Viliv S10 at CES. Coming in Feb.

Posted on 14 January 2010, Last updated on 14 January 2010 by

With options for 2.0Ghz Intel Atom CPU, multi-touch, SSD and 3G, a 1366×768 screen, 10 hours of battery life, 1.2KG in weight and a very good looking and well-built form factor, it’s no wonder that the Viliv S10 beat the Lenovo S10-t3 and the ASUS T101H to become Laptopmag’s best of CES netbook. The question is though, how much will the Viliv S10 cost in fully stacked form?

The S10 is a device I’m watching carefully though and if it turns out to be significantly faster and more usable than the Gigabyte Touchnote i’m using right now, it might be my next laptop.

Viliv tell me that it should launch very soon in South Korea with a follow-up launch in the US in Feb. Full pricing details are still unknown.

Here’s a video I made at CES that demonstrates the multi-touch capabilities. I’m still not convinced that multi-touch screen is better than multi-touch mouse pad but i’ll have to test it out in tablet mode when we get one for testing here in the next few weeks.

Viliv S10 Specifications and links in the product database.

40 Comments For This Post

  1. UMPCPortal says:

    New article: Viliv S10 at CES. Coming in Feb. http://bit.ly/5CDeJd

  2. Mobile Ninja says:

    Viliv S10 at CES. Coming in Feb. http://bit.ly/63jxMY
    #mobile

  3. Sasaki says:

    なんだViliv S10なんかCESで出てたんだ。これにfoobar乗っけてUE18をつけて。と、まずいまずい(笑) > Viliv S10 at CES. Coming in Feb. http://tinyurl.com/yjtulc6

  4. Yu says:

    Weight (1.2 kg compared to 1.5kg for most similiar devices) and Screen (HD, non-glossy if I remember correctly) sure are big pros of this device; Also I didn’t see any vents so far, so I suppose its fanless – next good point.

    I’m just hoping that the multi touch screen will be stylus capable (even if its a special technology) for my main use of touch screens will sure be making sketches when writing notes on university; I can pretty well keep up with formulas with the help of LyX, but once I need to draw something it gets a pain. Though Lectures, where I need to write formulas, make hand drawn sketches and also get copies of graphics make creating a consistent set of notes pretty hard anyway, I can’t carry a scanner around after all :D

    Though the main point is about stylus input.

    Hey, they would sure get me buy one if they manage to get a 3Qi-screen into their device :D But I guess that’s asking too much.

    I’m pretty intrigued about the pricing though; I guess the fully stacked up version will be expensive above an entry level mac book considering the still high costs of large SSDs and that exceptionally fast versions of processors tend to be pretty expensive too (without myself believing into THAT much performance gain). But for base versions, even with touchscreens, the market entry prices have dropped pretty far at CES :-)

  5. Wolle says:

    Does it have a fan?

  6. tal says:

    Steve,
    What about the N5 US release date please?

  7. Chippy says:

    It’s 1-2 months behind the S10 from what I hear. It could be March or even April for US/EU versions of the N5

    Steve

  8. peter says:

    could you please let me know if it has rotatable display function? I wish it can display vertically like T91mt does. thanks a lot!

  9. Chippy says:

    Thats a standard part of Menlow graphics drivers. CTRL-SHIFT cursor keys works to rotate the screen. Sometimes the touchscreen doesnt rotate properly though. It depends on the touchscreen drivers. We’ll have to test this.

  10. HoboJ says:

    I’m curious to see how much this is going to cost. As well as how long the battery lasts in real life situations. I have high hopes considering vilivs other great products!

  11. peter says:

    according to the specs provided, i’m assuming it’ll come as 3 different pre-configured models
    Z530, 32GB/1GB, $600
    Z530, 64GB/2GB, $700
    Z550, 128GB/2GB $900

    just what think

  12. Yu says:

    Though the 600$-estimate isn’t unrealistic, considering recent price developements I keep my hopes up for a lower base price :D Though of course the many positive traits of the device would be worth a surcharge.

  13. Luc says:

    Unfortunately no 2GB memory option:-(. Also missing again is 802.11n (same as my S5 802.11 where I had to downgrade the router speed).

    However rest looks pretty interesting (fast CPU, long battery life, good screen, tablet multi-touch style, …).

