We've seen Lenovo beefing up its
consumer offerings of late, but this is really taking it up a notch. The company just announced its very first netbook, the
recently spotted 10.2-inch, Atom-powered little wonder. Sadly, there's little of note in the design -- it seems to have more in common with the MSI Wind and the Eee PC than its Lenovo siblings -- but the $399 starting price is certainly pleasing. That model brings 512MB of RAM and a 80GB hard drive, while a $450 version will be available with 1GB of RAM and 160GB of storage, with both being powered by 1.6GHz Atom chipsets. Windows XP will be preloaded initially, but Linpus versions will be available eventually. The display is 1024 x 600 and LED backlit, and the touchpad does multi-touch. Lenovo didn't skimp on the trimmings either, with WiFi, Bluetooth, ExpressCard, 4-in-1 card reader and a 1.3 megapixel webcam. The S10 hits China on September 5th, and will land in the States in early October. A 9-inch version is also in the works for other countries.
[Via
Laptop Mag]
posted Aug 4th 2008 8:40AM
Wow. Way to differentiate yourself, Lenovo.
Only 512MB of RAM? Basically saying, buy this and put memory in it.
Here a S10 video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jAryv0s5Yo
I actually think it's a great design.
Finally making a boxy notebook, that would differentiate itself from the all oter wedge-shaped sub-notebooks I've seen lately.
Looks sleek. This is something I would buy over Asus, Acer or MSI.
This compares directly with the MSI Wind. I prefer the Wind's beveled shell, but the S10 has more features for lower cost. The unspoken question will be, what is the S10's battery life vs the $550 Wind's?
The great thing about this is that the Wind will have to eventually drop its price to match, just as the Asus 1000H had. Base price w/ XP for netbooks looks to be $400 for this year.
OneLove is right. Add the price of a RAM upgrade right onto the sticker price, because not many techies will be happy with 512MB.
And I said HAPPY with it, I don't need 20 comments now extolling the virtues of 512MB of RAM to me.
Another one without a dvd bruner.....Sigh
I'll buy this, install OSX on it, maybe dual boot with XP and I have the trendiest Hackbook of the lot. Macbook who?!?
Wow, is this another Eee PC? I sure as heck looks like one.
Eee PC 1000 L Lenovo model.
Oh come on! Of all companies, Lenovo should be putting a trackpoint in one of these.
Fitting in small spaces is what trackpoints do best. This is why their X-series laptops always had trackpoints and not touchpads - there isn't room for a decent sized pad.
I agree. Hopefully Lenovo will release a ThinkPad netbook one day. This Lenovo looks more like the Eee 900 than the Eee 901 does! And Lenovo's S10 model name is even similar to Asus's upcoming S101 name.
Apart from that "rip off" moan, this S10 actually seems a nice machine...
but I'm liking that multitouch
...you'll be doing a lot of scrolling with 600 pixels of vertical real estate
There is the s30 series that was released to E. Asia back in '01.
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:S30
Who came up with "netbook"? It's such a dumb name. Whats the difference between a sub-compact, SFF notebook and a netbook? I can't keep up with these stupid names.
Psion came up with that name, back in 2000 when similar machines were popular. Everyone had a netbook sized machines (Compaq, HP, Vadem etc...). Then all of a sudden, they all vanished.
And a million voices across the galaxy cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
Then the Eee arrived to murder the rest.
Linpus? Is that a specifi Linux distrobutoin, or did you guys just misspell.
Looks like a purulent distribution of Linux.
It's Intels fault.
hmm. wonder how much it weighs..
decent specs for a netbook. im typing this on a eee pc 1000h..and i gotta say. i want to return this eee pc and get ummm...
THAT ONE!
I just got my 1000H last Friday,and I definitely have to agree. I'd love that little Lenovo!
So that'll be £300 when it comes here, and I just got a proper (and decent) laptop (Lenovo N200) for £320... These 'netbooks' need to start heading toward the £200 mark (or even $200...)
True enough.. But it will most likely be bigger. Remember when tiny under powered laptops were more expensive than their bigger heavier cousins?
