Netbooknews.de has the IdeaPad S10-t3 [Product page] and pops the box open to let us all have a look. This multitouch convertible looks quite slick and comes with a massive battery. They were even kind enough to include an English unboxing (embedded below) in addition to their usual German one.

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.

We’ve seen several Viliv S10 [Portal page] units in the past [gallery], but it looks like the retail version was on display at CES this year. Naturally, jkk got his hands on the device and has a video of a brief rundown and some quick impressions on the unit (also don’t miss his video with the Viliv N5). This is one of the first netbooks I’ve seen that has a capacitive multitouch screen which should offer improved touchscreen consistency than we’re used to with most large touchscreens. Still no word on pricing or availability but the best we can hope for is soon. Without ION, it feels like Viliv has missed the optimal time to bring this great looking convertible to market — if they don’t hurry up they might not have a chance to capitalize on what could have been a significant device for Viliv.  Jump over to jkk’s site to check out the video.

You may have seen the Kohjinsha dual screen netbook concept floating around the web recently, but apparently they are actually going to be putting this thing on the market. The unit will go on sale as the Kohjinsha DZ, and at first I saw this unit as novel, but after seeing it function on video I realize that this could really be useful for some people out there.

Maybe I just missed it before, but this thing is also a convertible, and while it doesn’t have a touchscreen, the screen will still spin around like you’d expect. See toward the end of this promotional video from Kohjinsha’s site.
Looks like the DZ will be running Windows 7 Home Premium, an AMD Athlon Neo CPU, 160GB HDD, 1GB of RAM, and have BT/WiFi.

If I was shopping for a new netbook for blogging, I’d seriously consider the Kohjinsha DZ. If you’ve ever had to write a paper while referencing other sources on a single screen, you know it can be a major pain to flip back and forth between the two. I’ve got a dual monitor setup at home, but if you need this same functionality on-the-go, the DZ can actually provide that in a netbook sized package. Have a look at the impressively designed DZ screen below. There are no goofy steps to go through, just slide and you are ready to work.

The only issue is that you are getting a unique feature, and you are going to have to pay for it. The Kohjinsha DZ will apparently be sold in Japan starting December 11th for ¥79,800 which is aprox. $925 or €617. Hopefully we’ll see some importers pick this one up to make it easy to purchase in the US and abroad.

via Liliputing and Netbooked

Over the last 6 months or so, Viliv has created a near rebirth of the UMPC, stunning a good number of people with the highly regarded S5 and X70. Not to long after, they brought the Viliv S7, their first device with a keyboard. I wrote an article back in July titled: The Viliv S7’s biggest challenge: the keyboard. After having a chance to review the S7 for myself, I found the keyboard to be the most disappointing part of the S7. At the same time however the S7 made me very excited for Viliv’s upcoming 10″ version, the S10.

What we’ve see so far from the S10 has shown it to be a very attractive device. If the S10 has the footprint to offer a good typing experience, and still delivers the good points of the S7, I feel that the S10 could break through and become a serious netbook competitor which will put the name Viliv in front of a large new audience that they haven’t yet had access to.

The keyboard forecast on the S10 is looking really good so far. From early pictures that Chippy shot of the unit at IDF 09 I can see that the S10’s footprint gave Viliv enough room to fix every single issue that I noted in my S7 review. They fixed the tiny right shift key by dropping the arrow keys down and providing enough space for a full right shift key. They fixed the F11 and F12 keys being bound to F9 and F10 as the extra width provided room for these keys to be in their own dedicated space. They also put the tilde key back where it needs to go, which aligns the number row correctly, and fixed other things like odd punctuation placement and backward Fn/ctrl keys.

But netbooks as of late have offered rather good typing experiences, so presuming that the S10’s keyboard can match these, how does the S10 stand a chance of competing against already established brands? The answer to this lies in the S10’s battery life, convertibility, and high res screen.

The S7 had hugely impressive battery life, running for almost 6 hours at 100% CPU usage, 100% brightness, and WiFi+BT turned on. This means that the S7 should run for around 8 hours with regular usage. Incredibly fast standby times allow one to extend the battery life of the S7 to great lengths. If the S10 can offer the same speedy standby and huge battery life, it’ll beat out most existing netbooks and would be great for a thin, light weight, ‘all day’ computing experience. Viliv is currently quoting the S10 as having 10 hours of battery, and given Viliv’s previous battery life claims I would say this is fairly accurate, and within an hour of realistic usage.

The S10 isn’t 100% official yet, but the one that Chippy looked at in an IDF 09 video hands-on had a 1366×768 resolution screen, which again beats out most of the netbook contenders. Then there is the flexibility that the touchscreen and convertible aspect offer. The majority of netbooks out there today aren’t touchscreen equipped and definitely aren’t convertible. This fact alone puts the S10 in direct competition with devices like the Gigabyte TouchNote [Portal page] and Asus Eee T91 [Portal page].

