Quick Specs: Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB HD, Windows 7 starter (see full specs)

There are two ASUS Eee PC 1001p's and the specific model I received is the more expensive Asus Eee PC 1001P-PU17-WT priced at $335.56 but you can save some money by going with the Asus Eee PC 1001P-MU17-WT for $299 instead. You'll just get a 3 cell battery and 160 GB HD instead of a 6 cell and 250 GB HD.

In the short time I've used this netbook I can already give it a pretty solid recommendation and I am inclined to agree with LaptopMag's assessment of it taking the budget netbook crown.

Pros:

Terrific design, Great keyboard (98% full size), Excellent bundled software

Cons:

Small Touchpad

Bottom Line:

The Lenovo S10-3 is a great improvement over the S10-2 in regards to both the design and the functionality of the keyboard. The built in Quick Start function and terrific Veriface software strike high notes for it's built in software. Sadly, the key area the S10-3 falls short in is the touchpad. Because the touchpad and buttons are part of one single combined unit the usable surface area of the touchpad is even smaller than you expect (see the video above to get a better idea of what I'm saying). If you use the netbook with a mouse this isn't an issue, but I believe most users probably don't use mice with their netbooks. I believe the small touchpad holds the S10-3 back from greatness in the mid range netbook market priced at $350. I would look at other options before setting your sites on this netbook unless you plan to rarely use the touchpad.

Quick Product Specs:

Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz Processor, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB Hard Drive, Windows 7 Starter (see full specs)

Full Review:

Design:

The netbook is only 1 inch thick, but near the back of the unit the 6 cell battery adds a little more height to the unit (nothing more than a typical battery bulge though). The top of the unit displays an eye pleasing checkerboard design that is fingerprint proof. Inside the netbook we see a brushed style that adds to the overall pleasing aesthetics of the unit. The island style keyboard looks lovely and I'll get to how great it is in a later part of the review, but here we get our first look at my major complaint about the netbook - it's touchpad.

Usability:

The Lenovo S10-3 has one of the best netbook keyboards I've laid my hands on. Lenovo designed a new island style chiclet keyboard that has raised edges on the sides of the keys to make it easier to prevent fingers from touching incorrect keys while typing. This keyboard is massive on a 10 inch netbook coming in at 98% full size. It just looks and feels incredible, it's too bad that this big keyboard comes at a price - small touchpad. The usable space on the touchpad is 2.75 inches wide by 1 inch high. Clearly the width isn't an issue, but in this case the height is. I didn't measure based on the physical size of the touchpad instead I measured based on where the touchpad stops responding to my finger (which is right where the dots are on the touchpad). So that's why we're stuck with this small touchpad. I truly wish the touchpad were just .3 inches taller even (1.5 inches is what the Sony Vaio W has), but sadly it isn't. If you use this netbook with a mouse everything is amazing because then you don't have to worry about the touchpad but you still get a huge wonderful keyboard.

The netbook does feature the new Splashtop 2.0 which allows you to customize the experience you receive when using the Quick Start feature. Quick Start allows you to boot to a separate OS in under 10 seconds to access email, skype, pandora, CNN and other various applications that you can change out. Back again is Lenovo's Veriface software which allows you to login to your computer with your face.

Battery Life:

The Lenovo S10-3 has a 6 cell battery that provides the netbook an average battery life of 7 hours which I am inclined to agree with based on light browsing / blogging. At this price I'd like to see a battery life that comes into the double digits like so many models offered by ASUS (i.e. 1005PE), but it's still a good number.

Overall Performance:

Overall I think the Lenovo S10-3 does a few things wonderfully for $350: the keyboard, design (except the touchpad), built in software and solid build quality. If you plan to use the netbook with a mouse frequently then you will love this netbook. If you don't plan to use a mouse then I suggest looking at other alternatives first.

