Being a Samsung Mobiler has brought another opportunity for me to get my hands on many Samsung devices such as the Galaxy S 2, Galaxy Pro, and Galaxy Tab 7.  Next on the list is the 1GHz dual-core Tegra 2 3G+WiFi Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet – check out my thoughts below!

Specifications of reviewed unit:

(taken from samsung.com)

• 256.7 x 175.3 x 8.6mm (10.1 x 6.9 x 0.34in)
• 565g (1lb 3.9oz)
• Pure White
• 10.1” widescreen, 1280×800 WXGA TFT LCD, 149 pixels per inch
• 1GB (RAM), 16GB (ROM/storage)
• HSPA +21 850/900/1900/2100
• EDGE/GPRS 850/900/1800/1900
• WiFi 802.11 a/b/g/n with dual band support (2.4ghz or 5GHz)
• Bluetooth 3.0
• WiFi Direct
• 1GHz Dual Core Tegra 2 processor
• 7000mAh battery, rated up to 9hrs video, 72hrs music
• Rear camera:  1280×720 HD video, 3MP auto focus photo with LED flash
• Front camera:  640×480 VGA video, 2MP photo
• Video playback:  up to 1080p 30fps with codecs:  WMV9, WMV7, WMV8, H.264, MPEG4, Xvid, DiVX, H.263, VP8
• Audio playback:  MP3, AAC, AAC+, eAAC+, WMA, RA with stereo (2) speakers

What it looks like:

Here we have the front and the back:

The top with power, volume rocker, ear phone jack, and simcard slot:

The bottom with the usb/charging port and mic:

And of course the sides, each with their own speaker:

Specs compared to other tablets:

Here’s an on-paper comparison to a few other tablets of similar size:

As you can see, they’re all pretty close in terms of specs.  The Tab weighs in the lightest and thinnest, the Transformer has the highest ppi, and the Xoom has the highest megapixel cameras. 

Included apps:

Along with the “standard Android” apps (such as gmail, gallery, google maps, navigation, etc) Samsung has included a few additional ones as well:

• Polaris Office:
  
  Polaris Office is essentially a lite version of Microsoft Office. 
  

  It allows you to create/read/edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, and it’s actually pretty good at it.  It’s pretty limited on what features you have in creating, but I haven’t run into any docs that haven’t been able to render correctly when viewing them here (though, perhaps I just don’t have access to any complicated word/excel files!)
  
  It’s great for creating or editing a document when you don’t have access to a PC (it’s helped me a few times while on the train when responding to a work email or two). 

• Samsung Apps: 
  
  This is basically a Samsung app store.  From the few apps that you can actually download from here, many appear to be either available in the standard Android Market or are relatively useless (at least in my opinion), so I honestly don’t see the point of this. 
• Pulse: 
  
  This is a fancy news reader, and it’s actually quite nice interface.  You see your various feeds in the homescreen (images and all), and it will even automatically update with new feeds periodically. 
  

  Once you tap on an article, it gives you a split pane interface for reading:
  

  You can also add in any RSS feed, as well as import feeds from Google Reader:
  

• Pen Memo:
  
  This is basically a note taking app – just use your finger to draw directly on the screen, or open up the keyboard and start typing away.  You can choose the thickness and color of the lines that you draw, and it’s pretty straight forward.    I honestly never find my self drawing a note, but it is something I regularly use to type out notes (grocery lists, todo-lists, etc)
  

• Samsung Music Hub:  
  
  This is Samsung’s music store.  It’s about what you would expect, you can browse for music (by album, artist, popular), or you can of course search. 
  
  To be honest, I don’t see much benefit of using the Music Hub over Amazon MP3 (which is generally cheaper). 

Web browsing:

Browsing the web is really great on this device – having a 1280×800 resolution screen, just like a laptop, really makes the browsing experience just as if you were using a computer.   For example, viewing Engadget, you don’t need to horizontally scroll and you can view the page just like you would expect:

I’ve also not had any problems performing any tasks that I would normally do on a full PC – for example, within Dolphin browser on my Samsung Galaxy S 2, tagging doesn’t work, however, no problems in the built in browser on the Tab:

Final thoughts:

All in all, the performance and experience is similar to other 10” dual core Android tablets in the market that I’ve tried (Transformer, Xoom, etc).  What mostly differentiates the Tab is that it is lighter and thinner than any of the other tablets I’ve used, it has a 3G option (which most don’t have, yet), and that there are no other ports (such as USB or MicroSD). 

One thing to note is that a few people have mentioned having the “Newton’s Rings” issue which is where you get what looks like an oil slick effect on your screen.  Mine actually developed this problem last week, and after I put it in the fridge for a bit, the problem is minimal now and it only happens if I press the screen a bit hard (there’s a YouTube video about it here).  However, Samsung seems to be replacing those that have had this problem, so as long as you don’t mind dealing with the issue if you happen to get it….

Do you have a Galaxy Tab 10.1 and want to share your comments?  Thinking about purchasing one and have any questions?  Let us know in the comments below!

The Asus Eee Pad Transformer tries to bridge the gap between tablet, netbook, and laptop.  It’s one of the first tablets to feature the 1.2ghz Tegra 2 processor, 1gb ram, with an optional keyboard dock (which doubles as an extra battery as well), while remaining affordable!  What is it like?  Continue reading below:

Specifications:

• 10.1" LED Backlight WXGA (1280×800) Screen –IPS Panel 178* viewing angles
• NVIDIA Tegra 2 1.2GHz dual core processor
• 1GB DDR2 Memory
• 16GB Storage (+ MicroSD expansion slot)
• 802.11b/g/n 2.4ghz wifi
• Bluetooth 2.1+EDR
• 1.2mp front camera, 5.0mp rear camera
• 1x mini HDMI 1.3a, 1 x 2-in-1 audio jack (mic and headset), 1 x MicroSD slot
• Battery:  rated at 9.5hrs (16hrs with keyboard dock)
• Dimensions: 271mm x 171mm x 12.98mm (10.67” x 6.73” x 0.51”)
• Weight (without keyboard):  680g (1.5lbs)

Unboxing:

What is a review if it doesn’t include an unboxing video?

And of course, here are a few shots of the Transformer all around:

Build quality and aesthetics:

It looks fantastic (in my opinion at least). The back of the tablet is textured, non-glossy, and made of hard plastic — but not a plastic that feels cheap.

The power and volume buttons are both in a natural natural location and they have the right amount of “click” when pressed.  

The weight is evenly distributed, and it’s comfortable to hold no matter how I end up holding it (from a corner, resting in the palm of my hand, etc).   Overall, it’s about what you should expect; it’s sturdy, well proportioned, and is just as “good feeling” as any other tablet I’ve used (iPad and Galaxy Tab). 

I do have one minor gripe, however.  After inserting a microSD card a few times, it would have been nice if they could have created a slight dimple around the slot.  It’s kind of hard to press the card in enough to where it clicks/locks into place; I have to use my fingernail to push it in all the way and it sometimes takes me a couple tries to get it to stay in.  (granted, there may not be a way to make this easier, with the inherent design of the tablet being so thin and such, but it’s still a small annoyance):

Media playback:

The tablet has very good speakers.  At first when I saw that they were on the sides, I wasn’t sure how well it would sound.  But surprisingly, it sounds as though the sound was coming straight out of the screen, and is surprisingly full sounding (it’s not tin-canny or anything like that).  I’m very impressed!

As with other android devices I’ve owned, however, the headset volume is a lacking.  Having used a Dell Streak, Galaxy Tab, and a Desire HD which all suffer from low volume in the headset, I was sad to find that even with the volume on max, it was still not quite loud enough for me.   I regularly take the train, and I could barely understand the voices and such in a few of the movies I’ve tried watching on the Transformer.

When playing movies from my Class 10 PNY 16gb MicroSD card, playback will stutter every 16 seconds or so (DVD rip at 1300 Kbps). 

Cameras:

The rear camera is 5.0mp and is capable of taking 720p video and the front is 1.3mp.  Neither is good enough quality to call home about, but they will (barely) get the job done if you have nothing else to take a picture with.  I wasn’t expecting fantastic pictures, but for a device of this caliber, I expected a bit more.  Pictures are washed out and a bit fuzzy, even in good lighting (clicking on the pictures will bring you to the uncompressed, full size versions taken from the rear camera):

Another annoying thing is that there doesn’t appear to be a way to turn off the shutter noise when taking a picture (without muting all audio).  Asus…please fix this!  

When taking a video, the preview window is very choppy, but I was hoping that the resulting video would be smooth – however, the resulting video is just as choppy.  The audio even sounds a bit like you’re taking a video underwater…don’t quite understand why it’s this bad.  Quite disappointing: 
 

A few times when trying to use the camera, I received a green screen, which I had to switch between the front and rear camera for it to go away (sometimes I had to close out of the app and re-open it):

With all these issues, I hope it’s just an issue with the camera app itself and not the actual hardware – that would be very disappointing. 

The front camera, however, is actually seems just fine!  It’s only 1.3mp, but video recording/playback looks great – it isn’t choppy nor nearly as washed out as the rear camera, so at least there’s a good cam for video chat:

Screen:
It’s quite nice.  Being that it’s an IPS display, the viewing angles are great – there’s no angle where the color fades or where it’s hard to read the screen:

Viewing outdoors, however, isn’t as nice (though, with any tablet/gadget like  this, they all have the same problem).  Viewing it straight on with the sky/sun will cause you not to be able to see anything, but all you need to do is look at it from a different angle and it’s a bit better:

Battery life:

I ran a couple battery tests, and here were my results:

• Constant playback of DVD rip of LOTR in RockPlayer (720×368, 1,671Kbps, V_MPEG4 x264) at 50% screen brightness, WiFi on, and speakers at max volume with 7% battery remaining:  6hrs 54min. 
• From 3% battery life, plugging it into the AC adapter and having the device on, WiFi on, screen off, it takes 2hrs 10min to fully charge.

With 7+ hours (if I had let it run till it completely died) is totally acceptable when watching movies non stop with WiFi on.   You could even squeeze a bit more time out of it if you were just doing simple browsing/email/etc. 

Input:

The ASUS keyboard is a Swype-like keyboard where you can place one finger on the first key, and then swipe your finger across the keyboard while quickly stopping on each letter in the word you are spelling.  It’s not quite as good as Swype (it isn’t quite as good at correctly guessing what I meant to write all the time), but better (in my opinion) than just a “plain” keyboard:

Another thing I like Swype better is that on the ASUS keyboard, if you touch type in words that it doesn’t recognize in it’s autocomplete dictionary, it will not automatically add the new words in it’s database (ie, whenever I would type “Eee” it would replace it with “See”, even after I choose “Eee” as the word I actually meant to type):

A Nintendo Wiimote.  It works great when using it with Wiimote Controller (no rooting needed) and playing SNesoid (emulator for SNES):

Performance:

I don’t think there are (m?)any apps that are designed to take advantage of dual core setups, but I never ran into any real lag while running any apps I normally use (NOVA HD, angry birds, web browsing, email, music, video, etc).  The Transformer scores as 2054 Quadrant score, and not that I necessarily had an expectation as to what it would score, I thought it would’ve been a bit higher:

Overall usage of the device I felt comfortable.  There does seem to be a bit of a lag at times from when you tap on the screen and the tablet actually “realizes” you’ve touched it (input lag).  After using it for a while, I got used to it and was able to act accordingly, but first time users may get confused as to why it’s not responding right away. 

Conclusion:

The Eee Pad Transformer is a very good price for what it offers, especially when compared to the Motorola Xoom and iPad 2 ((1280×800 IPS display, optional keyboard dock, low price, etc).   At the moment, the keyboard dock is not readily available, but with it, the Transformer would be quite the Android tablet package.   The camera leaves much to be desired (though, I’m still hoping it’s a software issue), but other than that,  I’m hard pressed to find any serious complaints about the tablet. 

Pros:

• Well priced at £379 (without keyboard dock)
• Great battery life (which is enhanced further with the keyboard dock)
• Excellent screen (viewing angles, resolution, quality)
• Impressive specs

Cons:

• The rear camera is quite simply bad.
• Proprietary USB cable
• Slight touch input lag

For Mission 4 as being a Samsung Mob!ler, our mission was to go to a local store (I finally found one at O2) and check out the Galaxy Tab and give our initial impressions (after which, we’ll soon be given our own Galaxy Tab, so stay tuned here for a full review once it arrives!)

First Impression:

Let me start out by saying this was the first time I had actually seen it in person — well, actually the first time I’ve seen it outside of promotional pictures — so I did not really know what to expect (I hadn’t yet watched any video reviews, comparison shots, etc).   When the O2 guy pulled it out of the box, it was a bit smaller and a bit thicker than I had expected;  after using an iPad a couple times, I was expecting something similar to it (yes, I did know it had a 7” screen vs.. the 9.7” of the iPad, but I couldn’t really picture the difference until I saw it in person).

Here’s an image to show the difference between the iPad and the Galaxy Tab:

So as you can see, it’s basically they’re both about the same thickness, but the Tab is of course smaller width and height wise.  Though, that being said, after handling it for a few minutes and actually using it (playing games, browsing the internet, etc), my initial qualms about it’s size went away.  It’s not quite small enough to fit in your pocket, but it’s not too big to actually be able to type on it landscape mode with your thumbs – it’s a bit harder than a “normal phone” sized on screen keyboard, but it is doable. 

What’s it like?

The more I used it, the more I realized it’s like a big Galaxy S (just like the iPad vs.. iPhone debate).  They (will soon) have the same version of Android (v 2.2 / Froyo) and TouchWiz interface, and they do share a lot of the same hardware; other than the obvious larger size of the Tab, here’s a break down:
 

* as rated by Manufacturer

So as you an see, besides the size/weight differences, they’re all fairly similar (with the Tab and Galaxy being very similar). 

General Usage:

Seeing as how I didn’t get to take tab home (because it’s £600…), I was only able to play with it for a few minutes.  I was able to play NOVA which is a Halo-like First Person Shooter game – how was it?  fantastic – While the on screen controls for any FPS game like this takes a bit to get used to, the game play and quality was great – smooth frames through out the 5-10 minutes I played and never once had an issue. 

That being said, when playing the game, I did manage to hit the Home soft key twice (since it’s right along the right edge), so that was a bit of an annoyance — perhaps there’s a way to disable it…either with or without rooting it?

Unfortunately, I did not have a chance to test web browsing and give Flash a go, so that will have to wait until mine arrives and the full review gets posted…

Final thoughts:

For the few minutes I was able to use it, I’m not sure which of similar devices I like the best (iPad, Galaxy Tab, Galaxy S, or even the Dell Streak).  It’s definitely has it’s own slight niche in terms of form factor, but I think it will be hard to choose between the cheaper and slightly smaller Dell Streak (also with Android and similar hardware specs) or the larger and slightly more expensive (if you get 3G+WiFi) iPad.  All three offer similar functionality (yes, iOS vs.. Android have major differences…) but all come with different foot prints, so mobile operating system choice aside, I would say it’s going to come down to what size device you are looking for.    That being said, I’m going to wait until I get my own Tab and am able to use it for a longer period of time before I give my “final” final thoughts! 