If the S10 can be competitive in the netbook field and stand its ground against the existing convertible options, I think that it could have a big impact on Viliv as a company getting the company into the eyes of a much broader range than they’ve been used to because previously they’ve been dealing in a rather niche market, and for ultra mobile PC fans out there — some of that additional market may flow through Viliv to their other devices, and introduce new people to the world of UMPCs.

Of course it will all really depend on the price that Viliv picks for the S10. Hopefully it’ll hit low enough to compete with netbooks and will create choice and competition for consumers, while being an impressive debut product for Viliv’s foray into the netbook space. Most of the other players will have some serious catching up to do if the S10 jumps onto the scene with a reasonable price, 10 hour battery life, great keyboard, high-res screen and convertible form factor to boot!

Apparently white is not a girl’s colour. At least that’s what my wife and daughter tell me. “Blue or Red would be better. This is just going to get dirty. inch Hmm, since when did women think about practicalities?

Despite that, I’ve managed to convince my wife to take on the S7 as a personal mobile computer. She works in the health and fitness industry and is often out and about at customer premises using Windows-based measurement and analysis software so she’s agreed that it would actually be quite cool to turn up with this.

I’ll be setting her up with a 3G SIM card and all the software she needs and she’s promised to report back in early October.

I’ll still be doing a full review of the S7 but as I’ll be away in IDF next week, expect that in early October too. Hands-on and first impressions thoughts coming before the end of the week. Don’t forget that the three-J’s are also testing the S7. That’s JKK, Jenn and James

Viliv S7 information and specifications here.

The guys at UMPCFever have a sample of the Viliv S7 convertible UMPC  (Viliv call it a handtop) a few days before the Hong Kong launch and have started to post reports. It’s an engineering sample so don’t take everything as final.

Before we start, lets take a quick moment to think about what we’re looking at here. The S7 is, using current terms, a mobile-focused netbook. It’s an ultra mobile PC. Lightweight, good keyboard, long long battery life, desktop OS, solid state drive and multi-scenario layout.  In terms of efficiency this device is theoretically 40-50% more efficient than a netbook. Viliv are claiming 9 hours on a 34wh battery. If that’s true, this is a very special bit of engineering indeed. Whether that’s good enough to attract customers remains to be seen but I, for one, am very excited about the possibility of the Viliv S7 being the best all-round ultra mobile PC to-date. This is a device that will compete with the ‘all-round-capable Sony Vaio P and the ASUS T91.

Full specifications and links to videos and other articles here.

To give you an idea of the sizing, that battery is about the same capacity as a three-cell netbook battery!

UMPCFever have a good set of pics and have written in detail (English language post) so I advise to head over there for the full details and to view the video. Here’s a few things I’ve picked out though.

• Build quality is said to be ‘acceptable good.’ I would rate it slightly higher than that saying that the plastics are well fitted, good quality and attractively finished.
• The comment on the keyboard is that it’s the same size as that on an ASUS 701, the original netbook. I, and others, have said that the 701 keyboard size is as small as you can go and still be able to touch type. Those with bigger hands might find it a bit stressful but for most, given a little practice, you can reach 80%+ normal typing speed. I’ve tried the keyboard on the S7 quite a few times now and it’s really good for a device of this size. I would have no problem typing this blog post on it.
• No stylus. I rarely use the stylus on the X70 which has the same screen but it’s sometimes nice to have it for annotations and image work.

In the UMPCFever live battery life test posting (not completed as I write this) they are seeing about 10% drain for every hour of Battery Eater Pro testing. This is with radio’s off, but wow! Even if this reaches 8hours in the BEPro test, we’re looking at 5-7hours on-net usage time. That’s almost a full days work there!

As for the case lets just say it’s an accessory I won’t be taking into the coffee shop. The white finish of the device is going to be a problem for a lot of men too.

Here are a couple of pics snipped from the two videos that have been posted so far.

Questions outstanding…

• Voice? (Not expected)
• GPS? (Not expected)
• Multi-touch screen / pad? (Not expected)
• Auto rotate?
• US, EU Pricing and specifications.

Keep an eye on UMPCFever for more information and stay tuned here too. We’re also expecting a sample.

Your Opinion? Assuming that this isn’t going to be a cheap device (we’re expecting pricing around $600-$900 depending on specs) how do you think this will fit in? Is the Sony Vaio P a better buy? How about the T91? Here are all three in a side-by-side comparison. Clearly the average consumer is going to be more likely to buy a netbook but what about the pro-mobile set?

One more comparison photo…[from Lazion.com]

Looking like a slightly modified Clevo TN70M and having sizing and specs to match is this variant called the Suzuki 701 M.

I’ve just reviewed the TN70M and wasn’t too impressed by the 800×480 screen on it but I know there’s a 1024×600 variant and if it is well priced, it makes a great netbook. The only issue I can see is that Suzuki appear to have a very small 4-cell battery on this. The 4-cell on the TN70M lasts for around 5hrs. The 4-cell on the Suzuki is said to last for 140 minutes which is no good to anyone wanting mobile capabilities. The other thing is that this one is thinner than the TN70M. Maybe Clevo have a new model up their sleeve!

Suzuki Singapore product information page.

Thanks CorticalSam. Original story Liliputing.