It's thin. It's small. It's light – Lenovo unveils $399 'netbook'

Morrisville, N.C. — Lenovo’s move into the consumer PC market worldwide now includes a laptop that is small, light, thin – and cheap.

The world’s fourth largest PC maker, which is based in Morrisville, unveiled the “IdeaPad S10” on Monday. It’s scheduled to go on sale in October.

“We've seen Lenovo beefing up its consumer offerings of late, but this is really taking it up a notch,” noted web review site Engadget.

One of an emerging type of laptops called “netbooks,” the IdeaPad has a 10-inch screen, is about an inch thick and weighs under 3 pounds. Netbooks are touted as “ultralight” and “ultracheap.”

Priced at $399, the IdeaPad includes WiFi wireless capability and a web camera as well as Windows XP software.

The IdeaPad’s technical capabilities drew praise from web site SlashGear.

“Connectivity is better than some netbooks we’ve seen, with Lenovo managing to squeeze an Express Card slot, 4-in-1 memory card reader, WiFi b/g, 10/100 ethernet and Bluetooth into the 250.2 × 183 x 22-27.5mm frame,” SlashGear noted. “In its lightest configuration the S10 weighs 1.1kg [just over 2 lbs]; that’s with the 3-cell battery that promises up to 3 hrs use, and there will be a 6-cell battery offering double that. The Lenovo OneKey Rescue System for recovering data after system errors or viruses is also present.”

However, Engadget wasn’t overly enamored.

“Sadly, there's little of note in the design - it seems to have more in common with the [other models] MSI Wind and the Eee PC than its Lenovo siblings,” wrote Paul Miller, “but the $399 starting price is certainly pleasing.”

It’s also available in three colors – ruby red, bold black and classic white

The IdeaPad is a counter to the “E Notebook” from Dell and similar small models from HP (Mini-Note) and Acer (Aspire).

Despite its small size, the laptop also features a keyboard that is 85 percent the size of a standard keyboard.

Two versions are available, one with 512 megabits of memory and an 80-gigabit hard drive and another with 1 gigabit of memory and a 160-gigabit hard drive.

The IdeaPad S10 is the latest in a series of desktop and laptop machines configured, designed and price to make Lenovo competitive in the consumer and small-business market segments. Lenovo has focused this year on growing sales in segments that had been largely dropped by IBM. Lenovo purchased IBM’s PC division in 2005.