S10-3t unboxing pictures and first thoughts

[mister2]

Here it is, my S10-3t. (Sorry for the bad pictures, I promise to upgrade my camera soon! )

Same usual IdeaPad box.


Upon opening the lid, you can see the computer and the accessory box (white box).


Only three things in the white box, the power brick, power cord and the enormous 8-cell battery.


Here's the top of the unit. As you call tell from the picture, Lenovo decided to go with a glossy lid. What you can't see in the picture, is the designs. This time around, Lenovo used squares instead of the circles used on the S10-2. Also, there are three LEDs on the upper left, one for power, battery and wireless. These activity lights can also be found on the underside of the lid. But those lights are not visible with the lid closed which is probably the reason why Lenovo added them on the outside.


The right side of the unit. From left to right is the wireless switch, an unknown plugged jack with a 'TV' written on it, two USB ports and a VGA out.


The left side of the unit. From left to right is the Kensington lock slot, AC power, LAN, mic and headphone jack.


The front side of the unit. Not much going on here. Just a mic and SD card slot.


Bottom of the unit without the battery attached. Nice big panel for access to swappable components.


With the panel removed, exposed is the hard drive, memory module, wireless card and an empty PCI-E slot which looks like it is for a 3G card as there are two antenna wires running to the empty slot. We'll have to see if we can stick anything else in there like a HD decoder.

This unit does not seem to have Bluetooth. If there is a slot for a module, it's obvious that I'll need to open the laptop up further. I use Bluetooth all the time and this just infuriates me. Not having Bluetooth is unacceptable in an upper end netbook, which the S10-3t clearly is.


So here is the unit opened. Here is where I found one of the best features of the netbook and one of the worst. First the good, the keyboard. This keyboard feels very nice to type on. Great feedback and just enough click sound. The keyboard didn't feel small when I was typing. Wondering why, I measured it. It is 97% of a full size keyboard. You can imagine the 3% is negligible unless you have really big hands.

Now the bad. The touchpad is very small. Smaller than the S10 and that was small to begin with. On top of that, there are no separate right and left click buttons. The click is integrated on the pad itself so you just press either on the bottom right or left of the pad. Kind of like a Mac except the problem here is that the touchpad is tiny. I have to admit though that I got used to it after using it for less than 30 minutes and seemed to work pretty well.


Here is the screen in the tablet style. It's a glossy screen so it's very reflective. Whether the screen is glossy or matted has never been a deal breaker for me so this is fine. It does have limited viewing angles but so does most laptops.

On the bottom left are three buttons, six activity lights and the left speaker. I'm not quite sure what the three buttons are for yet but one is a speaker mute and the other two looks like it changes viewing modes. The six activity lights from left to right are power, battery, wireless, hard drive, number lock and caps lock. On the bottom right are the power button, lock switch and the right speaker. I would guess that the lock switch is for the power button so that you don't accidentally hit it while in tablet mode. On the upper right is the webcam.


And finally, the laptop with the giant battery on it. The battery extends out the back a little over an inch.

Other notes

• The fan is on continuously. It's not very loud but still audible.


• Despite the big 8-cell battery and Atom N450 processor, the runtime seems very short. I haven't done any drain tests yet but I haven't seen the battery meter in Windows 7 go above 6 hrs. I'll have to do a real use test to see what would be typical.


• The build quality is very good. Fit and finish is nice and the hinge for the lid is very sturdy. Not much flex if any.


• The computer feels slow to boot. This may be caused by all the bloatware Lenovo dumps on this thing. And there is a LOT of it. Can't wait to do a clean install.


• The touchscreen is very accurate and responsive. Although it's more of a novelty for me, I'll find good use for it.

All in all, a bit on the pricey side but definitely a great netbook!

[pseudo]

Thanks for sharing mister2... problem is, now I have a touch of the green-eyed monster about me

So, where to find 400 quid. Hmmm

[SilverZero]

Well played, boss! Thanks for the extensive overview. I must say it sounds a bit strange that you bought the 3t even though the touchscreen is a "novelty." I guess it would still function well as a tablet in other ways (note taking?).

[FradicalOne]

Well played, boss! Thanks for the extensive overview. I must say it sounds a bit strange that you bought the 3t even though the touchscreen is a "novelty." I guess it would still function well as a tablet in other ways (note taking?).

I purchased one of these machines also. So far I like it, but I echo most all of the concerns stated above. What I want to know is this: SilverZero are you up for getting Mac OS to run on this little beast? I think the only real hardware difference in this machine is the Intel GMA 3150 graphics, instead of the Intel GMA 950 that the original S10 has.

The Windows 7 Starter app is pretty cheesy .. you cannot even change the wallpaper, and there is no real support for touch, so to the extent the touchscreen acts as a mouse, this would run well in Mac OS also.

I am ready to donate!

[mister2]

I purchased one of these machines also. So far I like it, but I echo most all of the concerns stated above. What I want to know is this: SilverZero are you up for getting Mac OS to run on this little beast? I think the only real hardware difference in this machine is the Intel GMA 3150 graphics, instead of the Intel GMA 950 that the original S10 has.

And that GMA3150 is probably the biggest issue as far as getting OSX on the S10-3t as there is no support for it. Hopefully that will change soon as GMA3150 gets more widespread in netbooks.

[Tulisan]

It's also posted here and a 3g modem added here

[mister2]

It's also posted here and a 3g modem added here

Awesome. I'm not going to add a 3G modem to mine but that gives me some ideas...

[scottyinco]

is there a digitizer pen included or does the screen even have a traditional tablet digitizer which you could use a digitizer pen with? i'd be in the market if i could take notes in meetings using a pen on the computer. it would be nice if it had a 1366x768 display too, but, oh well.

[mister2]

is there a digitizer pen included or does the screen even have a traditional tablet digitizer which you could use a digitizer pen with? i'd be in the market if i could take notes in meetings using a pen on the computer. it would be nice if it had a 1366x768 display too, but, oh well.

It doesn't come with any pen. I'd imagine you can just purchase a capacitive pen and it'll work fine.

[scottyinco]

yeah, a capacitive pen isn't very accurate for taking notes, especially on a 1024x600 screen. it really needs a digitizer like other lenovo tablet pc (thinkpad x200/201).