Discount S12 12.1" 160GB HDD White

Customer Ratings:

I've not worked extensively with this machine, so can't comment on performance other than to say it seems fine for basics, and runs cool. The screen is very nice and very bright, and the keyboard has a lovely feel. Track pad response is very good and reliable. The track pad buttons are small and very stiff endurable, but a much better situation if you're comfortable with `tapping' on the track pad.

The case seems solid and well-constructed, with a stout hinge. Only worry is a little bit of battery wiggle. 6-cell protrudes, but in a very nice way that positions the laptop well on a desk and makes it easy to carry. For a netbook it might be considered a bit heavy, but still very small and portable, and generally a pleasure to see and hold.

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I have purchased 2 of these now, they don't have an HDMI or are super fast, but they are a good price for what you get. I got both of them on holiday sales less then $400. What I really like is the screen and the keyboard, both are usable unlike the 10 inch netbooks. The led back lit display is very bright outdoors and viewable on a sunny day. The keyboard is almost full size and best netbook keyboard I have used, even as good as my Thinkpads keyboard. It comes with windows XP, which is ok, there was no option for windows 7 for the white model. I added an extra 1 gig of memory, but there was no speed increase, it does come with 2 pci-e ports, one for a cell card, maybe other options, and includes a sim slot onboard if you do install a cell card, and the other one is filled with a WIFI card. The only way to make this thing faster is to buy an SSD drive and install windows on it possibly using the pci-e slot underneath or the expresscard slot on the side you should get about 50% speed increase. Anyway even without any addons, this little thing is great. It gets about 4-5 hours of battery life. One thing to improve is the webcam, its somewhat low resolution, most all are on netbooks. On-board bluetooth was not an option when ordering, but there may be a possibility to install an internal one taking the laptop apart and buying the right piece. The NVIDIA ION version is the ideal S12 Netbook to get, its $200 more and turns all my negatives to positives.

Best Deals for S12 12.1" 160GB HDD White

Although an excellent design and a good buy at the price, this and another Lenovo laptop I have purchased have proved unreliable with significant problems right out of the box, and great difficulty in resolving.

The Lenovo Ideapad S12 failed to establish and maintain an wireless connection (802.11g). This was established working with a very helpful Lenovo technical support representative who provided a case number and a telephone number for customer support at sales.

The Lenovo sales customer support person denied there was correct case number, would only transfer me to technical support. The transfer resulted in a very bad connection, and a return call was promised. The return call was never received. A second call resulted in a re-order charged to my credit card, and a prepaid return authorization. I was told not to expect a refund on the original purchase for at least two weeks. This also resulted in a two delay in receiving a replacement S12, unusable for my planned travel.

Now these things happen except a Lenovo G530 Laptop purchased in June '09 for a medical student studying in Israel had nearly identical situation. The motherboard circuitry for charging the batteries was faulty, the case number was denied, repair in Israel was denied even though an international warranty was purchased. The G530 was finally repaired in October but the medical student had to purchase another computer to continue her studies.

About me--I am a retired computer consultant and engineer with over 40 years of computer hardware and software experience.

My recommendation: Since manufacturing quality assurance and post sale customer service is shaky in general, I would recommend buying Lenovo only if you are prepared to invest significant time and effort in resolving a likely failure.

In this instance, the Lenovo S12 Ideapad 802.11g wireless failure would have been difficult for a non-computer professional to diagnose. In this case I have the experience and tools to identify the problem. With the G530 the problem was more evident, and with competent and helpful Lenovo technical support, quickly identified the problem. Getting these problems resolved were much more troublesome affairs.

--update--

Lenovo replaced the S12 and it's performance has been acceptable. Unfortunately the G530 has had additional problems, i.e. with the touch-pad.