There’s been a rumor going around for a while that Lenovo plans to release a 10 inch, business oriented netbook. Right now, the closest thing Lenovo ThinkPad X100e. But that model has an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display. Now a member of the Whirlpool forums in Australia says he spotted a set of netbooks marked “ThinkPad Mini 10″ at his school.

It’s possible tat the machine has basically the same hardware as the X100e, but a smaller, cheaper display. In that case, the Mini 10 would likely have the same sized chassis and a thick bezel around the display, which is how the laptops are described in the forum posting. No word on the processor or other specs, but the laptop has an isolation style keyboard and uses Lenovo’s TrackPoint pointing stick in the middle of the keyboard as well as a touchpad below the keyboard.

We first heard mention of a ThinkPad Mini 10 late last year.

via Netbooked

The Lenovo IdeaPad S12 netbook has been on the market for a while. I first reviewed this laptop in the summer of 2009. But Lenovo recently sent me an updated model with NVIDIA ION graphics to review. As promised, the NVIDIA graphics give the laptop an extra boost for watching HD video or playing games with 3D graphics.

But as with other ION based systems I’ve tested, I found that the computer was actually slower at some everyday tasks than a notebook with an Intel Atom processor and integrated graphics. I blame this on the fact that the ION graphics processor only kicks into high gear for certain tasks, which means that for many activities you’re left relying on the relatively slow CPU.

To see how the IdeaPad S12 with NVIDIA ION graphics compares to other notebooks in its class, read on.

The demo unit I reviewed has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 CPU, ION graphics, 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, 802.11b/g WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1, a 6 cell, 52Whr battery, and Windows 7 Home Premium. Lenovo sells this configuration for $599.

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Laptops may be the new desktop, with mobile computers already outselling desktop PCs. But Lenovo sees the mobile space getting even bigger. In fact, within five years, Lenovo’s CEO expects 80% of the company’s sales to come from mobile products with wireless internet connections.

That doesn’t just mean laptops and netbooks. Lenovo introduces its first smartphone at CES in January. And while I haven’t heard anything about an iPad competitor from Lenovo just yet, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a consumer oriented slate PC in the next year or two if that space really takes off. In the meantime, Lenovo offers a handful of convertible tablets with full QWERTY keyboards including the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t and ThinkPad X200 and X201.

via Electronista

The IdeaPad S10-3t is the first 10 inch convertible tablet style netbook from Lenovo. The Wall Street Journal reviewed the netbook recently, but you could kind of tell that the reviewer hadn’t spent a lot of time using netbooks. Now Engadget’s Joanna Stern has given the S10-3t a go, and there are few people that have as much time playing with netbooks as she has.

So what’s her verdict?

Joanna says the netbook is slim and light for a convertible tablet, but she wasn’t that impressed with the keyboard or touchpad (with integrated buttons). She says the capacitive multitouch screen was reasonably responsive with Windows 7 Home Premium. But the viewing angles weren’t all that great.

The demo unit Joanna tested had a shiny new 1.83GHz Intel Atom N470 processor. But you’d never know it from most of the benchmarks Joanna run.It doesn’t look like the S10-3t is substantially slower than other Pine Trail netbooks. But it’s not really any faster either.

For more details, hit up the complete review at Engadget.

It looks like Lenovo may be planning to add a WiMAX option to the IdeaPad U150  inch thin and light notebook. Wireless Goodness spotted an FCC filing for the U150 with an internal wielress card that would support WiMAX mobile broadband as well as 802.11b/g/n WiFi.

The Lenovo IdeaPad U150 features an 11.6 inch, 1366 x 768 pixel display and an Intel CULV processor. It runs Windows 7 Home Premium, and falls into the category of budget thin and light notebooks that are larger and more powerful than netbooks but a little less capable than full sized laptops. I reviewed the U150 last month, but the model I tested didn’t support WiMAX.

No word on pricing or a release date for the WiMAX version.

The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3 is Lenovo’s third netbook in the IdeaPad line. But you could probably have guessed that from the name. Here’s what you might not know: It’s the best looking 10 inch netbook Lenovo has released to date, and it’s the first with a new Intel Atom N450 Pine Trail processor.

The netbook is thin and light, and comes with a choice of a black or red cover featuring a textured, fingerprint-resistant cover. But in order to keep the laptop as small as possible while providing a nearly full sized keyboard, Lenovo chose to build left and right buttons into the touchpad, making it difficult to use.