  14. Yu says:

    Now that you mention it… Windows 7 with just 1 GB DOES seem a bit little. 1 GB is totally sufficient on Windows XP, even for productivity tasks (I used to run Eclipse on my EEEPC 1000H for almost a year while applying heavy multi tasking with browser, IM client, skype… no performance improvement there due to the upgrade to 2 GB) but I sure wonder if it is sufficient for Windows 7. Though… Isn’t 1GB one of the Intel restrictions for that generation of Atom CPUs? I’m not sure though.

    As you say, you had to downgrade the router… Is it generally not possible to use b/g/n at the same time? Would give me quite a headache for I possess only one device with n-WLAN right now and I’m thinking of upgrading to an 802.11n-capable Router.

    Another point… What’s about HD video capability? I’d sure miss being capable to watch flashmovies available only in higher (though never full HD) resolution.

  15. Chippy says:

    My worry too. 1GB might not match the productivity potential. Fast SSD helps with swap though so lets see when we get test unit in Feb.

  16. Yu says:

    Shouldn’t extensive use of swap space due to a lack of RAM drain SSD lifetime?

  17. peter says:

    and also the battery life, in normal use with lower settings I’m sure it can have up to 8 hours for sure

  18. Luc says:

    I was not able to connect the S5 to 802.11n mode. Tried numerous combinations to no avail. Could be router although it’s new. So I had to downgrade the router config to make it work:-(.

    HD .h264 720p on S5 is good but flash isn’t since it’s not utilizing graphics hardware. However 2.0GHz should be able to do 720p flash in theory. 1080p probably not.

    2GB would help a lot so I still hope there’s some way to upgrade memory. 1GB is minimum for Windows 7.

  19. peter says:

    in the earlier videos the back of the machine was shown with a lid next to the gigantic battery
    that was hopefully where users could easily open and have access to the RAM
    I’m pretty sure its RAM will be user upgradeable, or else i doubt that viliv will be lame enough to limit the RAM to just 1GB and the accessibility to it on such a killer product

  20. Yu says:

    Though this assumes you’re going for the most expensive version. Unless they surprise us like hell with their pricing I won’t even consider that though.

    About RAM… I wonder, do Atom mainboards or Atom CPUs themselves allow a second ram slot? I think having two memory devices would improve performance far more than just increasing the amount of memory available and different from other manufacturers Viliv should not have any objections to creating highly powerful netbooks (which others may have because they want to sell netbooks as an addition, not a replacement, for traditional notebooks).

  21. peter says:

    not sure if i’m right but i believe some of the netbooks of the earlier generation already had multiple slots for RAMs. even if not, i geuss it still wont help improve much on the lousy performance brought us by atom. that said, i’m still really glad that viliv was willing to go for an 2.0 GHz atom instead of the boring me-too specs.

    to be honest, i’ll still consider getting one of those with Z550 & 128GB SSD for 900 bucks, if the 64GB version only comes with Z530…

  22. peter says:

    can it rotate the display 90 degrees in tablet mode like T101MT does??
    this is what i’m really concerned about

    none of the video demos so far indicates the function, and i do not see any button on the screen frame either
    the rest of its specs are just absolute killers, but if it can’t be used like an ebook. I’M NOT BUYING IT coz that’s what I’m truly in need of

  23. tsog says:

    The screen rotation is purely a software function.
    I have a Fujitsu P1620 and the intel graphics driver lets me rotate the screen any direction 90 and 180 degrees by pressing ctrl + alt + [any arrow key].
    In fact, if you have an intel graphics-enabled notebook, try to rotate your screen with the combination above. Not guaranteed to work 100% though as I haven’t tested it on other laptops.

  24. Luc says:

    Chippy, can you tell us how the screen sharpness and contrast compares to the S5 or a non-multitouch device? Typically multi-touch degrades screen quality and makes everything bit soft. So hopefully that’s not the case with the S10?

    Thanks
    Luc

  25. Chippy says:

    As I mentioned in the video, the screen seemed very good. Closer inspection when we get review model.

  26. FireDragon says:

    Hello, Chippy.

    Which company you think is providing better devices between Archos and Viliv? Which one is more innovative, reliable or producing well-built Tablets?

  27. Chippy says:

    Good question. Both companies are playing well in the space. Android for single hand. Windows for two hands. It seems that Viliv have the lead in mobile Intel devices. Archos have the lead in high-end Android devices.
    Both companies will be focusing and learning during 2010; like everyone else.

