After trawling through many web sites trying to find a netbook that would suite my needs I finally found one.

I wanted something that wasn't too small (that ruled ALL the 10" screen ones out!), had a decent sized hard drive (bigger than 160GB), preferably had more than 1GB of RAM and would play videos and light games easily.

Well I found it in the end in the shape of a Lenovo Ideapad S12.

It ticked all the boxes with:

12.1" Screen

2GB RAM

250GB HDD

Nvidia ION Graphics

And as a bonus instead of Win 7 Starter its Home Premium!

Was a good price too... I paid £200 with free delivery.

It's now gone up a bit though but is still £219 which I think is good considering the spec.

Ideapad S12

The only thing that could be considered a down side is that the CPU is of the old generation Atom (N270) but is still more than capable paired with the ION graphics.

Plays HD video just fine anyway.

Just thought I would give you a heads up in case you wanted something similar. There aren't many bigger netbooks about to choose from.

Phil

Edited 24 February, 201115 yr by philje123

Thanks for the heads up.

I'm looking to replace my Acer Aspire One and may well go for this once the Acer is sold.

Edited 8 January, 201115 yr by Guest

Have just recieved 350 of these units at the school i work at for the kids to use at home (yes i know :no: ).

They are fairly good machines - just a little slow with Win7 starter but then they are all the same!

Nice find Phil. That's a great price.

jrw - if it's an option for your batch, upgrading them to 2Gb makes the world of difference.

Nice find Phil. That's a great price.

jrw - if it's an option for your batch, upgrading them to 2Gb makes the world of difference.

Good point but i'm sure when i did the specs i did 2gb - will have to check now you've said that! Not a bad price that as i think we paid £160 on our batch.

On a silular type of thing, I got one of these in last March.

http://www.staples.co.uk/technology/pcs-and-laptops/netbooks/hp-pavilion-dm-1010sa-entertainment-notebook-pc

Very impressed with it, tend to use it more than my proper PC as it has a decent sized keyboard and screen, much lighter to sit on my lap, and just as capable. Having a dual core CPU seems to help it too vs. the Atom systems, albeit only a 1.2.

Finding one is quite hard, but just trying to put some more options out there.

Havn't really found it too slow at all.

Think the 2GB Ram helps here as I have used a couple of netbooks with the N450 Atom with Windows Starter and 1GB Ram and they have been SLOW!

My initial thoughts are:

Pros:

Great screen... Size does matter!

Speakers are great! Much louder, crisper and bassier (is that a word?!) than any other netbook I have tried!

Decently quick... coming from a 900mhz celeron notebook but will obviously never replace the desktop machine!

HDMI output to the TV works great for HD videos! (and HD Youtube!)

Can play a few games... yeh alright they consist of NFS Underground 2, Spore, Lego batman, World of goo and Crazy machines 2 but hey it's more than an average netbook can handle

Decent battery life... can get 3-4 hours normally depending what I am doing

Good size keyboard

Cons:

Battery sticks out a bit and is a tiny bit wobbly

No PCMCIA or express card slot (due to it having HDMI output where that should be)

The usual bloatware and recovery partitions installed (although not near as much bloatware as I have come accross before)

I think for the price even now they have gone up slightly to £219 they are great machines and had a look on ebay to see some being sold for £400-500 and one going for £260 with 2 days left!

Phil

Decent battery life... can get 3-4 hours normally depending what I am doing

Was just about to ask about that so thanks.

Cheers for the follow-up review Phil. That's also answered my battery question

Hehe. It comes with the 6-cell battery (hence it sticking out the back a bit) and it states up to 6 hours but can't see me getting that unless I use an external monitor and turn everything down.

Does ok though. While watching a HD episode of top gear last night (1 hour 15 mins long) it said it still had 2 and a half hours to go while it was still playing at the end.

Phil

Good stuff..

Im also looking for something to replace my aspire one..

I presume having the ION chipset it can play 720p MKVs without issue?..

I presume having the ION chipset it can play 720p MKVs without issue?..

Yup... and even 1080p ones too!

It really does make a difference having the ION chipset in. Like I say, HD MKV's, HD Youtube, full windows 7 glass/aero or whatever it's called, and some light gaming.

Phil

Now that you've had time to use the Lenovo what are your thoughts on it now?

Well still pretty good actually!

I think I have used it every single day since I've had it.

It's still running very fast and responsive and I have stuck a 2GB stick of RAM I had laying around (now has 3GB RAM).

I haven't had any problems anyway and it's been rock solid and stable (not crashed once). Battery lasts about 3 + 1/2 hours with moderate to heavy use.

In all I really would recommend it for the price I paid.

Comparing it to other netbooks it wins in the top trumps game with the bigger screen, ammount of ram, proper graphics that can do HD + HDMI, decent battery life and a pretty decent set of speakers (they are louder, clearer and bassier than average).

As I said before too it can handle some light gaming too... albeit older games (sims 2, spore, flatout 2, tomb raider angel of darkness, simposons hit and run, lego batman, need for speed underground 2).

Phil

Good 'real life' review Phil

Still tempted, I must say.

Good 'real life' review Phil

Still tempted, I must say.

Get on the Dell outlet

Inventory updated between 3-315pm everyday

Thanks for the review. Might just have to go get one. I forsee my Acer Aspire one on eBay to part fund it.

It's ok. Just found it too much of a bargain not to share!

Also if you look on ebay I guarantee you won't find a new one for any less than £280!

Phil

Is it just me that thinks a 12" screen goes a bit against the light weight, very long battery life nature of the original netbook idea?

I think it does to a degree Mark. There's an argument to say it's not really a netbook at that screen size, more like a sub-notebook?

But at the same time it just gives the consumer a choice really. If you want a 9 or 10" screen then there's models available. But if you're like me and want more usable screen space at the cost of chassis size and battery life, then you have an option

These seem to be going up in price. Still cheaper than the competition though.

Ah yeh. It's just gone up by another £10 on the site I got it from.

Also noticed that in my first post I wrote that it came with 1GB RAM but it actually came with 2GB (now upgraded to 3GB).

In regards to the screen size. Yes it probably does take it out of the true Netbook category but it's still pretty small and in a neoprene case I can just chuck it in my bag and not have to use a proper laptop case etc and battery life is still very reasonable to get a few hours use while out and about.

I recently used it while out. Connected to the free wifi, did about 30 mins surfing on internet, watched a 720p episode of top gear, another 40 mins on the internet, put into hibernate and then continued that evening to get another 1 hour and 30 mins of surfing out of it before I plugged it in (battery at 18% when I plugged it in).

Phil

Just ordered one for the house an hour ago and they just sent me an email to say its being dispatched now

K:)

Just ordered one for the house an hour ago and they just sent me an email to say its being dispatched now

K:)

Cool!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

They were really quick to get mine sent out even over xmas.

Phil

I emailed them yesterday asking if there was any discount to be had if i didnt want the Bullguard Security Suite. I was quite surprised that they replied so quick, even if it was just to say no!