Lenovo Idea Pad S10-2

The IdeaPad S10-2 is the latest generation 10" netbook from Lenovo, offering the 1.6GHz N270 Intel Atom processor and a 6-cell extended battery. Lenovo redesigned this netbook to make it look slimmer and more attractive than its predecessor, giving the edges a rounded look and a more modern appearance. In our review we see how well the IdeaPad S10-2 performs in our tests, to help you make an informed buying decision.

Our Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 Configuration:

• 1.6GHz N270 Intel Atom Processor
• 1GB PC2-5300 DDR2 SDRAM 667MHz
• Windows XP Home Edition (SP3)
• 10.1" WSVGA Glossy LED-backlit display with integrated camera 1024x600
• 160GB 5400rpm Western Digital Scorpio Blue hard drive
• Intel GMA 950 Integrated Graphics
• Broadcom 11b/g Wi-Fi wireless
• 4-in-1 Media card
• 6-Cell Li-ion 10.8v 4.06Ah 44Wh battery
• 40W AC Adapter
• Size: 10.2" x 7.6" x 0.7-1.8" (including battery)
• Weight: 2lbs 11oz, 3lbs 5.4oz travel weight
• Starting price: $439 (Currently on sale for $349 at the time of this review)

Build and Design

The second generation Lenovo S10 looks great, with a cleaner and smoother appearance all around. In the redesign, the sides changed from flat surfaces that looked stuck onto the chassis, to a rounder and smoother form that looks integrated into the netbook. As a result, the new S10 is thinner in most dimensions, with varying heights depending on the inner structure of the notebook. The all-black model which we were lucky enough to get looks great, with every bezel matte black, except the screen lid which has a glossy black finish with a faint metallic weave pattern. Contrasting the black surfaces the Lenovo logo, power button, and touchpad buttons are all silver. This theme continues to the bottom of the S10-2, which if some of the stickers were removed would share the same clean look. My only complaint is Lenovo stuck with the large Windows COA sticker, instead of the new netbook-sized stickers that can be hidden underneath the battery or someplace out of sight.

Lenovo went with an extended battery that significantly improves runtime over the smaller flush-mount one. The downside to this is it sticks out the back, and raises the netbook up off a surface about 0.75". Some could argue that it moves the keyboard into a more comfortable typing position, or it works great as an extra handle. I would personally like one that just sticks straight out the back, making aftermarket carrying cases much easier to choose.

Build quality is very good, with firm plastic used throughout the chassis and very little obvious flex or squeaking when you are carrying the netbook around. The screen hinges feel solid, needing two hands to easily open up the display. The matte plastic finish on the inside and bottom of the notebook stayed scratch free throughout the review. Likewise, the glossy finish held up surprisingly well; it did, however, give us a few scares, making us think we created huge scratches... which turned out to be smudges. Even if you did scratch this model, the black finish hides most blemishes (including smudges and dust).

From an upgrade standpoint Lenovo really wins our hearts with its user-friendly design that puts every swappable component behind one of two removable panels. Under the main panel, we have access to the hard drive, wireless card, and spare mini-PCIe slot with the connector included (some don't solder this in place so they can save money). The other slot is for the system memory, which is expandable to 2GB total. The only thing that could have made this better is if they went with the HP Mini approach, which doesn't even need a screwdriver to open the RAM cover.

Screen and Speakers
The glossy panel on the Lenovo S10-2 is average compared to other netbooks, with bright and vibrant colors, but somewhat limited viewing angles. The glossy screen really does an awesome job at making colors pop, and also helps reproduce deep blacks as well - handy for watching Sci-Fi flicks. The downside to this and any other glossy screen, though, is added reflection, making screen visibility poor when outdoors or under a bright light.

Viewing angles seemed average, with colors starting to shift if the screen was titled about 20 degrees forward or back. Horizontal viewing angles just showed a slight hint of color shift, but nothing that would really bother you if you were sharing the screen with someone sitting next to you. Backlight brightness was perfect for viewing in bright office conditions, but might not have been strong enough to use outside. I spent a couple of hours out in my garage with bright shop lights on around it, and my motorcycle schematics were still fully visible from a few feet away. One possibly limiting factor of the screen design which might affect a few people is the limited hinge range, which prevents the screen from tilting completely flat. It stops the screen about 45 degrees back from vertical.

The speakers on the S10-2 are lap-firing, facing down underneath the palmrest. If you are listening to the speakers on a flat desk surface you can hear the full (albeit limited) range of the speakers, but if the notebook is sitting on a soft surface like your bed or lap, they get quite muffled. Music from the speakers sounds clear and crisp with excellent higher frequency reproduction, but falls flat with midrange and low-frequency support. For VOIP, streaming music, or YouTube they will probably work fine, but headphones would be the best option if you plan on watching a movie or are doing something that requires you to pay attention to all the little nuances of the audio source.

Keyboard and Touchpad

The keyboard on the S10-2 is a bit small compared to some netbooks, sticking with a condensed layout (instead of cramming in as much keyboard space as possible like what we see on the HP netbooks). This in itself isn't a bad thing, since you get used to it after a while, but coming from full-size notebook and larger netbook keyboards can be challenging. Keyboard support is excellent, exhbiting no flex or trampoline affect when typing. Individual keys feel sturdy with no wobble when sliding your fingertips across the surface, and key action is smooth with a very mild "click" given off when you trigger a key.

