The Q100 is impressively small with overall dimensions of 6.0″ x 6.8″ x 0.8″. In practical terms, it’s about the size of a slim external optical drive or a very slim CD wallet. The Lenovo website lists the Q100′s at $299, while its ION-powered brother, the Q110, costs $399. The slightly larger Q700, meant for the role of a HD HTPC, sports a dual core Pentium E5200 processor and GMA X4500 graphics for $499-$599 depending on the configuration.

All in all, the Q100′s small size doesn’t command a heavy price premium compared to the Eee Box or the recent DIY SFF PC we built using an Intel D945GSEJT mini-ITX Atom board and Morex T1610 case. Like the Morex build, the Q100 is fanless — as long as the hard drive isn’t substandard acoustically, it should be one of the quietest system you can get without a SSD. The Acer Aspire Revo seems like a bargain by comparison with a $200 price-tag and ION graphics, but we don’t really know about its acoustics.

IdeaCentre Q100

* Intel Atom 230 CPU
* 1GB DDR2 RAM
* 160Gb hard drive
* Intel Integrated Graphics
* Gigabit Ethernet, Wi-Fi, VGA output

The Lenovo Y300 is a 13-inch widescreen thin-and-light system with slot-in optical drive and discrete Nvidia GeForce Go 7300 graphics card. Though it integrates a Webcam above the display like many other contemporary portables, it has one cool feature which uses the camera in a novel way. Forget about biometric fingerprint scanning. The Lenovo Y300 allows one to login just by looking into the Webcam. By taking the distance between the eyes and nose, as well as several high points in one’s facial features, the system can recognize authorized users and automatically logs in. Barring serious facial reconstruction, gaining a few pounds will not affect its accuracy.

The portable weighs 2.2kg, which is comparable with other 13-inch laptops like the MacBook. As a nod to its multimedia focus, a unique Lenovo Shuttle interface, which allows easy access to music and video files, with discrete playback controls makes it as easy to listen to your tunes as well as peek at your movies.

While it’s nowhere near as light and compact as a MacBook Air, the Y300/310 is nonetheless quite trim for a 13″ notebook. Made entirely of tacky plastic, the Y300/310 looks and feels like a toy. It’s many chrome buttons and those huge orange mulitimedia buttons hack right back to the 1960s and 70s. Sony VAIO this Lenovo is certainly NOT!

Despite it’s aesthetics the Y300/310 is still very well assembled together. You won’t find any panels that squeak or give way when pressed. The slot-in DVD writer does away the traditional CD trays and would probably last a bit longer. Don’t expect it to survive a fall though as the Y300/310 would quite possibly shatter like glass! There’s no rollcage like the Thinkpads do and the lack of water spillways means you’ll have to be extra cautious when drinking liquids around the notebook.