The first time I held a netbook was in Taiwan and it was the EEE PC from AsusTek. The chairman of the board of Asus, Jonney Shih, actually handed it to me. My first impression of the netbook was that it looked and felt flimsy. To be fair, I’ve never put the EEE PC through its paces in a full review.
HP’s Mini 2140, the company’s first-ever netbook, is anything but flimsy. It is quite sturdy. It is also rugged. I found that out by accident as it fell to the floor of my car. The Mini is built with an all-aluminum case, magnesium alloy support, HP 3D DriveGuard and Durakeys.
The most important thing to remember using a netbook is that it is not a power laptop. So if you are a power user and you are mobile this is not the product for you.
Having said that, I took the HP (NASDAQ: HPQ) Mini 2140 on the road to meetings several times and it held its own. It was quite comfortable to carry and use. I didn’t even need a case or bag. The other thing is that it boots up fast using the Basic version of Vista running a full version of Office. It also comes with SUSE Linux or Windows XP.
The myth about netbooks is that it’s for just basic computing. What I mean by basic computing is simple word processing, e-mail and Web surfing. Let me dispell that one for you. I decided to create a Publisher file with photos, graphics and text and it worked seamlessly. The same can be said for Excel files. The 160 GB SATA hard drive is enough storage for mobile workers who also use a regular laptop and for those who just do basic computing.
HP markets the Mini as the ideal companion PC for the highly mobile professional. And, in a nutshell that is what the Mini Netbook is. I took it to Miami for a business trip along with my regular laptop. This does create more weight to lug around, however it makes for a perfect situation where you can take the Mini in and out of meetings and keynote addresses, while using your regular laptop in your hotel room.
At just under three pounds, it’s ultra-mobile and a better option than a handheld. Interacting with attachments is so much better on a 10-inch widescreen display with a 16:9 aspect ratio than a BlackBerry or iPhone screen.
Another feature is the integrated Wi-Fi Certified WLAN with Bluetooth, which helps a user to stay connected.
Finally the battery life is much better than I expected. I used this product cordless all the time and only ran into power issues once in my month long review period. According to HP, battery life can be anywhere between four to 10 hours. It never got close to 10 hours but it did reach six hours on a fairly consistent basis.
The only negative I have with the HP Mini is the Intel Atom processor. As many already know, it’s not as robust as Intel claims. But the netbook is a companion product, unless you are just doing basic computing. At around $450 it is also an affordable option to have if you do computing on the road.
