There’s no dout that the Samsung NC10 is one of the nicest looking netbook. It’s got an excellent keyboard, a decent looking trackpad, and an attractive case. On the inside, it packs all the usual suspects like an Intel Atom CPU, a 10.2 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, and a hard drive with up to 160GB of storage.

But there’s one claim that Samsung has been making about the NC10 that doesn’t ring true: That it will get up to 8 hours of battery life on a single charge.

When Samsung first announced the netbook last month, the company made that claim. And apparently Samsung is sticking by that number, if a recent DigiTimes story is anything to go by.

But having used a computer with a 6-cell, 6600mAh battery, a 10.2 inch display, and a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, I can tell you that there’s no way you’ll get 8 hours of battery life out of a machine with virtually identically specs. 5 hours maybe. Perhaps 6 if you turn off the WiFi, but 8? No way.

Kevin Tofel of jkOnTheRun reached a similar conclusion. And Sascha Pallenberg of Eee PC News.de found something resembling proof: A German web site that sells computers to students has a product page for the Samsung NC10 that says it should get an estimated 5 hours of battery life. That seems a lot more realistic.