I was a bit surprised when I first heard about the netbooks- a smaller version of the laptops! The first time I saw it, I had an impression that it might not work that well as the laptops did when they first came to the market. But, the surprising element was waiting and today netbooks have become a big business. The worst thing actually worried me a lot was the price! But now, it seems that they worth it especially after the gala success of Asus Eee.

HP 2133 Mini Note

Well, as I said, the netbooks have become a great success and a big business segment; it is worth knowing a bit about the various companies out in the market and engaged in the rat race of winning the lion’s share in the netbooks category. HP 2133 Mini-note is just one of the many companies involved in the race!

The HP 2133 Mini-note is not only small but is much smaller than the Asus netbook and measures 260×160x30mm (WxDxH). Not only the size but the most impressive factor of the HP Mini-note is that it tries hard to mimic the full size laptop despite the size it has! Try to pull it out in the crowd and people will simply take you as a businessman even if you are busy playing solitaire. Weirdly enough, the Mini-note from HP is successful enough to give you an odd sense of scale and you can misjudge your pace!

Graceful Style

The HP 2133 Mini-note has a slick design to impress you (at least it did impress me)! The black and silver dual tone has indeed an elegant touch of style with sharpness and has a lot of rounded corners which may not look like a great idea to some of you!

Tough guy?

Awww…not at all. Though the HP 2133 Mini-note looks strong, it is not really a tough guy. The chassis of the netbook is made up of ordinary plastic placed under the outer shell of brushed aluminum.

Feel the HP 2133 Mini-Note

[Sigh!] Satisfying! The HP 2133 Mini-note has done a wonderful job by making and placing a lovely keyboard in the netbook that gives a joyous feeling. The design and the intricacies of the keyboard are utterly fantastic and the perfect shape and size along with leveled keys makes typing a sheer pleasure. I believe on HP’s claim that the keyboard is 92% scale of a standard keyboard. No clacking sound and not wobbling-GREAT! Hold on! There is an element of surprise that I hate and it is nothing but the touchpad! The buttons are shifted on the two sides of the touchpad as against the standard notebooks and I had to make use of both of my hands. The touchpad at times become unresponsive!

Eye candy

10 on 10 is what I give HP 2133 Mini-note for its elegant screen. Crisp and clear, the bit glossy screen is made to pivot back on the hinges giving a bit of storage area for a USB stick or a pen. This can prove to be very handy at times! It has a resolution of 1280×768.

Technical Details

The solid design of the HP 2133 Mini-note is associated with two USB ports (one on each side) so that the USB keys do not block any other ports. It also has an Ethernet port, one VGA port, one 54 mm SD card and Express card slot and headphone and microphone jacks. It also has a webcam which is not very appealing. Just that you will be using it for a maximum time of 10 minutes and then discard it forever. However, there is a dual microphone flanked with the webcam in case you want a video conference. The power button is quite small and you may need your nails to turn it on unless you have really thin fingers to do the same. The netbook lacks a DVD drive. The battery is a standard three cell power unit that can last for 110 minutes with Bluetooth off and WiFi on! It can be upgraded to six cell battery. It has a VIA C7-M (1.2GHz) CPU, 1024 MB RAM, 120 GB Hard Disk, 56K Modem, 802.11b/g and Bluetooth.

OS

The Linux version is not really attractive. The Linux OS version SUSE 10.1 is not optimized for the net book. However, there is a gamut of free and fully functional software. It has OpenOffice, Firefox, GAIM and Evolution to meet your specific needs.

Conclusion

The overall HP 2133 Mini-note is cool and handy but the CPU is a big concern because; it can be the cause for slowing down of certain applications. Planning to buy a netbook? Do not forget this little friend!

You can’t know too much about a netbook - so have a look at the first review of the HP 2133 Mini-Note!

Feel free to take a look at the new Mini-Note model of HP, the improved HP 2140 Mini-Note!