Most Helpful Customer Reviews
42 of 43 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely fantastic netbook, quite probably the best out there, 26 Aug 2011 This review is from: Lenovo IdeaPad S205 11.6 inch Notebook (AMD E350 1.6GHz, RAM 4GB, HDD 500GB, WLAN, BT, Webcam, Windows 7 Home Premium) - Black (Personal Computers) I reviewed a smaller brother of this netbook in May when it first appeared, and it was a great netbook, but this one got even better.
It has double memory (4GB) and 500GB HD - which very few netbooks have. No need to upgrade, as this is quite tricky on Lenovo netbooks (you need to remove keaboard etc). Processor is absolutele adequate for all day-to-day tasks. This is one of the first notebooks to come with long-anticipated AMD Fusion chips. I was waiting for them for quite some time, as I could not make myself buy an Atom netbook, even as they were becoming dirt-cheap. This particular model has a dual-core 1.6Ghz E350 CPU/GPU with AMD Radeon HD 6310M video card (integrated with CPU). Overall this CPU/GPU combination is amazingly powerful, most games are absolutely playable, HD Video running smoothly, and normal tasks like Web browsing, emails, office documents editing performed very fast. In fact Word starts almost instantly, in less than 1 second. Overall PC startup time is less than a minute inc login which is pretty impresive for Windows netbook.
Considering it's still the size/price of a typical (good) netbook we are talking here it's just amazing. In fact the specs of this machine are better than of my desktop (which is not new I admit).
The build quality is exceptional, with sleek design, quality almost full-size keyboard (I think letter keys are full-size, they only fiddled with arrows and enter buttons). Keyboard is the best around - I tried dozens of note/netbooks at PC World and other shops to compare (as I am going to use it for a lot of typing). Even more expensive models like Sony VAIO have inferior keyboards. Trackpad could be larger but it's OK. Glossy cover is a finger-print magnet (it is very hard to find matte cover on a netbook) but thanks to patterned design it's not so visible. Go off easily as well.
I was a bit conserned about glossy display but in fact it's not so bad as I mostly use it at the evening in a dimmed room so it's brighter than matte display and not so much reflective. Colours and contrast are very punchy, good for video/tv watching. Now having used it for some time I am not sure I would swap it for a matte screen.
It comes with Windows 7 Premium 64bit installed, which is much better than Starter edition, and you can upgrade memory up to 8GB, which will boost performance even further (if you really want to). Not too many extra software installed which is good, as most got deleted right away.
I think it is a perfect on-the-road netebook, light, stylish, with great battery life, and exceptionally fast. Very happy with it so far. I can only see myself replacing it with another netbook with even better processor (maybe ARM when they will run Windows 8) but that won't happen for good 2 years I think.
Strongly recommend, and these 5 stars come from a very demanding user.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Laptop and Great Value for Money, 20 Oct 2011 This review is from: Lenovo IdeaPad S205 11.6 inch Notebook (AMD E350 1.6GHz, RAM 4GB, HDD 500GB, WLAN, BT, Webcam, Windows 7 Home Premium) - Black (Personal Computers) The laptop arrived promptly in suitable packing. It was very simple to setup, literally just had to plug in the battery, go through the standard Windows setup screen and off you go. The keyboard is nice and easy to type on, the screen is crystal clear, the veriface application works as it should and the performance is brilliant. Overall I am very happy with the laptop. Help other customers find the most helpful reviews Was this review helpful to you?
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Best netbook I've ever owned., 25 Sep 2011 This review is from: Lenovo IdeaPad S205 11.6 inch Notebook (AMD E350 1.6GHz, RAM 4GB, HDD 500GB, WLAN, BT, Webcam, Windows 7 Home Premium) - Black (Personal Computers) I bought this netbook after spending a year with a Packard Bell dot s/2 netbook, a machine which cost roughly the same as this. However, unlike the Packard Bell, I can honestly say I've never been happier with a computer. It's honestly fantastic, and a joy both to use and to type on. The machine itself is well-built and seems to be of fantastic quality in every respect. The only possible gripe I could have with the S205 is that the battery doesn't last quite as long as I'd like, and you can't buy a higher-capacity battery from Lenovo. Power aside, this is an absolutely fantastic machine.
The copy of Windows 7 Home Premium x64 which ships with the computer worried me at first, because, on first boot, I got the impression that I was going to be dealing with a considerable amount of bloatware. However, after completing first-time setup, I was pleasantly surprised to find that there was almost no bloatware. I uninstalled McAfee and some of the Lenovo utilities (Capslock app, Veriface, games centre and so on), but I kept the power utility, as it seems to work very well for managing how much power the machine uses.
All in all, this is an absolutely fantastic machine, both with great hardware that'll run most things you can throw at it, and with excellent build quality and a superb keyboard. If you're considering getting a netbook, get this one. I can honestly say you won't regret it.
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