Lenovo IdeaPad S10 is a solid netbook but it has shortcomings such as the cramped keyboard and the standard three-cell battery. To our surprise, Lenovo fixed both of those main issues in its new IdeaPad S10-2. Let us have a look of their differences.

Design
The Lenovo IdeaPad S10 comes with the matte lid. In comparison, the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 is available in the colors of black, white, pink and gray with the glossy cover. The design feels a bit lost between business and consumer. The s10-2 is lighter 0.2kg while thinner 4mm than the original IdeaPad s10.

screen
The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 features a 10.2-inch wide-screen display with the resolution of 1,024×600 pixels, the same to the original s10. Images appear bright and colorful on the glossy, but not too-glossy screen. Backlight brightness was perfect for viewing in bright office conditions, but might not have been strong enough to use outside. Viewing angles are very good.

Keyboard and touchpad
The keyboard of the s10-2 has enlarged in size. The keyboard of the s10 is in 85 percent of full size, and right Shift key is shrunk down and placed directly to the right of the up-arrow key instead next to the question mark key where it belongs. The s10-2 is with an 89% full-size keyboard which is larger than the IdeaPad s10. The distance between the keys is wider. And the right Shift key comes back to the below of the Enter key, and its size is also enlarged. The Home and End keys are moved to the top row. The Delete key is also perfect placed.

The touchpad of the s10 is 5.6mm x 2.6mm, while the touchpad of s10-2 is also enlarged to to 5.6mm x 3.4mm, making it easier and more enjoyable to use. The trackpad has average buttons beneath it, but it is still a little hard for us to scroll it with our fingers.

Speakers
The speakers is located at the bottom of the s10-2, while it has the same issue of the original s10, the sound isn’t directly to your ears, there is no doubt it will reduce the feeling of sound.

Ports

The Lenovo IdeaPad S10 has just 2 USB ports, while the Lenovo s10-2 adds one extra USB port, so the s10-2 now has a total of 3 USB ports. The s10-2 also comes with a 4-in-1 card reader, VGA and a head and mic jack. And Lenovo nixed the Expresscard/34 slot of the original S10.

left side of Lenovo IdeaPad S10:Heat vent, power jack, VGA out, 3-in-1 card reader, and USB

left side of Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2:LAN, VGA, 1 USB, Mic/Headphone

right side of Lenovo IdeaPad S10:ExpressCard slot, headphone/mic, USB, Ethernet, security lock slot

right side of Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2:Wireless On/Off, 2 USB, Kensington Lock slot, AC power

Battery life
Lenovo IdeaPad S10’s three-cell battery lasts only 2.5 hours before giving out. All versions of the S10-2 will come standard with a six-cell battery. If you browse web, type in text pad or install a few windows updates, the battery can still last 5 hours and 31 minutes.

Noise and heat
The s10-2 runs cooler than the s10. The fan of the s10 is a little bit noise, while compared to the IdeaPad S10-2, you are hare to hear the fan when it is running.

Quick Start Operating System
There’s Lenovo Quick Start and OneKey Rescue for the s10-2, two applications that you aren’t apt to use with any level of frequency, but nice inclusions nonetheless. The Quick Start is a Lenovo branded-version of the Splashtop instant-on operating system which allows you to access to Web browser, music player, photo viewer, IM client, Skype client, and flash games portal.

The OneKey Rescue button is placed above the Insert key on the keyboard. If you hit the QS button instead of the power button when the system is off, it will boot into Quick Start.

Features

One of the larger changes for the laptop is the addition of optional WWAN. The 3G data card is not the only option for people who need mobile broadband, they can select an S10-2 with built-in 3G.

The original Intel Atom N270 (1.6Ghz) CPU still remains, and the same GPU (Intel’s GMA950), along side a 160GB hard drive, 1GB of RAM (1GB of DDR2), 802.11g WiFi, 1.3 megapixel webcam.

Lenovo IdeaPad S10 is another mini laptop of Lenovo . The cover of Lenovo S10 is made of ABS plastic, which makes the fingers feedback very good, but the durability is not very good, so you had better protect it from being collided.

The logo “Lenovo” is on the up left corner of Lenovo S10, the logo is electroplated, which makes Lenovo S10 looks more fashion. And Lenovo S10 is available in five colors of white, black, and pink, red and blue ( Lenovo S10 in the color of pink, red and blue is a little more expensive).

Lenovo S10 comes with a 10.2-inch screen with the resolution of 1024-by-600 pixels.  The 8.9-inch screen is no longer the standard of the mini notebooks. And horizontal viewing angle of Ideapad S10 is wide enough , so there is no trouble for you and your friend to watch movies on Lenovo S10 side by side.

The weight of IdeaPad S10 is light; it just weighs 1.05kg without the battery in it, and weighs 1.22kg with three-cell standard battery. If you add the Power Adapter, Lenovo S10 is just at the weight of 1.57kg. so it is very convenient for you to carry Lenovo S10 laptop everywhere.

