NetbookTech

The folks at LaptopMag have published two new netbook reviews on their site – one for the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t and one for the Samsung N210.

The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t is a convertible netbook with the following specs:

• Intel Atom N470 processor clocked at 1.83GHz
• Intel GMA 3150 graphics
• 2GB of RAM
• 250GB 5400RPM SATA HDD
• 10.1 inch 1024 x 600 resolution display
• 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity
• Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
• Ethernet
• Headphone/Microphone
• VGA port
• 2 USB ports
• 6 in 1 media card reader

A convertible netbook seems like a wonderful idea – except when you consider the Atom-processor really isn’t up to snuff with touch-operations. Here’s the verdict from LaptopMag:

”The S10-3t does some things right. It’s fairly light for a convertible, offers accurate touch input, and it has a comfortable keyboard. And, provided you get the 8-cell battery, you’ll see 7 hours of unplugged computing time. However, this machines’ sluggish performance and weak wireless range hold it back. If you want a netbook with touch capability, the S10-3t is worth considering, but this netvertible didn’t quite live up to our expectations.”

Read more of the review here.

Meanwhile, the Samsung N210 is the latest addition to Samsung’s fine lineup of netbook systems. The N210 is a Pinetrail enabled netbook featuring a unique scratch-resistant finish and instant-on capability with a widget-based user interface. Specs to the N210 include:

• Intel Atom N450 processor
• 1 – 2 GB of RAM
• 250GB 5400RPM SATA HDD
• 10.1 inch 1024 x 600 resolution display
• Intel GMA 3150 graphics
• 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi
• Windows 7 Starter
• Ethernet
• Headphone and microphone port
• VGA port
• 3 USB ports
• 3 in 1 media card reader

What’s the verdict?

“The Samsung N210 offers solid overall performance, close to 7 hours of battery life, and an attractive design. We also like the matte screen and loud speakers. However, this machine faces stiff competition from the ASUS Eee PC 1001P, which costs $80 less and lasts nearly 90 minutes longer on a charge. And the $399 Toshiba mini NB305 offers a better touchpad/mouse button combo and longer endurance for not much more money. The N210 is good, but it’s not the best.”

$379 is a tough sell when you consider the competition is either cheaper or offering better battery life. Come on Samsung – get back into the ballgame here. Read more of the review here.

The Wall Street Journal has published a review of the new Lenovo S10-3t netbook here on their website. With a starting price of $549, the S10-3t is certainly a pricey netbook – except it’s no ordinary netbook. The system is actually a convertible netbook which means you can rotate the screen and fold it onto itself, transforming the unit into a slate-oriented tablet PC.

Spec wise, the S10-3t features the new Intel Atom N450 processor, Windows 7 Starter Edition, Intel GMA 3150 graphics, 1GB of RAM, a 10.1 inch LED Glare and multi-touch enabled display, 160GB 5400RPM HDD, 4 cell lithium-ion battery, and Wi-Fi support.

So what does the WSJ think of the system?

“At $549 it’s a little pricier than your average netbook. Some might be willing to pay the extra bucks for the touch screen, which made navigating and using the small computer much easier than some regular laptops. But until the processor gets a little faster, I’m holding out for the iPad.”

Of course the sluggishness reported by the author shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise given that we are talking about the Atom processor. However, one statement did stand out – “For the most part, the netbook was all of these things for me, but it was slower than I would have liked”.

We couldn’t help but wonder what exactly the author was expecting from the S10-3t? What was the baseline he was comparing against? Was it an iPod touch? An iPad? Another netbook? A high-end tablet PC? A Core i5 system. We’re just wondering.

In any case, we probably wouldn’t have recommended the S10-3t simply due to the price of the system. At $549, it’s a fairly expensive proposition given what you get, which aside from a touch-screen, isn’t much more than a standard $300+ dollar netbook.

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PC Magazine has two new netbook reviews out on their website – one for the Toshiba Mini NB305-N410 and one for the new ASUS EeePC 1201N netbook.

The Toshiba Mini NB305 is essentially an update to the extremely popular Mini NB205 – keeping the great features of the NB205 while updating the system to the new Intel Pine Trail platform. The NB305 features the Intel Atom N450 processor, a 10.1 inch LED backlit display, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB SATA HDD, a full-sized keyboard, a spacious multi-touch enabled touchpad, Wi-Fi, and Windows 7 Starter. The best part? The NB205 maintains its incredible battery life while shrinking the battery form factor (aka the protruding battery is no more). Here’s what PC Magazine thought of the NB305:

“The Toshiba mini NB305-N410 netbook carries over many of the qualities that made its predecessor, the mini NB205 so lovable, and it’s still the netbook that gives you the most for the least amount of money.”

