Netbooks or the mini laptops are the latest species of the laptops these days. They are getting popular among a variety of users including the college going young generation, frequent travelers or users who mainly use the computer for internet surfing.
Well I belong partially to above categories, but my main reason for buying a netbook was its very low price :) compared to other category of laptops. But dont try to judge a netbook's capability with its price. You may be surprised to see the features a netbook offers in such a low cost.
Well there can be a lot more to write about introducing netbooks, but you would find all those information in other blogs and internet site. So I would come to the main point about comparison of the netbooks.
Netbooks being an emerging market, every PC maker has stepped into this field. You would find netbooks from manufacturers like:
1. HP : HP mini 1000 costs around Rs 22k in Delhi,India
2. Acer : Acer's netbook is also around 22-23k
3. Lenovo : Lenovo Ideapad S10 comes for around 22.5k for a 3 cell battery and 24.5k for a 6 cell battery
4. Sony : I dont understand what do sony put in their netbooks because of which they cost too much. Their price varies from around 45k-60k
5. Dell : Comparatively cheaper than Sony but would cost you near 40k
* Prices are approximate as per May2009
Since cost was my main factor, so I decided to go for either HP mini and Lenovo S10. I surfed a lot on internet before making a decision that I would go for Lenovo S10, but the day I actually went to buy my netbook I came back home with HP mini 1109. The reason being Lenovo S10 was not readily available in most of the stores near my home and I found HP mini pretty easily.
Soon after I started using my mini I understood that may be I had made a mistake and HP seemed to me like a compromise over Lenovo. From intial 30 minutes of use I could find many things that I did not like in that netbook(I would be explaining them later). Soon I discovered another fact that the dealer from where I bought my netbook had delievered a 1 month used netbook to me. The netbook perhaps was in their display. I would like to mention that the delaer was HP's authorised dealer. He tried his level best to make that laptop look like a brand new one, but he just forgot to clear the Application logs and temporary windows media player logs in the event manager. The logs explained everything to me and I quickly asked the dealer for an explaination which he was not able to give. He could not provide me a fresh piece(According to him the company had stopped making the model which he sold me just one day ago saying that its a latest one from HP) so I finally returned my netbook and got the refund. Believe me this whole process of getting the refund was a big torture for me and I decided that I wont be doing business with HP again...
So finally I got rid of the HP mini and finally decided to go for Lenovo. After checking the packing of the box thoroughly I finally bought the Lenovo Ideapad S10. I am using my netbook for around a week now and I would say I am very happy.
As I have hands on experience on both the netbooks now, so I thought of writing a comparison. Please note that the comparison is as per my experience and may vary from user to user.
* Comparison is based on HP mini 1109,3 cell battery (Rs 22000) and Lenovo S10 Red color,6 cell battery (Rs24,500). You would find the 3 cell battery model of Lenovo for Rs22,500
1. Keyboard:
HP mini
This is the only positive that I saw in HP mini over Lenovo.You wont feel much difference working on a 100% keyboard of a laptop and the keyboard of HP mini. In one line "Keyboard is very comfortable and better than Lenovo S10"
Lenovo S10
The keyboard is quite good to work on. People with slim fingers wont find any problem working on it. But HP's keyboard is definitely better.
2. Storage:
HP mini
HP mini comes with a 4800 rpm 80 gb hard drive. Upgrading the hard disk is not easy as you have to send it to the company to get your hardisk upgraded(As per HP dealer).
Lenovo S10
Lenovo S10 comes with 5400 rpm 160 gb hard drive. Upgrading the hard disk is very easy and anyone can do it himself. Not sure what is the upper limit of hard disk storage.
3. Memory:
Both HP mini and Lenovo S10 have 1 gb of ram which can be upgraded easily to 2gb by user himself.
4. Display:
Both HP mini and Lenovo S10 have a 10 inches screen. On HP I noticed blue shades behind small text sometimes. Small text wasnt easy to read on HP.
On the other hand Lenovo's display is quite easy on eyes with no blue shades and small text can be read pretty comfortably.
5. Hinge rotation angle:
HP mini's screen has a limitation to which its screen can be tilted backwards. A little more tilt would definitely had been a good feature.
On the other hand Lenovo S10's screen can be tilted backwards to a much greater angle.
6. TouchPad
Both the touchpad are equally good. Lenovo's touchpad is a multi touchpad so it offers to zoom in and zoom out images and web pages by using two fingers on the touch pad. But multi touch feature is not what you would be using quite frequently.
7. Looks:
HP mini comes in black color only, with a design printed on its lid. I personally dont like the design on the lid pretty much, but everyone has its own choice. So have a look yourself and decide whether you like it or not.
Lenove S10 comes in multi colors. It comes in completely black,red,blue and pink colors. The red, blue and pink ones are dual tone and have white color on the inside.
The dual tone models have a glossy finish over their lid and a matt finish on the back. I bought the red one and I like the design very much.
8. Ports:
Both HP and Lenovo come with two USB ports, LAN, WIFI,Card reader,Bluetooth.
Lenovo has a upper hand as it provides a VGA port,an express card slot as well which are absent in HP.
Also HP has a single port for both mic and headphone. I dont know where would one get a headphone or mic that supports this kind of port.
On the other hand lenovo incorporates 2 standard ports for mic and headphones.
9. 6-cell battery option:
Both have a 6-cell battery option but the HP mini looks ugly to me after the 6cell battery has been installed in it.
Lenovo's 6-cell battery also looks hangs a bit outside but looks far better than the HP mini's 6-cell battery.
10. Processor:
Both the netbooks have 1.6 Ghz Intel Atom processor and performance is quite good in normal day to day activities.
Unless you try running some application server on your netbook, I dont think you would be dissatisfied with its performance.Havent run any java programs on it yet.I would soon be updating the review about performance with java applications.
Both HP mini and Lenovo S10 looked equally good to me in terms of performance.
11. Sleaves:
I got a sleave to put my Lenovo netbook in(might vary from dealer to dealer as the sleave doesnt come in the netbook's packing) while HP's dealer did not provide any cover with the HP mini. The HP's dealer even said that the company doesnt even make any sleaves or bags for the HP mini which I later found to be a big lie as I saw a list of beautiful bags for HP mini on the HP's website. I could not expect an HP World's representative to be lying to this extent.
12. Webcam:
Both HP mini and Lenovo S10 have a 1.3 megapixel camera.
Quality of picture with HP mini's camera is terrible. The pictures are so dark that you wont be able to find yourself in a room with normal lighting. Many people with HP mini have faced this issue and have reported this to HP. The issue has not been addresses by HP officially yet.
According to many people HP probably forgot to take off a protective film from the webcam before installing the webcam in the netbook because of which the light is not able to enter the webcam properly and thus produces very dark images. Many have removed that protective film by opening their screens. HP reply on the protective film is that the film is supposed to be where it is and is meant to stop too much light to enter the webcam in outdoors so that the picture is not washed out in sun.
Most of the people dont agree with HP's clarification and treat it as a manufacturing defect.
For more information on the webcam problem google for "HP mini webcam issue".
Webcam for Lenovo works pretty well. Quality of picture is not great but good.
Conclusion:
So in all Lenovo S10 definitely wins the race and is highly recommended to anyone who is planning to buy a netbook or is looking for an economical laptop.
