Lenovo S10 Review

Editor Rating

2.9 out of 5

Lenovo S10

Published November 25, 2008 at 10:27:17 PM, by Henrik Stigell

Overview
Netbooks – all flavors, sizes and colors…and this time we have the Lenovo S10. It packs the same core essentials as most others. It has an Intel Atom processor at 1.6ghz, 512mb RAM, and a 10.2″; LED backlit screen. However, some things are meant to be for the better regarding with what options come with a netbook. Not all netbooks ARE the same, and for the S10 it has some neat tricks up it’s lid, and some standards it needs to learn…

Design
The S10 can come in a variety of colors, but they all have one thing in common – they are proportionate, and carry nice design aesthetics. Of the netbooks out there, I must say the lines of the S10 are some of the most appealing. Our model is a pearl-escent white – featuring a 3-cell battery. Everything seems to flow, from the latchless lid, relatively thin bezel surround, and attractive chrome like accents…if you can’t tell, the S10 does excel in the design department.

Size & Weight
The S10 size measures in at making it a 9.8″ x 7.2″ x 1.1″, which is a bit thinner than the MSI Wind we just recently reviewed, and being that it only incorporated a 3-cell battery instead of a 6-cell option as the Wind, it weighs a bit less as well tipping the scale in at 2.4 pounds. It’s quite evenly balanced, making computing one hand rather easy with the S10.
Keyboard
The keyboard for a 10.2” netbook, is rather cramped. I’m not sure what happened, as I’m usually awestruck with the keyboards on Lenovo’s as of late, but this model, doesn’t strike the same emotion. It’ s not just the cramped feeling, it’s the actual placement of some keys and omission of others. For example, I’m not sure who’s idea it was to get rid of a mute button (or fn combination for that matter) but it doesn’t exist that I could find. I’m not one to think about what needs to happen when I need my volume to mute – I just press the buttons and be done with it. With the S10, this isn’t an option. Also, I’m not sure the reason behind having a FN+F11 to make it F12 – but it may be in part that the tilde key is so apparent isn’t part of the normal key layout that seemingly the rest of the laptop world has adopted. Another thing, I’m not sure, but I think “backspace” is one word, and not two words mashed together making it “BackSpace” – but I could be very wrong, someone correct me here…but Lenovo thinks it’s BackSpace…and I don’t agree.

Amongst those, there are two odd sized layout keys I find on the S10: the smallest tab key since my smartphone and the right shift key. Not my choice of use or size.
Trackpad
The trackpad however is a nice one – firm and consistent travel, however the buttons are rather noisy and a little stiff. I’m not sure if these work out over time, but as far as I’m concerned – the touch option on the Snyaptics touchpad should suffice most users (and the fact that it’s a Synaptics touchpad and not a Sentellic off-shoot) with its side scrolling function, makes things manageable albeit tolerable for such a small touch area.

Display Quality
At 10.2″ and a resolution of 1024×600, it follows the same suite as the MSI Wind – but it’s not as sharp and the viewing agles are a bit off. They’re about the same as the Wind, but I find the Wind’s LCD having a bit more contrast and brightness.
Connectivity Description
The S10 features a nice amount of connectivity options for this price range and target audience who are into extreme mobility and form factor.
The left side of the S10 features an exhaust port, VGA out, multi-card reader, and a USB 2.0 Port.
The front doesn’t have anything other than a few status lights.

The right side features and Express card slot, headphone, microphone, USB 2.0 port, Network port and lock slot area.
So, this netbook only has two USB 2.0 ports – but it does come packaged with a mini-express card which I do like the notion of.

Upgrading Possible?
What is a nice feature on the S10 is the relatively easy access to upgrading the internals. There are only two little screws and a plastic covering and you have easy access to upgrading the anemic 512mb of RAM. Also, sitting nicely awaiting a user to plop in a larger hard drive – since this unit only came with 80gb, half that of the MSI Wind and Acer Aspire One we just reviewed. Other than that, there’s not much more you can (or should) do to upgrade this.

Features
The S10 does features some nice internal connection such as bluetooth, but it lacks the wireless N function of others we’ve tested. The webcam is one of the nicer webcam incorporated we’ve seen with nice tracking and fluid motion. The big winner would be the mini express-card on the right side, leading to a whole slew of options which I think is a big part of the lifeline of a netbook.

Performance & Conclusion

Performance
We always try and test with a standard method, and with netbooks, our standard method is pretty simple. We try to run Worldbench, and we do a battery test. So without further ado, here is breakdown that most (if not all) netbooks fall into.

WorldBench 6: 29
No surprise here, the worldbench score falls right in line with other similarly spec’d netbooks. However, it is to note that this unit only carries 512mb of Ram, which might contribute to the slightly lower score than others, and I would be willing to bet that if you upgraded this to 2gb, the numbers would improve a bit.

Battery Performance:

Battery life is stated to be nearly 4 hours, but we found that with Wi-Fi enabled you’re going to be lucky in squeezing 3 and a half. With the LCD on it’s lowest setting, and no wi-fi, reading an e-novel or the likes will gather you just shy of four. Not bad, but it’s nowhere near the battery life of our 6-cell models.
Real-life usage:
The bluetooth came in handy, but missing that extra USB port that has been featured on plenty of other netbooks was a real let down. Also, the keyboard wasn’t to my taste, not saying it’s bad, but I’ve mentioned it above and I feel it needs a serious run through on what their plan was for this unit.

I did get plenty of compliments regarding it’s looks, but when it came down to it, the MSI Wind I had just had one more feature that for the price point (and battery life) made it more of a winner.
And even though I didn’t use the mini-express card slot, the added bonus of devices that utilize this BUS will definitely be a plus in the future.

Conclusion
I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it. It has a lot of nice features at this price point and the connectivity isn’t the worst, and carrying a nice LED 10.2” LCD is also great. However, I feel that there could be some improvements on some aspects and the touchpad could be slightly quieter. If you’re looking for a fashion friendly netbook that doens’t leave you stranded for some great function, I’d highly recommend it. However, being that the 6-cell version has been spotted but no sign of official release on our side of the pond, I’d have to say that the modest battery power might not be for some users, along with that kinda funky keyboard.