Netbook Review UK

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Now that the plastic-clad, Atom-powered HP Mini 1000 has become a hit, HP is taking another crack at the netbook market with the Mini 2140: a drastically updated version of its first netbook effort, the 2133 Mini-Note. The 2140 updates the 2133′s components from an underpowered Via C7-M to an Intel Atom CPU, also adding an accelerometer for the hard drive and a full ExpressCard/54 slot — a first for netbooks.

The 2140 will be available in February, starting at £379.

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Design
The 2140 keeps the 2133′s big keyboard and aluminium construction, which makes it a bit heavier than the plastic 1000. The trade-off may be worthwhile, however, as the metallic 2140 feels as if it’ll stand up to the rigours of the road better than a plastic netbook. The 2140 also shares the same basic silhouette as the 1000 and 2133.

The biggest selling point for HP’s netbooks has always been the great keyboard, which, according to HP, is 92 per cent of the size of a full-sized laptop keyboard. Other netbooks have been plagued by tiny keys that make typing a pain and result in plenty of typos. By expanding the keyboard right to the edges of the system, HP has been able to fit larger keys into the tray than those found on other netbooks, and even ultra-portable laptops. The result is a comfortable typing experience. The keyboard still takes a little bit of practice, as the keys are very close together, but it is, thus far, our favourite keyboard on a sub-12-inch notebook.

The touchpad has an unusual shape. It’s stretched into a letterbox-like wide rectangle, and the mouse buttons have been moved to the left and right sides of the touchpad. This means the system has a minimal amount of wasted wrist-rest space, but it’s a somewhat awkward compromise, especially if you do a lot of vertical scrolling or right clicking.

The 10.1-inch widescreen LED display has an unusual 1,024×576-pixel  resolution, which is a few pixels shy of the 1,024×600-pixel resolution typically seen in netbooks. The end result is largely unnoticeable, but a Windows XP pop-up window expressed concern that we weren’t running at a standard resolution.

Besides its large keyboard, the 2140 has one major selling point that no other netbooks currently offer: a full ExpressCard/54 slot. Lenovo’s IdeaPad S10 has a smaller ExpressCard/34 slot, but there are fewer options for add-on peripherals in that size. We rarely find that we actually need an ExpressCard slot for anything, but some people rely on them for mobile-broadband modems, memory-card readers or TV tuners.

The version we tested ran Windows XP and had a 160GB 5,400rpm hard drive. HP also offers the choice of a 160GB 7,200rpm hard drive, an 80GB solid-state drive and Windows Vista, but how those options affect the base price is not yet clear.

Performance
Intel’s single-core 1.6GHz Atom CPU offers enough computing power for the basic tasks for which netbooks are designed — Web surfing, working on documents and some basic multimedia playback. During testing, Lenovo’s IdeaPad U110 dual-core ultra-portable was clearly faster, especially when multitasking, but the 2140 offered better performance than Sony’s new Atom-powered Vaio P-series Lifestyle PC, thanks to the P-series’ Windows Vista operating system.

The 2140 ran for 3 hours and 12 minutes on our video-playback battery-drain test, using a six-cell battery. That battery sticks out from the back of the system slightly. The basic three-cell battery lasted only about 35 minutes less, so you’ll have to choose between longer battery life and greater portability.

Conclusion
The well-designed HP Mini 2140 combines solid construction with the computing power needed to handle typical netbook tasks. A large keyboard and full ExpressCard/54 slot, together with the fact that HP has managed to keep the price down, mean the 2140 is near the top of our list of most-desirable netbooks.