And to finish this prereview, here are a few more shots I was able take:

Have you ordered a Tab yet or perhaps you are in the UK and already picked one up from O2?  Tell us about it in the comments!  (be sure to stay tuned for future Samsung Mob!ler missions and my full review of the Tab once it arrives at my door!)

The Dell Inspiron Mini 1012 is Dell’s first netbook to utilize Intel’s latest Pinetrail platform by using the Atom N450.  Does the N450 result in a significant improvement over the previous Dell Mini 10/10v’s Atom N270/N280/Z530?  Yes – better battery life and better performance.  Is the 1012 any better than the 10/10v?  Yes, keep reading to find out more:

Specifications of reviewed system:

• Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz, 667MHz FSB, 512K L2 cache
• 2GB DDR2-667 Memory (upgraded from 1GB)
• 10.1” 1024×600 Widescreen display
• Intel NM10 express chipset
• Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3150
• 6 Cell extended battery
• 1.3M webcam
• 160GB SATA 5400RPM Seagate hard drive
• Windows 7 Starter
• Dell Wireless 1397 802.11b/g
• 3-in-1 memory card reader
• 3 x USB2.0, 1 x 10/100 Ethernet, 1 x VGA, 1x Mic + Earphone

Unboxing and ports:

As with the Dell Mini 10/10v, not much comes in the box with the netbook – just the various CD’s (MS Works, drivers, OS, etc), the small charger, and the netbook itself:

Here you can see images of the different views/ports:

In the video above, you can also see the new hinge design of the 1012.  Instead of the hinge being at the far end like most other netbooks, it is rather about a half inch from the back.  My guess is so that this way they were able to make room for the 6 cell battery to be “part” of the normal chassis, instead of seeming to stick out (but of course, that’s a total guess!):

Upgradability:

Unlike the original Mini 10, the memory is upgradable to 2GB (up from the standard 1GB) and thankfully does not require you to fully dismantle the entire laptop like you do with the Mini 10v; however, there is still no easy memory access door.  Instead, you have to simply remove three screws on the bottom of the netbook as well as the keyboard and then you will have relatively easy access to the memory (green) and hard drive (red).  

On the other hand, if you want to upgrade your wireless card, wwan, hd decoder, etc – you will have to remove a few more screws and then pry off the palm rest (and it’s honestly not too difficult).  See my previous post with an HD video and picture guide on how upgrade and dismantle the 1012.

Screen:

Viewing angles and brightness are both very good.  Using the netbook on my lap or a table, I did not have any problems having to look at it at just the right angle or anything like that – slight movements of my head (or lap) didn’t require me to adjust the angle of the screen in order to see everything “normally”.  

There are 16 levels of brightness and I found that I was comfortable at keeping it at about 8/16 brightness most of the time.  In direct sunlight, having it at full brightness allowed the screen to be visible (albeit with a bit of reflection from the sun):

The lid (screen) is fairly thin – as thin as any other netbook screen – and while it doesn’t open a full 180 degrees, it does open wide enough for normal uses:

Performance:

Below are some tables comparing the Dell 1012 with other netbooks and laptops:

Windows 7 (Vista) Scores:

Super PI 0.99b:

Flash/Hulu playback:

A big question of mine with every netbook is how it handles flash/Hulu playback and the Dell Mini 1012 is finally one that can handle it quite well.  I’m not sure if it’s more due to the new Flash 10 beta 2 or the Atom N450 processor (probably both), but it was able to handle full screen Hulu just fine (except high resolution full screen, but in my opinion, it’s not really necessary on such a small resolution screen):

 
You’ll notice in some of the screen shots/videos that I installed Windows XP – this is because I was going to run 3DMark and PCMark benchmark tests, but I unfortunately was unable to access an external monitor to meet those software titles’ requirements of having a screen resolution of at least 1024×768 – so I was unable to get any of those “official” benchmark numbers.  That being said, the 1012 is definitely a bit more powerful than it’s predecessors simply though it’s ability to playback Flash better. 

Battery:

I can’t say enough how much I applaud Dell for improving on the aesthetics and design of the extended 6 cell battery for the 1012; Instead of keeping it as it was with the Mini 10/10v, protruding from the bottom and effectively adding an inch to it’s thickness:

they made it flush with the rest of the netbook – nice, clean, and pretty:

As far as the time that the battery lasts, they improved that too!  The following tests were performed with brightness at half (8/16) and wifi on.   The two tests I perform are 100% full screen hulu playback, and then 100% automatic refreshing of 3 news sites at 10s, 15s, and 30s intervals (separate tabs in Firefox).  Since hulu/flash still demands a pretty good amount of CPU power, I use this as my “worst case scenario” and the auto webpage(s) refreshing as the “usual/best case scenario”.  (all tests below are with 6 cell batteries)

Keyboard & touchpad:

Dell continues to make good keyboards for their netbook (well, except for the Dell Mini 9).  The keyboard is 92% the size of a regular laptop keyboard, there is virtually no flex, and all the keys are in the right place:

On minor thing to note is that Dell is starting to swap around the default behavior of the F1-F12 keys.  Instead of the F1-F12 keys actually being “F1, F2, F3, …, F12” when you press them, they are instead the “screen on/off, wireless toggle, brightness, volume, etc”.  In other words, to get F1-F12 functionality, you have to press the Fn key – notice how they’re both in blue font: 

It’s really not a big deal, as you can change the default behavior in the BIOS, but it’s something to be aware of.

The touchpad, on the other hand, I’m not so crazy about.  The touchpad mouse buttons are not separate pieces of plastic from the rest of the touchpad:

That, coupled with the fact that it is multi-touch, causes issues (at least for me) because I tend to rest my index finger on the left touch pad button and then move the cursor with my middle finger – in the process, my index finger will slightly move at times when moving the cursor with my middle finger, thus causing the cursor to do crazy stuff like move half way across the screen/etc.  (Anyone know if it’s possible to disable the multi-touch capability?)

Miscellaneous:

A few people may be concerned about whether the memory card will fit all the way inside the netbook, or if it sticks out:  it sticks out

Final thoughts:

In my opinion, this is the best 10” netbook Dell has come out with.   The Dell Mini 1012 combines the better features of the Mini 10 (HD screen and many pci-e card options) and the Mini 10v (upgradable memory, extra USB port), while improving upon the 6 cell extended battery.  The Atom N450 helps push this netbook into a more “usable” realm of portable computers now that it can better handle Flash playback while keeping it’s power usage down to allow good battery life. 

Would it have been nice to have HDMI? Yes, and when I’m buying a laptop these days, I won’t buy one if it doesn’t have HDMI – but I don’t feel as strongly about it when it comes to a netbook.  I guess that since a netbook isn’t as powerful as a laptop, it’s not a laptop/desktop replacement, so I don’t see it as being an “hdmi media playback” computer.   I also wish Dell would quit using the touchpad they’ve had in these netbooks, or at least have a way to disable the multi-touch capability.

All-in-all, starting at $280 you can’t go wrong choosing this netbook over others in this price range; you will get great battery life, good performance, and many upgrade options (hd accelerator, high resolution screen, TV card, etc).