The demo unit Lenovo sent me to review features a 10.1 inch, 1024 x 600 pixel display, Windows 7 Starter Edition, 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, 6 cell battery, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and Bluetooth 2.1.

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While there’s a lot of buzz around the upcoming iPad and dozens of other internet slates, tablet PCs have been around for nearly a decade. The difference is that most Windows-based tablets available today feature full sized keyboards and swivels that let you fold the touchscreen down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode. The iPad is a touchscreen-only device with a low power processor. As a result, the iPad will be lighter, get better battery life, and be altogether more portable than most existing tablet PCs.

But what happens when you take Microsoft’s original vision for a tablet PC and shrink it down to netbook size? I’ve reviewed a couple of convertible tablet style netbooks and to be honest, I haven’t been that impressed with the results. But there are a number of new models slated to come out in the next few month, and Sascha at Netbook News got a chance recently to sit down with three of them and give us a good look at the similarities and differences.

The Gigabyte T1000, Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t, and Viliv S10 Blade all have 10 inch touchscreen displays. But the Lenovo has a 1024 x 600 pixel display while the Gigabyte and Viliv models has a 1366 x 768 pixel HD display. The Gigabyte laptop dis a bit larger, and overall more solid looking. But the Lenovo is significantly cheaper.

The Viliv S10, which shows up about 9 and a half minutes into the video below is much slimmer than the other models. But it also uses a different chipset. While the Lenovo and Gigabyte laptops have Intel Atom N450 or N470 processors, the S10 has a lower power Atom Z530 or Z550 processor.

Overall, it looks to me like the Viliv has the best case design of the bunch, but as we learned yesterday, the touchscreen isn’t particularly responsive.

You can check out Sascha’s hands-on video with all three tablets below for a closer look.

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Acer, Asus, Lenovo, and Zotac are among the first companies to announce products sporting the just-announced next-generation NVIDIA ION graphics platform. We already knew about the Acer Aspire One 532G 10 inch netbook which was announced at Mobile World Congress last month. But here are a few more products that will come with next-generation ION graphics.

Asus is introducing an updated version of the Eee PC 1201N, called the Eee PC 1201PN, which is shown above. It will also be available in silver. You can see another photo in the gallery below.

The company also has a new all-in-one PC and a new nettop in the works.

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The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t is one of a handful of netbooks with a touchscreen display and swivel allowing you to fold the screen over the keyboard and hold the computer like a tablet. With a starting price of $549, it’s one of the cheapest convertible tablets around, and at least until the Asus Eee PC T101MT is released, it’s the only 10 inch tablet-style netbook I’m aware of with an Intel Atom N450 Pine Trail processor.

The Wall Street Journal posted a brief review of the IdeaPad S10-3t. In a nutshell, the paper reports the touchscreen works pretty well, as does Lenovo’s touch-friendly software. But the glossy screen is a bit distracting when trying to watch movies or do much of anything else in tablet mode.

The reviewer also complains that the netbook feels kind of sluggish when launching applications. I get the feeling that this article was written by someone that doesn’t have a lot of experience with netbooks, though. So I can’t say for certain whether the S10-3t is any slower than other Intel Atom-based laptops. But there’s reason to believe that Lenovo will have a faster version with a zippier 1.83GHz Intel Atom N470 CPU soon. In fact, the N470-equipped version of this laptop was showing up on the Lenovo web site for a few days before being removed recently.

The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t convertible touchscreen tablet-style netbook has a base price of $549 at Lenovo.com. But Newegg has the netbook in stock for just under $500 plus $5 for shipping within the continental US. As an added bonus, this model has an 8 cell battery while the version on sale through Lenovo’s web site has a 4 cell battery.

The Ideapad S10-3t has a 10.1 inch capacitive touchscreen display, a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 processor and GMA 3150 graphics, 1GB of RAM, and 250GB hard drive. It runs Windows 7 Starter Edition. It has 802.11b/g/n WiFi, 2 USB ports, and VGA output

The laptop measures 11″ x 6.9″ x 0.8″ and weighs about 3.3 pounds with an 8 cell battery. You can read more about the Lenovo Ideapad S10-3T in the Liliputing Product Database.

via Netbooked