Lenovo IdeaPad S10

Lenovo IdeaPad S10 Review

The ultra-portable laptop is certainly the "in thing" at the moment, with compact designs, good performance and well priced laptops being introduced from many of the top manufacturers.

The Lenovo S10 laptop is value priced at around $349, but although the cheap price, there are some impressive features that help it stand out above many cheap netbooks on the market. The Lenovo IdeaPad S10 Netbook has attracted a big following since its introduction back in September '08, so let's take a look to see why.

Lenovo originally released the S10 IdeaPad at $449, but have since dropped the starting price and also added a 6 cell battery, VeriFace security software, and Quick Start OS. Lenovo also added a number of colorful options to this model, such as ruby red and white.

As standard with 9 and 10 inch laptops, the Lenovo S10 has a 1024x600 pixel resolution. The AntiGlare TFT display is vibrant with rich colors, and when combined with the matte finish prevents reflections and glare. This is particularly useful when the sun beams through the window or if you want to sit outdoors using your laptop.

With the 6-cell battery attached to the hinge of the laptop, a few people have suggested that the two-tone appearance makes the laptop look a bit "toy like". The appearance may not be as important as the quality and features of the laptop, so this is entirely personal preference.

The build quality is rather impressive for a netbook. Although it is constructed mainly from plastic, it does feel sturdy enough to be carried around. One of the most common requests among users with laptops over 6 months old is upgradeability. Laptop and computer technology moves so fast that no sooner have you bought a new laptop, it is outdated. The good news is that the S10 is far easier to upgrade than many other netbooks.

So how do you upgrade? The Lenovo S10 laptop has a small panel that can be removed to get access and upgrade the system RAM, storage drive and wireless card, in order to run the latest software.

One of the stand-out features is the design. The S10 has a squared, chunky design which really suits the style. For a small laptop it also has a good-sized keyboard, and the slight texture of the touchpad is useful, especially for those people (me!) that become annoyed with fingers slipping on glossy touch pads. Being a netbook though, touch typists may need some time to get used to the layout, as it can't really match modern netbooks that make use of an almost full-sized keyboard layout. For use as the main computer in the home, users may find purchasing an external mouse and keyboard useful.

The touchpad has excellent responsiveness, tracking and sensitivity for a budget netbook. What we also like is the Synaptics multi-touch features that allow for finger "pinching" and "spreading" for such uses as zooming in and out. Although much smaller than a regular laptop touchpad, it is surprisingly good.

If you compare the ports of the Lenovo S10 with newer netbooks you may feel a little let down. When this laptop was first released it really impressed in terms of port selection, but like all components in newer laptops, things get better in a short amount of time. The notable feature is the ExpressCard slot, which many other laptops don't have. One of the surprising things is that the S10 does not have a built-in Bluetooth option, which is strange considering the benefits that Bluetooth has for people that travel.

In terms of performance, the Lenovo S10 laptop did well. For word processing, web browsing and email, the laptop is more than adequate. The Lenovo Quick Start is a useful operating system, which allows users to run a number of applications such as email, music, games or photos. The system takes a few seconds to load, but each application can then take a further 20+ seconds to start up. Although the Quick Start is a nice feature, there is little need to use it considering that Windows itself takes less than 30 seconds to boot.

The VeriFace security software has been included in the S10. This facial recognition software uses the built-in webcam to scan your face when logging in to windows as a security measure.

The new Lenovo S10 with 6-cell battery does have a pretty good life span. Typical use will deliver over 6 hours of battery life, which although good, doesn't really compare to the 9 and a half hour ASUS Eee PC 1000HE.

There are plenty of cheap netbooks on the market these days with similar specs to the Lenovo S10. Depending on what you need it for, some will have Bluetooth and more USB ports (more than the 2 included in the S10), but the S10 does have the ExpressCard slot. This is certainly a great addition if you want to add more USB ports, eSATA, FireWire and so-on.

The Lenovo IdeaPad S10 does have some neat features and is well priced for an ultra-portable laptop. Though the competition for netbooks is pretty fierce right now, Lenovo do have a laptop worth considering in the S10.

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