LG X110

A look through this issue will prove that I do not exaggerate when I say that we were overrun by ultraportables. There in the spirit of all things laptop-like, I was rather happy to be reviewing the freshly minted LG X110, which is also called MoMo, which is short for More Mobile.

The X110, like many netbooks is powered by the popular Intel Atom N270 processor with 1GB of RAM, 802.11bg WLAN and Bluetooth v2.0 support and a 160GB hard disk. And it has a matte-finish ( non-glossy) 10-inch LED screen with a netbook standard resolution of 1024x600. A 1.3MP camera sits at the top of the screen which is good enough for online video chat. It also has sufficient connectivity ports; three USB ports, one Ethernet port, a mic-in and one headphones out.

Built around the same chassis as MSI Wind, you can identify that the X110 has improved only the cosmetic part as all the connection ports, speaker and vents remain at the same place as they did on the Wind. Its exterior has a glossy black finish (pink and brown color versions are also available) and its contoured lit with sharper cuts on the edges make it one of the best looking netbooks we've seen. Despite the smudge-magnet finish, the build quality is decent and strong enough for computing on the go.

The 10-inch screen, though not super sharp, provided enough brightness. Reading text at the default size is easy, and watching a movie or some YouTube video is not really eye-straining. The matte-finish once again is an advantage here over the glossy ones found on Acer Aspire One and this is more obvious when outdoors. The keyboard has a regular layout which is easy to get used to. It’s the same as those standard laptop keyboards and adequate shortcuts to access common features like Wi-Fi, brightness and volume controls etc. The Synaptic Touchpad is responsive; virtual and horizontal scrolling worked as expected though the buttons were a bit slim for our taste.

The X110 came pre-installed with Windows XP with SP3 and Norton AntiVirus with 90 days trial . No Office Suite came preinstalled though. There is an LG Intelligent update system to keep the system patch, drivers and programs up to date that has an offline or online updates mode. Some cool applications like Xtreme Surround System that supports SRS WOW HD and SRS TruSurround XT took care of the audio department. This worked better for headphones particularly while watching movies. The onboard speaker (2w/ch) delivered quite a tinny sound but we did not expect much from a netbook anyway. Its 1.3MP Smart Cam with LG’s included application called CyberLink YouCam worked great. It has a lot of animation effects and shortcuts to post the video clips directly to YouTube or send it via e-mail that was fun to use.

From our WorldBench and Everest Benchmarks results, the X110 performed at par with other netbooks having the same specifications. The only problem we found with the X110's performance is its 3-cell battery life. With the Wi-Fi on and at the normal screen brightness setting, we could achieve just 120 minutes during our online usage which is way below what we got from other netbooks. Upgrading the battery to 6-cell is advisable for more mobile usage which is what netbooks are intended for.
Looks-wise, the LG X110 is hard to beat and performed admirably. However, the default 3-cell battery is the deal-breaker as you can find better battery-life and similar performing netbooks at this price.