Michael Harper’s Tech & Art Blog

My latest gadget is the HP Mini 1000 - a very stylish netbook that has completely changed the way I see netbooks. I purchased this netbook for my wife to replace her older HP dv1000 laptop. We purchased this item from Best Buy for $350.

The main feature we were searching for in a good netbook was a keyboard that wouldn’t cramp our hands too much. It seems that any netbook under the 10″ mark totes incredibly toddler-sized keys. This was originally why I strayed away from them completely (that and the extreme price markup online and off). I reviewed many netbooks and it seems that even online vendors were backing down on their prices. The cheapest I found this netbook anywhere else at the time was from TigerDirect.com (I believe) for $300.

Some of the basic features include a drop-proof 16 GB SSD (solid state drive), bright 10.2″ wide-screen, Intel Atom 1.6 GHz processor, 1 GB of DDR2 RAM, media-card reader, Wireless G, possibly the most usable keyboard to be found on a netbook at the time of this writing, (2) USB ports, a proprietary, 1.3 MP webcam, recessed USB flash drive port with included 2 GB USB flash drive that fits flush into the frame of the computer, very loud stereo speakers, a dual mic/headphone jack and an expandle port that allows you to connect an external monitor if you purchase the adapter from HP.

This netbook is extremely light and very attractive. We purchased the black model with overlapping spiral designs featured on the glossy back and even found a bag that matches it for $20. This version came bundle with Windows XP Home Edition SP3 I would have prefered Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix to take advantage of performance but she is more famaliar with XP. Check out this article for more info

The performance is as to be expected on a single-core 1.6 GHz netbook. Nothing to write home about but it certainly is not a slug by any means. I experienced no lag while watching HD YouTube videos, playing a Flash game and playing music at the same time. The read/write performance on the solid-state drive is impressive while copying files but the 16 GB size is an extreme hindrance. We have already purchased a 16 GB SD card from eBay for approximately $20 to use for file storage. I BELIEVE you can purchase the flash module hard drive offline and replace the factory 16 GB but i haven’t gotten that far yet.

The included 2 GB flash drive that hides away inside the frame is also a nice perk. We don’t have to worry about losing the flash drive or bulky extremities when moving files. This “proprietary” flash drive is actually a plastic cap that fits on the end of a Transcend T3 JetFlash drive. Try to purchase a 4 GB from HP and it is about $35 before S & H. You can currently find an 8 GB for $28.99 on eBay after S & H.

To supplement for the lack an available optical drive. I purchased an IDE/SATA USB adapter that allows me to connect any DVD or CD drive up for burning CD or watching movies. $10 on eBay

Battery life: An incredible 4 hours of continuous use based on our impromptu tests.

Overall, I’m considering replacing my Toshiba Satellite with a pint-sized Mini that I can cram into my camera bag and pour all of my resources into maxing out my desktop. This will probably be in the future after the netbook genre experiences the expected performance boost that only comes with the passing of time (usually 6 months). I give it 4 out of 5.