The touchpad is a Synaptics model with limited multi-touch support. The only multi-finger control you get in the control panel is "pinch", to zoom in on the cursor area. Just the same, sensitivity and speed were excellent, with no lag present in our testing. The size of the touchpad could be slightly larger or wider, to give a more defined scroll region. The surface texture is a smooth, almost gloss finish, which has decent traction but still lets a sweaty finger glide across the surface without sticking.

The touchpad buttons are easy to trigger, with only a light touch needed to activate them. Feedback is minimal with a very short throw. They both give off a mild click when pressed.

Ports and Features

Port selection is average compared to other netbooks, with three USB ports, audio jacks, LAN, VGA, and a Kensington Lock slot. Lenovo also includes a wireless on/off switch, SDHC multi-card slot, and an open internal mini-PCIe slot (probably for WWAN). One feature missing from the previous generation model is the ExpressCard/34 slot, but its uses are fairly limited for what netbook users might need.

Front: Activity lights, SDHC slot

Rear: Battery

Left: LAN, VGA, 1 USB, Mic/Headphone

Right: Wireless On/Off, 2 USB, Kensington Lock slot, AC power

Performance and Benchmarks

System performance seemed on par with many of the newer netbook models hitting the market. Boot and shutdown times were excellent, quickly coming up to a fully ready state without much waiting. For normal tasks such as web browsing, typing documents, playing music, or even watching video the IdeaPad S10-2 performed flawlessly.

Normally, users buying a netbook (outside of the ASUS N10 with dedicated graphics) understand that gaming just isn't going to be realistic. For this reason we find 3D benchmarks, which normally register very slow performance, to not be as relevant for these systems. Thus, we are shifting toward HD movie tests for netbooks, which are more in the realm of what a netbook can handle on the high end in terms of performance. In our HD video test the S10-2 played up to 480p and 720p video without much trouble. 720p video was starting to task the processor leaving little overhead, but it was very watchable. However, 1080p video was badly out of sync and painful to view.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Sony VAIO TZ (Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76.240 seconds
HP Pavilion dv2 (AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 @ 1.60GHz)	103.521 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	114.749 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	116.030 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	116.421 seconds
Lenovo S10-2 (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.6GHz)	122.247 seconds
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	123.281 seconds
Acer Aspire One D250-1165 (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	124.829 seconds
Acer Aspire One 150-1635 (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	125.812 seconds
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (2009) (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	126.406 seconds
Samsung NC20 (VIA Nano ULV U2250 @ 1.30GHz)	173.968 seconds

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Sony VAIO TZ (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	2,446 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv2 (1.60GHz AMD Athlon Neo, ATI Radeon HD 3410 512MB)	2,191 PCMarks
ASUS N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,851 PCMarks
Toshiba Portege R500 (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	1,839 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,637 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,564 PCMarks
Acer Aspire One 150-1635 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,555 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,535 PCMarks
Lenovo S10-2 (1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, Intel GMA 950)	1,511 PCMarks
Acer Aspire One D250-1165 (1.60GHz Intel Atom N270, Intel GMA 950)	1,456 PCMarks
Samsung NC20 (1.30GHz VIA Nano ULV U2250, VIA Chrome9 HC3)	1,441 PCMarks
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GM1 950)	1,437 PCMarks

In our ongoing quest to provide helpful information to our readers we are adding the following video playback table to our reviews of netbooks. Since netbooks are starting to be used for mobile entertainment (watching movie trailers or streaming video) it's important to know how a netbook performs when trying to play a simple video file. We selected a family-friendly movie trailer and downloaded three different versions in 480p, 720p, and 1080p resolutions. We used the CCCP Codec Pack for decoding and Media Player Classic Homecinema (version 1.1.796.0) for playing all of the video files.

Video Playback Performance:

Video Resolution	CPU Usage	Playback Comments
480p	20%-30% (hyperthreading)	Plays flawlessly
720p	44%-49% (hyperthreading)	Plays with an occasional dropped frame
1080p	50%-60% (hyperthreading)	Plays with severe stutter, dropped frames and audio out of sync

HDTune for the built-in hard drive:

Heat and Noise
While performing normal activities (browsing the web, playing MP3s, typing documents, etc.) the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 ran fairly cool and quiet. The fan remained off during this time, which included the majority of our battery test. Under more stressful activity, like running benchmarks, watching HD video, or playing Peggle, the fan came on occasionally, but was quiet enough to not be a nuisance. On the top surface of the notebook, the only part that stuck out as warm to the touch was the touchpad, while on the bottom the heat was centralized around the RAM. If you are sensitive to heat or noise the S10-2 seems to be a pretty acceptable choice.

Battery Life
Battery life was excellent, but at the downside of having a gigantic battery sticking out and down from the back of the netbook. With the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and Windows XP set to the laptop/portable power setting the notebook managed 7 hours and 15 minutes with light web browsing. During the test power consumption fluctuated between 6 and 7.5 watts.

Conclusion
The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 performed quite well in our tests, showing consistently better results that the previous model. The design looks much cleaner than before, and with the black color scheme, at least, the netbook is visually excellent. Battery life was improved, no doubt due to the large extended battery that sticks out behind and below, giving us over 7 hours in out battery test. The S10-2 handled 480p and 720p video without too many problems, but 1080p video was too much to ask for from the Intel Atom N270 and GMA950 chipset. Overall, the IdeaPad's price is very attractive, with a $439 MSRP - lower than previous models, and sale prices put it as low as $349. Our only big complaint is the rather cramped keyboard, but if you don't mind typing on the smaller keys the keyboard feels very well built and easy to type on.