Yeah it's a 15.4", but it is still hard, at least for me, to justify buying something that's supposed to be cheap and portable for almost the same price as a fully fledged laptop (which is why I got a laptop not a 'netbook')
Congratulations! You were the first dork to say that for $400, you can get a chihuahua that poops little brown nuggets or whatever, like somebody always does with every new netbook article.
Your "proper" laptop will weigh about double this S10. See the difference?
yeah
whats linpus
Linux Distro, if you ever heard about a thing called Google...
Xpresscard (Just like Nokia likes to spell it) is very useful, if you ever get a external graphics card for another laptop, you could hook this up too and play Quake 3.
I'm waiting for the Gigabyte 912 more, since I think that a touchscreen is pretty good with this form factor.
@ avester - if bob had simply asked "what's linpus" then your response would be correct.
However, bob wrote, "yeah whats linpus," as in
"yeah who the hell ever heard of linpus?" OR
"is that not about the most absent freakin' distro ever?" OR
"why the hell is lenovo putting such an obscure distro on a high profile offering like this?"
I think the answer is that the one detail the article misses is this is probably Linpus Lite, which is specifically targeted at netbooks/ultramobiles. Although, I know of at least a couple of other distros I would've used instead.
While the choice of Linpus seems rushed, lenovo couldn't have just slapped this thing together at the last minute, you think?
to all those who are "poo-pooing" this device as just another one of the many, lets not forget the $450 gets you
-multi touch (although i would love to have a trackpoint)
-a huge 160 gb hard drive
-and the main selling point for me... an express card slot. to me, someone that has a sprint express card wireless modem, this is key and makes this the perfect portable.
lets hope it has a 6 cell battery.
>a sprint express card wireless modem
USB modems are available from Sprint, VZW, At&t...gives more flexibility with the option to use it in a desktop.
Or better yet, just get tethering for your cellphone. No expensive hardware to buy OR contractual commitment.
But I wonder if these netbooks will have the option of getting broadband access built-in.
I agree Express Card is the killer feature here. Ram/Harddrive, those can be upgraded but you can’t add a WAN device as easily without at a port for it.
A USB modem is not a great option when you just want to pull this out of a small knapsack and don't really want to deal with keeping and plugging in a USB accessory. Sure you could tether it via your cell phone if you didn’t have a crippled Windows Mobile Smartphone with sketchy Bluetooth DUN/PAN support.
This may be the netbook to beat, let's see what Dell can do.
--Bill
PDAToday.com
What's the difference in pulling out an express card modem vs a USB modem from your knapsack? They both have a similar form factor. The only advantage is that it will free up a USB port if you use an ECmodem , but almost every lappy has 2 usb ports.
Tethering is even easier; you will obviously have the phone with you so alls you need is a data cable. And a 'crippled' WM6 phone is probably the easiest to use as a modem..all I had to do on my tilt was copy Windows>'Internet sharing' file into the start menu folder. Oh, so difficult.
Sure, they're hopping on the bandwagon, (why are they always white?) but Kam has good point.
Decent specs, and multitouch-
If it's as durable as a Thinkpad, it might be a worthy competitor to all the rest. More competition means more pressure to drive down prices and innovate right? It can't be all bad.
Sure, its no toughbook, but Lenovo usually makes good machines. I once spilled a full drink on my T61 and it worked perfectly an hour later.
Do you guys think this thing is Lenovo tough?
What an original name...
The Asus ee can never look as good as this.
You're right, it would need at least another 'e' to achieve that.
I believe that Lenovo will make this as tough as other Thinkpads and tablets. For 2 consecutive years, Lenovo always fare better than the rest of the pack in terms of quality and reliability in the recent ranking survey.
Damn! That's the hottest 4P Computer I've seen yet. I want one!
calling all OEM " find all 3yr old laptop components! lets make some $$"
The size is good too, any smaller and typing becomes cumbersome - like a 7 in EEE PC for example...
And yes, I would know, I tried typing on one in bestbuy: FAIL
Subnotebook.
Anyone else really annoyed that all these 'could-be' awesome netbooks are held back by their incredibly crappy screen resolution? Seriously, if this was 1280x800 or 768.. whatever the ratio is, I'd buy one in a heartbeat. But screen resolution is not the thing i want to skimp on. I'd rather have less storage or lack of a card reader. C'mon netbook manufacturers! Give us resolution fiends what we want!
