HP Mini 1000 Review

Netbooks are the latest craze and no manufacturer does wants to miss out on the opportunity to capture market share in this new emerging market. Although, this isn’t HP’s first attempt at a netbook, it hopes its latest netbook will be better received than its previous one. The netbook offers you with the option to choose SSDs over normal hard drives and also between two screen sizes. The base price is attractive but putting in a SSD and some other extras bumps it over $500. Customisation is a strong point of this netbook. Lets have a look at it in detail. The specifications mentioned below are of a customised HP Mini 1000 and not the base model.

HP Mini 1000 specifications :

• Dimensions : 6.6 x 10.3 x 0.95 inches
• Processor : 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270
• Memory : 1GB DDR2 RAM
• Display : 10.2″ WSVGA HP LED BrightView Infinity Display
• Hard Drive : 60GB 4200 RPM PATA Hard Drive
• Graphics : Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
• Battery : 3-cell Lithium Polymer battery
• OS : Microsoft Windows XP Home with SP3
• Approx. price : $550

The HP Mini 1000 is primarily made of plastic as opposed to aluminum body of HP’s previous netbook. Although it does reduce the weight of the laptop and also gives WiFi performance a boost, but metal offers sturdiness and better overall build quality. Also it is slimmer, thinner and lighter decreasing its footprint. Although netbooks do not have sporty, but HP Mini 1000 has pretty decent looks and it uses space efficiently. The keyboard occupies every inch of space that is available. According to HP, the keyboard is 92% the size of standard notebook keyboards. Time to say goodbye to cramped netbook keyboards?

Having a full blown keyboard is a priority on everybody’s list and not to mention if you are a professional writer. Keyboards have been a problem with netbooks as small keys result in lot of typos and reduced typing speed. The display is a 10.2″ one with 1024 x 600 resolution which is standard for netbooks. The display is made up of glass which leads to glares but exceptionally good picture quality. In direct sunlight, anything on the screen is hardly visible due to strong glare. There is also an option to go for a smaller 8.9″ screen itoo. In a month or two, HP would be bringing out customised version of this netbook which would basically have designer lids but would come at a premium.

The touchpad on the Mini is a bit awkward as the left and right click buttons have been placed at the left and right sides of the touchpad instead at the bottom. But HP has taken care of the ergonomics so that it is not hard to get used to the new layout. The touchpad surface isn’t great but usable when you are stuck without a mouse. You get to choose between a normal PATA hard drive and SSD hard drives. The performance of PATA hard drive is disappointing and it take more than a minute for the machine to boot up. So if hard drive performance is a priority, then you are better off going for SSD. Webcam is another additional feature of the Mini.

Connectivity isn’t a strong point of the netbook as it decides to leave out a few ports to save space. It has couple of USB ports, a switchable audio jack, proprietary recessed USB jack, eSATA port, SD Card reader. WiFi and Bluetooth are integrated into the netbook. A 10/100 Ethernet port  is also present. eSATA port is a welcome inclusion but a proprietary USB jack for connecting HP Mini Mobile Drive doesn’t make much sense. For connecting external displays, it has a small custom VGA port which can be converted to normal one with the help of a connector.

On the software front, that is basically the bloatware that is installed on all laptops, HP Mini 1000 has been spared much of it. It comes pre-installed with Microsoft Works, AIM 6 and HP Wireless Assistant sotwares which is just a fraction of what usually comes installed. Sadly, Windows is the only choice of operating system that you get. With a single GB of RAM, Vista would be sluggish, but any flavor of Linux would zip through.

Performance of the netbook is good and it runs Windows XP smoothly. It had do every basic task with ease, be it surfing the web, editing docs, basic multimedia tasks etc. Multimedia conversion tasks take a fair bit of time to complete. The WiFi performance of the netbook is the best in its category as it gives good transfer speeds even at a distance from the access point. This is one advantage of having a plastic over over metal one. Overall, it has good performance for a netbook. The battery life is also good at around 3 hours with normal usage. A 6-cell battery pack would also be available early next year and extend the battery life up to 5 hours. HP has a standard 1-year limited warranty on this notebook as expected.

Pros :

• Slimmer and lighter
• Almost full sized keyboard
• Good customisation options
• Great display quality
• eSATA port
• Overall good performance

Cons :

• Limited ports
• Display produces glares
• Bit expensive

Final Thoughts

The HP Mini 1000 is a good netbook to invest one as it has got most the things right. Its dimensions are small and it has an almost full size keyboard which is its strongest point. The touchpad is usable but needs time to adjust to the new layout of the keys. HP has done well to include lots if customisation options right from screen size to the hard drive. Although connectivity isn’t great but HP has done well to include an eSATA port. PATA hard drive isn’t the fastest around leading to slow bootup time. Display has a big glare problem in direct sunlight but otherwise it reproduces great pictures. Performance isn’t an issue but price is a bit on the higher side compared to some of the other netbooks in this category.

My Rating : 4/5