direct from Samsung this morning that surprised me. The company is offering its N310 netbook with a special deal that includes a 2GB memory upgrade and a case. Why the surprise? The N310 comes with Microsoft Windows XP Home pre-installed and traditionally Microsoft hasn’t generally allowed that on a retail netbook with more than 1GB of RAM.

Samsung prices the netbook at $479.99 and says the 2GB module is valued at $69.99, which is very overpriced. For the deal, they’re “cutting” the memory price to $19.99, which is right in line with the market — I paid about $25 for a 2GB module a few months back — and they’re throwing in a $20 case as well. So, $499.99 gets you a Samsung N310 with Windows XP Home, 2GB of memory, long battery life and a case. My gut says that either Samsung isn’t installing the 2GB module for you or Microsoft is relaxing more of its netbook restrictions of late. Either way, it should only take a few minutes to install the RAM if you need to do so.