While Lenovo indicated they will be adding integrated 3G to the S10-2 netbook later this year, that isn’t soon enough for some people. A member of Netbook Philippines forum over in, you guessed it, the Philippines hacked his IdeaPad S10-2 netbook to take an Ericsson 3G wireless card and antenna.
This should be pretty simple for most people to do, but consider that any problems resulting from this wouldn’t be covered under warranty; luckily you don’t have to dig too far into the S10-2′s chassis.
Lenovo’s 12-inch IdeaPad S12 netbook announced back at the end of May and became available for purchase a couple weeks ago. For those who are a bit behind on news around the S12, Lenovo later made available a version of the S12 with the faster VIA Nano processor and we recently learned that Lenovo may have angered Intel, either by releasing a 12-inch laptop with the Atom processor or by choosing to offer NVIDIA’s Ion platform on the S12.
I came across a video of some hands-on time with the IdeaPad S12, filmed by the fellas over at netbooknews.de at a Taiwan computer show and wanted to share it with my dear readers. While first-hand accounts with the S12 are still fairly limited, we can tell from this video that it…is a 12-inch netbook. If you were looking for a netbook, but wanted a bigger screen, this may be the machine for you.
If you’ve read my review on Lenovo’s IdeaPad Y650, you’ll know I’m rather smitten with it. 16-inches of gorgeous LCD, sexy design, and HDMI output to boot? Well now is your chance to own one of these beauties for only $799 with free shipping. And this isn’t a stripped model either, as you can see in the specs below.
What’s the catch? This deal ends TODAY, or when 800 boxes have been ordered at this price. It’s worth noting their website calls for shipment in “4 weeks or more,” so this won’t be a “just-in-time” gift, but at this price I wouldn’t be complaining. Specs and deal details below
Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 2.53GHz | Vista Home Premium 64
4GB DDR3 | 320GB 5400rpm HDD | DVD Recordable
6 cell Lithium-Ion | Intel Wi-Fi Link 5100
How to get the deal
Click here to choose warranty & accessory options for your Y650
Apply this coupon code in the shopping cart (make sure no spaces before/after): USPY650JLY
Today DigiTimes broke a story that Lenovo and Samsung violated Intel’s restrictions on usage of their Atom N270 processor by releasing 11.6 and 12-inch netbooks.
Likely as a measure to prevent Atom sales from cannibalizing the more profitable Core 2 lineup, Intel requires PC manufacturers purchasing Atom on a “preferential pricing” plan to keep the display size more in the “netbook” range. Apparently 11.6 or 12 inches is too much for Intel, as there is a report circulating that Intel has revoked Lenovo’s and Samsung’s preferential pricing status around the Atom N270 netbook processor.
If you look at Samsung’s planned 11.6-inch netbook and Lenovo’s already released IdeaPad S12, you’ll also notice another thing in common: both offer NVIDIA’s Ion platform. Ion stands to offer far superior graphics & video performance than the anemic 945 chipset included with Atom, while offering competitive battery life. NVIDIA has already complained that Intel prices the Atom chipset bundle cheaper than the CPU by itself, and the lawsuit between the two companies certainly isn’t making things any easier. Is Intel targeting some of the first manufacturers to offer NVIDIA’s Ion platform, or are they enforcing bulk pricing rules to help keep margins on their higher end products? Either way, is it ethical? We’ll be sure to bring you the latest news around this issue.
Mark Hopkins over at the Lenovo blog Connections recently spent some time with product manager and fellow blogger Brandon Hoe, who as part of his job at Lenovo worked a lot on the netbook products. In this video, Mark and Brandon talk about netbook history, Lenovo’s netbook evolution, and where they see netbooks going. You will also see some hands-on with the “old” S10 and the new S10-2 models, showing some of the changes they made. As Mark notes in his blog post, the video may have gone a little long or could have been broken up into a couple posts, but overall the video is a good look at Lenovo’s view of netbooks and I’d recommend a watch.
MSI X-Slim X340 compared to Lenovo ThinkPad X301 & Apple iPhone 3G
We’ve talked a fair bit about CULV (Consumer Ultra Low Voltage) systems here, the new thin & light systems utilizing a fresh Intel SU-series processor that is faster than a netbook, with better battery life, 11-13 inch designs, and in the price sweetspot between netbooks and full-size notebooks. Lenovo’s new IdeaPad U350 is a perfect example of this, as is MSI’s X-Slim series.
A new report from an analyst firm suggests that the first generation models, like those noted above, may suffer from questionable quality. The report states that manufacturers are using plastic chassis’ to cut down on cost, which is certainly common, but are making the plastics so thin to save on size & weight that some systems may suffer from bottom covers cracking. This part of the Xbit Labs article puts it perfectly:
Ultra-thin notebooks aimed at consumers is a completely new trend and many manufacturers still have not figured the exact demands of average users when it comes to ultra-portables. Nevertheless, one thing is clear: since consumer-oriented platforms have to be affordable, system makers are not implementing their state-of-the-art technologies, such as active hard disk drive protection, powerful yet light batteries and, most importantly, high-quality materials and robust engineering to keep the costs down.