The ASUS EeePC 1201N is an entirely different kind of netbook – eschewing battery life in favor of processor and graphics performance. The 1201N dumps the Intel Atom N270 processor in favor of the higher-performing Atom N330 dual-core processor, making the 1201N the first netbook to feature the dual-core processor. Other features include a 12.1 inch LED backlit display, NVIDIA ION graphics, HDMI output, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity, 2GB of RAM, full-sized chiclet keyboard, integrated webcam and microphone, and Windows 7 Home Premium.  As you might expect, the 1201N has a fairly low battery life of around 4 to 5 hours but if that’s the least of your concerns, then the 1201N is certainly an interesting system to look at. Here’s what PC Magazine thought of the unit:

“The ASUS EeePC 1201N is the fastest netbook money can buy, but its tradeoff is battery life just 4 hours of it.”

Introduction

So when is a netbook not a netbook?

When it comes to the Acer Aspire 1410, it’s not an easy question to answer at all.

The system looks like a netbook, feels like a netbook, and it’s even priced like a netbook. Yet at the end of the day, by Intel’s definitions, the 1410 is in fact not a netbook but an “ultra thin notebook” (also commonly known in the industry as a “thin-and-light notebook”).

The Aspire 1410 takes the look and feel of an 11.6 inch netbook and combines it with the power and energy-efficiency of Intel Consumer Ultra-Low Voltage processors – in this case the Intel Core 2 Solo SU3500 processor.

At a higher level, the Aspire 1410 is best seen as a bridge between high-end netbook systems and high-end thin-and-light systems with more powerful dual-core processors and even larger form factors.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ah good ol LaptopMag. You can always count on them to offer the very latest in netbook and laptop reviews. Their latest set of netbook reviews offer a peak into what to expect out of Intel Atom N450-powered netbooks. The N450 is at the heart of the new Pine Trail platform which includes a new Atom processor core with integrated graphics in the core and a new chipset with reduced power requirements. In short, Pine Trail appears to promise minimal performance gains while achieving noticeable power consumption savings.

The first of two reviews from the publication was the newly announced ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005PE-P. Similar to the extremely popular ASUS Eee PC 1005HA, the new 1005PE-P offers a larger hard drive (250GB), a better keyboard, and of course, an incredible battery life – thanks in no small part to the new Pine Trail platform. Here’s a blurb from the summary:

“While Intel’s new Atom N450 processor doesn’t really improve performance, the extra endurance it provides will certainly be welcome among netbook users. At $379, this netbook is a bargain, undercutting the Toshiba mini NB205 by $20 while lasting longer on a charge. We give the edge to the NB205 because of its more comfortable touchpad and mouse buttons, but the 1005PE is a still a stellar value.”

The second review is of the new MSI Wind U135 netbook which offers an extremely competitive price of around $329 dollars while also featuring the new Atom N450 processor. Unfortunately it appears the U135 doesn’t quite have the battery life of its competition with LaptopMag timing battery life at around 5+ hours. That’s an incredibly poor showing for an MSI netbook.

An excerpt from the verdict says it all:

“If you can swing the extra $50, we recommend the ASUS Eee PC 1005PE and its 5 extra hours of work and play time. But, if you’re really watching the bottom line, the U135 is worth a look.”

PC Magazine is out with a new review of the M&A Technology Companion PC 10 classmate PC here on their website. Quite honestly, I wasn’t familiar with the system .. so just in case you’re like me, here are the specs to this $499 netbook:

• Intel Atom N270 processor
• 1GB DDR2 667MHz RAM
• 10.1 inch 1024 x 600 resolution display
• Realtek ALC269 Azalia audio chipset
• 2 – 1 watt speakers
• Realtek RTL8103 Ethernet controller
• Half mini-card PCIe interface
• 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi
• 84 key-keyboard
• Touchpad
• Media card reader with support for SD, MMC, MS, MS Pro formats
• 1.3 megapixel webcam
• 160GB HDD
• 3 USB 2.0 ports
• microphone-in/headphone
• VGA port
• 6 cell battery for around 4 to 6 hours of power
• Windows XP Home

As you can see from the picture above, the Companion PC 10 is a pretty generic looking netbook with a design based on the Intel Classmate PC reference.

Now more importantly, what did PC Magazine think of the netbook? Here’s their bottom line:

“The M&A Companion 10 is a straightforward netbook that’s suitable for boys and girls of any age, thanks to its generic design. While its hardware configuration is classroom-ready, M&A doesn’t include software that makes it easy to use, and it’s a bit pricey at $449”

Yeah.. at $449, this might be a hard sell for the classroom environment, let alone the consumer space.

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If you’re considering the new Lenovo IdeaPad S12 netbook with the NVIDIA ION platform, you’ll want to check out the new reviews of the system by PC Magazine and LaptopMag. Both publications came to similar conclusions about the S12 with ION:

• Good video and graphics performance for a netbook
• Poor battery performance
• Expensive for a netbook

Interestingly enough, PC Magazine also found the IdeaPad S12 with ION performed a bit worse than the S12 without the ION platform. As an extreme example, SYSMark 2007 dropped a whopping 25 percent between models.

