HP hit the mark

Hewlett Packard’s first attempt at the netbook market the mini note 2133 was to say the least a disappointment so we weren’t expecting a great deal from their latest offering.

The Mini 100o (I am sure I used to drive one of those….) however is a pleasant surprise.

Gone is the asthmatic Via C7 processor to be replaced with…you guessed it, the good old Intel Atom.

This 60Gb Hard drive equipped model comes in the funky designer colours you see below.

Not for everyone maybe but it certainly is pretty.

The Mini 1000 is equipped with a 10.1 Inch brightview display giving 1024×576 resolution. As with most netbooks this means most web pages will require some scrolling but that’s the price you pay for owning a laptop this size and weighing only 20 grams over a Kilo.

The real revelation with the Mini 1000 is the amazing keyboard.

According to HP it is 92% full size and a real rarity on any netbook. A keyboard that you can actually type with!

Network connections are taken care of with 802.11 b/g Wifi and bluetooth.

The maximum supported RAM is 1Gb which is supplied but this is more than adequate to run the supplied OS which thankfully is Windows XP Home SP3.

The HP Mini 1000 ships with a 3 cell battery only which may give some cause for concern but it seems to offer between 2.5 and 3 hours life which is pretty impressive.

Overall there isn’t much to find fault with on the HP Mini 1000.  Although it sits at the higher end of the netbook price range starting at £449 including VAT in our view it is worth every penny.