Pros:

• Excellent battery life (7+ hrs)
• Good upgrade options (hd screen, hd decoder, TV card)
• Atom N450 processor + Flash beta = smooth full screen Hulu

Cons:

• Not the best touchpad
• All color options have a white bottom half

Dell recently released the Dell Zino HD
, their own “nettop” (mini desktop), and being an owner of the Zotac IONITX-A-U Dual Core Atom N330/ION motherboard, I had to give this a spin and see if it was any better.   I was excited to learn that it had a graphic cards I have used in the past (the HD3200) which I had good experience with, a 3.5” desktop hard drive (allowing large space and fast speed) as well as Bluray drive option.   How does it stack against the Zotac?  Not as good as I had expected, but that doesn’t mean it’s a bad machine – read on to learn more:

Unboxing:

For being such a small computer, it came in a surprisingly big box (but then I remembered it comes with a keyboard/etc too haha):

It comes with the computer itself, small external power supply (hmm no Dell logo), laser mouse, usb keyboard, Win 7 installation CD, and manuals/pamphlets:

Features:

The Dell Zino HD comes with a variety of configuration options – below are the options of the reviewed system (in bold) as well as the other options (The Zino here is the Zino HD 400):

Upgradability:

As with most other desktops, you can easily upgrade the memory, hard drive, optical drive etc (except there are no pci slots, so there are no options to upgrade the video card or add a pci tv tuner). Dell has a very useful step by step illustrated guide for dismantling the computer, or you can follow below to remove/upgrade the optical drive, hard drive, mini pci-e card, or memory:

• Optical drive:  First, push the button on the back to release the top cover. (If you have a built in WiFi card, you will need to unscrew the antennas from the bracket – I did not have this option, but it will be obvious where to unscrew). Then remove the single screw holding on the top bracket and pull it straight up to remove.
  
  Next, remove the single screw holding the optical drive in, slide it out a bit (towards the front) and remove the single cable connect to the back.  That’s it.
  
• Hard drive:  Continue on by removing the single screw securing the power button to the drive bay.  Then remove the two screws securing the drive bay (one is located along the front edge on the right, and the other along the left edge near the front):
  
  With the screws removed (or loose, since it’s hard to get your fingers down in there to remove them), slide the drive bay a bit towards the back and lift up. 
  
  With the single cable (power and data) that is plugged into the drive now accessible, remove it and pull the drive bay out of the machine. Remove the four screws holding the hard drive to the drive bay.  That’s it.
• Mini PCI-E card:  with the drive bay removed, you now have easy access to the single screw holding in mini pci-e card.  Simply remove the screw, and pull it out.  That’s it.  (I did not have a wifi card, so you don’t see one in the picture!)
  
• Memory:  Flip the desktop over, so you can see the bottom.  Two of the feet have screws – simply unscrew them and lift off the bottom cover.  Unclip the memory sticks and pull them out.  That’s it.
  

Power Usage:

Hooking this up to a P3 International P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor, I measured the following power usage during different usage states:

• Sleep: 1 watt
• Idle: 24 watts
• Boot:  41 watts
• Watching HD: 50 watts
• Under load (using HyperPi):  53 watts

This system uses the same, or more, power than the IONITX-A-U setup I reviewed the other day.  However, keep in mind that this Zino uses a 3.5” 7200RPM hard drive and, I’m not sure if it matter, but 8gb of memory – as well as the AMD HD3200 is not as “low power” as the nVidia ION. 

Performance:

There are no options to overclock the processor like there are for the Atom N330 in the Zotac IONITX board, so I felt that the Zotac (at 2.0ghz) already had a leg up on the Zino’s AMD 6850e.   But what do the benchmarks say?

According to the Windows 7 scores, it appears that the ION graphics are better than the AMD HD3200, but the AMD Neo 6850e processor is better than the Intel Atom N330.  However PCMark and 3DMark seem to say the opposite with the IONITX receiving higher 3DMarks but lower PCMarks.  And then we have the hyperpi results which show about twice the performance for the Dell.  I don’t really have an explanation for the conflicting reports, or which one is more reliable (my guess would be pc/3dmark), but I can say that through all my testing of both machines, the IONITX system felt faster. 

Bluray playback:  It plays back just fine on my LG 40LH47 @ 1080p – no stuttering/skipping/etc – as long as you don’t move the mouse to make the PowerDVD menu pop up.  As soon as you do anything except watch the movie, it will start to stutter.  That being said, when you are watching a movie, you aren’t doing any other foreground task, so you’ll be fine. 

Using Media Center to watch/record:  Like watching Bluray, if you are just simply watching HD or SD, you’ll be fine.  However, if you are navigating through the Media Center menu or guide with TV playing in the background, it will get a bit laggy / not very smooth.  However, if you are recording and the menu is lagging, the recording will still be fine;  It’s just a bit annoying when the menu lags at times.  Watching a recorded show or live TV while recording a different station works fine – the live/recorded playback is smooth and the recording is good too.    For reference, I was using a Hauppauge HVR-950Q USB QAM HDTV tuner (it works great, and all you need to do is plug it in and windows 7 automatically installs it – oh how I love simplicity)

HDMI & Connecting to an HDTV:

Upon connecting it to my TV for the first time, I immediately had two problems.  1) the audio wasn’t working and 2) it wasn’t showing full screen.

The audio problem is an easy fix, just simply go to the sound settings and select the HDMI audio as the default sound device :)

The second issue however has been a pain in my neck since I received the computer.  No matter what I do (other than turning on “zoom” on my tv), I cannot get the display to fill the screen!

I’ve tried uninstalling and updating to the latest Catalyst drivers, going through all the setting options in the Catalyst control center – nothing works.  I tried plugging it into my 720p 26” as well, and same issue.   To make sure it wasn’t some crazy setting on the TV’s, I verified again that my Inspiron 14z, Studio 15, and Zotac all displayed in full screen just fine on both TV’s.   (I’ve waited in dell chat support for a bit but gave up as I didn’t have time when I’ve tried – and I’m already a bit upset about them cancelling/replacing the order for this and therefore invalidating my, and many others’, Bing.com cash back).  Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out a solution (any suggestions?).

In the meantime, however, I am able to select a zoom type of setting on my LG and everything looks fine (though I can see that there is still a column or two of pixels that aren’t being used on the screen) so it’s not QUITE there.  I’m going to give Dell the benefit of the doubt that it’s something I’m not doing right…

Noise levels:

It’s quiet (enough). Yes, if you really try to listen for it, you can hear the fan – but if you stick it in your tv stand / next to the tv / etc and you are sitting on the couch, you won’t notice it if you’re not looking for it (at least, I didn’t). The fan is at least quieter than the fan included with the Zotac. The Zino looks to be using a 60mm x 60mm x 25mm fan, the key here being the 25mm thickness — the fan on the Zotac is 10mm thick (thin), and I assume it has to therefore spin faster to get more airflow (because of smaller fins), which causes more noise.

The optical drive is also quiet – during playback of Transformers Bluray, I never once noticed any noise from the bluray drive.

Size Comparisons:

Just to try to get a better feel for how big the Zino is, here’s a few pictures with it next to other devices (iPhone 3Gs, 3.5” desktop hard drive, and a M350 mini-itx case):

Final Thoughts:

I love how the “mini desktop” is starting to take off, and even more glad that Dell as jumped in (because they will soon show up in the outlet, and you can usually get in on great outlet coupon deals!).  The Dell Zino HD 400 is a good fit if you are looking to use it to watch HDTV and Bluray, record HDTV, playback general media files, etc while keeping it in a small, sleek package to compliment the style of your home entertainment center. 

Compared to similar setups you can build yourself however, I don’t see enough of a performance boost in these low power AMD chips (which are supposed to compete with the Atoms) to justify the higher cost in the Zino.  The Zotac dual core Atom with ION did not choke in any of my bluray, hdtv watching/recording tests – but the Zino did (keep in mind, however, the Zino did fine when you weren’t navigating the media center menu while watching/recording). 

In short, if you can get a good deal on a Zino and you plan to use it basically as a “tivo box”, then go for it.  If you happen to have a spare mini-itx case, hard drive, and/or memory laying around, I would suggest looking into the Zotac line of dual core atom with ION setups, as it feels like it performs better (at least in the media tests I threw at them). 

