How much does size matter?

One of the best parts about a netbook is also one of its drawbacks.

They’re small.

The keyboards are undersized. The displays are tiny. But the battery life is huge, and that’s why netbooks are the hottest thing going right now.

The Lenovo S12 attempts to bridge the gap by tossing up a 12.1-inch screen and slightly larger keyboard than the usual netbook. But it is still a netbook with out the bells, whistles and optical drives of traditional computers. This model doesn’t yet have the much rumored and hotly anticipated Nvidia Ion chipset, which will let us run 1080p video and modern PC games on a low power netbook. Therefore, we’re still dealing with a regular old netbook that’s a little bigger.

That’s not a bad thing, mind you. The S12 gets more than five hours of battery life during normal use. You can squeeze out more juice if you’re really careful. The glossy screen is surprising light on the eyes. It’s back-lit running at 1280×800, which is much higher than other netbooks we’ve encountered out there.

The S12 has three USB 2.0 ports, an ethernet port, a 4-in-1 card reader, a 1.3-megapixel Webcam, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, an ExpressCard slot and a standard six-cell battery, which is very, very necessary. Some earlier models came with the three-cell battery. Don’t bother.

The interface is comfortable, and the touchpad is smooth and easy to navigate with. The keyboard is really comfortable to type on, but Lenovo switched the FN and CTRL keys on the left side of the keyboard. It’s a huge pain, because when you think you’re hitting CTRL-C, you’re actually hitting FN-C and not copying that text you wanted.

The 160GB hard drive and 1GB of RAM are both sufficient for the needs of a netbook user. You can even sneak a few video files on there.

The Intel ATOM N270 processor is also sufficient, especially because the S12 runs Windows XP.

Lenovo also throws in a hard drive backup utility that operates independent of the operating system and a facial recognition security utility that uses the on-board webcam.

If you’re looking for a slightly larger than normal netbook that’s comfortable, with decent battery life, look no further. At $449, it’s pricier than what you might find at the store, but the computer is stable, fairly speedy and still cheaper than a “real” laptop.

The Dell Inspiron Mini 10 is great if you get the optional 6-cell battery

Here’s an old reviewers’ question for you. Is it fair to judge a product by its default configuration?

I recently called the Dell Inspiron Mini 10′s 3-cell 24WHr battery a deal breaker, and it’s absolutely true. Dell’s netbook gets just over three hours of battery life, which is poor by both small laptop and netbook standards.

But when you’re buying the Mini 10, you can upgrade to a 6-cell battery with more than six hours of life for just $30.

A lot of people, I’d imagine, just buy the default configuration, not wanting to deal with the specs, like the difference between the hard drive and optional SSD drive.

Even with its 10″ x 7″ x 1″ dimensions, weighing only 2.63 pounds in my test, I’d never recommend someone buy the Mini in its default form.

It’s principle. The Mini 10 is an otherwise stellar computer. It’s fast, light, comes in a variety of colors, has an on-board TV tuner with HD antenna and cable adapter, comes with an HDMI port, SD/MS/MMC card reader, 3 USB ports, ethernet and built-in a/g/n WiFi. Even the display puts it over the top. The Mini 10 standard (as opposed to the V edition) comes with a 720p HD display. The keyboard is small, like on all netbooks, but it’s more comfortable than the Asus Eee PC that won the day in my Globe story.

At $349, the Inspiron 10 is a good value with this anchor called a 3-cell battery holding it down.

Dell should drop the 3-cell battery, make the 6-cell the default and only battery option, and charge $379 for the product. That would still make it cheaper than most of the Asus, HP and Lenovo competitors, and other reviews back up the fact that the Dell is right behind these laptops.

Dell’s idea with the Mini appears to have been to give users more regular “computer” features. The HDMI port is a great touch, and even the digital TV was appreciated. It’s pre-configured, and the software actually works. the Dell TV software fires up, scans the signal for channels, and works quickly and easily — and that’s from Dell. Years ago, if you bought a Dell, you could easily spend an hour or two deleting all their bloated support and utility software.

So let’s do this:

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with a 3-cell battery.

Dell Inspiron Mini 10 with a 6-cell battery.

If Dell throws in the 6-cell battery and throws out the 3-cell without jacking the price too much, then I believe it’s a winner. Good screen, good keyboard, Atom processor, television, HD video — all great features, but something has to power it all.