The HP Mini 1000

hp-mini-1000

While Asus pioneered the Netbook category, HP was the first to release a competitor. The HP Mini-Note 2133 was a vastly different beast to anything Asus had released as it was aimed towards business men rather than the lower end of the market. Featuring what is arguably still the highest resolution screen in a Netbook, a metallic case with what is still considered the best keyboard in a Netbook and useful extra’s such as an Expresscard slot for mobile broadband made it a winner. Unfortunately HP penned their hopes on a Via processor rather than the Intel Atom platform that every other Netbook uses. What this meant is that the speed of the Netbook, coupled with Vista being installed meant it was a lot slower than anything else available. Fortunately for HP the benefits outweighed the negatives and the little Mini-Note sold in droves.

Recently HP decided to become a little more mainstream and approach the Netbook market with a more consumer focused product. This brings us to the HP Mini 1000 series.

Sporting a very glossy 10-inch screen with a class average 1024X600 resolution as well as a 1-inch “thin” chassis the emphasis here is clearly on style. It’s got one gig of ram coupled with the 1.6Ghz Intel Atom processor and the same excellent keyboard that made the Mini 2133 so successful. You’ve got a choice between an 8 or 16 gig SSD or a 60 gig 4200 RPM hard drive. What this means is that you’re getting a smaller but slower than average hard drive in exchange for a thinly packaged system. It’s also got other faults such as no VGA out requiring you to buy an extra cable to allow a connection to an external screen. At the moment there is only a Windows XP version available but HP is releasing what they call the “Mobile Internet Experience” version that is a modified version of Ubuntu Linux in a few months time.

Detraction’s aside this is by far the most appealing Netbook I have ever seen. It simply oozes style and usability, something that other Netbook makers have clearly not managed to work out. It’s the little things like having minimal bezel around the screen that give it class. If you look at the competitors you’ll find nothing but chunky design and nasty plastic. Price wise it’s on par with most other Netbooks of the 10-inch size bracket.

Right now there is nothing that can touch the HP Mini 1000, it’s simply the coolest Netbook out there.

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed.