First Netbook to Use NVIDIA's Ion Chipset: Lenovo S12 Unveiled

There was some conjecture during December of last year, with a first, later denied by Intel, that stated that Intel would not unbundle the Atom CPU from its 945GSE and 945GC chipsets, thus killing the Ion platform. With both the Lenovo S12 and the earlier Asus Revo nettop, we see that's definitely not the case.

With the NVIDIA Ion chipset, the Lenovo netbook is basically a midrange, 12.1" netbook. Full specs are:

IdeaPad S12 Netbook

• Display: 12.1" WXGA (1280 X 800) LED 200 nit, 250g
• Processor: Intel Atom N270
• Graphics: Intel integrated GMA 950, NVIDIA Ion (option)
• Memory: Up to 1GB DDR2 533 MHz
• Hard Drive: Up to 160 GB SATA (160, 250, 320)
• Battery Life: 3 hours with 3-cell, 6 hours with 6-cell
• Weight: 1.4kg with 3 cell, 1.55kg with 6 cell
• Dimensions: 292 X 216 X 22-28.9mm
• Connectivity: 10/100m Ethernet, Broadcom 578M, Intel WiFi Link 5150 1X2 AGN, Intel WiFi Link 5100 1X2 AGN, Non-Intel wireless b/g, Non-Intel wireless b/g/n, Bluetooth
• Other: 3 USB, 1 Expresscard slot (Intel and VIA platforms), 4-in-1 card reader, VGA, RJA45, HDMI
• XP Home SP3 (32 bit)

Pricing: $449 sans Ion, $499 with. Reports are that Lenovo also plans to offer a Via Nano version, with a 1.3GHz Nano 2250 and Chrome 9 HC3 graphics, outside the United States, also for the $449 price.

Additionally, while certainly not competition, game-wise to a full-sized laptop with dual-GPUs in SLI, this netbook will reportedly be able to hold its own in at least modern games. This might be the first netbook that can pretty much meet my specifications for performance.