I recently acquired the HP mini-note 2133 netbook and I have been using it almost constantly for the last few days. It is a very nice little machine to use on a day to day basis, although in terms of raw power and speed it is no match for my Dell Inspiron and my MacBook. A lot of people seem to forget the fact that this machine was built to a price to occupy the same market segment as the Asus Eeepc. In my view, this machine is superior to the Eeepc in many ways and it is working very well in what it was designed to do: lightweight ultra-mobile computing.
For a while I was really comparing this machine to the Eeepc and the clincher for me was the storage capacity (120GB) as opposed to the various flavours of Eeepc which come in anything from 4-20GB, which means that this machine could also function as a mobile storage unit for photographs and other files when on the go. The other factor was the size of the keyboard. While it may be difficult to type quickly and accurately on the Eeepc’s cramped keyboard, it is, by comparison, quite effortless on this machine, which means that for typing documents and code the HP wins hands down.
The few gripes that I have with this machine are: no booting from the SD card slot, Windows Vista pre-installed (only the vista version is available here in Australia), it only comes with a 3-cell battery and (because of Vista) a long boot time and wake up time (from hibernation).
The specs:
- 1.6Ghz Via C7 processor
- Via Chrome graphics adapter
- 1GB of RAM
- 120GB HDD
- a/b/g Wifi
- Bluetooth
- VGA Webcam
- SD card slot
- 3-cell battery (expandable to 6)
- Express Card 54 slot
- 1280×768 8.9 inch screen
Pros:
- Relatively light, therefore easy to carry
- Large 8.9 inch screen
- Nice 92% size keyboard
- Spacious storage
Cons:
- Battery could be larger
- Awkward power switch
- Only comes with Windows Vista Home Basic
- Webcam utility (modelled on Apple Photo Booth) does not work properly
All in all, this notebook makes a great companion when you are out and about and not wanting to carry a 3kg+ load on your shoulders.