Review LG S1 Pro Notebook
Red Dot Winner. The LG S1 Notebook is really well designed and impresses by its elegant simplicity as well as by its good workmanship. Because of a Core 2 Duo and ATI X1600 the LG S1 is also technically interesting.
Case
As already outlined, the LG S1 is the winner of the recognized Red Dot Design Awards. Not wrongly, if I may judge.
The colors of the S1 are black and light silver. More precisely, the black trough is covered by a silver overlay and a light fawn keyboard. The display is completely black.
Most of the used materials should be plastics, however, the quality of the surfaces are nearly inimitable. The haptics of the parts is nearly regarding all matters excellent and of high-quality.
The LG S1 does not only please the eyes. Even regarding robustness and stability one can hardly detect any weaknesses. We found only one weakness, but, a very excruciating, on the bottom side of the notebook next to the fan. The case can be regrettably pushed in there and causes a relatively loud snap.
Both of the display's hinges seem to be robust, and also allow to change the position of the display precisely and trouble free. However, there is no locking mechanism, presumably because of the look. If the display is open at an angle of 15° or less, a mechanism closes the notebook completely and ensure that it is surprisingly firmly locked. In order to protect the notebook from penetrating objects at least a little bit, the display was positioned a little more to the back in relation to the base unit.
The ports are partly at the backside of the notebook but also placed on both sides. Depending on the use, either the VGA port, which is in the middle of the left side or the audio ports, which are in the front region of the right side, might be placed disadvantageous.
- Front Side: No Interfaces
- Left Side: Fan, VGA-Out, USB, PCCard, Card Reader
- Back Side: S-Video, Kensington, Battery, Modem, LAN, Fan, Power Connector
- Right Side: Audio, Firewire, DVD drive, 2x USB 2.0
Input Devices
Unusually, considering it is a 15 inch notebook, the LG S1 has a separate number block at the right edge of the keyboard. Although this reduces the available space for the standard keyboard, the keys aren't really too small.
Regarding the layout of the keys we can only criticizes that the delete and the insert key are possibly placed inconvenient right above the standard keyboard and integrated in the number block. So, they are somewhat difficult to hit.
Typing with the LG S1's keyboard leaves nothing to be desired. The keys can be precisely used by applying comfortable force and are rather calm, even if you type faster.
Also the touch pad convinces through good response and a comfortable surface. Both keys are nearly difficult to hit, because they are narrow and at the same level than the case. However, the pressure resistance is alright.
The S1's additional keys have a pleasing, decent form, are placed at the notebook's front edge, and are comfortable in use.
- Touch pad
- Keyboard
Display
- Color Diagram
The LG S1 utilizes a 1280x800 WXGA display. This is a display with reflecting surface. The maximum brightness is excellent at 186.7 cd/m². The illumination of 75.8% is, because of the yet very good minimum brightness of 141.5 cd/m² alright.
The measurement diagram shows an ideal red color curve. However, the blue color curve is clearly below the ideal. Therefore, the red colors dominate and the colors appear to be warmer.
|
Informations
Maximum: 186.7 cd/m² Average: 165.9 cd/m² Black: 0.3 cd/m² Contrast: 622:1 |
The black value (minimum brightness) is very low at 0.3 cd/m². This leads to an excellent contrast ratio of 622:1.
- Operation Outdoors
The reflecting display makes it difficult to use the notebook outdoors. Depending on the solar radiation and the lightening conditions of the environment, more or less heavy reflections can be observed.
Vertically, the stability to the vantage point is alright. Outside an adequate area of operation, the contrast diminishes very much.
Horizontally the display is in general stable to the vantage point, however the reflecting surface limits the possible vantage points a little bit.
Performance
The LG S1 has in the fields of 3D- as well as in the fields of applications compared to different notebooks of the same class a good performance. Especially the ATI X1600 video chip (GPU/clock rate: 425/400 MHz, 256MB VRAM) surprises by good performance.
It should be well possible to play current games with this video card, although you might need to reduce the resolution and/or the number of details a little bit.
Equipped with a Core 2 Duo T5600 CPU the notebook provides you with sufficient power for calculation intensive applications.
The Hitachi 5K160 hard disk with a storage capacity of 120GB has a good and short access time and at the same time an above-average transfer rate.
