When is a laptop not a laptop? When it’s a netbook, of course. The line has clearly been drawn – anything 12 inches and below can be classified as a netbook while anything above is a standard laptop. In fact, most netbooks are actually perfectly happy to keep themselves in the 10 inch range where the added portability finds the best balance with control systems and screens. However, there’s a growing market for 12 inch netbooks which are easy to carry around and yet feature nicer displays and full size keyboards. The S12 is one of them.

The system looks good if not quite as stylish as efforts from Samsung, Sony and Dells ‘designer’ range. The overall plastic doesn’t look as good as some netbooks, especially the cheaper looking white version, although the actual build quality is pretty sturdy and befitting of a device that’s going to be carried around quite often. At least it isn’t

The two main reasons for having a larger 12 inch system – the screen and the keyboard – are both top notch on the S12. The glossy screen offers up 1280×800 in a world where most netbooks can only manage 1024×600 and offers up a 16:10 aspect ratio, even if the gloss means usage outside will result in all sorts of annoying reflections. The keyboard is a full sized laptop keyboard so if you’re major complaint about netbooks is not being able to type easily, the S12 might just be a perfect solution.

Entry level S12s come with a 1.3 GHZ processor but we strongly recommend spending the extra £20 and grabbing the 1.6 Ghz Atom, which is the standard for just about every modern netbook. The system speeds through XP with 1GB of ram although an upgrade to 2GB could make multitasking easier. As the deep technical specs of netbooks are all very similar right now, there’s nothing really remarkably ‘stand out’ from the S12s performance but really, it’s good enough.

Overall, the S12 might just be the perfect design for a netbook. Yes, the 12 inch screen makes it a larger and heavier choice but having a higher resolution and bigger keyboard alone will justify this for many people. If you want more screen real estate or you simply have bigger hands, the S12 is well worth a glance.

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