Lenovo has remodeled its IdeaPad S10 for the education market. The new offering S10e is better than its successful predecessor. It comes with a Quick Start Operating system and a longer battery life.
Design
This laptop is aimed at young students, but its design will please both children and adults. The glossy lid comes in gunmetal gray. The inside of the laptop is in matte black. The machine weighs 2.8 pounds. Build quality is satisfactory.
Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard fills the 7.7 inch wide chassis. The keys have a nice feel, but the keyboard does show visible flex. The keys are large enough to allow smooth typing. The biggest turn off with the keyboard is the small shift key. The touchpad is tiny, but it still allows enough room for dragging the cursor across the screen.
Ports and Slots
There are 2USB ports, a VGA port, an Ethernet jack, an ExpressCard/34 slot, a 4-in-1 memory card reader, and a Kensington lock slot. The ExpressCard Slot allows you to use a mobile broadband connection card. There is also a 1.3 megapixel webcam.
Display and Sound
The 10.1 inch display comes with a 1024 x 576-pixel resolution which is a bit lower than what you get on most netbooks. The speaker strip is located above the keyboard. It is audible enough to listen to music in a quiet room.
Lenovo’s Quick Start
The S10e comes with Lenovo’s Quick Start Operating System which boots faster than the netbook’s primary operating system, XP. The Quick Start allows you instant access to your music, photos, Skype, chat clients, and a limited but functional Web browser based on Mozilla Firefox.
Performance
The S10e runs on a single-core, 1.6-GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU. You can configure it with Windows XP or a Linux based Operating System. Performance is impressive. Boot times are fast and the machine can handle multitasking with minimal effort. Gaming performance is subpar. But that is nothing surprising as the machine lacks a discrete graphic card. At around 5 hours, battery life is quite good.
In short
A must buy for $379. This is a powerful notebook with a pleasing design and a fast hard drive. Another impressive feature is the instant-on OS which will allow instant access to most functions on the laptop. The Screen resolution could have been higher. But overall this is nice netbook for students.
Pros:
Instant on Operating System
Fast hard drive
Good design
Cons:
Low screen resolution
Noisy fan and hard drive
Only two USB drives
Small shift key
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