Shop:

US AuctionsAustralian AuctionsAustrian AuctionsBelgian AuctionsCanadian AuctionsFrench AuctionsGerman AuctionsHong Kong AuctionsIndian AuctionsIrish AuctionsItalian AuctionsDutch AuctionsPolish AuctionsSingapore AuctionsSpanish AuctionsSwiss AuctionsUK Auctions

Best MatchTime: ending soonestTime: newly listedPrice: lowest firstPrice: highest firstPrice + Shipping: lowest firstPrice + Shipping: highest first

Sleeve Neoprene Bag for Lenovo IdeaPad S10 3 S10 3t S10    US $7.95

Laptop Sleeve Lenovo IdeaPad S10 3 Toshiba NB300 NB205    US $7.99

Anti FingerPrint Screen Protector Lenovo S10 3 S10 3t    US $8.99

Anti glare Screen Protector IBM Lenovo S10 3 S10 3t    US $8.99

Kai Anti Glare Screen Protector Lenovo S10 3 S10 3t    US $9.99

Kai HD Clear Screen Protector Lenovo S10 3 S10 3t    US $9.99

Lenovo Ideapad S series S10 3 S10 3t S12 AC adapter E5A    US $8.99

Anti Glare Screen Protector fit Lenovo S10 3 S10 3t    US $8.99

View Page:   1  2

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 6 Hours Battery Life $309.99

Specs: Windows 7 Starter, Intel Z530 1.6 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive (see full specs)

ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1001P 11 Hours of Battery Life $298.54

Specs: Windows XP Home, Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive (see full specs)

ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005PE 11 Hours of Battery Life $328.71

Specs: Windows 7 Starter, Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive (see full specs)

Acer AO532h 8 Hours of Battery Life $298

Specs: Windows 7 Starter, Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz, 1 GB RAM, 160 GB hard drive (see full specs)

If you need help deciding what netbook to buy be sure to read my netbook buyers guide. I'm also available to help personally via email. You can also read some past articles like this one on the new cheap netbooks, the best netbooks under $300 and if you're looking to get a deal on an older netbook be sure to read my article on the best netbooks of 2009.

Can I play Farmville on a Netbook?

- Kelly

I'm not a Farmville player as I prefer to stick to an Xbox 360 myself; however, my wife is so I did a quick video of her playing Farmville and doing the various tasks in the game all while on a netbook so you can see how well it plays:

So as you can see - Yes you can play Farmville on a netbook. The netbook I am using in the above video is an older generation ASUS Eee PC 1008HA with an Intel Atom N280 processor. So if you really enjoy harvesting crops and needed to know if you could play Farmville on a netbook before deciding to purchase one, now you know!

I recommend these articles if you need some suggestions on what netbook to get for Farmville or just pick up the Acer AO532h for $298:

Best Netbooks of 2009
Best Netbook of CES (a technology conference I went to in January)
Cheap Netbooks

I'll have a new netbook deals post up tomorrow showcasing the great prices on only the best netbooks. Finally, if you have a question about netbooks please feel free to ask and it may show up on this website to the benefit of others.

The ASUS Eee PC 1016P is the latest in the onslaught of new ASUS netbooks being announced at CeBIT, although like the ASUS Eee PC 1018P, the 1016P was leaked a few days prior to the event start date. This netbook is very similar to the 1018p (hence the model number being so close to 1016p) but there are some cosmetic differences and a couple internal differences as well:

Product Specs:

Display: 10.1 inch 1024 x 600
Processor: Intel Atom N450 / N455 processor
RAM: 1GB RAM
Hard Drive: 160GB / 250GB HDD
Wireless: 802.11b/g/n Bluetooth 2.1 and Bluetooth 3.0, Built in 3G AND WiMAX
Battery: 9 hour (63WH 6 cell) and 7.5 hour (47 WH 6 cell)

For those that don't know, the new Intel Atom N455 processor and N475 are supposed to add DDR3 support for the RAM; however, this hasn't been confirmed yet. Again, no pricing details available yet but I'm hoping that by the end of CeBIT we'll have more official info on these newly announced netbooks. In either case be sure not to miss out on my CeBIT summary post March 7 that lets you know what's worth remembering from this year's CeBIT (subscribe to RSS here).

Via (thanks again Sacha and crew!)

This has been a Netbook Reviews Post

The picture above is from the earlier post where we had leaked specs on some upcoming ASUS netbooks, but now that the news is official I thought it would be best to sum up the new ASUS Eee PC 1018P in a single post. This new netbook is exciting for several reasons:

1. The chassis is built with aluminum instead of plastic
2. It has the first fingerprint reader on a netbook
3. It is only .7 inches thick (still trying to confirm this)
4. It has built in 3G

Product Specs:

Display: 10.1 inch 1024 x 600 matte display
Processor: Intel Atom N455 / N475 processor (New processors can
RAM: 1GB RAM
Hard Drive: 160GB / 250GB HDD
Wireless: 802.11b/g/n Bluetooth 2.1+EDR Built in 3G
Battery: 6.5 hour

Hands on video from Sacha over at NetbookNews after the break

ASUS has announced a ton of new netbooks at CeBIT so many in fact I'm still trying to play catchup. The 1201PN is a successor to the popular ASUS Eee PC 1201N, which currently priced at $484 suffers from one flaw the 1201PN promises to improve on - battery life. The 1201PN features the new more energy efficient Atom N450, as well as, the Nvidia ION 2 chipset. The new ION 2 chipset will offer improved graphics and battery life.

