Review: Lenovo IdeaPad S12 netbook

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Quick Glance

The Good: ExpressCard/34 & 3 USB ports, good keyboard feel, available VIA Nano processor, NVIDIA Ion forthcoming

The Bad: Iffy touchpad, no dedicated Home/End keys

The Rest: Just like every other netbook

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Find the latest deals on Lenovo’s IdeaPad S12 netbook

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Design
Our model is the jetblack S12, sporting very little color on it. The LCD top cover has a design similar to all IdeaPads, there are a couple silver Lenovo logos splashed about, and the usual stickers on the palm rest. If you are a fan of ThinkPad design and want the minimalist look, this is the machine to go for. Lenovo also sells a white one on their U.S. website, but other colors appear to be absent.

The chassis is made entirely out of plastic, as are most netbooks, but it still feels very solid. There is some flex in the base of the system, but it is overall so light you don’t notice it. The LCD top cover is exceptionally rigid, showing very little deformation when taunted.

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The only real failure in the design, at least on the black model, is the system button markings. Those handy buttons like Power, “NOVO” (aka recovery software), Volume, and QuickStart are near impossible to recognize without bright ambient lighting. The markings on the keys are a dull grey and the keys themselves are entirely black, blending into the surrounding chassis. You either need to memorize their locations & respective functions, or peer closely at the laptop. I will touch on this later, but there are also ZERO on-screen indicators for things like volume and screen brightness, making the key situation even worse.

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Keyboard & Touchpad
The keyboard feel and touch is excellent, a trademark of Lenovo notebooks. There is no flex to speak of and the key travel is nice. Keyboard layout is a whole other matter and one that is highly personal. I love the near standard layout offered by the 12-inch chassis, compared to 10-inch netbooks, and I even like the PgUp/PgDn keys on either side of the arrow keys, they are very convenient for scrolling and almost make up for the lack of a TrackPoint.

My gripe about the keyboard comes from someone who writes a lot on a computer and thus I use Home & End extensively when browsing documents. These keys are embedded into Fn actions of the aforementioned PgUp/PgDn keys. You have to compromise something, but I’d rather have seen Pause & Insert made into Fn keys rather than Home & End.

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The touchpad is functional, if on the small side. I found the very slick texture of the touchpad to be a little off-putting, as it was hard to judge just how much pressure I needed to apply. The mouse buttons have very shallow travel, but work just fine. Unfortunately I could never get used to the scroll bar, it just seemed to be very inconsistent, depending on exactly where and how I applied my finger. The rest of the touchpad feels the same way at first, but I was able to adjust to normal pointing motions.

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Display
Netbooks generally don’t have exceptional displays, but they can certainly have bad ones. Lenovo’s IdeaPad S12 comes off as perfectly sufficient, with okay viewing angles, brightness, and colors. The S12, like all netbooks, aren’t very well suited for multimedia, but you won’t be disappointed if you did try to watch some video. It is a glossy screen, but the gloss level is fairly minimal. Viewing angles don’t matter much when you consider that the hinge prevents the LCD from rotating too far back that you lose the optimal angle.

Multimedia
As previously mentioned, netbooks just aren’t cut out for multimedia on the whole. Most units only have Intel integrated graphics which leave all the graphics workload on the wimpy Atom processor. HD video is out of the question and even decent resolution Flash video (aka Hulu or YouTube HD) can be choppy.

Audio, on the other hand, is pretty decent. The speakers have about the same quality as any other average notebook and get sufficiently, if not overly loud. You also have integrated volume and playback controls via Fn-key combinations.

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Features & Technology
It’s a netbook, what were you expecting? Seriously though, most netbooks have the same standard round of features. The S12 stands a bit out from the crowd with an ExpressCard/34 slot and a total of 3 USB 2.0 ports, which should offer numerous expansion options. A 2.5-inch hard drive is used, so you can upgrade with any number of standard, low cost notebook drives; just don’t spring for the uber-fast SSD, as hard drives are limited to the 1.5 Gbps standard.

The most notable technology available in the IdeaPad S12 is VIA’s Nano processor & graphics. The Nano processor should offer a good deal more performance than the Intel Atom, and the same goes for its graphics chipset. I don’t know if that is good enough to watching some HD Hulu without skipping frames, but it should be a noticeable difference. You will of course lose some battery life, as you can’t get something for nothing.