Pros

• Good looks and excellent build quality
• Great battery life
• Good performance
• Easy to upgrade

Cons

• Keyboard feels cramped
• Extended battery doubles the thickness in the rear

READ MORE - Lenovo Idea Pad S10-2

Lenovo Idea Pad S12 Review

The Lenovo IdeaPad S12 features a 12-inch screen and is one of the largest netbooks on the market. This 3.42-lb machine is designed to let consumers easily surf the Internet and perform other light tasks on-the-go without having to spend a lot of money. The S12 comes pre-loaded with Windows XP, has a full-size keyboard, and includes a six-cell battery for five hours of run time – read on to see how it fared in our testing.

Our Lenovo IdeaPad S12 review unit has the following specifications:

• Intel Atom N270 processor (1.60GHz)
• Windows XP Home Edition
• Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics
• 1GB RAM
• 12.1-inch widescreen display (1280x800) with LED backlighting
• 160GB 5400RPM hard drive (Hitachi HTS543216L9A)
• 6-cell Li-ion battery (11.1V, 52Wh)
• Broadcom 802.11b/g wireless
• One-year limited warranty
• White color (also available in black)
• Dimensions: 11.5 x 8.5 x 0.9 – 1.4 inches (W x D x H)
• Weight: Starting at 3.42 lb w/ 6-cell battery

As configured, our S12 is currently priced at $499. The base model starts at $449 with a VIA Nano 1.3GHz processor.

Build and Design
Since all netbooks have nearly identical specifications, manufacturers have to look at the design and build quality to differentiate themselves. Lenovo's IdeaPad S12 is a docile and friendly-looking machine with a not a square edge in sight. The company's second generation of netbooks feature rounded edges and a slimmer chassis. The S12 looks well built; all of the parts fit together neatly.

The back of the lid has a "fashion" design with hundreds of little circles dotting the lid. The S12 would be at home in a Target store because I think all of those little circles resemble the company's bullseye logo. In addition, the majority of people I showed it to thought it was a girl's machine, probably because it is white and has that circle design on the lid. Your mileage may vary – I suggest guys go with the black version.

The S12 is constructed of ABS plastic through and through. It looks and feels sturdy and is not fragile at all. The only part of the notebook that could be more solid is the battery, which wobbles ever so slightly. There is little flex anywhere on the machine, with the exception to this being the lid; ripples show on the screen when only mild pressure is put on the back of the screen. This should be a non-issue as long as the machine is not thrown around. The hinges that hold the display on are very solid as well. A point of interest about the lid is that it only tilts back about 20 degrees past vertical; given how light this machine is, it will likely be used in a variety of situations and therefore should probably tilt back another 10-20 degrees or so.

The entire base of the notebook has a matte finish, while the lid is glossy plastic front and back. The glossy plastic is surprisingly durable; I did not use a sleeve to protect the S12 in my bag during the week I had it and there were no scratches at the end of the review period.

The glossy screen attracts dust and fingerprints easily, so keep a microfiber cloth handy. As far as cleanliness goes, the white plastic stayed clean during the time I had it; only time will tell how it fares in the long term. Hopefully the plastic is not too absorbent and will not pick up stains and other discolorations. The black S12 is be better at hiding everyday wear and tear.

Compared to the Dell Inspiron Mini 12, a direct competitor to the Lenovo S12, the S12 is slightly smaller (albeit about a tenth of an inch thicker). The S12 feels deceptively heavy in the hands depending on how you pick it up (by the back, front, and so on). The stick-out 6-cell battery is the primary reason the S12 feels weighty.

Overall, the S12 has excellent fit and finish with an accommodating design.

Screen and Speakers
The S12 has a 12-inch widescreen display (16:10 aspect ratio) with a 1280x800 resolution and LED backlighting. Contrast and brightness are excellent; the LEDs lighting the display (instead of the traditional CCFL lighting used in most notebooks) make for a very even brightness distribution, with only a hint of bleed at the bottom. There are ten levels of brightness; I found level 7 or 8/10 to be the sweet spot, but dimming the screen to 4 or 5/10 are perfectly usable and will extend battery life. The top brightness level is almost too bright. Viewing angles are average at best – from above the picture washes out quickly, and from below it darkens. Side-to-side angles are better but there is noticeable color shift.

Unfortunately the glossy screen coating means a lot of reflections, so using this machine outside or areas with a lot of lighting sources could get annoying.

The 1280x800 resolution of the display is excellent for a netbook; most have 1024x600 or less. The display also has a 16:10 aspect ratio, which is unusual since most manufacturers are moving to 16:9 displays. The higher resolution makes the S12 feel more like a full computer than other netbooks with lower resolutions.

There are two speakers located beneath the palm rests on the S12. These are essentially stereotypical notebook speakers – they get loud enough to hear sounds and are reasonably clear but for situations where audio matters, like movies and music, do make use of the headphone jack.