In any event, here’s the bottom line from PC Magazine for the system:

“The Lenovo IdeaPad S12 (Ion), Lenovo’s Ion netbook, finally ships with full support for 1080p, though battery life and speed take a hit.”

And here’s the conclusion from LaptopMag:

“There’s certainly a lot to like about the Lenovo IdeaPad S12-29595GU, including Ion graphics, a relatively large keyboard, ample RAM, OneKey backup, and lots of storage. However, the $649 asking price for this netbook on steroids is considerably higher than the similarly configured $574 HP Mini 311, which offers an hour of additional battery life. The HP Mini 311 offers the most bang for the buck, but the S12 with Ion is worth a look if you want a better keyboard/touchpad combo and instant-on functionality.”

A spacious keyboard, larger display, and better graphics just doesn’t seem compelling enough to warrant spending over $600 dollars for this system

The folks at Anandtech have published an extensive review of the HP Mini 311 – the first HP netbook to feature the NVIDIA ION graphics platform. As most of you know by now, ION brings the NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics chipset to the Intel Atom processor platform – promising to deliver increased graphics and video decoding performance. Of three (actually now four) known ION-based netbooks, the Mini 311 was the first to actually ship even though it was the last to get announced (the other three coming from Samsung, Lenovo, and ASUS).

Typical configurations for the Mini 311 include the Intel Atom N270 processor, the NVIDIA ION LE platform, 1GB of RAM, 11.6 inch glossy LED-backlit display, internal hard drive, 2-channel HD audio, HDMI output, media card reader, VGA port, and choice of Windows XP Home Edition or Windows 7 Home Premium.

For the folks into extensive reviews, the Anandtech review certainly won’t disappoint. You’ll find a review that covers a bevy of benchmarks – everything from application performance to graphics performance to the quality of the display.

Ultimately the question of the HP Mini 311’s worthiness is based on its comparisons with other products available on the market today. We’ve seen substantial changes in the mobile market over the last 6 months – especially with the rise of CULV-based thin-and-light notebooks that offer substantial performance increases over netbooks yet cost just a tad bit more than high-end netbooks. For the price of the HP Mini 311 one has to ask whether its better to save the money and spend just a bit more for a system with a heftier processor and awesome battery life. Thus here’s what Anandtech thinks:

“With so many other viable options, ultimately the HP Mini 311 is an interesting product that doesn’t do enough to get our full attention. . . . Intel’s Atom has always been about keeping costs low and reducing power requirements; spending $400 on any Atom netbook is tough to recommend, and the HP Mini 311 will usually cost closer to $500 once you add a few extras. The most likely buyer for the 311 is users that want a netbook with an external Blu-ray drive and software, in which case $630 for the Mini 311 is a fair deal. Ultimately it’s not a bad netbook, but neither is it Editors’ Choice material.”

After using the ASUS UL30A-X3 thin-and-light, we’d also be hard pressed to recommend anyone spending more than 400 dollars for a netbook these days – especially with the advent of thin-and-light notebooks.

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Netbooks for kids seems like a great idea doesn’t it?

Netbooks are fairly inexpensive; offer the right form factor and specs for kids; and seem like the perfect platform to introduce computing to youngsters.

However, as is common in most things in tech, it ultimately depends on the content at hand and this is best seen in two recent reviews by PC Mag – the Disney Netpal by ASUS and the Dell Mini Nickelodean Edition netbook. With one netbook (the Netpal), you have a system loaded with apps and goodies for kids. However with another netbook (the Dell) you really don’t have much beyond colors and themes.

With that said, here’s a blurb from the PC Mag review of the Dell Mini Nickelodean Edition:

“Aside from a neat design and catchy themes, the Dell Mini Nickelodeon Edition doesn’t offer anything useful for parents and children that you couldn’t get with any other netbook.“

But on a positive note, here’s a blurb from the PC Mag review of the Disney Netpal by ASUS:

“The Disney Netpal by ASUS netbook is loaded with useful tools for kids and parents alike.”

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I came across another review (albeit a short one) of the new dual-booting Acer Aspire One D250 netbook featuring both Windows XP and the Android OS – this time from the folks at ComputerWorld here on their website.  The focus of the review is of course mostly on Android since if you are to remove the OS, this is otherwise a nondescript netbook that looks like any other netbook out there.

Here’s an excerpt from the review:

“Another big disappointment for me is the lack of useful software out of the box. No word processor. No notepad. No file browser. Maybe I like tinkering with a portable too much, but to me those are all basic functions that I’ve come to expect with a netbook.”

and finally..

“While the company could correct the software letdowns, however, I’d still advise those with big hands to approach the D250-1613 with caution, or at least to test-drive it at a store first.”

Our advice to all of you out there? Unless you’re adventurous, stay away from this dual-booting netbook. The Android implementation is still too raw for most consumer usage and don’t get me started with the cramped keyboard. There’s plenty of better netbooks out there at reasonable prices.

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