We run through an in-depth guide to 10.1" netbooks from Acer, Asus, Dell, Gateway, HP, Lenovo, and MSI. We even coded a special set of benchmarks. If you are in the market for a netbook, this guide gives you the performance and design cues you need.
Mobile systems have long been on our to-do-list. These days, nearly everyone has a notebook. However, picking the right notebook isn't like choosing a CPU, graphic card, or memory kit, where you can just simply swap out one piece for better performance.
While there are those rare few who upgrade, the options are still limited (hard drive and memory). For the braver few, a mobile processor might be on the menu. Yet, notebooks remain a special case where you buy something for the long haul. Motherboard and graphic upgrades are all but guaranteed to be nonexistent. For that reason, the total cost over the life of a mobile system can often exceed that of their desktop big brothers. It is also important to point out that no one really buys a notebook for performance alone. Form, style, build quality, and obviously battery life all are important, and in some cases may actually outrank performance.
More often than not, mobile systems (specifically) are reviewed as a singular product. It has actually become the de facto standard. It is hard to justify our recommendations when we haven't looked at other products. This is despite the fact that they have been available at Best Buy and Newegg for months and share the same hardware specifications.
It is pretty easy to see the flaw here. If we review 15.6” gaming notebook x and give it a good review, what about the 15.6” gaming notebook y that is also currently available, but happens to be a better all-around buy? Both notebooks are likely to get a thumbs up, with notebook y popping up in a separate review two weeks later. Honestly, this has to be confusing to everyone. In this economy, it is hard to justify reviews this way when few of us are impulse buyers.
Systems are not bought with tunnel vision. So why review that way? We have set out to deliver something different; something that is more useful than a reaction that says, “that is an awesome notebook!” Though, we certainly will feature specific systems from time to time to showcase some awesome aspect of tech, like Thomas' recent foray into high-end mobile graphics. However, we also want to answer the bottom line: “which notebook should I buy?” As a result, we set out to deliver something of a cross between a buyer’s guide and a roundup.
- Seven 10.1" Netbooks: Buyer's Guide
- Netbook Or Notebook?
- Fall 2010 Lineup: Seven Netbooks, Strutting Their Stuff
- Acer Aspire One 521 (AO521)
- Asus Eee PC 1001P (1001P-MU17-BK)
- Dell Inspiron Mini 10 (1012 - HD Display)
- Gateway LT2120u
- HP Mini 210 HD
- Lenovo Ideapad S10-3
- MSI Wind U160 (U160-007US)
- Displays
- Test Setup
- Benchmark Results: Performance
- Benchmark Results: Battery Life
- Benchmark Results: Power Consumption
- Benchmark Results: Gaming And Multimedia
- Weight Profile
- Broadcom Crystal HD: Not Such Crystal Clear Performance
- Conclusion

Very indepth excellent review. Pleasantly surprised. A lot of people out there have little clue of netbooks or even their uses. I got a little samsung last year and now I use it more than my main PC, obviously not for gaming, but watching webcasts/films at night, listening to music, grabbing it while watching TV to check something on the web, etc, etc. Not to mention completely essential when travelling on train/bus/wherever - 6 hours batt life still holding up.
Very handy little things - easy to become addicted to. Theres some new models coming out this month that can handle HD but still have great batt life, will be tempted to pick one up.
Very indepth excellent review. Pleasantly surprised. A lot of people out there have little clue of netbooks or even their uses. I got a little samsung last year and now I use it more than my main PC, obviously not for gaming, but watching webcasts/films at night, listening to music, grabbing it while watching TV to check something on the web, etc, etc. Not to mention completely essential when travelling on train/bus/wherever - 6 hours batt life still holding up.
Very handy little things - easy to become addicted to. Theres some new models coming out this month that can handle HD but still have great batt life, will be tempted to pick one up.
Great job TH ily
I recently tested the HP Pavilion dm1z with the dual-core K625. Only slightly heavier/bigger than the 10" HP 210 Mini, but far superior when it comes to performance:
http://lgponthemove.blogspot.com/2010/09/first-impressions-hp-dm1z-notebook.html
*Ninja edit*
Super good roundup/review. I'm in the market for a netbook this season and this review helped a lot.
Good....no, Excellent job Andrew Ku. Amazing stuff. Really learned something new.
I look forward to reading more reviews from you.
P.S. Editors, give this man a raise
My concern is that drivers for ION2 are a bit -fast- slow and loose now, the stock asus drivers were crap, the Nvidia update at launch was crap, but about two weeks ago there was a major update that requires manual installation. It gets roughly double, yes double, the fps of the old pos. Now I didn't write the thing, but it felt like it addressed the PCI-Ex1 link narrowness. (After all, what else could it be? It's just a 210m at it's core, but whatever's drawn on the Nvidia gpu also has to go back down the PCI-E link to be written to the Intel gpu vram (Optimus))
Anyhow, forget the broadcom thing, my friend (a different one, I promise they're real and actually have these things!) has the dell and it's pretty bad. Even I couldn't get that stupid thing to work reliably except for WMP. At least he got his with his new xps 16.
TL;DR I've actually used the gateway and dell netbooks reviewed here and they're both crappy. The gateway gets good battery life though and feels nicer. I love the asus 1215n with it's ION2 gpu and Optimus, and you should too.
I think the performance of the Acer is a sign of things to come - except with even an even lower TDP..
In 2011, netbooks may change completely. Might even find a 3DMark and Crysis benchmark?? I'm expecting a lot of good things next year
Please keep it coming!
I'm glad you agree.
Andrew Ku
TomsHardware
They need to move to 11" or really 12" displays so they can get a proper keyboard in there. There are too few of these out there, and artificially limiting the size of netbooks is like car companies putting ugly plastic on their low end models. Getting the keyboard big enough for normal men is a better starting spot then making it tortuous. Hopefully, more larger screen models will come out, and with matte screens. The makers of the cheap glossy screens seem to lose sight of the fact that most people use these things in varying light conditions - they are ultra-mobile.
Guys..
Hold off, new Samsungs are coming this month - combination of dualcore/ION and apparently great battery..
http://qdms.intel.com/MDDS/MDDSView.aspx?mm=868042
type in 0688 at the search MM number there
906884 Yes SANDY BRIDGE-HE-4 3192-1.1 AV8062705008382Q 0AB Q0AB FC-BGA10 03/05/2010