While cloudbooks are still a long way from being actual desktop replacements, the latest cloudbooks to hit the market arrive with competitive prices and nice features for a "secondary or travel laptops". Such is the case of Lenovo's latest entry to this segment; the Lenovo Ideapad 100S 80R200BWUS.
This inexpensive cloudbook packs an Intel Atom processor, SSD storage and a very appealing 8 hour battery life. Today we set out to know this new model's in's and out's in depth as we review the Lenovo Ideapad 100S 80R200BWUS. Wanna tag along?
Pros: 8 hour battery life, ample connectivity, quad core processor, very low price point.
Cons: 2GB of RAM limit multitasking.
Lenovo Ideapad 100S 80R200BWUS Review of a low priced cloudbook
An unlikely design
While most notebooks and cloudbooks adopt the more "conventional" black or grey colouring, Lenovo decided to spice things up a bit by introducing a white cloudbook, something pretty rare in this space.
We're not gonna tell you that the design is premium material because it's quite clear right off the bat that that's not the case. In fact, it actually looks pretty "cheap", that said many users are reporting a solid experience when handling the device and at the end of the day that's what really makes a difference.
The display is conformed of an 11.6 inch LED screen with an HD resolution. Surely you're thinking that HD is a bit outdated but you should consider that this model is smaller in size to most HD laptops and therefore affords us a higher pixel density than its 13 and 15 inch counterparts. Also, having an HD display comes in handy when you wanna get the most in terms of battery life.
Modest performance
You didn't really expect high end internals at this price point, did you? Don't get me wrong, performance is ok for a cloudbook but expecting this device to handle high end tasks is setting yourself up for disappointment.
Overall, the Lenovo Ideapad 100S 80R200BWUS in review packs an Intel Atom quad core processor clocking in at 1.3 GHz with 2MB of cache. If this CPU sounds familiar that's because it's the same one you'll find on most current windows 10 tablets. Yes, it's basically a CPU intended for light usage.
Stuff like browsing the web, editing documents and chatting with friends should work fine but more demanding tasks should be kept at bay.
In terms of RAM, we've got a single 2GB DDR3L module which reinforces the fact that this notebook was created with basic computing in mind. Don't expect to run several programs at a time and not experience memory issues, with 2GB of RAM you can comfortably work with several browser tabs and maybe have music playing in the background but anything else would be to stressing for a machine with 2GB of RAM and an ATOM CPU.
Finally, another key component when it comes to performance is storage and fortunately for us that's one area where this laptop does a good job by implementing a 32GB SSD module. Now, now, I know what you're thinking; "that's what he calls a good job?".
What I mean is that while it's not a lot of storage space it is a high quality storage in terms of speed which means this cloudbook will have a snappy response when it comes to accessing apps, booting up and booting down.
Also, if you'd like to expand storage you can always add an ultrafast SD card which is an easy and affordable way to expand storage capacity without requiring any technical skills whatsoever.
A pretty good battery life and several connectivity options
This laptop is far from perfect but bearing the price in mind it still holds pretty well, especially when you take a look at battery life and connectivity options. On this matter Lenovo promises up to 8 hours of battery life which is well within the standard for this kind of device. All in all, battery life varies according to usage but it would be easy to expect this model to at least reach a respectable 7 hours with moderate to intensive usage.
As for the connectivity segment of this review, things are looking pretty good with a couple of USB 2.0 ports, an HDMI port, audio jack as well as Bluetooth support and WiFi b/g/n connectivity. It goes without saying that being an 11 inch laptop there's no room for a DVD drive and, as we stated previously, that's not really the end game with cloudbooks.
Wrapping things up
Our review of the Lenovo Ideapad 100S 80R200BWUS has come to an end and many of you are still wondering whether buying this laptop is a good option. The truth is that the answer to that question will lie on what you actually need. This isn't a heavy performer and its modest Atom CPU mean that you shouldn't expect it to do any hardcore work.
For stuff like browsing the web, skyping and watching videos it's fine but anything that goes beyond basic computing tasks is probably a bad idea. Battery life is exceptional and you can easily upgrade storage by placing an SD card and leaving it there as an external hard drive but at the end of the day this is still a cloudbook and as such it's still got a series of limitations that you shouldn't ignore. That said, pricing on this laptop is still exceptional.
If you'd like a more powerful cloudbook and don't mind amping up your budget in exchange for a much more powerful Celeron N3060 processor then we strongly recommend going for the Dell i3168-0028BLU we reviewed earlier instead.