+Frank B. Subscriber² Posted January 24, 2010 Subscriber² Share Posted January 24, 2010 (edited) Specifications: CPU: Intel Atom N270, 1.6 GHz RAM: 2 GB DDR2 Hard drive: 250 GB GPU: Nvidia ION Screen: 12.1" Screen resolution: 1280 x 800 Ports: 3 USB ports, ethernet, HDMI out, VGA out, headset connector Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 32 Bit Weight: 1.5 kg Price: 444 € at amazon.de (Windows XP version with only 1 GB RAM and 160 GB HDD available for 279 €.) I've wanted a small laptop/netbook for a while already. The question was what to get. A Macbook (Pro) to complement the iMac I have? Too expensive for what I need it to do, i.e. go online and run Office apps and the occasional casual game. A cheap Wintel laptop? I scratched that idea after looking at the build quality of some of them. A netbook à la eeePC 100x? A bit too small for my liking. After some looking around I found the Lenovo ideapad S12 to be the device which suits my needs best. Reasons: Full size keyboard + decently sized screen running at a usable resolution - check. Small and light enough to take it anywhere I go - check. Doesn't look like arse and has a solid build quality - check. Runs Windows 7 - check. (There is no way I'd have put up with Windows XP or a Linux distribution.) I ordered the device on January 12th and had it in my hands by the 14th. The first impression confirmed what I had read in reviews: It's a solid little laptop which quite obviously carries the genes of its bigger (yet imho uglier) ThinkPad brothers. The keyboard in particular looks and works exactly like the good old ThinkPad ones. The screen, while glossy, looks great under all circumstances I've been able to test it under thus far. Note: There hasn't been a sunny day around here since I have the device; I still expect the display to work well outside in bright sunlight. Some may consider text at 1280 x 800 at a screen size of 12.1" too small. I find it perfectly readable - your mileage may vary. The pre-installed Windows 7 Home Premium came with surprisingly little bloatware installed. The only things I removed were McAfee Internet Security, which was quickly replaced by MSE, and a trial version of Office 2007 Home and Student, which was replaced by the Office 2010 beta. The Lenovo tools for power management etc were deemed useful enough to keep them. Performance-wise the Ideapad is fast enough, even for some older games like TF2 - the latter thanks to the built-in Nvidia ION chipset. Screenshot of the WEI (it's in German, but you'll get the idea): The only limiting factor is obviously the CPU performance. The rest is quite beefy for a netbook though. That said the gaming performance is not of much importance to me, as noted above. It still is great to have the option of being able to run games on it. For all other everyday tasks the device performs very well. One nice side effect of the ION graphics chipset is that with the current Nvidia drivers (version 196.21 at the time I'm writing this) and the Adobe Flash Player 10.1 beta you get GPU acceleration for YouTube and the like. As a result even HD videos on YouTube run smoother than on my 2-year-old iMac. All in all the Lenovo Ideapad S12 is a good middle ground between 10" netbooks and 13"/14" Core2Duo/Celeron-based laptops. At 444 € for the configuration I have it's not exactly cheap, admitted; but in my humble opinion it's worth every cent I paid. Rating: 9/10 stars. Edited January 24, 2010 by Mephistopheles brentaal 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
watchthisspace Posted February 4, 2010 Share Posted February 4, 2010 Great review! Two questions: 1. Is it loud? Noticable fan noise?? 2. What's the battery life like? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Frank B. Subscriber² Posted February 5, 2010 Author Subscriber² Share Posted February 5, 2010 Great review! Two questions: 1. Is it loud? Noticable fan noise?? 2. What's the battery life like? 1. Fan noise is not an issue unless it's under full load, e.g. while playing YouTube HD videos. 2. Battery life is between 4 and 5 hours, again depending on usage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
watchthisspace Posted February 9, 2010 Share Posted February 9, 2010 Awesome! Many thanks :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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