Speaking of the headphone jack, it is unfortunate that some background hiss is present. It is easily drowned out with audio and most people probably will not even notice it, but to a headphone audiophile like myself, it is disappointing.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The IdeaPad S12's keyboard is, in a word, superb; it is full-size and requires no adjusting from a standard notebook keyboard. There is no flex and key travel is just right. The keyboard feels of high quality and allows for precision typing; each key is anchored securely and does not wobble at all. It has excellent tactile feedback and enough resistance that you can rest your hands on the keyboard in typing position without pressing keys accidentally. Lenovo designers made good use of the keyboard real estate – I am pleased to see the PrintScreen key is its own key and not mapped as a secondary function (as in, needing to press the [Fn] key in conjunction with the corresponding key to use it), and that the PgUp and PgDn keys are near the arrow keys. The Home and End keys are secondary function keys, but looking at the space the designers had to deal with, it was clearly not an option to make them separate as well.

All in all, this is one of the best netbook/notebook keyboards I have used in a long time.

The touchpad has its ups and downs. While tracking is easy and it is reasonably accurate, it is a bit too small – I found myself running out of room often. If it measured a half-centimeter more in diameter, it would be perfect. The touchpad buttons provide good feedback and make an audible but not annoying click when depressed. The buttons are easy to find by feel and other than wishing they were slightly larger, I have no complaints about them.

Ports and Features
The IdeaPad S12 has a limited selection of ports – let's take a picture tour. All descriptions are left to right.

Left Side: Power jack, exhaust vent, wireless on/off switch, two USB, media card reader (MMC/MS/MS Pro/SD)

Right Side: ExpressCard/34 slot, headphone and microphone jacks, USB, VGA out, 10/100 Ethernet, Kensington Lock slot

Front: Stereo speakers

Back: Battery

The S12 has the essentials; given what a netbook is designed to do, the port selection is difficult to complain about.

Performance
I used the S12 more or less as my primary computer for one week and I quickly found out what a netbook is good for and what it is not good for. Its Internet surfing performance is reasonable, as is its performance in most everyday activities such as playing music and reading email. OpenOffice.org ran without any hitches. I was able to use Firefox and listen to iTunes simultaneously without trouble.

That said, doing anything more strenuous than surfing the Internet can quickly overwhelm the Intel Atom processor. Despite its Hyper-Threading technology, which makes Windows think it has two cores, the Intel Atom is still a single-core processor and a very limited one at that, and therefore multitasking with several programs is not going to be smooth. Alt-tabbing between applications is not instant. In everyday performance, users coming from faster computers will notice programs take longer to open, web pages take longer to render, and in general performance is toned down a notch. Going through ten megapixel images and trying to watch high-res movies from my video camera were clearly too much for it to handle. Know the limits of a netbook before you buy one.

Overall, the S12 is what a netbook is supposed to be – a more portable compliment to a user's primary computer. I found the S12 to be a great companion at work – I used it to listen to music and keep a web browser with my email open. For everyday tasks, the performance is just fine.

All netbooks generally have the same specifications and therefore will have nearly identical performance. Nonetheless, we run a full set of benchmarks for each netbook reviewed.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Sony VAIO TZ (Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76.240 seconds
HP Pavilion dv2 (AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 @ 1.60GHz)	103.521 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	114.749 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	116.030 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	116.421 seconds
Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.6GHz)	122.247 seconds
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	123.281 seconds
Dell Latitude 2100 (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	124.062 seconds
Acer Aspire One (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	125.812 seconds
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (2009) (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	126.406 seconds
Lenovo IdeaPad S12 (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	134.374 seconds
ASUS Eee PC T91 (Intel Atom Z520 @ 1.33GHz)	141.031 seconds
Samsung NC20 (VIA Nano ULV U2250 @ 1.30GHz)	173.968 seconds

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Sony VAIO TZ (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	2,446 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv2 (1.60GHz AMD Athlon Neo, ATI Radeon HD 3410 512MB)	2,191 PCMarks
ASUS N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,851 PCMarks
Toshiba Portege R500 (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	1,839 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1005HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,637 PCMarks
Dell Latitude 2100 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,588 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1008HA (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,564 PCMarks
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,555 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,535 PCMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 (1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, Intel GMA 950)	1,511 PCMarks
Lenovo IdeaPad S12 (1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, Intel GMA 950)	1,449 PCMarks
Samsung NC20 (1.30GHz VIA Nano ULV U2250, VIA Chrome9 HC3)	1,441 PCMarks
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,437 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC T91 (1.33GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,292 PCMarks

Video Playback Performance:

Video Resolution	CPU Usage	Playback Comments
480p	25%-35% (hyperthreading)	Plays flawlessly
720p	40%-50% (hyperthreading)	Plays flawlessly
1080p	60%-75% (hyperthreading)	Plays with severe stutter, and broken audio

HDTune for the hard drive performance:

Heat and Noise
The S12 has one small cooling fan which gently pushes lukewarm air out of an exhaust vent on the left side of the machine. The fan is on the majority of the time while in use. The fan is nearly silent – I had trouble hearing it when there was any background noise.

The surface of the S12 does not get warm at all – there are no noticeable hotspots on the bottom or top of the machine. The S12 is a very good choice for those wanting a quiet and cool machine.

