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The HP MiniNote 1000 XP for the road

Posted by Kathleen Maher on January 9th 2009 | Discuss
Categories: Hardware Review
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The HP Mini 1000 XP starts at $359.99 for the 8.9-inch model. Options include SSD or HDD storage upgrades, Bluetooth, external storage with slot, HP Mini Mobile Drive up to 8 GB, HD integrated audio.
(Source: Hewlett-Packard)

A few companies have embraced the netbook, or mini notebook—some perhaps against their better judgment. If you talk to these companies, they will tell you that the mini-note class is not intended to replace a regular laptop or a desktop—it’s intended to be an on-the-go computer. Their low-power processors are designed for long battery life, as opposed to the kind of heavy-duty processor you might need for image and video editing. And, if you start thinking that you don’t really do that much video editing and only a little bit of image editing, you are thinking in directions that Intel and the computer OEMs don’t really want you to go.

All that said, HP has really stepped up to the plate when it comes to building mainstream computers for households, students, and travelers. The latest Mini Notebook, the Mini 1000 XP edition, is based on Intel’s Atom processor. It follows on the ground-breaking mini notebooks based on VIA’s C-7M chip. And, in fact, we have no doubt that it was the success of the VIA-based notebooks that lit a fire under Intel to really push the Atom for the same segment.

The Mini 1000 XP edition series comes with Windows XP, blessedly (Vista is well on its way to becoming a painful memory for Microsoft and Linux just isn’t practical for real work). It has an Intel Atom N270 (1.60 GHz) and is available with an 8.9-inch diagonal WSVGA LED 1024 x 600 display or a 10.2-inch diagonal 1024 x 600 display. The base model has 512MB DDR2 system memory and can support up to 1 GB DDR2. Graphics comes courtesy of Intel in the 950 chipset. The starting price is a very attractive and the add-ons are reasonable. Moving up to the 10.2-inch model adds $50, the upgrade to 1 GB memory is being offered for free, and a 16 GB solid-state drive adds another $30. As for networking, adding Bluetooth is another $55 and EV-DO/HSPA mobile broadband is $199 (then you’ll need to pony up for the monthly service fees).

This latest mini notebook from HP is streamlined and fast. At least in terms of size and features, it’s the perfect travelling machine—but, I wondered, can I really leave my regular notebook behind and live on the Mini-Notebook?

Most of the work I do is word processing and spreadsheeting. There’s no reason why I couldn’t load Microsoft Office on the Mini Note other than the fact that I’m kind of tired of buying licenses for all the computers we have around here and it does take up a reasonable amount of disk drive space. Maybe I’d like to live within the base system’s 8 GB or even within the 16 GB solid state drive. If I loaded up all the Adobe apps I depend on, including Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, and Contribute, I’ll wind up running out of available storage for the media I’d be editing in the first place and I’m kind of missing the whole point of a mini notebook. So instead, I loaded my new machine with Open Office and Picasa. These are easy, free downloads and relatively lightweight, and just to stay all synched up, I installed Microsoft’s free SyncToy utility to sync between my work system and the Mini. The machine came with Outlook Express already loaded. I’ve also been using Firefox add-ons to update my blog and I have the Open Source Sea Monkey web editor on hand to edit the family web page if a crying need to do such a thing on the road comes up. Images can be easily transferred from my camera to the notebook via USB or the included SD card slot.

So, can it work? Yes, it works pretty well. Using SyncToy is a painless way to be sure all the files I need are on the Mini before I go. The one area where I could not go with the free or installed software was with Outlook. Microsoft does not make it easy to synch between Outlook Express and Outlook for obvious reasons so there are two options: spring for Outlook, it’s just over a hundred bucks, or leave your messages on the server when you travel and download them when you get home. (The jury is still out for Office Live.) If you have Outlook on both machines, you can sync using a third-party tool like Easy­2Sync by ITSTH or simply exchange .PST files. Alternatively, you could sign up for a service like MobileMe to keep your systems in sync.

Exchanging files between Open Office and Microsoft Office has been relatively painless for me and my co-workers, who unfortunately had to participate in this test whether they wanted to or not. We do have a system using set headings and I have a lot of shortcuts in Word, all of which is to say, using Open Office can make you really appreciate Microsoft Office’s many features and I really miss the ribbon in Office 2007. But, on the other hand, Open Office is clean, simple, and fast and most of the time, I’m just writing.

If style matters, and of course it does, the HP Mini 1000 XP is also available with a beautiful case designed by Vivienne Tam. It’s a deluxe 10.2-inch model with solid- state memory and starts at $699.99. yes, that does seem a considerable leap in price but yes, it is pretty.
(Source: Hewlett-Packard)

Finally, what about music and movies? I have a Napster subscription—so I downloaded the Napster player, and an iPhone—so I downloaded iTunes as well. With this combination, I can download movies to play on the Mini or transfer to the iPhone and download music to the machine or my MP3 player. In reality, by the way, I would not use iTunes to transfer content to the iPhone for the simple reason that maintaining more than one computer with iTunes and devices is possible but not pleasant. Instead, I load up the iPhone beforehand with the home-base machine.

The whole concept of the mini notebook is about compromise. In general, the compromises made in software are fine. Unfortunately, the biggest compromise for the Mini 1000 is battery life. The computer is small and light at least partially because it has a small and light battery and so you’ll be lucky to get about two and a half hours out of the Mini. So, for travel, the Mini is only going to get you through short flights and, god willing, maybe you only have about two and a half hours of work to do and you can use a media player or phone to watch a movie. Ironically, the VIA-based MiniNote 2133 comes with a massive battery and will run forever.

What do we think?

We like it, a lot. I should emphasize once again that there’s no real reason why one has to use open source or low-cost software to replace the professional applications on the Mini. But, I did just want to take this little baby out on the road with a minimum of loading and installing. Besides, it does not come with a DVD drive and so heavy-duty installing requires an external USB drive. The point was to get it and go. This works. It’s a machine I can toss in a briefcase or purse and not even notice. And, as mentioned elsewhere in this issue, when machines like this get equipped with better graphics from ATI and Nvidia, we’ll be able to hook up a USB BD and watch HD movies.