Gigabyte M912 mate.
Anyways, 1280x800 is the resolution on my 15,4" laptop, and it is more than enough...
HP MiniNote 2133 has an 8.9" screen and 1280x768 resolution, but crappy as hell Via C7 processor....
What’s crappy about it? I agree that for websites 800 width ist too small nowadays, but 1024 is quite good for the vast majority of the web. If you think the resolution is grainy, think about that again. 800x480 on a 7" display equals 1600x960 on a 14" - i’d like to see that. 1024x600 on 9" (10") would be 2048x1200 on a 18" (20) display. I don’t hear many complains about the usual 1600x1200 on 20" TFTs.
Thats some very dodgy math Pizzicato, resolutions don't work like that.
Actually, they do. He's talking about the DPI of the screen.
this is sweet. although theres no talk about battery configurations...3cells, 6cells?
Both, but as always the 6-cell option will demand some extra money.
I was so excited for a mini Thinkpad... no trackpoint? Forget it.
Where's my trackpoint?!?!?!? %$^%$
This new netbook seems like it would be really great. I was going to buy a MSI wind(6 cell of course), but now I'm definitely going to wait until the S10 gets a proper review. As far as I can tell from the pics, this netbook already has two advantages over the MSIWind: it's trackpad actually has three separate buttons for the left and right mouse clicks, it's trackpad is multitouch, and there's an expresscard slot. That low price could be another advantage over the Wind($450 4 1GB ^_^), but depending on available battery options that price might change.
Now I want to know:
-it's available battery options
-battery life
-its max RAM capacity
-the size of the keyboard
-it's durability
-
>_> I meant the trackpad has two separate buttons for left and right mouse clicks.
Engadget, we really need an edit option for commentary.
why so late!!?i will probably get 901a or dell e, depends on who comes up first.
Back in the Day was the Thinkpad 701.
The 701 was magnificent work of art as well as usable because it offered something the new netbooks really need which is the butterfly keyboard.
Its time to bring out the old with the new Lenovo! Dig up the license for it!
Thinkpad also used to offer one of the early tablets I think the Thinkpad 300?
There also was something that looked like the K3 was it the thinkpad ultraman?
Netbooks are like being the 80's all over again, except they are actually affordable.
what's up with this design?
they should have put the s10's gut into u110's shell and sell them for the same price.
Yeah, right. It has a keyboard, a ~10" screen and it's white so it must a MSI Wind and Asus Eee PC rip-off or look-alike. I guess attention-deficit kids nowadays can't spot the details.
Essentially an EEE but a little bit prettier. Not a bad shot, Lenovo. I agree though, that 512 RAM is pretty much useless in the current generation of machines. 1GB should be the bare minimum now. Even lightweight OSes like Ubuntu and gOS still need some breathing room.
How dare you compare that MSI Wind to this Lenovo S10.
That MSI Wind looks like some cheap plastic toys that you can easily get from the Mcdonalds happy meal.
"How dare you compare that MSI Wind to this Lenovo S10.
That MSI Wind looks like some cheap plastic toys that you can easily get from the Mcdonalds happy meal."
You have to be kidding me. I guess you've never seen the MSI Wind in person because your statement is ridiculous.
It's a laptop!!!
Needs a nipple and a $250 contractor price.
I have a Lenovo notebook T61p with Nvidia 570m video (hoping video is not one of the faulty nvidia videos). I could say "it works".
The only thing i don't love of the design of Lenovo Notebooks is the
keyboard position of some keys, the most anonying the CTRL key
why on earth do they put that key right to "FN" key, that give me a lot
of headeaches, y normally use only once a day the "FN" key and about
6 times per minute the CTRL key. It would be better to put "CTRL" in the left as a standard keyboard does, and "FN" key on the right of it or in any place that doesn't bother
The other problem , the location of "F1".."F10"
keys, why on earth they don't put "F1" above "1", "F2" above "2",
i almost don't use F11 or F12 keys when working or playing.
I think we might have the EEE killer here, cheaper, larger HD,.
The ONLY drawback off the shelf I can see is that they took away a USB port (ONLY 2 on this one)
The price if it holds up is a hell of a deal especially for a 1g/160gb system.
Cross fingers that a touchpad upgrade is as "easy" as the EEE, and this really is going to be a nice competitor.