The Zotac IONITX-A-U is a motherboard + cpu + graphics combination that is perfectly suited to meet most HTPC needs:  It uses very little power, has HDMI – DVI – VGA – eSata – Optical/Coax audio – Wifi – 6 USB, nVidia ION graphics, comes with a power supply, and has the added benefit of being of the mini-itx form factor.  But can such a small package deliver where it count?  Yes!

Background and general info:

I bought the IONITX-A-U to serve as my HTPC, and more specifically to be an HD-DVR.  Previously, I was using a bit more powerful of a setup:

• AMD BE-2400 low voltage dual core (45w) processor,
• BIOSTAR TFORCE TA780G M2+ Micro ATX AMD Motherboard (which has AMD HD3200 graphics and hdmi)
• 2x500gb Seagate 7200.10 7200RPM 3.5” hard drives (RAID 1),
• in a huge (compared to this) Antec NSK2480 HTPC 380W case

Running 24/7, using a Kill-a-watt power meter I figured out it was costing me about $135 a year to run that system.  Since all I was really using the computer for was to be a DVR/media box and for nightly backups of my computers, I soon decided it was a bit overkill on horsepower and energy usage.  At the time, I had just begun to hear about ION and it’s ability to handle 1080P HD and such so I figured I’d give it a try;  the potential of having an HTPC that sips power at the mini-itx size was just too temping for me.

The Zotac IONITX-A-U comes with the mini-itx motherboard and dual core Atom N330 (hdmi, eSata, mini pci-e wifi, optical/coaxial audio, gig-e), built in ION graphics, and power supply for $180. 

In the package, it comes with the motherboard/cpu combo, sata cables, power supply, I/O shield, sata power cables, and CPU fan (fyi, the IONITX-D-E is the same as the A-U, just without power supply and is a bit cheaper).  The fan supposedly isn’t required assuming you have the proper case fan setup, but seeing as how I am using a tiny case with everything packed in tight, I wasn’t about to try:

(The case):

You can’t buy a mini-itx motherboard and not get a mini-itx case, it just seems to defeat the point.  Unfortunately, you can’t really find a cheap $20ish mini-itx case as you can with standard ATX/mATX cases.  After looking through dozens of cases, I finally decided to go with the Mini-Box M350 case:

What made me choose this case was mainly it’s TINY size of 7.5” x 8.3” x 2.5” which nicely complements the IONITX-A-U.  Also, it has VESA mounting holes which would work great for mounting it to the back of smaller TV’s (larger TV’s have a VESA hole pattern larger than the case itself).  It is also pretty open, and by that I mean there are many holes, which has been working just fine for my setup (temperature wise) — though others suggest it hinders proper air flow.   I could write much more about this case – and I will in a review following this one – just know that for this Ion setup, it works great.  However, if you want a built in optical drive you’ll have to find a different case as there is no room for one in this case.  I opted to instead buy a external slim usb blu-ray player so I could travel with it should I ever want to. 

Full specifications of reviewed system:

• Zotac IONITX-A-U Intel Atom N330, nVidia ION chipset (up to 512mb shared graphics memory)
• 2x2GB DDR2-800 Crucial Ballistix 4-4-4-12
• HITACHI Travelstar 5K320 320GB 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive -Bare Drive
• M350 Mini-ITX Case
• Windows 7 Home 64bit
• HDHomeRun for HD source
• Generic slim profile USB bluray player
• (using a LG 47LH40 47-Inch 1080p 120Hz LCD HDTV, Gloss Black )

Power Usage:

One of the main advantages to using this as an HTPC as opposed to building a “normal” computer is for it’s energy savings. In Baltimore, I am paying about $0.20/kWhr including service and delivery so I’ve started to be conscious about my energy usage. (out of curiosity, what does everyone else pay??).  On paper, the processor itself sips along with a TDP of a mere 8 watts — compare that to the latest “normal” low power desktop chips:  Intel Celeron 430 35W or AMD Sempron 140 45W). 

• Sleep: 2 watts
• Idle:  21 watts
• Boot:  25 watts
• Watching HD:  26 watts
• PCMark Vantage test (under heavy load):  29 watts

in comparison, here are some energy measurements of my Dell Studio 14z, Core 2 Duo P8600 laptop:

• Sleep:  1> watts
• Idle:  17 watts
• Boot:  29 watts
• Watching HD:  30 watts
• Under load:  35 watts

Performance:

Okay, so the main questions that I had before buying it were:

• Can it record and playback HD at the same time?  Yes, it works perfectly using Windows 7 media center.  I use HDHomeRun (which is a dual HD tuner that you connect to your network), and I can watch and playback HD content at the same time with no skipping while @ 1920×1080 resolution. 
• Can it do full screen Hulu and YouTube?  Yes (using the latest beta Flash player with GPU support).  However, playing back 1080 youtube full screen still skips frames here and there, but it’s still watchable (disclaimer – I can deal with skipped frames here and there, so maybe others may not agree here!).  Using Hulu desktop client seems to make hulu watching a little bit better (I assume there’s less processing power to run hulu desktop than it takes to run the browser?)
• Can it playback bluray at 1080p?  Yep, again, no problems at all watching at 1920×1080. 

You may also be wondering if it can play a variety of games and the like, but this setup is not meant for gaming (the processor just really isn’t powerful enough).  Sure, you could play with the lowest settings and resolution with older games  – but don’t plan on doing any “real” gaming with this rig. 

Now for some actual benchmarks, courtesy of FutureMark software (for 3DMark, “P” means performance test, “E” means entry test):

• Video memory set to 128mb in bios:
  • PCMark Vantage score: 2365
  • 3DMark vantage score: P409,  
• Video memory set to 512mb in bios:
  • PCMark Vantage score: 2184
  • 3DMark vantage score: E2803, P471

At times, however, I do notice a bit of lag when performing normal tasks.  If I am browsing around the web and open multiple tabs, it is a bit sluggish when switching tabs and loading websites with a lot of rich media (flash, etc).  I’m not saying it can’t even handle web browsing, I’m just saying that compared to my core 2 duo laptop, I do notice a slight hesitation when switching between multiple tabs/etc. 

That being said, all the menu navigations in Win7 media center, menu navigation/playback within Media Player / Power DVD for movies (dvd and bluray) are also fine, etc. 

Two build issues:

1. The I/O shield.  I had to take my dremel and cut away some of the metal around one of the circular port holes. The hole where the included WiFi antenna is supposed to go was cut by the factory to be not-so-quite round (notice the flat edge on the right of the right most column of circle cutouts).  I had to take my dremel and basically file/cut it down so it would be circular enough to fit the nut of the antenna mount:

Now, this is kind of a big deal – without this being cut out correctly, the motherboard can’t sit up in/against the i/o shield properly – notice the gap:

Hopefully, I just got a bad i/o shield due to random manufacturer “errors”, or perhaps, they’re all like this – I don’t know – just be prepared to maybe have to do this too!

2. 3xSATA power cable.  The included SATA power cable is a Molex connector on one end, and then has 3 rather long SATA power connections sprout from it.  However, this will only be an issue depending on the case and number of devices you install — with the M350 case I was using, there just wasn’t enough room to have 3 SATA power cables running around inside:

So, I had to get some spare sata power cables and splice and dice em to make one that was just long enough to go from the motherboard connection to the hard drive:

Again, this isn’t necessarily a “fault” with the product, it’s just another thing you’ll want to keep in mind when building such a system!

