It now seems that netbooks have become more of a temptation for the hardware manufacturers than a candy for the users like me. Now it is turn for the Fujitsu-Siemens. Mimicking the color scheme of black and white color scheme of the product line from the company, the Amilo Mini in the netbook category has some goodies that I liked but still, even this does not have the perfection that we look for (at least I did not find that). I had a chance of grabbing the Amilo Mini and allowed my fingers to play on it. The knowledge I gathered at first site of the netbook had these results to display:

• Runs Windows XP.
• 8.9” Screen.
• 60 GB or 80 GB HDD.

This however does not give a clear picture and in an urge to know more about the netbook, I decided to take you through the complete specification set in three different sub-categories.

The Feel, Look and Connectivity

Look wise, the Amilo Mini is almost of the same size of Fujitsu-Siemens’ full-size notebooks. There are clean and sharp lines on the black and white case and offers different colors for clip-on cover. The default color is dark red however; the white color looks much more professional.

Coming to the keyboard (which is the most important thing that I look for in any laptop and netbooks), what I found was that the keys are very small! They are just 1.5cm across. The weirdest thing that I found was the presence of barren land all across the keyboard and this could have been very well used to make it bigger and much more comfortable. I don’t understand the logic of leaving the broad border.

Lowering your eyes on the touch factor will leave nothing but a bad impression once again. I thought: “They Love Wasting”! The left and right click buttons are on either side of the touchpad but, they did not bother to make the most of the freed up space! The click buttons have a loud noise when clicked. This was quite a lot of irritation for me in my quiet work place where I can hear the sound of silent soul!

The webcam will not perform well if you are not completely still! The slightest of movement will inevitable give a blur effect as if the image was worked on Photoshop CS4! However, the microphone must be appreciated but not the colors which can accuse the engineers for mishandling them, especially the green one which has a darker tone.

The generic interfaces are present and I found two USB ports (I expected a few more), one VGA port, an Ethernet port, two mini jacks and an express card slot (may be for TV tuner card, eSATA or 3G). The speakers deserve appreciation with the bass being handled properly. But, it can cause a bit of problem if the Amilo Mini gets noisy and it occasionally does so. A bit of work and the fan will be on its heel to emit a high pitch sound! About the upgrade, I was dissatisfied with the fact that it allowed only the swapping of a new hard drive for the older one.

How does it process?

When it comes to writing and reading data, the Amilo Mini does both at a speed of 26MB/s. This really does not put the netbook on the top of the ranking tree but I personally found it to be handy enough for the day-to-day usage! It takes nearly a minute to boot which is comprehensibly faster than the desktops but compared to other notebooks in the market which manage the same task in 35 seconds, it really did not impress me.

Battery Performance

The battery just managed 2 hours and 16 minutes under minimum usage conditions. Awww… not really glossy when compared to the Asus Eee PC line!

Technical Specifications at a glance

I know this is what you are eyeing for:

• Intel ® Atom ™ N270 processor technology
• Original Windows® XP Home Edition (SP3)
• 8.9-inch WSVGA display (matt)
• Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950 
• 60 or 80 GB hard disk capacity
• 1 GB of RAM
• Integrated webcam with 1.3 megapixels and digital array microphone for video conferencing and Internet telephony
• Integrated WLAN, LAN and Bluetooth ®

In further more details it is worth saying that the screen has a resolution of 1024×600 pixels and a size of 8.9 inch matt display. It has wide borders all around it which could have been utilized for a bigger display.

Conclusion

Personally, the build and the associated comfort that I looked for is not there in the Amilo Mini and there are far better competitors present in the market!