It seems as though after the success of the Asus EEE mini laptop everyone and their grandmother wants to get on the bandwagon. Off the top of my head I can think of brands such as Dell, Acer, ECS and Everex. HP is also on the bandwagon but unlike the above-mentioned brands, HP actually has a laptop out at the moment which if you’ll bear with me we’ll take a look at now.
Let’s look at the basic specs. Firstly I’d like to mention the screen size, as it is the deal breaker in laptops this size. It’s an 8.9 inch glossy LCD screen with a resolution of 1280X768 which is higher than the soon to be released 8.9 inch EEE. The great thing about the laptop is that it has an almost full sized keyboard, a deal breaker for most on the EEE. The whole machine is made out of aluminum and plastic and looks a lot more upmarket than the EEE ever will. Also included is an SD card for adding space and an Express Card slot to use all the new HSDPA cards without using up a USB port. Speaking of USB the machine also has two ports, VGA out, Ethernet as well as Mic In and Earphone out ports.
To make the situation confusing HP has created a few different models. At the bottom of the range we have the 1.0Ghz version that features 512mb of Ram and a 4 gig solid-state hard drive. All this hardware powers a Suse flavoured Linux operating system. This is clearly the EEE competitor in the lineup. All this can be had for a dollar less than four hundred. The next system is the 1.2ghz version with 1 gig of ram and a 120 Gig hard drive. This machine comes equipped with Windows Vista Business. Unfortunately the battery is a paltry 3 cell version which is going to result in about two to three hour lifecycles.
The big daddy of the range though is the $749 1.6Ghz version. It comes with 2 gigs of ram and a 160 gig hard drive. It also has Vista Business. Added extras in this model include Bluetooth and a faster 7200RPM hard drive as opposed to the 5400RPM drive.
The reason I foresee these laptops selling like hot cakes over the EEE is for one simple reason: it actually looks the business. No longer will you walk into a business meeting with a laptop that looks like something made by Fisher Price. Sure, your colleagues are still going to have a laugh at the size of the thing and your inability to carry a real sized laptop but at least it’s metallic and pretty.
Unfortunately there is always a downside. That downside is the processor used. The chip, produced by Via is an absolute plonker unfortunately. If you take a look at this site you’ll can see that even the EEE’s underclocked chip (running at 630Mhz) is marginally faster than the 1.6Ghz Via chip. My other issue with the machine is that HP doesn’t allow you to customize the system. For example if you wanted to get Bluetooth in the bottom range machine you wouldn’t be able to unless you buy the top of the range model.
All in all this is a very exciting time for those of us who like small laptops. Asus is bringing its 9-inch EEE out within the next few weeks and all the other manufacturers are coming out with this style of laptop soon. The only one to benefit from this competition is the consumer and I for one am very excited.
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