Product Specs:

Display: 12 inch 1366 x 768
Processor: Intel Atom N450 processor 1.66 GHz
Graphics: Nvidia ION 2 (will still be called simply "ION") and HDMI Out
RAM: 1GB
Hard Drive: 160GB HDD + 500GB online storage
Wireless: 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
Battery: 6-cell (battery life not announced)

No pricing information has been revealed yet, but I'd expect we'll see it around the same price as the 1201n and hopefully even less expensive. I'll be sure to let you know more once this becomes available.

via

Remember when I mentioned that I had complained to ASUS reps that they had no 10 inch netbooks with a 1366 x 768 display back at CES? Well now they do! I'm a PC and ASUS Eee PC 1005PR was my idea (lame Microsoft joke attempt I know). The new netbook is basically an ASUS Eee PC 1005PE but with a 1366 x 768 high resolution display like the Sony Vaio W I reviewed.

Full Specs:

Dual OS: Windows 7 and Express Gate (online in 8 seconds
Display: 10.1 inch 1366 x 768
CPU: Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz Processor
RAM: 1 GB
Storage: 250 GB
Wireless: 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1
Battery: 11 hours 6 cell 63WH, 9 hours 6 cell 48 WH

I assume "Express Gate" is an ASUS branded word but that it's powered by Splashtop 2.0 sort of like the Lenovo S10-3 I showed off a few days ago (review coming soon).

I'm going to continue covering CeBIT 2010 through the course of the event (March 2nd - March 6th) so expect a lot more netbook news to be shared this week. I'll also offer an overall summary post which tells you which netbooks that are worth spending money on on March 7th - you won't want to miss out so be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed.

Via

I've included video from Nvidia after the break that shows a great side by side comparison of a standard netbook graphical output when compared to a netbook powered by Nvidia ION 2

I also did a video of Nvidia ION with Adobe Flash 10.1 vs Nvidia ION with Adobe Flash 10.0 a while ago which showed similar and equally impressive results. I'm most excited by the fact that we're finally getting a 10 inch netbook that uses Nvidia ION in the new Acer Aspire One 532G though. What about you?

Via

Top 10 Best selling Netbooks of February:

1. ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005PE-MU17-BK Black 11 Hours Battery Life $329.17
2. ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005PE-MU17-WT 10.1-Inch White 11 Hours of Battery Life $328.71
3. ASUS Eee PC Seashell 1005PE-PU17-BU 10.1-Inch Blue 14 Hours of Battery Life $368.59
4. Asus Eee PC 1201N-PU17-BK 12.1-Inch Netbook $484
5. Acer AOD250-1695 10.1-Inch Blue - Over 3 Hours of Battery Life $283.72
6. Toshiba Mini 300 Series NB305-N310 10.1-Inch Black Onyx $349.99
7. Toshiba Mini NB305-N410BN 10.1-Inch Java Brown - 11 Hours of Battery Life $396.76
8. Toshiba Mini NB205-N325WH 10.1-Inch Frost White - 9 Hours of Battery Life $329.99
9. Acer AO532h-2588 10.1-Inch Onyx Blue 8 Hours of Battery Life $299
10. Asus Eee PC 1001P-MU17-PI Rose Pink $290.99

This month it was all ASUS and Toshiba as ASUS held most of the top spots and Toshiba held many of the bottom spots. I'm not surprised that the $329.17 ASUS Eee PC 1005PE came in as the bestseller this month. In fact, I'm surprised that more people spend the extra $40ish to get the next best 1005PE priced at $368.59 for the slightly improved battery life and minimal spec bump. As expected now 8 of the 10 netbooks on the list all use the new Intel Atom N450 processor. The older generation netbooks will slowly become more difficult to find available new and as this occurs it will be driven by lower prices. I'll be sure to include some great deals on older generation netbooks in my upcoming netbook deals post.

If you're looking for least expensive next generation netbook, I put together a list of the new cheap netbooks under $300. These netbooks all include the Intel Atom N450 processor which offers improved battery life and a slight performance boost.