Elsewhere, the U115 follows the well-worn path of other netbooks, which isn't surprising as, cosmetically, it's almost identical to the MSI Wind. The glossy grey finish on the lid is quite appealing, but the design is starting to show its age and it lacks the visual flair of some newer netbooks, such as those from Samsung. That said, we do like the keyboard. Although it's small, its layout makes the most of the available space. Unfortunately, the same can't be said for the rather cramped trackpad.If you're lusting after the Apple MacBook Air but can't quite justify the ¡ê1,150 asking price in these cash-strapped times, Acer might have the answer with the slim and light Timeline Aspire 4810T. Priced at a much more affordable ¡ê750 or so, it also boasts amazing battery life.The 4810T may not be as amazingly thin as the Air, but it's still incredibly slim and light compared to most laptops, measuring a mere 29mm at its thickest point and weighing in at just under 2kg. Unfortunately, the 4810T's appearance is let down by the uninspiring grey finish used on the lid and keyboard surround.
Nevertheless, the keyboard is very comfortable to type on, despite using relatively flat keys, like those found on some of the latest Sony Vaio models. We also like the trackpad, which supports multitouch gestures, much like the Air's. This may sound gimmicky, but it's very useful. For example, to scroll up and down through documents, you track a circular motion on the pad, while swiping across it will move you between pages or photos in a slideshow. You can also zoom out of a picture or page by pulling two fingers apart, and zoom in again by pushing them together.
The 14-inch display's glossy coating might cause reflection problems in some lighting conditions Despite its small size, the 4810T's connectivity hasn't been overly compromised. It still manages to cram in both VGA and HDMI ports for outputting video to external displays, as well as three USB ports and a seven-in-one memory card reader. On the wireless front, there's draft-n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.0 + EDR. There's no eSATA port and no ExpressCard slot, however. That's disappointing as it means expansion is limited to USB peripherals only.
Once we'd freed the X340 from its cardboard box, it took us several minutes to realise we were involuntarily drooling all over it. It's absolutely gorgeous to look at, but that's mainly because it borrows so heavily from the Air's wardrobe.It's so slim that it almost puts Victoria Beckham to shame. It measures 19.8mm at its thickest point, and just 6mm at its thinnest, which isn't far away from the Air's figures of 19.4mm and 4mm. It's difficult to notice the extra thickness, because MSI has used the clever technique of sloping the edges of the laptop inwardly towards the centre, which creates the illusion that each edge is razor sharp.
The 13-inch glossy screen, with a 1,366x768-pixel resolution, is well-suited to playing movies
The X340 lacks the Air's sexy aluminium body and instead makes do with plastic. This has the obvious drawback of being less attractive, but it makes the X340 very light. It weighs 1.3kg, which is slightly less than the Air's 1.36kg. It has the edge over the Air in several other areas, too. The extra 0.4mm thickness has allowed MSI to fit in an Ethernet port, two USB ports and an HDMI video output. We'd take that above the ability to fit the laptop inside a manila envelope any day.
While it lacks the ExpressCard readers found on several other Netbooks in this price range, we were pleased to see three USB ports; many Netbooks have only two.With Intel's 1.6GHz Atom CPU and 1GB of RAM, there aren't a lot of surprises with the N110's performance. We've found that systems with AMD's Neo processor and Via Nano CPU--both aimed at a similar Netbook audience--are slightly better at single-app tests, while the Atom performs faster in our multitasking test. For basic tasks such as word processing, Web surfing, and e-mail, an Atom-powered Netbook is more than adequate, as long as you keep your expectations modest. Opening too many browser windows at once, or running several apps simultaneously, for example, can lead to slowdown and stuttering.The N110 ran for 6 hours and 8 minutes on our video playback battery drain test, using the included 6-cell battery. That's fantastic, especially considering that our battery drain test is especially grueling. Only the Acer Aspire One AOD150 did better among Netbooks, and even then only by about 10 minutes.
Samsung includes an industry-standard one-year parts-and-labor warranty with the system. Support is accessible through a 24-7 toll-free phone line, and the Samsung Web site offers an online knowledge base, driver downloads, troubleshooting, and live chat with a support rep.The N120 is large by netbook standards. It isn't as big as the 12-inch NC20, but its 272 by 189 by 30mm chassis is wider and deeper than the NC10's 261 by 185 by 30mm casing. They share the same 1.3kg weight, but the N120 looks lardy next to the uber-sleek Eee PC 1008HA Seashell.The extra 9mm girth has allowed Samsung to fit an even better keyboard than the one on the NC10. Whereas most 10-inch netbook keyboards are approximately 92 per cent the size of a full laptop keyboard, Samsung's tweaked the chassis sufficiently to wedge in a 97 per cent keyboard.The N120's keyboard is larger than the average netbook's
Unfortunately, while the keyboard's bigger, there isn't enough travel in the keys. They simply don't go down far enough when you press them, meaning it can sometimes be unclear whether your keystrokes have actually registered when touch-typing. Still, the keyboard does have silver nano technology -- an antibacterial coating that helps prevent germs from breeding.
The deeper chassis should theoretically have allowed Samsung to fit a larger mouse trackpad, but that's not the case. It uses the same trackpad as the NC10 -- which is fine for the most part -- but a slightly larger model would have been welcome.Connectivity is as we expected on the N120. It packs three USB ports, mic and headphone ports, Ethernet, an SD card reader that lives at the front edge and a 1.3-megapixel webcam above the screen.