Final thoughts:

If you are looking for an HTPC setup that has a small footprint, uses little energy, and doesn’t cost TOO much (probably cheaper than a year of HD TiVo + the TiVo box, not including a usb bluray player), then a Zotac IONITX-A-U build is definitely something you should consider.  Using it as an HTPC you will have no problem with watching and recording SD and HD, playing back DVD | Bluray | Amazon Video on Demand | Netflix Streaming, listening/streaming music, and web browsing.   Using it as a “basic usage” computer would also be fine, such as word processing, web development, very light gaming, chatting, light photo editing (resizing, touching up, etc), and even light video editing (windows movie maker) and you’ll be fine.   It’s when you want to start video editing (adobe software), play games with any advanced graphics, heavy photo editing (photoshop-eque programs), is where you will start to exceed the ability for this setup. Could you still do all of that? most of it, yes  if you don’t mind things being slow.

*Note – the speed of the hard drive I am using is likely causing more lag than would normally exist with a 7200rpm or SSD drive, which in most computer setups, the hard drive is one of the speed bottle necks.  That being said, even with my 5400rpm drive, I am still able to perform media center tasks just fine. 

In short, if you are looking for an HTPC, this will work great – just be sure to get a mini-itx case to complement the setup!

Pros:

• Low power usage
• Very small size
• Connectivity: HDMI, DVI, VGA, eSata, usb, coaxial/optical audio, gigabit ethernet, and mini pci-e wifi
• ION Chipset (allows 1080p / HD/ Bluray playback)

Cons: 

• For the same price, you could built a much more powerful machine
• Still can’t quite handle 1080p Flash flawlessly
• no pci/pci-e slots if you need them

The specifications of the reviewed unit are:

• Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 533MHz fsb
• 2GB DDR2-667 (easily self upgraded using Patriot PSD22G6672S PC2-5300 2GB )
• Hitachi 160GB 5400RPM SATA
• Intel 950 GMA integrated graphics/chipset
• 10.1” LED 1024×600 display
• Windows HP Home
• 6 cell battery
• 802.11b/g wifi

HD Video Review:

Glamour shots:

Top and bottom:

Left and right, and front:

Screen:

This netbook has a 10.1” LED backlit, glossy screen.  The only option it comes in is a 1024×600 which is the standard for 10” netbooks (only a very few have higher at 1366×768).  That being said, it’s no better or worse than the Acer Aspire One or Dell Mini 10/10v. 

Viewing angles are good.  Even at their worst, which is when you tilt the screen towards you, it’s still usable.  Now, if you tilt the screen to the extreme, yes, it will be horrible – but you’d never really use the netbook like that (the bottom angle shot below):

Being that it’s LED backlit, the brightness levels vary from very bright to pretty dim.  During my review, I found I liked to have it at about the 2nd or 3rd brightness level (of 10).  When set at it’s highest, it was simply just too bright for me (but helped when having bright lights our sunlight shining on the screen). 

Performance:

It’s better than I thought.  Maybe it has to do with upgrading it to 2gb and setting windows to best performance mode, but I was able to watch some full screen hulu without much jitter; it wasn’t perfect, but it was watchable.  However, it still is only a single core 1.6Ghz atom processor, so don’t expect to do any hardcore computing with this little laptop.   Word processing, web browsing, LIGHT LIGHT gaming (solitaire!), light photo editing, and apparently flash videos are okay.  Like to have FireFox open with tons of tabs, while working in excel and listening to music may push this machine towards it’s limit (but again, doable!). 

The hard drive included was a Hitachi 5K320-160 3.0GB/s SATA drive, which ranks 73 of 100 (lower = better) at harddrivebenchmark.net.  You could most definitely boost the performance of this netbook by upgrading to a faster drive (perhaps this Friday during Black Friday!)

Battery life is very good.  I ran through my test of loading up Firefox and having it auto reload 4 different news sites, and clicking on a few links (and going back) until the battery died.  At 2/10 brightness, and wifi on, I was able to get an average of 5 hours, 36 minutes.  Notice how I said earlier that this netbook is very similar to the Acer Aspire One – well – this is one of the few ways it differs; the Acer only got 4 hours 37 minutes on it’s 6 cell with the same test). 

Keyboard and touchpad:

They’re both pretty small.  Many 10” netbooks’ keyboard are  92-93% size of a normal keyboard – this gateway’s is 89%.  After a few weeks, I would probably be able to get used to the smaller keyboard, but I definitely found that I could not type at full speed while using it for this review.  The touchpad is quite small, annoyingly small even.  Throughout the review, I had to noticeably keep swiping my finger more than normally would on a touch pad.  It’s fine to use when necessary, but use a mouse when you can!    Like every other netbook though, there is virtually no flex in the keyboard which is appreciated. 

General thoughts:

Again, if you are looking to get the best (new, not used or refurbished) netbook at the cheapest price possible, the Gateway LT2005u ranks among the top.  It has the same basic specs as most other non-Ion based netbooks with it’s 10” 1024×600 display, 160gb hard drive, max memory 2gb, and Intel 950 graphics, so there isn’t much room for netbooks to stick out.  The price and battery life is how this netbook “outperforms”.  Though, depending on how you feel about the keyboard and touchpad being smaller than most, this may offset the low price and longer battery life upside. 

Pros:

• Cheap!  ($229 at bestbuy)
• Easy upgrades (access door for hard drive, memory, and wwan cards)
• Long battery life (and battery sticks out the back, not down)
• Good build quality

Cons:

• Small keyboard and unusually small touchpad
• LED blinks during network/wireless activity on the front of the laptop

For those of you looking to pickup a 2gb stick, amazon has a few of them at reasonable prices (it’s sad they’re not the prices of a year ago, where you could easily get 4gb for around $20 after rebate…)

There have been many sales on the (refurbished) Dell Mini 10 and 10v’s lately, so here is a comparison review of them.  All things considered, for the price you can get them for in the Dell Outlet, I would have to say they are the best netbook you can get today – with the 15% outlet coupons (which come out every few weeks), you can likely get grab one for around $228 before tax that is 10”, 1.3mp camera, Intel Atom 1.6ghz, 6 cell battery – about the same specifications as any other 10” netbook at a fraction of the price!  Now, on with the review (both  in general, and compared to each other):

Specifications:

The below specs are that which were used in the reviewed units, (specs in parenthesis are different options that are available, but not reviewed):

Comparison photos:

When compared side to side, the only difference is that the Mini 10 has an HDMI port (10v VGA), the 10v’s screen is a bit recessed, and they have different placements of USB ports – otherwise, unnoticeable differences in dimensions/appearance:

As you can see above, the Mini 10v’s screen does not sit flush with the bezel like it does with the Mini 10, nor is it as glossy. 

   
Here, you can see that they are the same other than usb placements and HDMI (10) vs VGA (10v).

And lastly, the front and rear are the same!

Build quality / keyboard / touchpad:

The Mini 10/10v have one of the better keyboards I’ve used in netbooks (other than the EEE PC 1000HE or Samsung NC20).  The keyboard’s size is 92% of a regular keyboard and none of the keys are placed in crazy locations (…such as the Dell Mini 9…).  There is no noticeable flex and the keys are not loose.  One thing that is different when compared to most netbooks/laptops is that the function keys require you to hold down the FN key, as opposed to having the “extra” keys (brightness, volume, external monitor, wifi switch, etc) needing the FN key.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just different.

The touchpad is a catch 22 for me on the Mini 10 – it’s great in that it’s large and works just like any other touchpad, but the multitouch really gets in the way.  I am used to having my thumb rest on the touchpad buttons and then just using my middle finger to navigate the cursor.  However, when I keep my thumb on the touchpad button (not depressed, just resting on it), I am unable to use my other fingers for navigating the cursor – it registers both fingers as a multitouch action (even though my thumb is on the touchpad button area and not the “navigation” part).  What’s strange, though, is that this isn’t an issue with the 10v – I can have my thumb on the button and still use my finger to move the cursor…strange (and I cannot find an option to turn off multitouch).

