IdeaPad S10-3t: netbook-tablet with touch screen

This year, Lenovo showed just three mobile computers with a touchscreen: the IdeaPad S10-3t netbook, the powerful ThinkPad X201 Tablet and the one-of-a-kind hybrid laptop IdeaPad U1. In addition, conventional laptops are also equipped with touch-sensitive displays, without a swivel screen, such as the ThinkPad T410s and W510. Netbook IdeaPad S10-3t can be purchased at a price of 16 to 18 thousand rubles, and this is one of the most affordable mobile computers with a touch MultiTouch-screen.

When testing a netbook, I first of all wanted to find out how comfortable the touchscreen is when working with everyday tasks. Is it possible to work comfortably with a laptop in tablet mode when the keyboard and touchpad are not available? And if the keyboard is also at hand, is the touchscreen used? In short, yes, comfortable and yes, used. Moreover, in some simple and regular tasks (put the video on pause, scroll the web page, click “OK” in the “Are you sure?” Window) I used only the touchscreen. In the article, in addition to describing the capabilities of the netbook itself, I gave examples of the usual programs for me, in which the touch screen was very useful.



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“Tablet” IdeaPad S10-3t is not a modification of the usual netbook S10-3 - these are completely different models. The device turned out to be quite narrow and slightly elongated: due to the screen with a 16: 9 aspect ratio and enlarged sidewalls needed to keep the tablet on weight.



This is how the screen mount looks - completely metallic and very massive.



In comparison with the IdeaPad S10-2 netbook, the design and dimensions of the keyboard have changed. The buttons now occupy the entire surface, and are no longer flat. Due to this, typing on the keyboard is quite convenient. To increase the area of ​​the touchpad it was deprived of individual buttons. Now they are directly under the touchpad and are indicated by two red dots.



On the left are the connectors for the power supply, Ethernet, headphones and microphone.



On the right - a VGA port, two USB connectors, a hardware switch of wireless modules and a plug in place of the antenna connector: for modification with a built-in television receiver. The SD card slot and the built-in microphone are located on the front edge.



A few more buttons are located on the edges of the display. One of the keys is responsible for turning the screen, and on the right is the power button. It is easy enough to press it accidentally, but with the help of a switch you can lock the button.

Specifications
Processor : Intel Atom N450 1.66 GHz
Memory : 1 GB DDR2 (2 GB maximum)
Display : 10.1 inches, 1024x600 pixels
Hard Drive : 160 GB (up to 320 GB)
Video system : Intel GMA 3150
Wireless modules : Intel WiFi / WiMax 6250, Bluetooth 2.1
Connectors : Ethernet, VGA, audio, SD / SDHC card reader, 2xUSB
Webcam : 1.3 MP
Battery : 4 element or extended 8-cell
Dimensions : 280x174x15-20.2 mm
Weight : 1.25 kg with standard battery

How it works

Next, I will give a few examples of using the touch screen in practice.

Lenovo IdeaPad S10-3t is currently available only with Windows 7 Starter preinstalled, in which MultiTouch is not supported. This problem is solved with the help of a whole set of programs Lenovo NaturalTouch, optimized to work with the touch screen. The interface of the proprietary shell looks like this:



Naturally, you can navigate through the menus and lists using gestures. NaturalTouch allows you to watch videos, listen to music, read books, leave notes, draw directly on the screen. In a simple photo editor, using “double finger” gestures, you can rotate images, zoom in or out.

Despite the lack of MultiTouch, in Windows 7 Starter is quite convenient to use the touchscreen. If you leave the standard size of buttons in browsers (IE or FireFox) and sections in the Start menu, it will be quite difficult to miss them.

Also, the laptop was tested with Windows 7 Home Premium. Compared to Starter, you get several new features. First, a link to the on-screen keyboard appears every time you click on an input field in any program. In Win7 Starter, the keyboard will have to be called separately each time; the best thing to do is to make a separate shortcut for this. MultiTouch is more useful not for zooming (this is not such a frequently used function), but, for example, for invoking a context menu. If in Windows 7 Starter you need to press and hold your finger until the menu appears, then in Home Premium just click on the desired item and touch the screen with the second finger somewhere nearby.

Browsing websites



In Internet Explorer, by default, scrolling of the page content is possible using gestures (swipe up or down), as well as fast forward or backward (respectively, left or right). In Mozilla Firefox, for this you need to put a special extension that works according to a similar scheme, but allows you to more precisely “twist” the page to the right place. In all browsers, you can use the on-screen keyboard, although for the most frequently visited resources it is best to always make the available link bar.

Music and video

In principle, there is not much difference in which music player to use, so long as the main buttons are large, so as not to miss. Fully optimized for the touch screen branded music player Lenovo Natural Touch:



And standard for Home Premium Windows Media Center:



Both programs look very nice, but it is more convenient to use the touchscreen in Lenovo’s proprietary music player. At the same time, processing a bulk library takes too long on a netbook, so for music I installed Foobar, simple and fast.

To play the video, I used Windows Media Player and Media Player Classic. There are far fewer requirements: it is enough that the program reacts to touch and pauses the film.

A photo

In a standard Windows image viewer, using MultiTouch gestures, you can rotate images and zoom. Lenovo's proprietary program supports these gestures, even if you have Windows 7 Starter. In my favorite photo viewer, IrfanView “zoom” also works, but you can only rotate images using the key combination or buttons on the dashboard.

Reading of books

The FB2 format support is important for me, so I downloaded the free AlReader “ reader ”, which, as it turned out, works fine with a touch screen. The program supports the so-called "tap-zones" - sections of the screen, clicking on which activates a specific function. The easiest option: adjust the page turning back and forth by pressing the edges of the screen.

Performance and battery life

Despite the change of the Intel Atom platform to a more modern and small increase in performance, the IdeaPad S10-3t still remains a netbook: a device for office tasks and communication on the Internet. But it should be noted that officially the netbook is available in two versions: for sale in Russia so far there is only a model with an N450 processor, but in the future a more powerful version with an Atom N470 processor and a frequency of 1.83 GHz will be available. A laptop with a standard battery works for about 4 hours, in the video playback mode, I got 2 hours 54 minutes. Again, we are waiting for the appearance on the market of a modification of the model with a large eight-cell battery, with which the laptop can work up to 10 hours.

Netbook review on Retera.ru with an assessment of performance and battery life



Impressions

During the acquaintance with the S10-3t, I, of course, occasionally missed the small interface elements. One solution to the problem is to increase the “buttons” using standard Windows tools, but I decided to leave everything as it is. But the virtual keyboard turned out to be very convenient: on it you can type with two fingers with a fairly high speed and a small number of typos. MultiTouch-gestures didn’t get accustomed, except for opening the context menu. In general, the touchpad adds extra comfort to the work with the netbook. This is especially important when dealing with such a small device: it was a very good idea to change a small touchpad to a touchpad-sized screen.