Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 Netbook – Depth Review
Sunday, July 18 2010
Lenovo’s IdeaPad S10-3 is designed for business users, with a great keyboard and a multi-touch touchpad…
Everything Lenovo sells, including the $369 IdeaPad S10-3 netbook, appears to be interested for the boardroom or meeting room. This 2.6 pound, business -oriented model is a bit pricier for its spec than the competition. Most other 10.1 inch, 1024×600 resolution netbook with the sam 1GB netbook Intel N450 CPU and 3150 GPU combination sell for $10 to $50 less; they also have a more-capacious 250GB hard drive (the S10-3′s is 160GB). While the 160GB is more than enough for most users, you are still getting a little less of the basic and paying a bit extra for the business feature and software.
Or it is the ergonomics you’re paying for? The innovative multitouch combination of touchpad and rocket button on the S10-3 is a relief for anyone who hates inadvertently tapping while dragging or hunting for buttons. Simply apply a little pressure to the bottom left or right corner of the device, and you have to click.
Another time-honored Lenovo strength is the keyboard, and the S10-3 doesn’t disappoint their either. the typing feel is as good as you’ll find aon a netbook, with no scrunched or mispaced keys. Working with this netbook feel less like using a netbook than doing so with any other 10.1-incher I’ve ever tried.
Lenovo also bundled some interesting software. most of it, such as the VeriFace facial recognition security, is aimed squarely at business user. Lock down the system with the password, and VeriFace will log you on by scanning your mug using the Webcam. It work rather well , and is fun. But logging on this way is slow and gets tiring after a while.
Additional apps include DirectShare, which syncs files and folder across your network, and OneKey Recovery, which images your hard drive for disaster recovery (though Windows can do this). Unfortunately, you don’t get even Microsoft Works. No doubt Lenovo thought business users wpuld have their own productivity suite, or would activate the Office 2007 trial.
Other spec are standard for netbooks. You get three USb ports: one on theleft with the VGA port and SDHC slot, and two on the right with ethernet and audio input and output. The AC port and a wireless switch are on the left. The Hard Drive, memory and free Mini PCI express slot are easily accessible via a removable panel on the bottom.
The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 ran for 8 hours, 27 minutes in out battery tests, but its performance score of 31 on World-Bench 6 is subpar even for a netbook, and the Windows 7 Starter Operating System feel sluggish (Lenovo piles on background process via software thar duplicates Windows capabilities). Uninstalling unnecessary apps helps quite bit.
Regrettably, 720p HD Video played smoothly only when transcoded to the very efficient QuickTime MP4 codec. WMV was a complete fail, and other MP4 implementations continually stuttered or stalled. On teh other hand, audio through the S10-3′s speakers sounded better than on most netbooks.
Though it’s pricier, slightly less well-configured, and slower out of the box than much of its competition, Lenovo’s IdeaPad S10-3 is a netbook than remains more than the sum of its parts. Give its ergonomics a try.
