ThinkPad T400 Save Extra 5%
- Average user rating: 4.5 stars out of 8 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
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2 out of 2 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"Impressive for "Netbook""
Pros: - Fast, fast, fast!
- Aesthetically designed well, structurally sturdy
- Despite reports of heat, doesn't get hot at all.Cons: - Wishing for 6 cell battery
Summary: I'll start with the pros:
- Fan is annoying
- Trackpad software is annoying
- Keyboard may take getting used to.
I am used to using an Intel Core 2 Duo @ 2.4 GHz, and the speed of the Ideapad S10 processor took me by surprise. I was prepared to sit and wait for everything to process like the Pentium 4's of old. Not the case at all for this netbook. Startup goes from the press of the button to the Windows desktop in 20 seconds (minus sign in time). Perfectly adequate for doing word processing, watching videos (I don't have any HD videos to test this with), light gaming (I run older games like Starcraft and Warcraft 3 on this), and listening to music.
The case is what really made me decide on this netbook; the HP Mini 1000 has a very nice keyboard, but I'm not a fan of the swirls on the LCD cover. The Ideapad S10 has a Sony/Apple look to it that surprised me considering it was coming from Lenovo, champion of chunky Thinkpads. Not only is it aesthetically simple, yet sophisticated, it has some of that Thinkpad magic that makes it very sturdy. I've not had any part of this Ideapad that made me think, "well, that'll break pretty easily." Every part is held together very well, and the workmanship is easily apparent.
Loading software on this was a bit tricky as my software is usually on CDs. What I eventually had to do was either share my PC DVD drive on the network and connect to it through the Ideapad, or make ISOs of the software and transfer them over using my USB thumbdrive. I suppose that's what happens when you don't have an external DVD/CD drive available.
I have run World of Warcraft on this machine, just to see how well it could perform; with the 1 GB of RAM, it didn't really have much memory to work with to get the best performance. However, throughout this test, I haven't noticed any perceptible heat, as was reported from some reviews.
Now that I've finished raving, on to the cons:
I generally get 3 hours of battery life from the 3 cell battery - this was using the "Performance" setting on the power management, and just doing some browsing, Youtube watching, and chatting online. It seems okay if you are planning on using this for a short stint at the local coffee shop, but I'm not sure about the performance on say, a long flight. The wireless internet would probably be off, and the battery life may be better as a result. Still, a 6 cell battery option would be nice without "hacking" the URL at lenovo.com.
The fan is annoying. If anything taxes the processor beyond a certain point, the fan turns on. If that program then slows down the utilization of the processor, the fan turns off. It seems that there is no middle ground on the fan speed, so you get that effect of a "cat playing with a fan switch".
The trackpad software is annoying as well; there is a feature with the Synaptics touchpad that allows you to draw a circle on the trackpad to scroll. I have found that this feature works about half the time - I have only gotten it to work while in the practice area in the utility. The other half of the time, the mouse cursor changes to show that you're in that mode, but circle as you will, nothing actually happens. Most of the time, it just gets in the way of using the scroll bars on the sides of the trackpad. Thankfully, the feature can be disabled.
I am a touch typist, so I approached netbooks in general with a preparation that I had to get used to the keyboard to type at a reasonable speed. In general, typing words is not a problem on the Ideapad S10, but it's typing numbers that really gets me. A minor gripe, which is nearly universal for all netbooks, but a consideration for those of you who are touch typists.
Overall, I'm still very much in love with this tiny notebook, and with the features that may be released to us current owners of the Ideapad S10 from the CES show (Instant on OS, Face recognition security), I'm sure I'll keep loving this for awhile yet.
Where to buy
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (Black):
$371.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
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Nu-Image Corporation
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$371.99 | No |
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