Cyberphreak.com

Probably the only problem I had with our netbook was the battery life. The keyboard, screen, storage, expandability, aesthetics, and speed were just fine. Luckily, unlike some fruit named manufacturers, Lenovo allows you to swap out the battery easily. So, out with the 3 cell and in with a 6 cell battery. 9 cells are available, but they add just too much bulk, and I really don’t need 8 to 10 hours of battery life. That’s a long time to stare at a 10” TFT screen. The results:

Old battery life, with WiFi on, less than 2 hours.

New battery life, with WiFi on, more than 4 hours.

Old battery life, WiFi off, 2 hours, 15 minutes.

New battery life, WiFi off, Over 5 hours.

It only adds 150 grams to the mass of the netbook and it raises up the back about a quarter of an inch. You end up with a little better typing angle, so that’s a plus in my book. It also still fits in the neoprene sleeve that I use to carry the netbook. With a rather reasonable investment, it turned a pretty good netbook into a great netbook.

What I love about the S10 is that it does not look or act like a netbook. It looks like a notebook, it feels like a notebook, especially with Ubuntu on here. Since Lenovo came out with netbooks after nearly everyone else, they learned from the mistakes of others and produced a refined, easy to use product that does not look or feel cheap or compromised and it is a rare netbook with an express card expansion slot.

As a side note, now I am on my second day without recharging the battery. I used it about two hours yesterday, and today it is still showing 3 hours remaining. I think I will keep using it until I get down to less than 5%.

My wireless router died and I had to replace it (No wired or wireless connections were working.)  I purchased a standard ‘g’ router and got everything up and running, or so I thought.  It was pretty laggy and just did not have the same speed as the last one.  I fired up my netbook and ran Wifi Radar to see what other networks were out there, and what channel they were on.  Turns out, almost the whole block is running channel number 6! I found out this is the default for wireless ‘g’ routers.  Changed the channel to channel 3 and instantly my laginess went away and my speed more than doubled.  So, the lesson learned is when setting up a new router, check to see what the neighbors are running and pick something at least 2 away from theirs.  Sadly there are only 11 channels, so in a busy apartment building, this may just be a case of trying all the channels until one works for you.