Lenovo's $449 IdeaPad S12 now official: first netbook with NVIDIA's Ion chipset

I dont know. It might actually. any1 else who has done this know any

 

Just got my Nano S12. So far I'm pretty impressed. Memory upgrade from 1GB to 3GB right worked right out of the box (KByte from Staples for $50).

Overall I was looking for something comparable to my 6-yr-old Dell 600m, which it easily meets for less than 3 lbs. The variable clock speed of the Nano CPU is a neat trick... it goes from 1 GHz to 1.6 GHz depending on what I'm running. I'm pretty keen on the quickstart gimmck. That will come in handy in airports.

I'm going to wait a bit before I decide to get the 9-cell battery or not. I don't spend a lot of time away from outlets. I might get a 3-cell to get the profile down to nothing.

Runs a little warm, but so does the 600m.

Love the keyboard and screen, which were more or less the reason I picked it... plus the $360 price point was hard to ignore.

Thanks for the tips... this machine was a bit of a surprise, and I'm glad I found this thread. It's a great find.

 

I love windows 7 on this laptop if you have a chance try the rc on it. you can even install the x64 bit version if you want to!

 

I'm confused...a few days ago I ordered an S12. It won't ship until late October. It was $379 (after coupon) plus tax. Here's the description that's on the order confirmation page: "295956U PAD S12 ULV2250 12.1WXGA BL".

I've been doing more reading and I'm totally confused about the different versions. I know this has the Nano 1.30GHz processor (vs. the Atom N270) and I believe it has VIA Integrated graphics but now I'm reading about "Ion" and I'm getting confused.

This is a travel machine for me (replacing a dying Dell 700m). I'd wanted another 12.1" machine with an internal DVD drive but for the price, I figure I can live without the drive. I use it primarily for email, surfing, Skype and watching movies.

Is the Ion version available? Is it considerably better than what I've ordered?

I've also noticed this machine (as I've ordered it) is not eligible for a free Win7 upgrade.

TIA.

Tipsy

 

there are no ion netbooks out yet.... But when the ion does come out its going to be the ion le which is watered down majorly

 

for those with an s12, is there a power brick w/ the ac plug??

i had a dell mini 9 which did not have a brick and was totally convienient

 

its the same...its very small power supply

 

Okay...I guess I'll stick with what I've ordered then.

What's the most cost effective way to upgrade to Win7? From what I've read, It seems the S12 operates best with Win7 vs. XP.

Tipsy

 

i have another question, is there built-in bluetooth?

 

no but you can get a wifi/bluetooth module for like 30 of newegg or ebay....

 

Yes, there is... I actually have build-in bluetooth in my Lenovo S12... Look, here are drivers for bluetooth in S12 with Via nano

 

I'd agree with you, but I've used a netbook and vow never to own one. I don't like the idea of a crippled laptop. If I'm going to use it for an extended period of time there are minimum requirements, which include mandatory instruction sets.

I don't want other people in my family using my stuff. I have it configured exactly the way I want it and I don't think anyone needs to touch it.

I'm with you on that one. Ever since I got my x200s I'm sold. Lenovo for life.

 

weird... mine doesn't have bluetooth...did they they add that feature or something?

 

Texanman, just a few questions on your S12 with the via nano processor:

- Do you have it running with 2gb Ram?
- Could you say how much battery time with XP?
- Does it get really hot (like reviews say the HP dv2 gets)?
Thanks for your help!!!

 

well I have 3gb of ram in it
I dont use xp on it I use win 7 but I get about 4 1/2 hours
It does get warm when I am like playing a game or something but not HOT!

 

Thanks.
Are those 4 and a half hours with the computer in power saving mode?
I like the power on the Via Nano version of the Lenovo S12, but also need over 5 hours of battery life...

 

Thats in balanced mode.... They make 9 cell battery for the s12, My friend has it and he gets around 6 just browsing the internet in windows 7

 

Oh that's interesting!!!
Did your friend get the 9cell Batt from Lenovo?

 

no, he grabbed it off ebay for like 50 bucks.... they use the same cells as the official battery

 

Thanks Texanman!!!
I am going to check on that option.

 

you can also just get a extra official 6 cell off ebay for like 30bucks

 

Thanks very much for the information. It's really very useful.
I have been doing this search for a small laptop for several months already. I have an old (may be 2002 or 2003 model, Pavilion dv5000; 512 MB Ram) lap top which has served with great loyalty all these years. But it's very heavy and I have to share it with my kids some times.
So my decision has gone from the 10" Eee, to the Timeline 3818 (SU3500 processor), Aspire 1410 and to the HP dv2z (with AMD single core processor). These options have had issues: small screen, customer service, heat, battery life. Finally the Asus UL30A seemed expensive and I wasn't going to spend more than say 600.
Then I found the S12 which did not seem as expensive as the Samsung NC20, and had two processor options. So right now my choices have been narrowed down to either of the two S12. The 12" screen will definitely be better for my eyes.
It seems it will probably be the Via Nano option with the 6 cell batt and then may be get one extra batt (just to avoid loading the machine with the weight from a 12 cell battery).
So thanks very much for the comments.

 

Laptop02,

Switching to an Atom based netbook/laptop is a MASSIVE downgrade in speed from your dv5000

 

It will be Laptop02 I would not get the atom if your looking for a replacement. you can get the s12 with the nano cpu for 370+ tax if you use this link here Link

also with the nano s12 you can place 3gb which will make your netbook preform more like laptop and less like a netbook. I have had no issues with lenovo support and they have been really nice. From what I have herd acers support is like crap. They make you pay for stuff that is covered under warranty and shipping

 

Thanks very much for the recommendations.
It will definitely be laptop#2; I will keep the zv5000 as the main tool (yes, I made a mistake in my previous post: it is rather a zv5000, not dv5000). That's precisely the reason I do not plan on spending much on this; I won't go for a cheaper 10" netbook because the screen puts too much strain on my eyes. Also, thanks for the "link".