Battery Life
At half brightness (5/10) while typing this review and surfing the Internet, the S12 managed five hours of battery life. Lenovo includes a custom power configuration utility with the S12, from which I used the second-most power conscious setting, Low Power. Lenovo claims the S12 can go for six hours, which I suppose could be reached using the Super Energy Saver profile, but it sets the screen brightness down to near zero and barely anything is visible on the screen. Under normal use, expect the S12 to be usable for at least four and a half hours. With a power-saving SSD instead of a mechanical hard drive, I imagine the battery life would be a bit longer.

Conclusion
The IdeaPad S12 is excellence in a small form factor at a low price. The overall design is very pleasing to the eyes and it has the best netbook keyboard I have used to date. Build quality is solid and the screen is beautiful. There is little complain about on the S12 – sure, the touchpad could be a bit larger and the screen could tilt back further, but other than that, if you are in the market for a netbook with a larger screen, it is difficult to go wrong with the Lenovo IdeaPad S12.

Pros:

• Pleasing design
• Solid build quality
• Excellent keyboard and screen
• Five hours of battery life

Cons:

• Touchpad could be a bit larger
• Screen could tilt back further
• Back of the lid could use a bit more protection

READ MORE - Lenovo Idea Pad S12 Review

Lenovo G550

The new Lenovo G550 is an update to the Value Line G530 with the primary difference being the shift from a 16:10 to a 16:9 screen. This is becoming a common trend for most manufacturers, as they shift to the now more standardized 16:9 screens. The biggest question on our minds is how well this updated budget notebook performs; considering the previous revision earned our Editor's Choice award.

Lenovo Value line G550 Specifications:

• Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200 (2.00GHz, 1MB L2 cache, 800MHz FSB)
• Microsoft Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (w/ SP1)
• 15.6-inch glossy 16:9 display (1366x768)
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD
• 3GB DDR3 1066MHz RAM
• 250GB Western Digital 5400RPM HDD
• SuperMulti DVD+/-RW Optical Drive
• Broadcom WiFi (802.11b/g), 10/100 Ethernet, Modem
• 6-Cell 11.1V 48WHr Battery
• Limited 1-year standard parts and labor warranty
• Dimensions: LxWxH, 14.9 x 9.6 x 1.4"
• Weight: 5lbs 9.0oz
• Price as configured: $549

Build and Design
The design of the G550 has changed slightly from the G530, switching from a smooth matte exterior finish, to a black weave pattern. The new cover is every bit as strong as the last one, preventing any screen distortion even if you hit or flex the back of the screen. The interior of the notebook shares the same color as the lid, but is textured with a rougher matte finish similar to what you would find on unpainted sections of a ThinkPad. Lenovo took the back-to-basics route with the color scheme on this notebook, making it entirely black inside and out.

The chassis is constructed entirely of plastic, but where most budget notebooks might feel flexible or flimsy, the G550 feels like a solid block of sturdy material. When talking about the palm rest on most notebooks, including ThinkPads, notebooks with good support still show some flex under a very strong grip. Somehow squeezing the palm rests on the G550 feels like you are trying to squeeze a rock. Other areas of the notebook share the same toughness, including the keyboard and surrounding trim.

To upgrade components the G550 has easy access panels to the memory and CPU, wireless card, and hard drive on the bottom of the notebook. No components, including the processor, had "warranty void if removed" stickers, making it very easy to handle upgrades or repairs in the future.

Screen and Speakers
The 15.6" LCD is average compared to most 15-16" notebooks, with bright and vibrant colors and decent viewing angles. The G550's big change is the transition away from the 16:10 screen size to the wider (but shorter) 16:9 panels. The screen offers a glossy surface, which helps improve colors and contrast at the cost of added reflections and glare. Compared to "frameless" displays the reflections were tolerable as long as you were not outside under direct sunlight. Screen brightness was adequate for viewing in bright office conditions, but might not cut it outside unless it is an overcast day. Vertical viewing angles were adequate with a broad viewing sweet spot measuring 30 degrees forward or back before colors started to wash out or invert. Horizontal view angles were much better, showing minimal color distortion at steep angles.

The speakers are located on the front edge of the palmrest and sound more than adequate for playing music or watching streaming video. Sound quality isn't the best compared to other notebooks of this size with a tinny sound that lacks bass. Headphones would be a good accessory for this notebook.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard is easy to type on, sharing the same comfortable and durable feel as my ThinkPad T60 keyboard and only differing in layout. Individual key action is smooth with no audible click when pressed. The keys are textured with a smooth matte finish, giving decent traction for typing ... unlike the glossy keyboards we are seeing on a greater number of notebooks these days. Keyboard support is excellent, barely a hint of flex on the main section of the keyboard. The newer 16:9 chassis on the G550 allowed Lenovo to add a numberpad to the keyboard, but they didn't change the support under that side of the keyboard frame. It doesn't appear to have much flex, but it has just enough to make a squeaking sound against the optical drive when press down. Media-related keys are limited to touch-sensitive mute and volume up/down buttons located above the keyboard.

Lenovo transitioned to a new touchpad on the G550, switching from the Synaptics model on the G530 to an ALPS pad. The ALPS pad doesn't have as quick of a refresh rate, so at times it feels like the pointer is lagging behind your finger. Another problem is the surface isn't as sensitive for users who like to use tap to click and tap to drag frequently. On the Synaptics pad it is easy to drag and lift off, while the ALPS models seem to need a strong tap at the end, otherwise it won't let go of the selected item and you keep dragging it around the screen. The touchpad buttons are similar to the old ones, with shallow feedback and giving off a positive "click" when pressed.