Overall build quality for both Mini 10/10v is on par with most any other netbook – no flex, sturdy lid, etc.  If you’ve held/used an acer aspire one, msi wind, hp mini – they’re all pretty much the same as the Mini 10/10v in “build quality”.

Battery:

Aesthetically, the 6 cell extended battery on these looks awful.  Not only that, but it sticks straight down from the netbook as opposed to others’ which tend to at least extend at an angle towards the back.  This effectively adds about an extra inch of thickness at the back and causes the netbook to sit at a relatively sharp angle. However, the 3 cell battery is flush with the bottom and adds no extra thickness or ugliness:

However, the 6 cell battery at least performs well even if it’s not pretty. Below is a chart of battery times when using both the 3 cell and 6 cell while either having hulu running full screen 100% of the time, or auto refreshing 3 webpages (cnn, engadget, and yahoo news) 100% of the time. All the while, brightness was at level 4 brightness:

As you can see, they were very close in batter life, with the Mini 10v being able to handle over 6 hours when doing ONLY basic web browsing.

Performance:

Let me first say they are both Atom processors with integrated graphics.  They’re not powerful.  Basic web browsing, word processing, etc is fine.  Dvd watching / music listening, okay.  Light gaming, you’re stretching it.  Flash, photo editing, etc, no.   That being said, besides the Mini 10 being a bit more sluggish when having more applications open (1GB), they both faired just as well as every other netbook out there (sans the EEE PC 1000HE overclocked).  I was unable to get PCMark05 to run on the Mini 10 (no idea why), but I was able to on the Mini 10v which scored 1,498.  (This is only slightly less than my EEE PC 1000HE which scored 1563 in super performance mode). 

Mini 10v PCMark05 scores:

• PCMark05 score:  1498
• CPU Test Suite:  1481
• Memory Test Suite:  2357
• Graphics Test Suite:  545
• HDD Test Suite:  4100

Upgradability:

The Dell Mini 10 is pretty “locked” down as far as upgrading goes.  The memory is stuck at 1GB (as it’s integrated in the motherboard), and in order to upgrade the wireless card, you’ll have to fully dismantle the laptop (like you do in order to upgrade the memory in the Mini 10v).   However, in the Mini 10v, there is actually an access door to upgrade the wireless:

To upgrade the hard drive, both simply require the keyboard to removed (which is just removing 3 screws from underneath):

And of course, the Mini 10v is upgradable to 2gb though requires fully dismantling the laptop to get access to the memory slot which is on the bottom side of the motherboard (there is no easy access panel like there is for the wireless card in the 10v). 

Conclusion:

The first contender from the list of Lifehacker’s Five Best Netbooks that I will be reviewing is the Acer Aspire One 10” netbook (AOD150).   Weighing in at 2.91lbs with a price tag of about $330 (or $280 using Bing.com cashback), this 10” netbook definitely holds it’s ground in the competition (not to mention quite an improvement from it’s older 8.9” sibling).  Just how nice is it?  As always, continue reading to find out!

Specifications of the reviewed system:

• Intel Atom N270 1.6GHz, 533mhz, 512KB L2
• 2GB DDR2-8800 (running at 533mhz)
• 10.1” WSVGA CrystalBrite (glossy) TFT Screen
• 160gb Western Digital Scorpio Blue SATA HDD
• 6 Cell battery
• Intel 950 graphics
• 2lbs 14.5 oz
• 10.3” x 1.3” x 7.3”
• VGA, 3xUSB2.0, Headphone/Mic, Ethernet, 802.11b/g wifi.

Glamour shots / views:

I’ll start out by simply showing different views of the netbook:

First we have the top, and then the bottom:

Left side (VGA, ethernet, usb, headphone, mic, memory card reader), and right (2 x USB, power jack, lock):

And then the front (power light, wireless switch)

Screen:

The 10” Acer Aspire One comes with a 10.1” glossy screen – and as I mentioned in the Lenovo S10-2 review, it basically comes down to personal preference whether glossy or matte is better for you. 

The lid itself isn’t as sturdy as I would like.  While it’s not as flimsy as the Lenovo S10’s lid, it doesn’t take too much force (twisting action) to make the screen bend.  Over the lifetime of owning this netbook, you may start to see pressure marks on the LCD if you pack it with books and the like on top of it in a book bag.  Also, like the screen, the lid is also glossy – meaning, it is quite the magnet for fingerprints:

Keyboard and Touchpad:

The keyboard is 89% the size of a normal keyboard, which unfortunately was not upgraded from the same size keyboard of the acer aspire one 9”.  The key clicks However, the keyboard is well built though with a SLIGHT bit of flex – but you don’t notice it during normal typing:

The increased area of the touchpad (over the 8.9” AAO) is a welcome edition.  The left and right buttons are combined into one, and the entire touch pad area is slightly recessed from the rest of the palm rest:

Battery:

Compared to other 10” netbooks I have reviewed so far, I was a bit disappointed at the battery life that this Acer has (for the tests below, I had WiFi one, screen at level 4 brightness, and let the battery run down to 3% and interpolated the remaining 3%):

• 100% full screen hulu:  3 hours, 58 minutes (238 minutes)
• 100% web browsing (refreshing cnn, yahoo, and engadget every 10 seconds):  4 hours, 37 minutes (277 minutes)

This is quite lower than I would have expected, so I will try to run some more of the same tests to see if perhaps I may have messed something up, but I already ran the 100% hulu twice, but the 100% web browsing only once – so we’ll see (does anyone else get similar results?) – this is about the same battery life you get w/the 6 cell and the Acer Aspire One 8.9”.

And, if anyone happens to need it, here’s a picture of the battery all by it’s lonesome:

Performance:

As with most other netbooks, the Atom N270 is not very powerful, and therefore performs about on par with every other N270 netbook out there.  It does just fine with basic usage consisting of web browsing, office work, music listening, EVER SO LIGHT photo editing (resizing, cropping, blurring, etc), and the like – but once you start playing back full screen Flash (hulu), any sort of game above pinball, or heavily multitasking, you’ll start to see the netbook fall to it’s knees.   Below are some simple performance benchmarks:

Super Pi:

• 1M = 1 minute, 33.937 seconds
• 2M = 3 minutes, 30.078 seconds

HDTune:

• Min:  31.6 MB/sec
• Max:  63.3 MB/sec
• Average:  50.7 MB/sec
• Access Time:  17.1 ms
• Burst Rate:  62.4 MB/sec
• CPU Usage:  3.9%

PCMark 05: 1501 pcmarks (connected to an external monitor at minimum required resolution of 1024×768)

As you can see from the results above, don’t plan on replacing your normal laptop with this (or any) netbook :)

Upgrades:

As with all the other 10” netbooks I’ve seen, Acer has given easy access to the hard drive (which is replaceable/removable), memory slot, and wireless card.  Also, Acer is using the same hard drive that can be found in the Lenovo S10-2 and S10:

Versus other 10” netbooks:

So how does it stack up (visually) to other 10” netbooks with 6 cell batteries?  Well, lets see!

vs Dell Mini 10:

For all these pictures, the Acer is on the left, Dell on the right:

vs Asus EEE PC 1000HE:

Final thoughts:

While it’s not as thin or has a long of battery life as other 10”, 6 cell netbooks, it’s price helps compensate where it falls short.  The Acer Aspire One 10 AOD150 is definitely a worth upgrade from it’s 8.9” version (as well as any 8.9” / 9” netbook for that matter) as it is hardly any larger/heavier, yet packs a larger screen and touchpad.  

