Lenovo announces first Netbook

Lenovo's first Netbook, the IdeaPad S10, will hit stores in October.

(Credit: Lenovo)

If you had Lenovo in your who-will-be-the-next-to-release-a-Netbook pool, come forward and claim your prize.

Lenovo on Monday announced the IdeaPad S10, the company's first Netbook, scheduled for an October release. Ingredients that make up the IdeaPad S10 include a 10.2-inch LED-backlit display, an Intel Atom processor, a keyboard that's 85 percent the size of a full-size laptop keyboard, and Windows XP. Lenovo will release two models initially.

A $399 model will include 512MB of RAM and an 80GB hard drive, and $449 will bump those specs up to 1GB of memory and a 160GB drive. The IdeaPad S10 will be available in white, black, and red, and Lenovo states it weighs just north of 2 pounds and measures roughly one-inch thick.

Lenovo's Netbook will also feature a Webcam, a pair of USB ports, a 4-in-1 card reader, and most notably, an ExpressCard slot. An ExpressCard slot gives you the option of adding a mobile broadband card, an attractive add-on for Netbook wanderers who may not always find themselves within reach of Wi-Fi.

A noticeably absent feature is a solid-state hard drive, which we believe Lenovo left out to come in at a low $399 price. We've started to see Netbook prices creep upward, as evidenced by the $599 Asus Eee PC 901. Even the MSI Wind at $479 looks spendy when compared with the IdeaPad S10, and MSI's Netbook lacks an ExpressCard slot.

(Credit: Lenovo)

(Credit: Lenovo)

[Berova]

MSI Wind, ASUS EE 1000H were coming and are so tempting... but I've been holding out for their lack of an expresscard slot... which made me consider inexpensive duo cores with expresscard... but they're so darn heavy and battery inadequate (not b/c of the batter, but cuz they're so power-hungry!)... it looks like these ideapads are it! At $449 I could afford to get one for the missus!

[jake49]

This one looks better than msi and asus... i'm still waiting to see what dell has cooking with their mini inspiron series... It's suppost to be released this month... if it's been overhyped, i'd get this

[Andres_A]

looks good...

[ayoung45]

I Crave.

With all these netbooks starting to go above $500, I like the choice of a $399 and $449 option.

[cocopuffz]

Once the unit price of any netbook goes over $399 it starts to lose it's appeal. Atleast for me. I've bought 2 eepc 701 for my cousins in university and they love it. Those were the 2g models. It does the job, very well I might add.

You crack the $399 mark and you may as well get a full function $599 dell or acer notebook at best buy. I will say that this Lenovo looks good for the price. Once it's out, you can probably find it 40 dollars cheaper if you look hard enough.

[Berova]

Unfortunately, a full function $599 notebook also comes at a full weight of 6+lbs and battery life around 2 hours or so, "performance" parameters the new netbooks far exceed in exchange for processor speed, screen size, and (until the S10) storage space. Comparing features for feature, the Lenovo beats MSI and ASUS for the price with more storage space and the expressCard slot, everything else on paper is the same (processor, screen and key size) or close enough.

[DFtone]

One thing no one has commented on is the build quality of MSI and Asus in comparing them to the Lenovo. I think this new Lenovo will be much more robust machine than it's contemporaries. I've been holding out on buying an ultra-portable for two reasons:

1. cheap casing and keyboard
2. lack of an atom processor

Lenovo has answered my wishes and some.

[mikeca1]

I tried the S10 and returned it. The keyboard is too small..it's one big hassle to do work with. I'm a big fan of Thinkpads...using them for many years. I got a stack of them in the garage where they collect dust after I moved on to a newer model. For the heck of it, I gave the S10 a try all I can say is that it is not worth the hassle..stick with one of the ThinkPads..you will be happy if you do.