The Business Centre

People in most markets Lenovo serves, including Singapore, China and the UK, will be offered the company's new IdeaPad netbooks with either Microsoft Windows XP or a Linux OS, but users in Australia won't have that option.

Australian and US computer buyers will only be offered Windows XP on Lenovo's IdeaPad S10, according to Lenovo.

People in Australia and the US will also miss out on the IdeaPad S9, which has a smaller, 8.9-inch screen, and will be offered in most other countries. Models slated for Australia will have 10.2-inch screens.

A Lenovo representative in Beijing declined to comment on why Lenovo does not plan to offer IdeaPad netbooks with Linux OSs or 8.9-inch screens in all markets, nor whether such devices will be offered in the country at a later time.

In most places around the world, Lenovo plans to sell two versions of its IdeaPad 'S' series mini-laptops, or netbooks.

The IdeaPad S9 has an 8.9-inch screen, while the S10 sports a 10.2-inch screen. The two netbooks have 1.6GHz Atom microprocessors from Intel, and are available with a variety of options for DRAM and storage, including 80G-byte or 160G-byte hard disk drives (HDDs) or 4G-byte SSDs (solid state drives).

"IdeaPad netbooks come equipped with either Microsoft Windows XP or Linux," Lenovo said in its news release from the UK.

The Australian release reads: "The IdeaPad S10 netbook comes equipped with Microsoft Windows XP."

The IdeaPad S10 netbooks will be available late September and will be priced from AUD$699.