 

i just got the s12. My question is regarding the HDD. The HD has 3 partitions. 1 for the OS, 1 as a partition for drivers, and the last is what? Is that one the asus quickstart program?

 

One is the os, 2nd is the back-up image incase you need to reinstall, 3rd is the quick start program

 

OK, so if I understand this right, the quickstart program is located on the physical hard drive and not in the bios or something like that.

How many of you here even use the quickstart? Is it recommended to delete all partitions and install our favorite OS (windows 7)?

 

yep I just deleted everything and installed 7....everything worked out of the box aside from like 4 drivers which I have compiled here on my site just in-case anyone needed them

 

I actually kind of like the quickstart thing... I may grow tired of it... but I think it will be handy in an airport.

I'll probably uprgrade to window 7 when I get a new desktop machine in a year or so.

This nano with 3 GB is really good though.

 

My S12 Nano just arrived. Shipped about a month sooner than projected. I haven't even taken it out of the box yet.

Just ordered this 2GB stick of GSkill memory.

Will look into getting Win7 & for it too.

Tipsy

 

woot for gskill! its the same stuff I use in mine and it works great....

If anyone is a student at any collage, microsoft is selling windows 7 pro (32 or 64) for 30 bucks!!!!!

http://windows7.digitalriver.com

then just where it says "need to join a domain click here" and then you can get pro for the same price!!!!

 

Can anyone recommend a external CD-DVD drive that works well with the Nano S12?

I just got a Pioneer from Best Buy and it wouldn't recognize a disk that was filled with pictures, installed Turbo Tax fine, and would start the Windows Office 2007 loader but then wouldn't load office and went to an error report. My other computer wouldn't see the drive at all.

Because of the photo CD I'm thinking it's a problem with the Pioneer drive itself, although it's bizarre that Turbo Tax (random) installed with no problem.

Thanks

 

well any usb cd rom drive should work...maybe the driver was corrupted when it was installed?

 

so nvidia 9400 with 1.6 atom vs intel 4500 and 2.6ghz core 2 duo, both at 3 pounds 12 inches wxga etc. seems like a pretty big inequality in specs that needs to be levelled out a little...
how about ion with that sl9600?

 

hows that related to the s12??

 

Is there any benefit in getting the 64 bit version of Win7 for the S12?

It's my understanding that the benefits of the 64 bit OS really come into play when you have six or more GB of RAM??? I'll only have 3GB in this machine.

32 bit the way to go???

TIA.

Tipsy

 

well 64 bits is a faster os even with less then 4gb because it unlocks the cpus full-power for any app that is made for x64

 

Do Lenovo S12 have one or more free miniPCIe slot? One should be for wifi, some netbooks have one for wifi and one free. What about S12 with via nano?

edit: OK, now I know that there is one free minipci-e slot.

 

Hi
I was going to spend 2000+$ buks on a vaio laptop til I came across this S12 article and I 'm surprised it can run vmware,that's what is crucial for me.
So I want to ask dear kind Texanman how was his experience with vmware and how much RAM is needed to run that smoothly?
By-the-way were you able to run any flavor of linux (through Xserver) on it?
Is there anything around the screen ID problem?

 

I am useing 3gb of ram in mine and running ubantu on my vmware workstation. Everything for it worked out of the box just fine, I set aside 1024gb of ram for my vm sessions and it works smoothly. I did try to install ubantu on the harddrive it's self and came across the screen id issue in 9.04 BUT in 8.04 it worked just fine! Thats if you install it instead of windows

 

First you might have had ubuntu run from flash I guess.
Because there is not built-in optical drive, I guess installing Linux on H.D.D is better choice.Have you ever had any experience with installing RedHat or Debian through virtual Box? (Unfortunately not all hardwares are compatible with Linux,but lenovo Thinkpads have long history in supporting Linux-so Linux compatibility is critical for me.)
By-the-way you don't need to choose between windows or linux .You can just dual boot any Linux with windows as it uses an advanced boot loader that detects windows MBR infos previously installed.

 

I know you can dual boot... anyways Debian should work just fine since ubantu is kinda the same.... as for red hat I have tried opensuse and that too ran nicely. I have a expresscard ssd I use to boot ubantu off of. Aprently 9.04 does have some id issues with the screen but 8.04 works fine

 

HP mini 311 is out just for 399$,what you gonna choose-regarding better performance? S12 Nano vs HP mini 311 Ion?

 

well it is ion le which is watered down. 2nd of all atom based laptop do not support vm of any kind! 3rd of all even if they did there still limited to a max of 2gb (some only support 1.5). 4th there slow compared to the nano.

adding a gpu to a atom is like giving a old junkyard barely working car spinning rims

 

-nice comparison
-no vmware
-2G is bearable but not 1.5G
-I don't think that's much more slow but a little

 

well if you look at the fsb and the amount of L2 cache its slow

and without and gpu the nano can play 1080p hd just fine
and only costs 374 before tax via lenovo.com/cpp code:familyandfriends

 

That's true,however VIA should release a 45nm version if they want to keep up with Intel.

I've heard some of HDs are choppy on this machine!
But x64 and vmware support are absolutely worthy

 

i haven't had issues playing the two movies i own on it...but if you think about it since the nano can pretty much handle video on its own...imagine the ion on it

 

will there be a nano+ion release soon?