Ports and Features
Although the G550 is now larger than the G530, Lenovo still managed to decrease the amount of ports available. The ExpressCard slot is missing, USB ports are down from four to three, and the modem jack is gone. I can see no other reason besides cutting costs for such a loss of features.

Front: Wireless on/off, audio jacks

Rear: Screen hinge

Left: Kensington Lock slot, LAN, VGA, two USB

Right: one USB, optical drive, AC power

Performance and Benchmarks
The Lenovo G550 works very well as a desktop replacement notebook, handling most tasks with ease. The target market for this notebook includes small businesses, students, or home users looking for a basic machine. The G550 has no problems surfing the web, playing SD or HD movies, or playing the occasional 2D game like Peggle. Compared to the older G530, Lenovo switched from using DDR2 memory in favor of DDR3 which is faster and now becoming cheaper. In theory this change could have meant greater performance, but we didn't see any significant change. Both PCMark05 and 3DMark06 dropped, while wPrime saw a small boost in speed.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Lenovo T500 (Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 @ 2.8GHz)	27.471s
HP EliteBook 8530w (Intel Core 2 Duo T9400 @ 2.53GHz)	30.919s
Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 (Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.4GHz)	32.275s
HP ProBook 4510s (Intel Core 2 Duo T6570 @2.1GHz)	36.583s
Lenovo G550 (Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200 @ 2.00GHz)	38.172s
Lenovo G530 (Intel Pentium Dual-Core T3400 @ 2.16GHz)	38.470s
Dell Vostro 1510 (Intel Core 2 Duo T5670 @ 1.8GHz)	51.875s

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Lenovo T500 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, ATI Radeon 3650 256MB GDDR3)	7,050 PCMarks
HP EliteBook 8530w (2.53GHz Intel T9400, Nvidia Quadro FX 770M 512MB)	6,287 PCMarks
Lenovo T500 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, Intel X4500)	5,689 PCMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 (2.4GHz Intel P8600, Nvidia 9300M GS 256MB)	5,390 PCMarks
HP ProBook 4510s (2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6570, Intel 4500MHD)	4,192 PCMarks
Lenovo G530 (2.16GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core T3400, Intel Intel 4500MHD)	4,110 PCMarks
Lenovo G550 (2.00GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200, Intel Intel 4500MHD)	3,964 PCMarks
Dell Vostro 1510 (1.8GHz Intel T5670, Intel X3100)	3,568 PCMarks

3DMark06 measures overall graphics performance for gaming (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
HP EliteBook 8530w (2.53GHz Intel T9400, Nvidia Quadro FX 770M 512MB)	5,230 3DMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad T500 (2.80GHz Intel T9600, ATI Radeon 3650 256MB GDDR3)	4,371 3DMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad SL500 (2.4GHz Intel P8600, Nvidia 9300M GS 256MB)	2,242 3DMarks
Lenovo ThinkPad T500 (2.80GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9600, Intel X4500)	809 3DMarks
HP ProBook 4510s (2.1GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T6570, Intel 4500MHD)	748 3DMarks
Lenovo G530 (2.16GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core T3400, Intel Intel 4500MHD)	730 3DMarks
Lenovo G550 (2.00GHz Intel Pentium Dual-Core T4200, Intel Intel 4500MHD)	716 3DMarks
Dell Vostro 1510 (1.8GHz Intel T5670, Intel X3100)	519 3DMarks

HDTune storage drive performance test:

Heat and Noise
Thermal performance of the G550 is very good thanks to the large chassis, slower processor, and integrated graphics. Under stress the system controlled temperatures very well, and under normal loads the bottom of the notebook and palmrests stayed cool to the touch. Fan noise was minimal, with it staying off under light system loads, and going just above a whisper under intensive use. The one hotspot that stood out on the G550 was the panel beneath the hard drive that warmed up considerably if you were stressing the disk. The temperatures shown below are listed in degrees Fahrenheit:

Battery
The new Lenovo G550 uses a slightly smaller battery than the G530, but with a more efficient processor it consumes less power and gets longer runtimes. The G550 stayed running for 4 hours and 18 minutes in our tests with the screen brightness reduced to 70%, Vista on the "Balanced" power profile, and wireless active. This is better than the original 3 hours and 29 minutes the G530 managed with a larger battery. While I hate to see the battery capacity decrease, at least the efficiency made up for it and gave us a net gain in battery life.

Conclusion
The Lenovo G550 is a very solid and durable notebook, but now is missing some of the features that were standard on the previous revision. From what could only be considered cost-cutting measures, Lenovo took away one USB port, removed the ExpressCard slot, and moved to an ALPS touchpad. These types of changes might not look as bad if the retail price also dropped, but it is selling for the same price as (if not slightly more than) the previous model. I would still gladly take this model over a lot of the small-business targeted notebooks on the market, but it is just a shame that it is no longer as nice as it once was.

Pros:

• Almost tough enough to stand on
• Textured interior and exterior finish hides smudges and fingerprints
• Comfortable and solid keyboard

Cons:

• Missing features from previous revision

READ MORE - Lenovo G550

Lenovo ThinkPad T400s Touch

Multi-touch functionality is one of the newest features being added to notebooks and tablets alike. Currently only tablets offer screen manipulation of objects, whereas notebooks get limited multi-touch through touchpads. Lenovo is hoping to change this, by adding screen multi-touch capabilities to the thin and light Lenovo ThinkPad T400s. For an additional $400 over the base T400s, users get a touchscreen panel, albeit a non-pivoting one. In this review we take a look at the new T400s Touch with Windows 7, and see if we actually find an increase in our productivity.

