Still hot on Lenovo news, Lenovo’s newest notebook could well be the first to have a NVIDIA Ion chipset. With NVIDIA’s ION graphics platform, users will enjoy brilliant 1080p high definition video with smooth playback. According to Rene Haas (General manager – Notebook GPUs, NVIDIA), “With enhanced graphics, the Lenovo IdeaPad S12 netbook is perfect for watching movies, playing popular games like Spore, flipping through vacation pictures or enhancing family videos.”

The Lenovo IdeaPad S12 is a 12-inch netbook with a 100-percent full-size keyboard, an apparent 1080p video playback (which is especially great for HD) and weighting at 3lbs. Other specifications include the following: WXGA (1,280 x 800) resolution LED-backlit panel, Intel’s 1.6GHz Atom CPU (the one big “ugh”), 1GB of DDR2 memory, 160/250/320GB HDD options, an optional 6-cell battery, Ethernet jack, WiFi, Bluetooth, three USB 2.0 sockets, an ExpressCard slot, a 4-in-1 card reader and VGA / HDMI outputs.

According to Dion Weisler (Vice president, Business Operations, Idea Product Group of Lenovo), “We’ve heard from consumers loud and clear about the need for affordable and extremely portable computing devices, and we’ve responded by introducing our third netbook with a completely new form factor, making mini-computing more usable and redefining value in today’s market. We are pioneering new territory in the developing netbook arena by being the first vendor to give customers high quality video and entertainment capabilities in a netbook with optional NVIDIA ION graphics.”

The  Lenovo IdeaPad S12 is shipped with Windows XP and will be available by June at a $449 value.

SOURCES: ENGADGET, CNET