Intended for the educational market, the HP mini-note is a sleek looking tiny notebook pc built to withstand the day to day bump and grind of the public school system, but it’s appearance and form factor appeal to the masses, as I have spotted it in Starbucks and Airports around the county being used by young professionals to executives.
Weighing in at 3 pounds 4 ounces with its extended battery (6 Cell about 4.5 hours of battery life in our test), the Mini note 2133 is very light weight, and while it is not as thin as the HP Voodoo Envy it’s has one of the smallest form factors around.
Powered by a VIA C7 M ULV processor (1.6 Ghz) and 2 Gigs of ram one would think the little mini-note would have issues running Windows Vista. Well aside from the initial setup process which took quite a bit of time, it handles Windows Vista just fine. Boot times are acceptable for a machine of its size and power and once fully loaded I was able to run Microsoft Office, and Outlook simultaneously with no problems.
I even used the Mini-Note 2133 while in Berlin to cover HP’s Connected world event and the machine performed up to par.
The monitor is 8.9 inches WXGA (1280 x 768) and while you might think that is small. Well it is very small, but one would think that a 1280 x 768 resolution on such a small screen would be problematic to read. But that wasn’t the case. I was pretty impressed and Xavier from Notebooks.com mentioned to me that he was surprised at how crisp and clean the screen was. My mother who uses bifocals and my cousin who just recently upgraded her glasses to trifocals both had no issues reading off the screen.
I even watched a few videos (non-hd) on the Mini-Note and I have to say I’m pretty impressed by both the screen and the VIA Chrome 9 chipset. (No the Mini Note does not have a built in optical drive I used a memory card and the build in memory card reader on the Mini Note to watch videos).
What impressed me the most was the sound the Mini-Note produced. HP says on their website that the 2133 has High Definition Audio. Well HP and many other companies have said that about a lot of their notebooks. Well that may be the case but 99% of the time the sound from these notebooks is crappy. Not the case with the Mini-Note 2133. The sound from it is beautiful, crystal clean and you heard it for yourself you wouldn’t think for a minute that the music you were listening to was coming from the Mini-Note.
Overall the HP Mini-Note 2133 is fantastic, with its 2 USB ports, LAN, Built in Wireless and Bluetooth oh and let’s not forget the 5 in 1 Memory card Reader, you can’t go wrong. While HPs intent for this machine was the educational market, and while most of their R&D came from the Educational side of HP, this notebook is great for everyone, be it the student at Boys and Girls High School in Brooklyn NY, or Mr. CEO at some software company in Silicon Valley. It’s light weight, durable and reliable.
A lot of you are wondering if it runs hot. The machine does generate heat but it’s not hot hot and definitely not uncomfortable.
For that we award the HP Mini-Note our 5 Star Editors Choice Award for the Month of June 2008.
The Mini-Note comes in 3 flavors, Windows Vista Business or Home (I recommend Home if you chose a machine with less than 2 Gigs of Ram), FreeDos and SuSe Linux Enterprise Desktop 10.
The starting price for the HP Mini-Note 2133 is $499 and can be purchased at HP Shopping Small Business Store.
Comments: (15)
chris on Mon, Jun 30th, 2008 at 05:53 PM
I bought my son one of these, and he has dropped it a few times already, all it has is a few scuffs.
Terry on Mon, Jun 30th, 2008 at 07:06 PM
Can it do 720p or 1080i video with that CPU/chipset ?
Michael on Mon, Jun 30th, 2008 at 07:44 PM
Nope, I tried CPU Maxed to 100% and it horrible, I forced a reboot.
Terry on Mon, Jun 30th, 2008 at 08:36 PM
That’s a deal breaker. Too bad because it’s a decent sub notebook in other respects.
Michael on Mon, Jun 30th, 2008 at 08:45 PM
Yeah, would be nice to watch HD video on the screen, but I doubt the battery would last 10 minutes if it did lol.
Terry on Mon, Jun 30th, 2008 at 09:39 PM
So the ‘Air is evil because it lacks an optical drive but it’s no big deal with this unit ?
Michael on Mon, Jun 30th, 2008 at 09:56 PM
HP Voodoo is evil too if we go by that analogy, but I don’t recall saying the macbook air was evil.
got the chance to play with some the other day, the screen lacked though had kind of an orange hue.
Terry on Mon, Jun 30th, 2008 at 10:07 PM
The screen on the Voodoo or ‘Air? The LED screen on the ‘Air has been crisp and bright on every unit I’ve played with
Michael on Mon, Jun 30th, 2008 at 10:15 PM
on the Air, the ones I played with they looked really nice, i just noticed an orange glow or something. kind of bothered me after a while.
i haven’t played more than 15 minutes on the Voodoo one to know if the screen is good or not.
Michael on Mon, Jun 30th, 2008 at 10:17 PM
nevermind I take that back, just asked someone that was there and he said it was the lighting they had pointed at the system and not the screen. so it was my eyes playing a trick on me.
hea on Sun, Sep 28th, 2008 at 01:57 AM
It is so small and professional! I think HP 2133 is an interesting computer. Its superior construction will attract those who are willing to pay a bit more to get good quality materials and design, while staying in a relatively low price range. It seems that the Mini-note is not built for extended periods of work, but it is suitable to someone who needs look at data at real desktop resolution like web, spreadsheet, and graphics and so on, but not enter or create large amounts of data.
Educa on Sun, Oct 26th, 2008 at 06:21 AM
Nice review!!!
the note is small but gorgeous !!
as on Wed, Oct 29th, 2008 at 06:28 AM
Wow! It’s really nice to see. It’s color, bottom, screen everything so Beautiful.I will buy it as soon as possible.
Business Directory on Fri, Oct 31st, 2008 at 10:55 PM
Great review! it’s small, professional and looking very nice. I like it and i should buy one.
Business Directory
inge on Fri, Nov 14th, 2008 at 12:44 PM
i want to buy UMPC notebook for comfortable typing purpose. what do you think is better, HP 2133 mini notebook PC or Lenovo IdeaPad S10???
so far i read that HP has 92% normal sized keyboard, eventhough it has only 8,9 inch for display, and Lenovo S10 has 10,2 inch in screen,
but the keyboard size only 85% normal size?? where as acer spire one has 89% keyboard size… vewwy confused here…
more Q, which speaker is better, HP or L S10?
one more Q, which one is getting hot faster, HP 2133 or S10?
Many thanks..
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