First look: the Ion-powered Lenovo Ideapad S12

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Lenovo’s Ideapad S12 is one of the first netbooks we’ve seen to use Nvidia’s Ion platform, which can allegedly “turn a netbook into a notebook” thanks to its combination of Intel Atom CPU and Nvidia GeForce 9400M GPU.

It’s a new part that’s only been used by Acer up until now, in its netbooks and A-Listed Aspire Revo R3600.

That ambitious claim comes courtesy of Matt Wuebbling, a senior manager in Nvidia’s notebook division, who’ll understandably talk up the chances of his own product in the face of endless scepticism. However, having been hands-on with Lenovo’s latest offering and seeing the Ion in action, we’ve seen plenty of evidence to support his claims.

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First look: Dell Mini 10

Friday, April 17th, 2009

The Dell Mini 10 hasn’t had the smoothest of births thanks to grocery juggernaut Tesco, which accidentally revealed its existence before the machine could be officially launched. We haven’t yet been able to get our hands on Dell’s latest netbook until this morning, though, when one arrived in the Labs.

First impressions are good, with the Mini 10 oozing class: the screen sits flush with the wide bezel, the red lid looks inviting and classy rather than garish, and the lack of chrome around the rest of the case, aside from the small power button, leaves the Dell looking more mature than most netbooks.

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