The HP2133 Mini-Note – unboxed

Well, the netbook arrived.  Harris Technologies were true to their word, and it actually arrived on the day they said it would.  What follows are the traditional unboxing photos.

Immediately prior to the magnificent unboxing.  All environmentally-friendly cardboard too.  Notice the judicious use of the Kylie Chan book – the box is barely bigger than the book.  

And again…

Yep – that’s a box all right.

Having opened the box, removed the tray and looked inside – it’s all kind of sparse, isn’t it?

 

Everything that’s in the box – except of course for the work of literature that is Kylie Chan’s White Tiger – a good read by the way if you like to read about supernatural kung fu queens of the sea.

It is small.  Really quite small.  The screen here is of course the cleanest it will ever be. 

Ta-da – the mini-beast. 

A comparison between the Vostro 1500 and the HP 2133 mini-note. 

Oh look, my Vostro wanted to hold the baby while it was booting up for the first time (which by the way takes an inordinate amount of time).      

As for first impressions, it’s a good little machine. The keyboard is an absolute delight and the weight is pretty good.  Battery life is abysmal – I only got the three-cell because weight is the primary concern here.  Although the store says I should get 2.5 hours out of it, I’m getting about an hour and a half. That is with wifi turned on, I suppose.  It would be better if I didn’t use the internet on battery – but… that’s kinda the point.  

The other thing the mini-note gets pinged for is the placement of the mouse buttons to the left and right of the glidepad.  Frankly I think it’s a storm in a keycup – you’re going to need to be flexible if you’re going to switch between your main machine and a second machine, and I haven’t found it to be really a problem as a user. 

The screen marks easily with fingerprints but that’s hardly an issue. 

It does get really, really hot on your lap – it won’t perch readily on your knobbly knees without burning a hole through the cartilage in your kneecap. 

There’s no software on cd or dvd, which is a slight annoyance for me, and neither is there any attempt at a carry case – for some reason I thought there would be such a thing.  It doesn’t matter, it tucks away handily into a folio. 

I’ve got the 1.6Ghz Via with 2GB RAM running Windows Vista Business (for now).  It is probably a crime against humanity to have Vista Business on such a low-powered machine.  Truly – a crime against humanity.  Although you can turn Aero on, it’s a bit like a blunt dentist’s drill without a powercord – both pointless and useless. I shudder to think how the lower-powered machines (1.2ghz and 1gb RAM) run – I believe you can get them with Vista on them. 

I held out for the 2GB RAM version – and I’m glad I did.  Vista is tolerable with everything turned down, and I get a Windows Experience score of 2.0 – due to the limited processor. 

Video playback on Youtube, I’ve noticed, is a bit choppy, and even when booting up the Windows sound chops up.  Overall – Windows Vista is tolerable but don’t expect to play any huge games on it.

However, out of the box it does exactly what it says it will do.  The weight is very good, the size is even better, the keyboard is not noticeably different to full-size (for power-users – note that the page up, page down, home and end keys are FN-alterative keys rather than getting their own dedicated key – a problem for typists like me).  I doubt it would ever be your main machine, although you could put in an external keyboard, mouse & monitor and work with it generally OK.  That may be an option for someone with no high-end needs. There’s plenty of disk space and a capacity to run software that isn’t games or video-editing. 

Compared to the ASUS eee-pc, which first got me interested in getting a small notebook, the HP2133 is streets ahead.  The Asus wins out on battery life, processor power (I think, anyway) and I also suspect ruggedness (because it’s very plastic, you feel like you can chuck the ASUS in the backpack and move on with your life – I suspect you probably won’t do that with the HP2133).  There is really no comparison though – you can take your files with you on a business trip with the HP2133, and do some real work with the HP’s keyboard – which I consider to be about the most important aspect of using such a small notebook.  If I wanted a fiddly keyboard, I’d tap things out on my Blackberry.  The eee-pc’s keyboard was just unusable. 

No case of buyer’s remorse yet.  For me it will be good on flights, interstate trips, commuting hops and meetings.  I don’t know that I would like to have to work off it all day – that would kill your back and your eyesight, but overall it’s a great machine for the money that does what it says it will do – and what else can you ask for? 

1 thought on “The HP2133 Mini-Note – unboxed”

  1. Great pictures! Compared to other netbooks, HP 2133 is the most rigid and most beautiful..Alumunium is the way to go!!

    I wonder how the new Dell Mini Inspiron will look like in real life.. The images on for instance http://www.dell-mini.com seems nice tough, but plastic is always plastic.

    Reply

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