Lenovo IdeaPad S12 A Gamers Netbook?

Lenovo brings its first 12-inch netbook to the market with NVIDIA based graphics chip for the power hungry gaming users.  The Lenovo IdeaPad S12 comes with a 12-inch LED screen (1280x800), Intel Atom N270 CPU, Nvidia ION GFX, up to 1GB RAM, and has up to a 6 hour battery life.

The Idea Pad S12 Netbook weighs a mere 1.4kg with the 3 cell battery - making it a very light portable. For connectivity you will get a 10/100 ethernet, Broadcom 578M, Intel WiFi Link 5150, and of course Bluetooth. The netbook has 1 expresscard slot, 3 USB ports, external VGA connection, RJA45, HDMI, and a 4-in-1 card reader for on-the-go storage convenience.

"We've heard from consumers loud and clear about the need for affordable and extremely portable computing devices, and we've responded by introducing our third netbook with a completely new form factor, making mini-computing more usable and redefining value in today's market," said Dion Weisler, vice president, Business Operations, Idea Product Group, Lenovo. "We are pioneering new territory in the developing netbook arena by being the first vendor to give customers high quality video and entertainment capabilities in a netbook with optional NVIDIA ION graphics."

The Nvidia Ion claims to have a nearly 10 times the performance improvement over existing netbook integrated graphics, with almost the same power consumption rate. If this claim becomes reality, then a netbook market with the Nvidia Ion could be the answer for gamers who seek an ultra portable system that they can take anywhere with them. You wouldn't be able to play Crysis and some of the other very high-graphic intensive games but Spore, Portal, World of Warcraft are all very easily playable according to Nvidia.



The Lenovo IdeaPad S12 netbook goes on sale in June and will start at $449 for non-nvidia graphic models. If you are wanting a model with the Nvidia ION graphics you'll have to wait until August and except pricing to be a bit more for these models (around $50).