We’ve always had a thing for HP’s Minis — from their understated and practical design to the simple Mi OS, they’ve always been among our favorite tiny laptops. This latest iteration ups the specs just a tiny bit; you can choose a 1.66GHz Atom N280 instead of the 1.6GHz N270, and they’re promising full HD support if you opt for the nicer LED-backlit screen and the upcoming video accelerator. Form factor appears to be more or less unchanged, but that’s a good thing.
The picture above shows the three flavors all in one Neapolitan mess. I’m so efficient!
As with before, you can get an XP edition with less RAM and less storage for $330, or you can go for the $280 Mi version, which has more of both. I’ve never understood that pricing strategy. There’s also a shiny black business version, but its merits (apart from being black) are not well-explained. If I had to advise, though, I’d wait until the upcoming wave of Ion devices comes out; even if you don’t like what you see, they’ll probably drive the prices down of non-Ion netbooks across the board. And of course, if you’re spending the cash to max out your netbook, you might be getting into dv2 territory.
Explore the Minis here. And here’s what they have to say about the new thangs:
Powered by either an Intel® Atom processor N270 with 1.6-gigahertz (GHz) or an Intel
Atom processor N280 at 1.66-GHz, the HP Mini 110/1101 line offers configure-to-
order options on a number of its features.
The three series are as follows:
• The HP Mini 110 XP Edition supports up to 1 GB of memory and either a 32 GB solid-
state drive or 160 GB hard drive, as well as optional WWAN. An optional Broadcom
Crystal HD Enhanced Video Accelerator is expected to be available in July and will
allow users to enjoy 1080p high-definition content.
• The HP Mini 110 Mi Edition is a simple-to-use mobile companion with an HP-
developed interface. The Mini 110 Mi comes with applications that enable web
browsing, email and online video from the Mi dashboard, minimizing startup time.
Favorite websites, photos and music that are added to the dashboard stay live, and
the taskbar makes it easy to switch between programs. The Mini 110 with Mi runs on
a Linux operating system and supports up to 2 GB memory and up to 250 GB of hard
drive storage.
• The HP Mini 1101 offers a wide range of operating systems including Windows® XP
Home, XP Pro and Windows Vista®. The Mini 1101 offers two optional batteries: a 3-
cell option for the lightest weight configuration or a 6-cell option for battery power that
lasts up to twice as long. In addition, the optional integrated HP Mobile Broadband
allows users to conveniently access the Internet, corporate intranet, email and mission-
critical information around the world.