  28. Typic says:

    this is EASILY the best 10″ convertible ever made. it is about as small & thin that is realistically possible in this form factor, yet still gets good battery life. Viliv has certainly raised the bar too bad it will have a price to match that.

  29. Igor says:

    sadly no digital video output, it would be great having hdmi instead vga, to watch videos on a big screen.
    I wonder why they use analog video, it will die soon.

  30. Yu says:

    Compatibility with projectors I suppose. After all most projectors around (at least at my university) don’t have HDMI inputs, but VGA inputs.

    Moreover, the VGA interface seems to be capable of full HD anyway; Though I couldn’t quite figure out how it is done. (I suppose the analogous output technology is used to carry a digital signal on multiple channels?).

    Just good the S10 will use the older atom generation, for otherwise the supported resolution should drop due to the new graphics unit.

  31. FireDragon says:

    A couple of months back, over some mobile site(s) where everyone was talking too much about multitouches I asked the benefits of multitouch screen. Everyone seems to have one answer “Pinch to zoom”, But what else? Pinch to zoom really that good, I don’t say it is not good but is it that good? Is it all they can do with this “technology”?

    What I figured out more to do with this, On-screen keyboard typing can be a very very productive part of multitouch (for those who go throuch decorating sentences with capitals and punctuation), complex game-play over touch-screens would improve and fun.

  32. digitaldoc says:

    >>> Chippy: I’m still not convinced that multi-touch screen is better than multi-touch mouse pad but i’ll have to test it out in tablet mode when we get one for testing here in the next few weeks. <<<<

    Finally someone who thinks like I do.
    Multitouch screens are for fingerpainting.
    On top of the lack of need for multitouch screens … no apps exploit it … well … except the finger painting apps.

    Let's just say that Multitouch screens are not going to change business functions anytime soon.
    :)

    I'd love to hear you speak out more about multitouch's lack of relevance, in the real world, today.

  33. peter says:

    speaking of multitouch screen functionality,
    under normal circumstances, I’d totally agree with you on that
    and yet, here we’re talking about “tablet PCs” which can be used as a tablet with both its keyboard and touchpad hidden underneath.
    when you are browsing a web page or viewing an image, having a multitouch screen simply makes your life 3 million times easier as you get to zoom them in and out by doing the gestures on the screen without having to click on any button shown on the webpages/image viewer, or even turn the screen away in order to use the keyboard or touchpad.

    and after all, what is your reason of choosing a tablet PC rather than a regular one?
    it’s been proven by many that tablet pcs are not as useful as people may have thought in terms of note taking.
    but, a lot of others, including me, actually wish to use these for reading or image viewing, and thats where the touch functions take up a big role

    i’d say, multi touch screen is only not important when you use a regular type of notebook

  34. Luc says:

    See http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee336016.aspx.

    Basically vendors hopefully will be creative to come up with more useful multi-touch gestures but besides zoom in/out there is also the rotation gesture (for pictures or maps for instance).

  35. reverendo says:

    Now if this device is inkable I’ve got my Fujitsu P1610 substitute… I’m going to wait for the prices, since I’ve seen P1630s for around USD 1000 on ebay. I’d also like to know if the 1GB RAM will be upgradeable. The full featured device will probably spark my interest, but prices can always be very tricky.

  36. ap1120 says:

    Everyone seems to forget about the pop up keyboard which pops up on the screen when in tablet mode with the touch of a button. so not only can you use the keyboard, but when simply lounging you can have a very portable web browser. This is the a great device, but like everyone else mentioned. I HOPE ITS RAM IS UPGRADEABLE!!!! I’ve contacted Viliv hopefully they respond soon.

  37. ap1120 says:

    I just received an answer back from viliv.

    Dear customer

    Sorry to say that the ram cannot be upgraded since it is on the board.

    Thank you.
    viliv

    I’m kinda annoyed now….

  38. reverendo says:

    That’s kind of a deal breaker for me now…

  39. ap1120 says:

    same here. Like people have mentioned before its hard enough to run Word with 1 GB of ram and Win 7. Win XP may work fine, but then you lose all touch capabilities of Win 7. sigh :(

  40. tsog says:

    That’s what page files are for, in case your computer is low on memory.
    Though file swapping between hdd and memory is awfully slow, if you have a 1.8″ 4200 rpm hdd. Having ssd for hdd only alleviates the memory problem a little.

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