While you can pre-order the Lenovo S10, I can’t
As I catch up on a week’s worth of RSS feeds, I see from Liliputing that the Lenovo Ideapad S10 order page is up and running. I just hit it up and see that you can pre-order a red, white or blue black unit starting at $429 for black and an other $10 for red or white. All of these are XP units, which explains the additional cost: the original press release indicated pricing at $399 and up, so clearly that cost was for a Linux unit.
I know that many folks are placing orders now that the netbook has seen the light day of with LAPTOP Magazine’s hands-on and the Notebooks.com video. As much as I would like to get my hands on the S10, I’m going to pass. I can already tell you that I’ll likely pass on the Dell netbook that’s expected to surface in the news tomorrow as well. And one of the may Eee PC models? They’re all gone from my wish-list as well at this point.
Using the Acer Aspire One got me to realize that I have a very
specific requirement from a netbook, one that I alluded to in a prior
comment, but now I’ll point it out front-and-center. All of the
netbooks I crossed off my list have one item in common: a small
Right-Shift key in a non-standard placement on the keyboard. Yup, I’m
being picky here, but this aspect challenged me with the original Eee
PC and after using the Acer, I know this this a requirement for me. The Acer does have a full sized Right+Shift key in the proper placement and it’s a much more enjoyable typing experience as a result.
Plenty of people will happily overlook this need; I know it’s a
personal requirement for me. However, I’ve always felt that if you’re
going to add weight and space with a keyboard, it ought to be a
no-compromise bit of hardware. It’s why I almost never use the
thumb-board on my Q1UP to be honest. If these are companion devices, I
want them to have the same general keyboarding that my main device has,
i.e.: I don’t feel I should have to change how I physically type when
alternating between my main and companion device. As I said… I’m
being picky, but I just can’t give in on that requirement. 
More to follow the Acer Aspire One as I did install Windows XP
yesterday while Barb was resting. First impressions: I’m not too happy
with the performance due to the slow SSD data transfer rates.