Further information about the video card can be found here or in our comparison of mobile video cards. Detailed information about the Core 2 Duo CPU can be found here.
Please also look at our benchmark list of mobile processors or at our benchmark list of mobile video cards, in order to compare this notebook to other configurations.
- Benchmark Comparison 3DMark
- Benchmark Comparison PCMark
 |
|
| 3DMark06 in comparison | ||
| Review Sony Vaio VGN-TX2XP/B (min) | 49 | |
| ... | ||
| Review Toshiba Satellite P100-102 | 1928 | |
| Review Asus A7Jc | 1969 | |
| Review LG S1 Pro Notebook | 2008 | |
| Review Toshiba Qosmio G30 | 2092 | |
| Review Toshiba Satellite A100-979 | 2124 | |
| ... | ||
| Review Alienware Area-51 m9750 Notebook (max) | 7472 | |
 |
|
| PCMark05 in comparison | ||
| Review Samsung Q30 (min) | 861 | |
| ... | ||
| Review Acer Aspire 5920G Notebook | 4482 | |
| Review Toshiba Qosmio F30-147 | 4497 | |
| Review LG S1 Pro Notebook | 4522 | |
| Review Dell Latitude D830 Notebook | 4629 | |
| Review Dell Inspiron 1720 Notebook | 4660 | |
| ... | ||
| Review Asus G1S Notebook (max) | 5568 | |
 |
Quake 3 Arena The average results of the timedemo demo1 were 337.5 frames per second (fps) |
|
 |
|
Emissions
Loudness
Although the fan runs steadily even in idle mode, the LG S1 is a rather pleasing notebook regarding its noise emissions. During "moderate" office operation the fan works time and again with higher frequency, but yet within a limited range.
Even under load, at maximum revolutions the noise of the notebook is never really disturbing.
The noise of the DVD drive is alright during playback, but, during copying data or playback of Mpeg movies it is rather loud.
Loudness
| Idle |
   35.0 / 35.0 / 36.2 dBHDD |
| 
37.6 dBDVD |
|
37.5 dBLoad |
| 38.3 / 39.1 dB |
|     
| 30 dB | silent 40 dB | audible 50 dB | loud Key: min: , med: , max: | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Temperature
Even the surface temperatures of the notebook are rather low. At the top side we measured a maximum of 34.3°C and a maximum of 38.4°C at the bottom side. In general the values are rather normal.
Temperatures on the top
Ball of hand max.: 29.6°C Top max.: 34.3°C Average: 26.4°C
Hotspot:Temperatures on the bottom
Room Temperature: 22.5°C
Bottom max.: 38.4°C Average: 29.7°C Hotspot:
Speakers
The speakers are left and right at the front edge of the notebook. Their sound is more or less alright, even if it does not really delight, because it's a little dull. By activating SRS TruSurround it can be improved, still it doesn't become a sound miracle.
to topBattery Runtime
Despite the runtime under load, which is rather short (a little bit above one hour), the LG S1 has an average runtime provided by a 5200 mAh battery. You can expect a maximum runtime of about 3 hours and a runtime of about 2 hours during DVD playback.
Battery runtime
Idle, min. brightness, no WLAN: 204 minutes
Full-load, max brightness, WLAN: 75 minutes
Internet surfing, adapted brightness, WLAN: minutes
DVD, max brightness, no WLAN: 125 minutes
Current consumption
| Idle | 24.4 / 29.1 / 29.8 Watt |
| Load |
58.0 / 62.0 Watt |
|
| |
Key: min: , med: , max: | |
Verdict
The LG S1 Pro pleases by decent design and choice of color. Even the materials, which seem to be of high-quality, and the precise workmanship convince.
The input devices pleased us, especially the keyboard, which proved to be very comfortable in use. The provided number block could also be of use for one or the other user, and is hardly provided by any 15 inch notebook.
The display completely convinced despite of a reflecting surface. A good brightness, a good contrast ratio and stability to the vantage point leave nothing to be desired.
The performance is, thanks to a Core 2 Duo CPU and ATI X1600 mid-class video card rather passable. Even current applications and Windows Vista should run trouble-free.
The low noises and also the low surface temperatures are other pros of the LG S1 Pro. The battery runtime is about average, under load below average.
- LG S1 Pro Notebook
