Lenovo Q110 Review: Nettops and Ion Meet at Last

The press photos of the Lenovo Q110 are somewhat deceiving, as they generally show the product from the side on a stand. Look deeper into the product information, and you'll find that in fact the Lenovo Q110 is constructed with a gloss finish on one side and a flat matte finish on the other. The reason? It is really meant to be strapped to the back of a monitor. It even comes with a bracket for mounting which, by the way, works very well and feels sturdy. This is a good thing, as the Lenovo Q110 does look odd on a stand if viewed from any angle besides its left side.

The build quality of the unit is extremely good. It is very small, even for a nettop, measuring 7 inches tall, 6 inches wide, and 1 inch deep. It is nearly half the size of a standard netbook. It feels quite well built, as well. The plastics used are solid and no unwanted creaks or moans exist when the unit is handled. The power button has a quality feel. Even the ports on the rear of the unit look solid and ready to handle repeated use. The only area where I can fault the product's build quality is the small plastic flap which hides the front audio jacks. It is very thin and seems like it could break off is just a little bit too much force was used to open it.

Lenovo should be given great praise for the lack of bloatware which ships on this product. The only pre-installed program of note was a trial of Trend Micro Internet Security. That's it. As anyone who has bought a PC in the last two decades knows, bloatware often masquerades as content on new PCs, but I found no such nonsense on the Lenovo Q110.

In terms of hardware, the Lenovo Q110 is better equipped then the average nettop. It has two gigabytes of RAM, as opposed to the standard one. The extra memory is great to have and goes a long way towards making the Lenovo Q110 feel like a capable, high-quality PC. The feature that really sets the Q110 apart, however, is the inclusion of the Ion chipset, which provides an Nvidia 9400M GPU. Perhaps in the future there will be more nettops which offer quality integrated graphics, but for now only the Acer AspireRevo and some much more expensive all-in-one units provide competition. My only gripe is that the Lenovo Q110 does not have integrated wireless. One disappointing is that the Q110 doesn't have integrated wireless, and since the Q110 is positioned as a premium nettop it is something I think the Q110 should have. The lack of integrated wifi is far from a deal-killer, however.

The Lenovo Q110 also provides more USB ports than is standard, with six available as opposed to the usual four. These extra USB ports are one of the most practical advantages the Q110 has over other netbooks and it cannot be over-stressed. Most nettops, such as the ASUS Eee Box, have only four USB ports available. If you've plugged in a USB keyboard and USB mouse you've already used half your available USB ports. You can get around this with various devices, of course, but doing so takes away from one of the nettop's advantages - the lack of clutter in comparison to a normal desktop PC.

Vista is currently the only operating system available on the Lenovo Q110, but my unit came with an upgrade voucher for Windows 7. Lenovo still does not offer Windows 7 as standard, which seems odd, but the included voucher makes it something of a moot point. The Q110 is capable of handling Vista, thanks to the extra RAM, and I imagine Windows 7 would improve the overall user experience.