Buying it new from Tiger Direct (assuming the Bing.com cashback is still 15%), at $280 this netbook, in my opinion, would win the “best for the price” category (if such a one existed) – even though it’s possible to get the Dell Mini 10 (review coming soon!) cheaper, the Acer Aspire One 10 has a slightly smaller profile which should help it edge ahead of the Mini 10 (in the race for the cheaper end of the netbook spectrum)

Pros:

• Cheap ($330 @ Amazon/Tiger Direct, $280 after Bing.com cashback)
• 6 cell battery does not add to much to thickness
• Well built, weight evenly distributed
• Light weight, under 3 pounds

Cons:

• No bluetooth
• Only 89% sized keyboard (other 10” have 92-93%, albeit not much real-world difference)
• Lower than average battery life (~4.5hrs light usage)

If the Lenovo Ideapad S10 is the male, the new S10-2 would be the sleek and slender female – it’s made from (mostly) the same parts but with a different exterior.  The S10-2 was redesigned from the S10 to have a glossy screen and lid, more defined curved edges, 4mm thinner, 5.5oz lighter, and larger keyboard and touchpad.  Was the redesign of the S10 a success?  Continue on to find out!

Specifications:

Below are the specifications of the S10-2 reviewed here (as well as the S10 that it will be compared to):

Unboxing & glamour shots:

Hopefully yours will be handled better during shipment, or at least put inside a proper shipping box, because mine basically came pre-opened and a little crushed :-\

However, upon opening it, everything looked fine and upon booting it up, more importantly everything worked fine!

As you can see, you get your standard array of pamphlets/manuals, as well as the battery, ac adapter, and of course the netbook. 

And here we have the glamour shots — we’ll start off showing the left (ethernet, exhaust, vga, usb, mic/headphone) and right (wireless switch, 2 usb’s, lock, and power jack) sides:

The top (glossy and checkered-like pattern lid) and bottom (notice the two downward firing speakers on the left and right):

And last but not least, a shot of it straight on with the lid open (with the memory card slot towards the right):

Screen:

The S10-2 moved away from the S10’s matte screen and slapped on some glossiness, and on this front, it’s just your personal preference whether you like glossy or not.   The S10-2 sports a slightly smaller screen at 10.1” (vs 10.2”), and when compared to the S10, you can’t really tell the size difference.   Viewing angles are very good, I didn’t find my self having to consciously tilt or move my head in order to get a good picture. 

My only qualm about the screen (other than that I have grown to prefer matte), is that with the 6 cell battery, it cannot open at too wide of an angle.  When I’m sitting in a chair with the netbook in my lap, I have to stick my legs out a bit in order for the laptop to slightly tilt back in order view the screen straight on (that being said, it may because I am on the tall side and have a smaller chair, ha):

Webcam & face recognition:

The webcam is about on par with any other netbook webcam – it works fine to do basic video chat, and is laggy in low light situations.  What seems to really set them apart from each other, however, is the software that comes with them.  With the S10-2 (as well as S10), Lenovo has included “Lenovo VeriFace Recognition” which allows you to login using your face.  Setup is quite fast and easy, and logging in is pretty snappy.  However, please don’t use this thinking it is a good security measure – all that someone would need to get through your impenetrable fortress of security would be to pull up a picture of you on Facebook.

Keyboard & Touchpad:

The keyboard is 89% full size and requires slightly more force to depress the keys than any other netbook I’ve used.  After using it for a day, you will get used to it as I did (just as you’ll need to get used to a smaller keyboard in general if you have never used a netbook) – but, basically, I would find my self occasionally missing a space, or any other key that requires a stretch of the fingers (t, y, 5, 6, v, b, etc) as you need to press harder than you’re used to; that being said, they keyboard does feel closer to the “normal” lenovo keyboard (no flex, strongly built, etc).   Both shift keys have been elongated to respectable sizes, as well as they moved the Home and End keys to the top row. 

The touch pad not only has been increased in size from about 5.6mm x 2.6mm to 5.6mm x 3.4mm (0.8mm ‘taller’), the buttons require less force to press and are quieter when clicked.   The texture of the pad is also slightly smoother, allowing one’s finger to slide across it more easily (not that it was ‘difficult’ to slide across on the S10, but it “grabs” less to your skin when using it). 

Built Quality, Heat, and Noise:

One of the few differences between all netbooks is their build quality, and the S10-2 would rank among the top.  The keyboard has virtually no flex and the screen lid is resistant to bending.  A (slight) thumbs down on quality, however, is that the battery is a little loose, and you can feel and hear it move around when holding it which bothers me:

As far as heat goes, it stays much cooler than the S10 (even with the S10’s updated bios), and I can’t remember once being able to hear the fan (even though it was running) – again, unlike the S10’s fan which was on quite frequently and audible.    The S10-2 does get warm, though not uncomfortably so as the raised battery seems to helps with airflow. 

Performance:

Simply put, the S10-2 stacks up to all the other netbooks running the N270 Atom processor – it’s good enough for the basics (web browsing, listening to music, watching/playing non-flash based media, word processing, VERY light games), but once you start doing light photo editing, or watching flash (especially full screen) you’ll start to feel the pain of sluggishness.   When trying to watch full screen hulu, it constantly stuttered and stayed at 60-70% processor usage.  That being said, here’s some benchmarks of SuperPI and HDTune speeds:

Battery Life:

I was hoping that since many other things were slightly improved upon in the S10-2 compared to the S10 that the battery life would too – and it did (about 7% longer).  Tests were performed at level 4 brightness, wifi on, and auto performance:

And in case years down the road, someone happens to buy a used s10-2 and wants to buy a replacement battery … or something … and needs to know all the numbers and barcodes on the 6 cell battery:

Upgrading:

As with most of the newer netbooks (basically, unlike the original line of 9” ones that first came out), it is fairly easy to upgrade the memory, hard drive, wireless card, and WLAN – all you need to do is remove the bottom covers, pop out the old and put in the new.  And contrary to the Lenovo spec sheets, the hard drive IS removable/replaceable:

Comparison shots to the S10:

To further drive in the (minor) differences/similarities of the S10-2 and S10, here are a few more pictures of them together.  All-in-all, the actual main chassis of the S10-2 is thinner, but the feet are a bit taller than the S10 thus making it appear the same thickness overall.  As you can tell, the S10-2 is barely shorter than the S10:

And while the S10-2 is slightly thinner in the front, it’s slightly thicker in the back, so it evens out. 

And then two more shots showing the size of the battery (almost exactly the same), as well as their height when opened 90 degrees:

Final thoughts:

All things considered, yes, the S10-2 was a successful redesign of the S10. However, unless you really want the extra battery life, it’s not worth the extra price of the S10-2 – as of 6/24/09, you can get the refurb S10 for $277 or a new S10-2 for $399 [though, after time, s10-2’s will pop up in the outlet, for a lower price].   

As far as performance, it’s about on par with any other netbook I’ve used/reviewed.  The added benefits over other netbooks is that it is smaller/lighter than most, has a great keyboard, and when it was first released it was only $300 (now $400 through their main site, who knows if they’ll lower the price again).   With a battery life of around 5 hours with ‘normal/light’ usage, it’s definitely a netbook you could feel comfortable with taking with you on a day trip without having to pack the charger. 

Pros:

• Light (2 pounds, 11oz)
• 5 hours + battery
• Sturdy keyboard, no flex
• 3 usb ports
• Stays cool and quiet
• Large touchpad & soft(er) buttons

Cons:

• Loose battery
• Too expensive for it’s differences compared to it’s predecessor (S10)
• Fingerprint magnet (as is any glosssy netbook/screen)