Looks like being poor and not having "grab it now" money is going to pay off
Sept, or Oct (hope Sept for US + hope that IS a deep red)
I like it! And they're offering it a good price!
My wishlist for this:
- Slightly higher resolution (1280x768 for a 10" screen - but I have to see what 1024x600 looks like in person (maybe it's sharp enough)).
- A third USB port (on a small unit like this, a third port might not be necessary, but it would be nice to have).
- Fingerprint reader (for me, this is necessary. All laptops should have these built in, especially on a netbook which is so small and easy to lose or to have stolen).
- 2GB RAM (they might offer this as an option. If not, it's a deal breaker, especially when all the other netbook makers are offering 2GB. 1GB isn't enough for me, anymore).
- A HDD with 7200 rpm speed (HP's MiniNote offers this, and since the HDD is always the greatest bottleneck in a system, I want the choice of having an HDD with a higher spin speed, even if it means less battery life. Or 5400 rpm's at the very least. 4200 rpm is too slow and a deal breaker).
- Stereo mics
- WWAN (not having this won't prevent me from buying a netbook, but I would prefer convergence over having to stick a bulky WAN modem into the side of the computer. I can't stand those things!)
- Backlit keyboard
- 6-Cell battery
Maybe the IdeaPad will offer some of the things above as options (I certainly hope they do!). Some of the things above I'm certain they won't offer. Regardless, Lenovo builds good quality and is a good name to have behind this little netbook, too.
They get extra credit for integrating multi-touch into the touchpad. That's something that none of the others offer.
I like it! And they're offering it a good price!
My wishlist for this:
- Slightly higher resolution (1280x768 for a 10" screen - but I have to see what 1024x600 looks like in person (maybe it's sharp enough)).
- A third USB port (on a small unit like this, a third port might not be necessary, but it would be nice to have).
- Fingerprint reader (for me, this is necessary. All laptops should have these built in, especially on a netbook which is so small and easy to lose or to have stolen).
- 2GB RAM (they might offer this as an option. If not, it's a deal breaker, especially when all the other netbook makers are offering 2GB. 1GB isn't enough for me, anymore).
- A HDD with 7200 rpm speed (HP's MiniNote offers this, and since the HDD is always the greatest bottleneck in a system, I want the choice of having an HDD with a higher spin speed, even if it means less battery life. Or 5400 rpm's at the very least. 4200 rpm is too slow and a deal breaker).
- Stereo mics
- WWAN (not having this won't prevent me from buying a netbook, but I would prefer convergence over having to stick a bulky WAN modem into the side of the computer. I can't stand those things!)
- WiFi-b/g/n (not just b/g)
- Backlit keyboard
- 6-Cell battery
Maybe the IdeaPad will offer some of the things above as options (I certainly hope they do!). Some of the things above I'm certain they won't offer. Regardless, Lenovo builds good quality and is a good name to have behind this little netbook, too.
They get extra credit for integrating multi-touch into the touchpad. That's something that none of the others offer.
Sorry for the double post - blame Engadget's inferior comment system.
Only if the brought this out in the same specs, but in an 8in sceen for $275 and a trackpad.
with a 30gb hd that is. I don't need more than that on my netbook.
I hope the 9 inch is smaller/lighter and not just screen borders.
Actually, it's not. http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftaiwan.cnet.com%2Fcrave%2F0%2C2000088746%2C20131000%2C00.htm&sl=zh-CN&tl=en&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
Been waiting for a decent netbook, and i consider lenovo well above the current lot in terms of relibility. Imma bet though that the HDD in this is the 1.8" mini drive used in the zune/ipod.
No Trackpoint? No deal.
(So please put one in, Lenovo!)
Now available for order on Lenovo.com!
Sorry, only 3-cell battery versions available at this time!
I have to agree with the resolution issue. With 9" you already have 1024x600. What's the point of a 10" screen with the same resolution? This is the major issue I'm holding back against the eee 1000h. I'm sure word processing and internet surfing is ok with this resolution but I've heard videos are not as nice. with 1024x600 i'd rather go with the 901 but i really like the other specs of the 1000h. hope the newer models address this issue.
a 6 cell battery, a trackpoint and linux would be nice...