Connectivity & Ports

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Right side (front to back): ExpressCard/34, Headphone output, Microphone input, USB 2.0 port, VGA output, Ethernet, Kensington lock slot

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Left side (front to back): Card reader, (2) USB 2.0 ports, wireless switch, fan vent, AC plug

Front: speakers

Software Preload
Given the lack of multimedia capabilities, and of course optical drive, in the IdeaPad S12, you won’t find as many applications installed out of the box. This is overall a good thing, as it helps from slowing down the already barely-fast-enough netbook. You get the ubiquitous Office 2007 and Norton Internet Security trials, the latter of which was punted as soon as it turned on. There is also a utility for the webcam, but that is about it; overall, nice and light.

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Battery Life
Most netbooks show the same battery life, due to the same size battery coupled with the same technology platform. There are a few exceptions, as some manufacturers have slightly higher capacity batteries tied with software that eeks out every last watt. Lenovo does have power management software, but unfortunately it doesn’t even allow you to change when the display powers off and it had to be removed for our battery tests. You may see better runtime with the utility, but will also be at the mercy of the program’s idle timers. I’m a bit too much of a control freak for that, plus it would disrupt our battery tests.

As you can see above, the Lenovo IdeaPad S12 performed respectably in our tests. Since it doesn’t have a built-in DVD drive, we instead played DVD images from the hard drive since that would be the equivalent multimedia usage. Doing so only dropped an hour off of our “normal” usage test, and you can expect a minimum runtime of just under 4 hours.

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Real World Usage
[singlepic id=104 w=400 float=right]This was my first opportunity to use a netbook extensively “in the real world,” and I better understand their value. Multitasking is non-existent and performance sluggish at best, but what you have is a low-cost PC that will go nearly anywhere with you and provide excellent runtime for its size. Pull up a web browser, or an e-mail/document, and go to town. Don’t get too crazy and load up a bunch of browser tabs or try to run Photoshop, but if you stay within its means, the netbook will please you with its utility.

Let me stress this: multi-tasking is non-existent. The single-core processor that is based on Intel’s older microprocessor architecture just isn’t optimized for handling parallel tasks well and even loading several web pages at once will give it pause. Some of this inadequacy is due to the Microsoft-imposed limit of 1GB RAM from the factory, but don’t kid yourself and think that you can simultaneously have several cycle-hungry applications running and be satisfied with the performance.

As for the IdeaPad S12 itself, I found myself really liking the nearly standard keyboard layout. Having tried a few 10-inch netbooks, and with the IdeaPad S10-2 up for review next, I was glad to avoid the dismal key arrangements of those designs. I never found myself trying to adjust the screen nor having to remove it from my lap due to heat.

I’ve touched on a few pain points already, around certain keyboard keys, the system buttons, and the touchpad. Compounding a bit of frustration during general usage is the lack of an On Screen Display (OSD) for key actions like volume, brightness, and other activities. These are a simple, but highly important usability factor that have been on PCs for a very long time, yet this one is noticeably lacking of any OSD.

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Conclusion
As with most things in life, there are tradeoffs to everything. Lenovo’s IdeaPad S12 offers a strong keyboard, good connectivity features, and the choice of a VIA Nano processor is welcome. Most people will greatly appreciate the 3 USB 2.0 ports and ExpressCard/34 slot, offering robust expandability. Later this year we will see an NVIDIA Ion-based version that will bring decent graphics performance and an HDMI output to the S12, making it a very strong contender for a multimedia netbook.

However, outside of these strong points, the S12 is rather unremarkable. A few simple usability flaws prevent it from having an excellent user experience and the battery life, arguably a very crucial point, is merely competitive. There are other netbooks that don’t have these flaws, but you will invariably trade against some of the S12′s strengths, or its price.

I know some readers are noodling on the value of a 12-inch netbook versus a 12-inch (full power, aka ThinkPad X200) notebook versus an 11-13 inch CULV notebook, and I will have some opinions to share around that very soon. I use a 12-inch ThinkPad X61 on a regular basis, have spent a lot of time with an X200, have an X200s (Celeron) in the lab for testing, and also just received Lenovo’s new IdeaPad U350, so we will definitely delve into that quandary soon.

Find the latest deals on Lenovo’s IdeaPad S12 netbook

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Tagged as: ideapad s12, Netbook