Our Lenovo ThinkPad T400s Touch specifications:

• Windows 7 Professional
• 1440 x 900 WXGA+ with MultiTouch LED Backlit (Matte finish)
• Intel Core 2 Duo SP9600 (2.53GHz, 1066MHz FSB, 6MB Cache)
• 4GB DDR3 RAM (2GB x 2)
• 128GB Toshiba SSD
• DVD+/-RW
• Intel 5100AGN, Bluetooth 2.0
• Intel X4500M Integrated
• Built-in web camera
• 6-cell 11.1v 44Wh
• Dimensions: (LxWxH) 13.27 x 9.49 x 0.83"
• Weight: 4lbs 6.9oz
• Retail Price: $1,999 Starting

Build and Design

The new ThinkPad T400s looks completely revamped and polished compared to the regular T400. The chassis has slimmed down significantly, and the weight of the notebook has also dropped by almost a pound. The exterior is still wrapped in Lenovo's much-loved rubberized black paint, but the design just looks cleaner and less busy than previous ThinkPad models.

Looking inside, the main changes start to become obvious. Besides the new keyboard and touchpad that we will go over shortly, Lenovo changed the shape of the palmrest around the touchpad, with the touchpad resting flush with the palmrest instead of being slightly recessed. The screen bezel is smooth all around the perimeter of the display, unlike the T400 which shows rough plastic grids near the built-in antennas and cutouts near the light and webcam. Even when compared to the ThinkPad X301, the new T400s looks more refined. The speaker grills are larger and look better suited to the design. Even the fingerprint reader manages to blend in better, with an all-black design instead of gold and silver like past models.

Build quality is still fantastic, with barely a hint of chassis flex even as it has decreased in thickness. The screen has some minor side-to-side flex when open, but no more than previous models. Protection for the screen, even with the super thin cover is surprisingly good, showing only small amounts of screen distortion when you are squeezing the back of the display. The new chassis feels quite rugged.

With the thinner design Lenovo completely reworked the chassis for the T400s, and it looks completely different than the T400 once you start opening it up. The hard drive is now accessed through a panel under the left side of the palmrest, which is now 1.8" instead of the 2.5" found in the T400. System memory and wireless cards are found under a single access panel on the bottom of the notebook. Compared to removing the palmrest on previous models, you now just loosen one screw and pop off a single panel to upgrade memory. With most of the slots changing location to the underside of the notebook, removing the keyboard is now only required to replace a broken one, or to get access to a half-sized mini-PCIe slot used for Wireless USB on some models. I really hope future ThinkPads follow a similar design to the T400s, since it is so much easier to upgrade components now.

Screen and Speakers

The T400s Touch uses a similar panel as the regular T400s, but with a touch surface added to the display. Everest indicates the panel part number as a Samsung made LT141DEQ8B00, with an N-Trig multitouch device. Just like the regular T400s, the screen has a WGXA+ resolution and is LED-backlit. Overall the screen looks nearly identical, but with one downside that is shared with nearly all touchscreens. Touch panels appear to have a hazy layer over the screen, although on the T400s it is not as apparent. Users who have never seen a notebook and tablet side-by-side might not notice this difference, but if you are coming from a regular notebook you may be slightly annoyed. Color and contrast are good compared to business notebooks, but it might seem washed out next to the latest and greatest glossy consumer-notebook display. Backlight levels are strong, with my preferred setting being 50-60% at my home and about 75% at the office that has brighter overhead lighting. Backlight bleed is minimal, only barely coming through at the highest brightness levels.

The touch surface is a unique feature for a notebook. On one hand you can directly manipulate objects without a mouse or touchpad, but on the other you have a fixed screen that can't rotate like a tablet. Another inherent flaw of multitouch is that since it uses your finger as the pointer, it will never be as precise or accurate as a pen-input touch surface. This means that the controls are crude at best, using gesture or tap-based commands. In this area the multitouch screen works great. Scrolling around websites is easy with one finger, although sometimes the screen detects two inputs and starts to zoom the page. While drawing circles, we noticed some issues with our preproduction screen, where certain parts of the panel would get jittery, instead of showing smooth lines. As our model has a very early panel in it, it would be safe to say production models wouldn't have this problem.

Lenovo included new software to take advantage of the multi-touch features, with the primary one being Simple Tap. This application gives the user direct access to basic system features like volume and camera controls, wireless devices, and screen brightness. Each control is given its own tile, and you can add application shortcuts to the list if you want. Simply tapping the screen with two fingers brings up the tiles on top of any window.

Speaker performance was lackluster, but that is common on most business notebooks. They work well for streaming audio or having a VOIP chat, but for movies and entertainment the headphone jack is a much better alternative.

Keyboard and Touchpad

Yes, Lenovo significantly changed the look, feel, and layout of the keyboard on the T400s. After you pick yourself up off the floor from fainting, you will quickly see most of the changes are for the better. The feel of the keys remains mostly untouched from past models ... outside of the fact that the spacebar seems to click loudly if you press it on the edges. The biggest change comes with a redesigned function key section, offering larger "escape" and "delete" keys. Through in-depth research Lenovo found that those two keys were used more than other function keys. As a result they doubled the height, and moved the position of the insert key and F1 key.

