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Which Is the Best Mini-Notebook for Typing?

by Terrence O'Brien, posted May 7th 2008 at 3:42PMBreaking News

Mini-Notebook Keyboard Shootout
Miniature notebooks, like the ASUS Eee, may be all the rage these days, but they come at a cost. Typing on these diminutive computers is slow and uncomfortable. The problem is that as the computer shrinks, so does the keyboard, which leads to missed keys and lost punctuations as our touch typing skills are rendered useless by the lost width. Laptop Magazine decided to take three of the more popular mini-notebook models and find out which one was the least terrible for typing out Hamlet's soliloquy.

The clear winner was the HP 2133 Mini-note, which all three testers were able to average a full 10 WPM (words per minute) faster on than the ASUS Eee and CTL 2Go PC (Classmate) which both came in within half a WPM of each other at 44.75 WPM and 44.25 WPM respectively. [Source: Laptop Magazine]
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HP Debuts Super Small Sub-$500 Laptop

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Apr 9th 2008 at 7:49AMBreaking News

HP Reveals ASUS Eee Competitor
The market for cheap sub-notebooks is simply exploding. It all started with the OLPC XO, then Intel jumped in with the Classmate. Soon Asus revealed its critically acclaimed Eee PC, and these low-priced, low-powered (often Linux-running) machines truly started to take the world by storm.

The latest entry into this field is the Hewlett Packard 2133 Mini-Note PC. The Mini-Note starts at $499, for the entry level model with 512 megabytes of RAM, 4-gigabytes of storage, a 1-gigahertz VIA processor, and Linux. At the top of the heap is a $749 model loaded with Vista Business, 2-gigabytes of RAM, and a 1.6 gigahertz VIA processor. The $749 model also comes with a 120-gigabyte hard drive that spins at 7,200 RPM for super fast data access. Many full-sized notebooks only come with 5,400 RPM drives, and most ultra-portables are saddled with a 4,200 RPM drive.

The first batch of reviews are in, and they're all pretty positive. Some complain about the lack of power due to the VIA processor, and the awkwardness of the side-mounted touch pad buttons, but most are blown away by the full-sized keyboard and the 8.9-inch screen that at a resolution of 1280x768 can display a full Web page without any horizontal scrolling, unlike the ASUS Eee.

The Mini-Note sounds like a strong competitor to the Eee and other cheap compact notebooks, but the price does sound a little high. An Eee PC similarly equipped to the lower end Mini-Note costs about $100 less, and for the $749 asking price of the high end model, you could buy a much more powerful laptop, though one not nearly as small.

From Engadget

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