Riding the wave of affordable AMD-powered ultraportables, the IdeaPad S205 aims to charm shoppers by pairing a stylish design with a lot more muscle than a netbook. For $579, this 11.6-inch notebook also offers a spacious keyboard and cool temperatures.
Design
The S205 gives off a subtle but sophisticated vibe. We like that the glossy plastic lid has a subtle artistic pattern to it (dubbed a "cityscape finish") and that the brown dominates the entire notebook. The deck has a striated pattern, which makes a cool record-scratch sound when you rub your fingernails over it. This not only keeps fingerprints away, but also feels good to touch.Weighing just 3.3 pounds, the S205 is the kind of notebook you can carry around all day without feeling weighed down. It measures 11.4 x 7.6 x 1.0 inches, so it'll slip into a small bag or briefcase and still leave room for your smartphone or tablet.
Heat
Thanks to the low-power APU inside, the IdeaPad S205 stays relatively cool. After we played a Hulu video at full screen for 15 minutes, the hottest area was the underside, where we measured 91 degrees Fahrenheit at the center. This reading is still below the 95-degree threshold of what we consider uncomfortable. Even the area near the vent didn't get hot enough to notice while we used it. On top, the touchpad and keyboard only reached 88 and 89 degrees, respectively.Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard on the S205 has the familiar Lenovo AccuType design with a chiclet-style layout. Overall, the typing experience was comfortable, but the Backspace key and some other keys are shrunken.
The touchpad on the S205 is small even for a netbook, nevermind an 11.6-inch notebook. Still, the lightly dimpled 2.4 x 1.4-inch surface made navigating the desktop pretty easy. Because of the limited real estate, we had to be more deliberate than we'd like when performing pinch-to-zoom and three-finger flicks on the Synaptics touchpad, but they worked well.
We're definitely not fans of the two mouse buttons underneath the touchpad; they have a mushy feel, and there's a weird lip underneath them that's just plastic. We had to train ourselves to hit the buttons instead of just dead plastic.
Display and Audio
The 11.6-inch display on the IdeaPad S205 has a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels. The glossy panel produced vibrant colors when we streamed an episode of The Cleveland Show on Fox.com, though the viewing angles were narrow due to reflections.
Ports and Webcam
The IdeaPad S205 features most of its ports on the right side of the laptop. From front to back, you'll find the headphone and mic jacks, HDMI, and two USB 2.0 ports. The left side of the notebook houses a 6-in-1 memory card reader, a third USB port, VGA connector, and power jack.
The 1.3-megapixel webcam above the display captured images that looked a little washed out, especially under fluorescent light. Colors weren't deep enough, but they were at least recognizable. There wasn't too much blur when we moved around while recording video in CycberLink YouCam 3 or chatting on Skype, and the mic picked us up at over 4 feet from the notebook.
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