What isn't so standard is the speaker arrangement. The N120 is the first netbook to feature an on-board 2.1-channel SRS TrueSurround XT sound system. Stereo speakers occupy each side of the screen, while a third speaker -- a 'subwoofer' -- lives on the underside of the chassis. More on this later. An Atom N270 CPU runs the N120's show. We'd have preferred the slightly quicker N280 chip that powers the Eee PC 1008HE Seashell, but the performance delta between the two isn't so great that we're throwing a tantrum. One gigabyte of 800MHz RAM comes as standard. This can be user-upgraded to 2GB of RAM quite easily, though you'll have to buy a 2GB module yourself and ditch the existing 1GB module in the process.
Storage is typical netbook fare. The N120 ships with a 160GB hard drive, which is capacious enough to stash around 230 standard-definition movies -- more than enough for a transatlantic flight or, better still, a week-long holiday away with your girlfriend's parents. If you're greedy for more storage, it's theoretically possible to swap the 160GB drive for a 250GB one, though a screwdriver and a modicum of skill is required.Our main knock against the original S10 was its anemic three-cell battery, which barely passed the 2-hour mark in our battery drain test--which is not exactly great for a system designed for easy travel. The Lenovo S10 is now available with a six-cell battery, and while it adds a bit of weight and bulk to the system, the battery life is now much more in line with our Netbook recommendations.Battery aside, this is a fairly standard Intel Atom Netbook, with 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, Windows XP, and a new quick-launch environment from Splashtop. Systems such as HP's Mini 2140 may have made some additional strides in design with a bigger keyboard and full ExpressCard/54 slot, but the Lenovo's bargain $399 price makes it an attractive option in a crowded field.
With the exception of the extended battery that sticks out from the rear of the system, the system is physically identical to the Lenovo S10 we reviewed in 2008. We liked the chunky, squared-off design, and the IdeaPad S10's chassis is a little thinner than many of the heftier Netbooks out there--although counting the extended battery, it maxes out at 1.5-inches thick--the same as Asus' 10-inch Eee PC 1000HE.There's a decent-sized keyboard (for a Netbook), but we're troubled by the right Shift key, which is shrunk down and awkwardly placed directly to the right of the up-arrow key. The touch pad is small but usable, with a similar (but less extreme) wide design to the HP Mini 1000, although in this case, the mouse buttons are below the touch pad, not on either side. The included ExpressCard/34 slot, which is rare on smaller systems, is useful for adding aftermarket extras, such as a mobile broadband modem.
Another new feature is the Splashtop-powered quick-start environment, which gives you access to a Web browser, media files, and other applications before you boot into Windows. These secondary operating systems can be good for saving battery life and quickly getting online without waiting for XP to boot up, but functionality is limited, some configuration options (such as wireless networking) use menus that may be unfamiliar to Windows users, and, in the long run, they usually don't boot up that much faster than just going into Windows.The 10.2-inch wide-screen display has a 1,024x600-pixel native resolution, which is standard for 10-inch Netbooks. The matte screen is good for avoiding glare, although some more design-oriented Netbooks now offer edge-to-edge screen glass for a slicker look.With Intel's now-standard 1.6GHz Atom N270 CPU, specifically designed for low-power Netbooks, the Lenovo S10 performed on par with other Atom-powered Netbooks, although it had an edge in our multitasking test. Systems with newer Netbook-style CPUs, such as the HP Pavilion dv2 and Samsung NC20 (with the AMD Neo and Via Nano CPUs, respectively), were faster in single-application tests, such as iTunes.
For Web surfing, e-mail, and working on office documents, which is 90 percent of what most people do on their laptops anyway, Netbooks such as the S10 perform adequately, as long as one's expectations are kept modest.The original Lenovo S10 offered a disappointing 2 hours and 13 minutes of battery life on our video playback battery drain test, using its three-cell battery. This new six-cell version was much better, scoring 4 hours and 1 minute on the same test. That's a big improvement, and addresses our main problem with the S10. Still, some Netbooks, such as the Acer Aspire One AOD150, can run for even longer.Asus' Eee PC 1008HA Seashell (not to be confused with the Eee PC 1000HE) is a small, light and sexy device aimed at the fashion-conscious netbook fan who puts portability slightly above performance. It's available to buy now for around ¡ê375.Let's get one thing out of the way. The Seashell doesn't look anything like a mollusc -- not even remotely. It's shiny, we'll give you that, but, if anyone can find one bit of this netbook that looks even remotely like a seashell, we'll give them a tenner and recommend them for membership in the Marine Conservation Society.
One thing that's definitely not up for debate is that the machine's styling is beautiful. We love absolutely everything about this device. The glossy black finish, the gently tapering lid, and the wedge-shaped profile all contribute to an overall design that's more aesthetically pleasing than that of rival netbooks. We're not sure whether it's quite as gorgeous as the Eee PC S101, but it makes most other netbooks look like they were cobbled together by blind goat herders.The Seashell's trackpad is a joy to use, thanks to its tactile dimples
The Seashell is one of the thinnest and lightest netbooks on the market. It's a mere 26mm at its thickest point and tips the scales at just 1.1kg. That might not sound much lighter than the 1.4kg 1000HE, but the difference is significant when carrying the Seashell over the course of an entire day. It's simply easier to manage than other 10-inch machines.Because it's so svelte, Asus has had to make some sacrifices with the machine's connectivity -- the Seashell has just two USB ports, instead of the three we'd expect from this sort of device. Also, in an attempt to maintain the sleek lines, all its ports are recessed slightly and hidden behind flaps. This makes them slightly trickier to access, and some larger USB keys simply won't fit without an extension cable.
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