New toy

May 3, 2010 - Reading time: ~1 minute

I am now plus one Lenovo S10-3 netbook.  Seems fun.  The Fry's in Burbank had a much better selection of them than the one in Houston.  Also, I couldn't get anyone at the Fry's in Houston to talk to me (at least nobody in the computer department).  The touchpad is ... OK.  Still getting used to it.  The IdeaPad I played with in the store was apparently an S10-2, which had actual physical mouse buttons just below the touchpad; the one I took home has a single-piece thing which looks nice but is a bit awkward if you want to click and drag.

The thing that really surprised me about the netbooks is the lack of Bluetooth support.  Bluetooth isn't great for a lot of things because it's not blazing fast, but ... it is great for things like wireless mice, cell phones, headphones, and so on.  No stores I went to had any netbooks with built-in Bluetooth in stock; online I found an HP Mini 210 with a Bluetooth option, but the Mini 210 in the store didn't have it.  I ended up with a dongle, which is fine but it eats up a USB port and sticks out the side a bit.  Oh well.