Lenovo IdeaPad S10 gets reviewed

The folks at Laptop Magazine already offered up a few thoughts on Lenovo's IdeaPad S10 netbook after they got their hands on one last month but, as is their nature, they've now followed things up with a full review now that the unit is actually landing into the hands of customers. As you might expect, while they did find the netbook to be one of the most stylish options currently avaialble, they also found quite a few trade-offs, including a slightly less spacious keyboard than is normally found on a 10-inch netbook, and an unfortunately weak three-cell battery. Somewhat notably, they also found that while the S10 was a "bit warmer" than other netbooks, it wasn't the worst they've seen, with the highest measured temperature being 101° fahrenheit, which is a bit less toasty than some earlier reports. Be sure to hit up the read link below for the full rundown, including some benchmarks and, of course, plenty of pictures.

[Knives_Out @ Sep 25th 2008 3:42PM]

I think I'll wait for the next generation of netbooks...

[Nual @ Sep 25th 2008 3:45PM]

Best netbook ever.

[Samboini @ Sep 25th 2008 4:15PM]

That's quite the claim considering you haven't seen what is available 50 years down the line.

[telepheedian @ Sep 25th 2008 4:32PM]

Plus, the Eee 1000h probably beats this thing, although the expresscard slot looks nice.

[Macdelaney @ Sep 25th 2008 6:11PM]

and the 1000h is plain butt ugly

[BOGRASH @ Sep 25th 2008 7:02PM]

1000h makes this late lame lenovo garbation look like a toy

[WickedEast @ Sep 25th 2008 7:41PM]

"garbation", isn't that your lastname?

[FakeGreenDress @ Sep 25th 2008 4:16PM]

Now if only the red ones would start shipping...

[Jhizzle @ Sep 25th 2008 5:04PM]

I'm hoping the Samsung NC10 gets good reviews. If not, I'll prob pick this one up.

[BigD145 @ Sep 25th 2008 6:13PM]

That poor S10. They cut off her nipple.

[BOGRASH @ Sep 25th 2008 7:07PM]

lenovo are so shit

[WickedEast @ Sep 25th 2008 7:44PM]

How old are you? Isn't it time for you to go to bed?

[Fanfoot @ Sep 25th 2008 8:06PM]

It will be interesting to see what the deal is with the other 512MB of memory (their 1GB laptop had only 512MB accessible via the door on the bottom, which also provided access to the hard disk). Also, where the hell are the PCIe cards? Presumably somebody will have to pop the keyboard out and see what's under there...

[thequinox @ Sep 25th 2008 10:04PM]

I want a new netbook to replace my aging 701 so bad. I can't wait till all these are out. So far the Samsung S10 and the Toshiba NB100 are looking nice.

I can't decide...

[CaramelZappa @ Sep 26th 2008 12:08AM]

Is a bigger screen really that important to where you can't wait a month or so for Lenovo to ship you an S10?

Aging? Isn't the 701 less than a year old?

[ssrat_ @ Sep 25th 2008 11:26PM]

Looks nice but the fact that there is no 6cell available at all, puts this far down on my list.

In this price range it looks like the 6cell wind is the best especially beating the Asus by a full 30m

At my savings rate it looks like whoever has the best for christmas will win (still hoping for a competitor to that gigabyte TABLET)

[Jason @ Sep 26th 2008 3:02AM]

I walked past a store selling these at Sim Lim Square last weekend here in Singapore and asked the sales guy about the heat -- he took me over to an S10 which (he said) had been on for over 24 hours and it didn't feel warm at all.

[row1 @ May 11th 2009 10:11PM]

I would never believe anything coming out of someone's mouth at Sim Lim ... plus why would he have it running for 24 hours?

[Ian @ Sep 26th 2008 4:40AM]

The complaints in some of Laptop Mag's reviews really don't make much sense sometimes. First they'll praise the small footprint of a laptop, but then they'll say the keyboard isn't big enough. Of course, with a 9" netbook like the Acer Aspire One, which is pretty much a 9" netbook in the body of a 10" netbook, of course the keyboard is more comfortable than a typical 9" netbook (it's too big for its screen size, after all), but then again, its footprint is going to be big.

[WickedEast @ Sep 26th 2008 2:09PM]

The Laptop Mag score is useless and total non-sense. The review says the S10's keyboard is more comfortable to type with than with the Aspire One's; yet they listed the S10 keyboard as a "Cons" and the Aspire One keyboard as a "Pros" in their respective reviews. They have not mention about how easy it is to change the drive and RAM in the S10 compared to the Aspire One. Battery life is practically the same for both netbooks, typical autonomy for a 3-cell as a matter of fact. So the only "real" Cons of the S10 is a slightly higher peak temperature (which should be taken with a grain of salt since Laptop Mag's assessment seems more anecdotal than the result of a thorough testing). Still, the Aspire One got 4 stars and teh S10 3.5???

[Ogo @ Sep 26th 2008 8:23AM]

They won't sell many of these in Canada.... mostly because they refuse to sell them here.

[jibberjabbs @ Sep 26th 2008 3:26PM]

I would really like to see some pics of a black S10. I've only seen the white in reviews. Anybody seen pics of the black? I don't even think they exist.

[PlayerOne @ Oct 2nd 2008 11:23PM]

Jibberjabbs if you go on the Lenovo website and look at the S10 in the gallery there are pics of the the black there.

[PlayerOne @ Oct 2nd 2008 11:26PM]

jibberjabbs if you go to the Lenovo website and look at the s10 gallery you will see pics of the black one.

[PlayerOne @ Oct 2nd 2008 11:27PM]

sry about the double post

[goodgenie @ Mar 26th 2009 9:01PM]

We are a retired couple that backpack for 8 weeks through SE Asia every Cdn winter. We have been set back by not carying a laptop; so much Wifi everywhere. Besides paying our bills etc, we need to book regional airfares, guest house/hotels and stay in touch with our adult kids that worry about our budget travelling ways. Budget air travel and older shulders and backs limit us to one big backpack (airline 15kg limit) and a day pack. We own a 1 yr. old 14" Thinkpad T61 fully equipped and even though it's built tough; it's too large, too heavy and too expensive to risk under less than ideal travel conditions over 8 weeks.

We are not on top of emerging advances that may in the next 6 months hit the market with much better rugged, mini notebooks. Our principal concern is whether The atom/linux platform has capability limits in supporting advancing everyday web applications of the most demanding, including the security involving on - line transactions that need verification / certificates/java and of course security of the notebook from web virus/intrusions.

Should we wait for the adoption of mainstream Intel Centrino capability, longer lasting battery, effective webcam, RAM / SSD upgradeability and light weight power cords? If not, then what mini can we buy in 6 months for around CDN $400 that will not run out of capability in 5 years, as it's use will be limited to travel purposes.

Most appreciative of your recommendations and insights behind them.

[Steve @ Mar 27th 2009 2:05AM]

Honestly, for what you're doing (surfing, booking flights, e-mail), a netbook seems just about perfect. Heck, even the webcams of some of these machines are surprisingly good. Luckily you have a better part of this year to go until the winter, so we'll be seeing faster machines at cheaper prices in just 6 months time. Some of the best units available have been clocking in at about $300-350 (dipping to $200 at times) and that trend should continue.

In terms of battery life, a Asus 1000HE supposedly gets up to 7 hours of battery life even with the WiFi on, so I don't think that'll be a concern as long as you get a 6 cell battery.

Also, I think you'd be surprised by the size of the power adaptors. The Dell Mini9's is practically the size of a cell phone charger.

Cheers.