My Free HP Mini Note 2133

August 13, 2008

The HP 2133 Mini-Note has a great design. Everyone in our office agreed that it has a solid chassis and attractive look. The brushed aluminum and plastic casing is durable and hides fingerprints well. It also keeps the Mini-Note lightweight, only weighing in around 2.86 lbs as configured. It has that sleek business appeal, but is targeted toward students as well. One look at the Mini-Note and I can see why. I mean who wouldn’t want an inexpensive subnotebook to tote back and forth to class, especially one that pretty much has a full-size keyboard.

I got this for free yesterday from Starhub in exchange for signing a two year Maxonline internet connection at $56/month. See reviews of the Mini note below
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HP didn’t go wrong with the design. The 8.9″ WXGA display is beautiful and easy to read. It puts off a glare though because of the protective coating. Nothing about the Mini-Note feels cheap. I didn’t notice any signs of flex and enjoyed its good variety of ports and features. The Mini-Note also comes with different hard drive options, so hopefully this might help in the performance section considering the Mini-Note sports a VIA C7-M ULV processor.

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As I mentioned above, the keyboard is almost full size. It is 92% of a full sized keyboard, which is quite impressive for such a small form factor. It is much more comfortable to type on compared to the Asus Eee PC. The touchpad can be awkward though, especially the placement of the right and left click buttons. As you can see from the pictures below it does have a neat power and Wi-Fi switch that lights up and changes from blue when on to orange when off.

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While some consumers might be upset at the absence of a DVD drive in the Mini-Note, that’s just one trade-off you have to make for such a compact design. In truth, there simply isn’t any room left inside the Mini-Note after everything is said and done. The photo below shows that the only empty spaces inside the chassis are where the hard drive and ExpressCard slot are located.