Lenovo Ideapad S10 Netbook Full Evaluation

Unlike most other netbooks currently on thee market, Lenovo does not offer the IdeaPad S10 with a Linux installation option. This isn't to say that you couldn't run Linux on one of them if you'd like, but as for pre-configured options, currently Lenovo is only offering Windows XP. Our sample S10 unit was equipped with Windows XP Home Edition (32-bit, of course) with Service Pack 3 already loaded. Even with only 1.6 GHz Atom processor and a gig of memory, Windows XP feels pretty snappy on the S10 hardware, once you take the time to un-install some of the bloat software.

Default Lenovo S10 Windows XP Boot Screen

In the pre-installed software department, Lenovo does fairly well in terms of keeping the initial application load low(ish) while making sure the system is as flexible as possible out of the box. From first bootup to having the system fully cleaned out and working the way we wanted, we were looking at about an hour of time. Not bad for a pre-built system.

In terms of Lenovo bundled software, the company leaves out its usual ThinkVantage software suite this time around, opting for a far less intrusive and resource hungry software footprint. The only real Lenovo applications are the OneKey backup system and the Energy management software. There are other minor bits of Lenovo software integration here and there, but nothing which we've seen on high-end Lenovo laptops.

We ran a quick set of benchmarks on the Lenovo IdeaPad S10 and Asus EeePC 100H, which sells for a similar price-tag and has roughly the same feature-set, but has been out for a bit longer on the market. By the time of you read this, there has likely been another dozen notebook makers who have announced 10" netbook models to compete in this arena - although Lenovo and Asus are definitely some of the industry heavyweights here.

Both the IdeaPad S10 and EeePC 1000H have 5,400 RPM SATA-II hard drives, a 1.6 GHz Atom chip, 1 GB of memory, and an Intel integrated graphics subsystem. Performance wise, they should be pretty close - let's see.

In terms of raw CPU power, there is virtually no difference in overall system performance. As both the systems run on the same Atom processor at the same clock speed, it's to be expected. Memory, disk, and application performance benchmarks are continued on the following page.