While I had personally been drooling over the MSI X-Slim series, we found out that it is indeed a cheap, low quality machine with a sexy chassis and good feature-price ratio.
Apparently the companies actually manufacturing the CULV notebooks, termed Original Design Manufacturers (ODM’s), had recommended to some PC companies that they use metal in the chassis to avoid this issue, but that production went ahead with plastic anyway. No company names are mentioned.
A quick look at Lenovo’s PSREF documentation shows that the IdeaPad U350 is indeed made out of plastic, or specifically Polycarbonate/Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene (PC/ABS) plastic. Fortunately there are not yet any reports of cracking systems in this case.
Lenovo announced their first CULV-based laptop at the end of May, leaving the IdeaPad U350 in-between netbooks and higher powered, full-sized notebooks. Last week saw the release of the IdeaPad U350 for public purchasing and it was even on sale for 10% off.
Today we bring you word of a $100 off coupon for the sexy U350. We expect the coupon to expire in a couple days, so if you were looking at picking up a U350 the clock is ticking. Specs and deal details below:
Core 2 Duo SU2700 ULV 1.3GHz; 2GB DDR2; 13.3″ HD WXGA LED
250GB hard drive; 4-cell Battery; 802.11n WiFi; GMA X4500MHD
802.11n WiFi; Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR; 1yr warr; Vista Home Premium
While you hear most netbooks discussed as in the “$300 price range,” the reality is that the majority of netbooks are in the $400 price range and accordingly, are rather well spec’d. The ones actually priced around $300 are few and far between, especially with a lot of recent netbook refreshes, like Lenovo’s IdeaPad S10-2 and S12.
For those who can’t afford the extra $50-100 for one of the new netbooks, or prefer the older model for design differences, Buy.com has an IdeaPad S10e on sale for $298.99 with free shipping. Sales tax also only applies in CA, MA, TN, and NY, which will likely help some people out. The model is decently spec’d out, but does lack the 6-cell battery found on the newer models. Still, it’s hard to literally get below $300 these days, so jump on this before they run out.
Atom N270 1.6GHz; 1GB DDR2; 160GB HDD; 3-cell battery
10.1″ WSVGA LCD; XP Home; CR: webcam; 2.87lbs; 802.11b/g
With the launch of the ThinkPad T61 about two years ago, there was a big push for Energy Star 4.0 certification and lots of marketing around that. Now we are approaching on the launch of the Energy Star 5.0 standard and Lenovo is already bragging about that.
For those not in the know, Energy Star is a standard that encourages power efficient design in consumer products. Nearly everything that uses eletricity features an Energy Star guideline, from houses to laptops. If you have purchased a Lenovo PC recently with the Power Manager software installed, you will note the default profile is named Energy Star.
As we all know, a computer’s power usage can vary dramatically based on how it is being used. The Energy Star power profile seeks to control that usage, as you will notice it generally sets the screen brightness and processor performance to lower levels. It is unknown whether Lenovo tweaked the Power Manager profile further to apparently be Energy Star 5.0 certified already, but since the hardware is the same all machines are at least Energy Star 5.0 capable.
Outside of laptops, select models of Lenovo’s desktop and monitor lines are also Energy Star 5.0 certified. While not Energy Star related, the press release did contain this interesting tidbit:
Lenovo offers bulk packaging at no cost for customers with large-scale rollouts of laptop or desktop PCs such as universities and large enterprises. Bulk packaging can save up to more than four pounds of materials per PC, so a deployment of 5,000 ThinkCentre desktops, for example, could save nearly 22,000 pounds in materials, a significant waste reduction.
That’s pretty cool to me, and I will say that with the T400s I received there was very little excess packing material. I don’t recall what the material is made of, but there were only a couple of internal pieces and the (rather small) box itself. Kudos on packaging Lenovo.
Lenovo’s newest netbook, the 12-inch IdeaPad S12, is now available with the VIA Nano processor & chipset option mentioned at announce. This should actually provide a decent performance bump over Intel’s Atom chip, but will also of course use more power in doing so. If you’re curious as to the difference, hardware tech site [H]Enthusiast put the two platforms head to head, albeit in desktop form. This article should give you a good idea as to the differences.
Unfortunately the new model is not covered under the 10% off coupon currently running. With the 10% discount on regular price $499 Atom-based S12 netbooks, you can choose from an Atom or Nano based netbook for about the same price. The only catch is what while the Atom-based S12 models are available in two colors, there is only one Nano model and we don’t have a clue as to what color it is. We already deciphered which color each of the other netbooks was, but this one is a mystery for now. Keep up the good work Lenovo.
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