Lenovo Enters the Mini-Notebook Market with the IdeaPad S10
August 4th, 2008 by Joanna Stern
Rumors of Lenovo entering the mini-notebook space end here and now. Lenovo officially announced this morning its IdeaPad S10 - a 10-inch mini-notebook running the 1.6GHz Intel Atom chipset. Do we have a MSI Wind or Eee PC 1000H killer on our hands? Quite possibly.
Two configurations of the 9.8 x 7.2 x .8-1.08-inch and 2.4-pound S10 will be available in the U.S. Priced at $399, one will have 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive. The other marked at $449.99 will have 1GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. The specs seem to indicate that the system will support 2GB of RAM, so we assume swapping out RAM will be easy.
Initially the netbook will come preloaded with Microsoft Windows XP. However, Lenovo told us that a version of the S10 running Linpus Linux will be available is other countries.
We cannot wait to get our hands on the mini-notebook as the keyboard is reportedly “85 percent of the size of a full-function notebook PC’s keyboard.” A close look at the pictures in the gallery below strongly suggest a large and comfortable touchpad with dedicated right and left mouse buttons. The touchpad will support multi-touch gestures. The 10-inch 1024 x 600-pixel (WSVGA) resolution screen also looks extremely promising and is LED backlit for power saving. The speakers lining the front of the system also give it a different look and will hopefully blast out some decent sound as they aren’t buried on the bottom.
Lenovo has seemed to work in all the important ports. The netbook includes Bluetooth connectivity, 802.11b/g , and an ExpressCard for popping in a mobile broadband card. It also sports a LAN connection and VGA-out. It has a 1.3-megapixel webcam, two USB ports, mic and headphone jacks, and a 4-in-1 card reader. I am hesitant about only 2 USB ports.
As for battery life, Lenovo is promising that the system will be available with a 3-cell battery, capable of 3 hours, and 6-cell, capable of lasting 6 hours.
The IdeaPad S10 will come in white, black, and a glossy ruby red. It will be on retail shelves in the U.S. on September 28 and perhaps on Lenovo.com a bit earlier. It will be available in China, however, on September 5 and in the far east on September 10.
A version of the S10 with a 9-inch screen will be available in select countries such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, Russia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Mexico, India, France, Turkey, Poland, and others.
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August 4th, 2008 at 10:05 am
Damn! That’s the hottest 4P Computer I’ve seen yet. I want one!
August 4th, 2008 at 10:50 am
The build quality needs yet to be seenin the flesh. If it is up to Lenovo’s usual quality it then will be good or to save money it may be similar to the Eee, Wind, Acer, etc.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Looks good so far. And only 1 inch thick? Very nice! Seems like a perfect combo of the EeePC 1000H and MSI Wind, but slimmer. Although I’m guessing the 6 cell battery will make it thicker.
My Asus EeePC 1000H arrives this week, but I’ll be following the Lenovo for sure. If it turns out as good as it seems in this preview, I may sell the Asus eventually.
August 4th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I’m totally in love with this IdeaPad S10… I’ll be following this!
August 4th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Wait a second Laptop Mag…
Are you sure about BlueTooth on the S10?
I just perused the Businesswire link you posted, and there’s no mention of BT in there.
August 4th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Nova: According to the Reviewer Quick Fact Sheet I am looking at from Lenovo Bluetooth is listed. From the system specs page: “Integrated Wireless 802.11 b/g,10/100 Ethernet, Bluetooth”
August 4th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Hmph! Joanna answers others’ questions, never mine. *whine* (yes, I’ll have some cheez with that!)
What do you have against just 2 USB ports? I just hope one is powered host!
Don’t know about this otherwise. The U110 has a terrible keyboard and all that gloss gives it an infection-incubating slime.
August 4th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
jkkmobile has two vids. Keyboard looks better than the U110.
http://jkkmobile.blogspot.com/2008/08/lenovo-ideapad-s-netbook-on-video.html
August 5th, 2008 at 2:16 am
Im planning to buy the $399 Acer Aspire One with 120GB HDD. Seeing that this Netbook comes with 160GB HDD for the same price as the Acer One, best bet would be to wait for this product so that I can compare Acer vs Lenovo. - (Acer no BT, Lenovo w/ BT)
August 5th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
SWEET! I was waiting for the MSI Wind but had issues with the trackpad button being a one piece that “see-saw”‘ed instead of 2 discreet buttons and I like it being Lenovo on top of much more HDD.
August 5th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
With Dell and Lenovo on the near horiszon, what’s a person to buy? Is the Wind the best choice, or just the best choice for now? Amazon.com has them in stock at $549….tempting, but I’ll wait a few more weeks before buying anything….
August 5th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
The MSI Wind has the current advantage if you are interested in putting Apple’s Mac OS X on a subnote.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:26 am
Three USB ports would be nice, but I would gladly trade one of them for the ExpressCard slot and maybe throw in $50 to boot… But it appears that the black one has a white keyboard…
August 11th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
Looks like a great second laptop (MacBook will always be the first!). Better with the XP X-ed and Linux installed (don’t know about Linpus but I’ll bet it’d be rockin’ with Ubuntu). I’ll take one in _red_!
August 12th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
only if it have the TrackPoint like the thinkpad have then it would be my dream laptop. The only reason I chooce lenovo over other brand is their TrackPoint mouse pointer………
August 25th, 2008 at 2:29 pm
@Mike Cane Sure, if you’re ok with not having wifi with your mac os x (barring a usb wifi adapter). At the very least, I’m sure that S10 will support mac os x and internal wifi as the S10 has a broadcom chip in its wifi module which is known to work with the mac os x.
August 28th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I saw this up for cheap over at consumercowboy a few weeks ago for $363 with a coupon
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:38 pm
@ Mike & Roth: Has anyone actually installed OS X onto the Lenovo S10? It’s all very well to speculate, but I really want to know if this Lenovo S10 can be a Mac.
September 25th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I’d like to know that too.. I’d love to play with OSX
October 20th, 2008 at 3:10 am
Well,it seems to be good but not better then the Asus 1000H,it has 2 usb 2.0 compared to 3 in Asus 1000H,battery life is better in asus 1000H,it has 802.11 b/g while asus 1000H has 802.11 b/g/n much faster then the others.Key pad is again smaller when compared to Asus 1000H,Asus 1000H is dolby certified the other is not. So we can say that it will take time for others for being a killer for Asus 1000h.It is totally not justified to compare Acer,Msi and Lenovo with their Papa Asus.
October 20th, 2008 at 3:28 am
Does this comes with recovery CD and Drivers as it comes along with Asus Netbooks
October 20th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Its looks good but don’t think can compete with ASUS EEE Pc on apple 2 apple comparision.EEE seems to be a far better option when its to features and is very user friendly