Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t convertible tablet review

The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t is a 10 inch netbook with a touchscreen display that you can fold down over the keyboard for use in tablet mode. It has a capacitive touchscreen display which means you can navigate by pressing your fingertip against the screen. The computer won’t recognize input from a stylus.

 
Like most netbooks, the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t has a low power Intel Atom N450 processor, and the unit featured in this review runs Windows 7 Starter Edition, and ships with 2GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. The base unit sells for $549, but Lenovo does offer a version with a larger hard drive Windows 7 Home Premium for about $100 more.

As a netbook, the Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t performs pretty much as you’d expect. My only real complaint is that it has an incredibly small and difficult to use touchpad. As a tablet, the S10-3t is a bit of a mixed bag.

Windows 7 Starter Edition isn’t really optimized for touch input, and while Lenovo includes some touch-friendly software, the experience of using this machine in tablet mode was a bit unpleasant. I’m sure some of these issues would be addressed by upgrading to Windows 7 Home Premium, but not all of them.

Design

The Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t is one of the smallest 10 inch netbooks available. While it’s a bit wide, thanks to some extra space around the display for buttons you can use in tablet mode, the netbook measures just 11″ x 6.9″ x 0.8″. With a 4 cell battery, it weighs about 2.7 pounds.


 
But overall the netbook just feels smaller and lighter than most, largely due to the fact that the base of the computer is almost entirely taken up by the keyboard.

There’s only a tiny space below the keyboard for the touchpad, which features integrated left and right buttons. I’m thoroughly unimpressed with the touchpad, but the keyboard is nearly full sized and quite easy to type on, although it does have a bit of flex to it.
 
While most netbooks locate the power button just above the keyboard, the power button for the S10-3t is on the right side of the display, making it easy to turn the computer on whether it’s in tablet or netbook mode.