Lenovo IdeaPad S10’s three-cell battery lasts only 2.5 hours. If you lower the  brightness of the Ideapad S10′s screen and without turning on the wireless card, the 3-cell battery will provide a longer use. With a three-cell battery, the weight of  Lenovo IdeaPad S10 is just 2.6 pounds. While S10 is now available with a six-cell battery, which offers an all-day use to satisfied the customers.

The keyboard of Lenovo  S10 is one of the best netbook keyboards. The keyboard is in 85 percent of  full size,which is larger than other laptops and the space between the keys is wider too, so the keys of Ideapad S10 are highly responsive and you can type at a very fast speed.

The layout of Lenovo S10‘s keyboard has changed much. The right Shift key of Ideapad S10 is shrunk down and placed directly to the right of the up-arrow key instead next to the question mark key where it belongs. And the F11 and F12 of Ideapad S10 share the same key. F12 is accessed with the Function key. What’s more, the numbers have been pushed too far to the left, so you have to hit the numbers in a higher place on IdeaPad S10 than that of average laptop.

When you watch movies for quite long time, you will feel tired; change the brightness of the screen will be good for you. You can higher the brightness with Lenovo S10 screen brightness key, use “Fn+↑” key, hold down “Fn” and press on “↑”.  If you want to lower the brightness of Lenovo s10, you can use lenovo s10 screen brightness key with “Fn+↓”, hold down “Fn” and press on “↓”.

Every coin has two sides, the expansion of the keyboard space makes the touchpad of Lenovo  S10 become smaller than average touchpad, so it is a little difficult for users to use it. The touchpad of Ideapad S10 measures a small 2.3 x 1.5 inches. And the trackpad is placed at the right bottom of the Lenovo S10′s keyboard. And it has two discrete buttons directly below s10′s touchpad. In addition, the Ideapad S10′s touchpad supports for Synaptics multi-touch gestures which allows you to do things such as zoom in or zoom out simply.

IdeaPad S10 is an early laptop which supports the standard hard-disk drives instead of small solid-state drives. Lenovo S10 houses the largest hard drive we’ve seen on a mini-notebook to date: Our model came with a 5400-rpm, 160GB platter-based hard disk. IdeaPad S10′s hard drive, though, is the most likely reason why S10 weighs a somewhat hefty 3.6 pounds–almost as much as a ThinkPad X200.

On Lenovo S10, you will get Windows XP instead of Linux or Vista. Lenovo  S10 has 1.6-GHz Intel Atom CPU and 1GB of RAM, it earns a score of 41 on the PC World Test Center’s WorldBench 6 suite; it’s hardly a speed demon, but it’s fairly fast when you consider that the nearest competitor, with the same guts, received only a 37. S10 keeps a fast speed for you to Web surfing, e-mail, and working on office documents.

IdeaPad S10 comes with 2 USB ports, Ethernet, VGA out, microphone, headphone, and 4-in-1 memory card reader, 1GB of RAM, Ethernet, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and160 GB hard drive.

left side of Lenovo IdeaPad S10:Heat vent, power jack, VGA out, 3-in-1 card reader, and USB

right side of Lenovo IdeaPad S10zzz:ExpressCard slot, headphone/mic, USB, Ethernet, security lock slot

The most significant feature to the interface of  Lenovo S10 is that there is a ExpressCard slot on the right side of the laptopo.  So you can surf the web wherever you are , while the ExpressCard of Ideapad S10 just supports 34mm card.

Lenovo S10 comes with a standard memory of 1GB, 512MB is on-board memory which you can not change it, another 512MB memory module is inserted in the Lenovo S10′s memory slot, you can add more RAM memory by replacing this memory module. Further more, Ideapad S10 can be added to 2GB memory in total.

Lenovo Ideapad S10‘s speaker, located on the front edge of the notebook, offers just substandard sound that’s barely audible since the maximum audio setting is fairly low. As the speakers are located on the front edge of the Ideapad S10 laptop, so the sound isn’t directly to your ears, there is no doubt it will reduce the quality of sound.

Lenovo S10 was a bit warmer than other mini-notebooks, if you are surfing the web, typing documents, or downloading email attachments, exterior temperatures peaks above 100 degrees Fahrenheit after more than 25 minutes of use.

Lenovo IdeaPad S10 has a nice feature which is the Splashtop-powered quick-start environment. With it, you can access to a Web browser, media files, and other applications before you boot into Windows. And it will help you to save your battery life too.

Specs of Lenovo IdeaPad S10:

•    Intel Atom N270 Processor (1.6GHz, 533MHz FSB)
•    1GB RAM (DDR2 PC5300, Expandable to 2GB)
•    Intel GMA 950 Integrated Graphics
•    10.2″ LCD (1024×600)
•    160GB 5400rpm HDD
•    1GB of RAM
•    ExpressCard/34 slot
•    Broadcom 11b/g Wi-Fi wireless and Bluetooth
•    3-Cell Li-ion battery

More laptops of Lenovo:

Lenovo IdeaPad S10-2 VS Lenovo IdeaPad S10

How to Add More RAM Memory into Lenovo Ideapad S10

Lenovo Launched 11.6-inch IdeaPad U150

Buy a Lenovo ThinkPad R400 laptop