I think the coolest difference is the new media buttons and power button. The power switch and mute keys light up when activated, so instead of the power icon showing up on the bottom edge of your screen, the button itself is the indicator. The caps lock button now features a translucent window with an LED that lights up to indicate the caps lock is turned on. One thing that is missing is an AC and battery indicator light facing you with the screen open, as they are now external only.

The T400s offers one feature I have yet to see on any other notebook to date: a speaker AND microphone mute button. While I am not sure how often I personally need to turn off my microphone, if you videoconference or use Skype frequently then a quickly accessed mute button would come in handy. Another minor change is the key tolerances have decreased, meaning there is less room for crumbs or dust to fall in-between keys.

The new touchpad is different, but I am having a hard time figuring out if that is a good or bad thing. The old design used a slightly rough matte plastic finish, which gave some traction and made it easy to move your finger around even if sweaty. The new design has a raised dimple finish with a softer texture that feels strange. I found myself increasing the sensitivity in the Synaptics control panel to make movement feel more fluid, but then found it too sensitive. It seems that you need to apply consistent pressure when moving over the new touchpad, where before it was easy to flick your finger across. I think if the bumpy surface was glossy or more slick I might enjoy it more.

Another change is the shape and size of the trackpad buttons. The buttons have a radius contour that goes through the buttons to the edges where they meet the palmrest. From a design standpoint they flow better with the notebook than previous attempts, and it is even easier to access them from the touchpad now.

Ports and Features

Port selection on the T400s has been greatly improved over the T400 model. New to the back of the T400s is an eSATA port for storage expansion and DisplayPort out, giving you digital video from the notebook itself. Just like the T400 it has three USB ports, one through a combo USB/eSATA port. Lenovo has kept the VGA port for legacy connections, since it is still used frequently for projectors. With the decrease in thickness the T400s lost its dual card slots, only keeping an ExpressCard/34 slot. The T400s offers a docking station connector on the bottom, but it is a new design that is incompatible with older models. The last big change came with the T60, and I can just hope that this docking station format stays the same for a few notebook generations to come.

Performance

The Lenovo ThinkPad T400s Touch is the first "official" Windows 7 notebook we have had in for review. This means it has all the proper manufacturer drivers, and the newest Windows 7 designed utilities. On most review notebooks we have personally upgraded to Windows 7, we have seen decent performance bumps, but this was not the case with the T400s. From the first review the only items that have changed are the OS, new touchscreen, SSD from a different manufacturer, and RAM, which is now double at 4GB. All aspects of day-to-day performance seem very snappy, including boot times, application load times, and HD movie playing. When we went to test its synthetic performance we noticed a pretty drastic hit to PCMark05 and a slightly smaller hit to wPrime. 3DMark06 was the only benchmark that actually increased. Some of this may be driver related, since technically Windows 7 hasn't officially launched, but it still goes against what we have seen on other computers. Another possibility is the touch surface is polling for gestures, and taking up precious CPU cycles. The average user would probably never notice this, as we can't actually see any performance drop in day-to-day use.

wPrime Processor Performance Benchmark (lower scores mean better performance):

PCMark05 Overall Performance Benchmark (higher scores mean better performance):

Synthetic Gaming Performance using 3DMark06 (higher scores mean better performance):

HDTune Hard Drive Performance Benchmark:

Heat and Noise

We found the T400s Touch ran slightly warmer than the standard T400s in our tests. While both notebooks showed the same heat zones, the T400s Touch was about 3-4 degrees warmer in each area. Some of this could be related to room temperature, or it could be related to certain components being able to run hotter or faster under Windows 7 while under a moderate load. Overall nothing ran too hot to be non-lap-friendly, but it was a surprising find. Fan noise was similar to the standard T400s, staying off for most of time, only coming on while benchmarking or small bursts to cool internal components. External temperatures listed below are shown in degrees Fahrenheit.

Battery Life

Battery life was somewhat of a surprise with the T400s Touch. Even with the added power consumption of the touch interface, it still managed to get better battery life than the non-touch version. In our battery test with the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and the system on the Balanced profile, it managed 6 hours and 19 minutes. The standard T400s only managed 5 hours and 48 minutes under similar conditions. This might be one area where Windows 7 shines, with less background processes or more efficient use of the processor. Both of these times are much less than the T400 with an extended battery though, almost reaching 10 hours with its 9-cell extended battery.

Conclusion

The Lenovo ThinkPad T400s Touch is a very cool idea, bringing a touch interface to a standard notebook. It gives users the capability to interact with the computer on a much more natural level and has huge potential for CAD applications or even messing around while surfing the web. The only problem right now that I see is that it was added to an already expensive model, putting it well out of reach for most users. Adding it on the base T400, which starts $749, instead of the T400s which starts at $1,599 would have been the better choice. Besides some preproduction quirks we saw it was a good implementation that didn't even affect battery life. If you are looking at the T400s currently, and could expand the budget by $400, it might be worth adding to the notebook for future uses.

Pros:

• First regular notebook to offer multitouch
• No battery hit from the touch surface

Cons:

• Software supporting full multi-touch controls is still limited
• Expensive upgrade to gain touch controls

READ MORE - Lenovo ThinkPad T400s Touch