At last, after a month and a half of constant internet monitoring.. I've finally got my hands on my very own HP Mini 2140. Been waiting for its arrival in Malaysia, but HP representative informed that it will only reach Malaysia by end of March or early April. Hence my main purpose of the recent trip to Singapore was to buy it from the Singapore IT Show 2009.
You might think, why to this extend this bloke would go and get this Netbook? Well.. I really needed something small and light for work; namely to check e-mails, simple document editing and do presentations. I've been hauling the office's 14 inch notebook and it is killing my back, to add insult.. the wireless didn't even work!
I chose this Netbook as it has an aluminum chassis, 92% full sized QWERTY keyboard, VGA out, large HDD (160 GB) and its minimalist design. But my other main deciding factor was the HP brand, which I fully trust on their excellent support (based on past experience). The only letdown for me is the power brick; which if the wires are all wound-up, its half the size of the Netbook itself :D It would be nice if they could do it like Dell's Mini 12 power brick, which is similar to a hand phone charger.
Anyhow, tt has been a week using the HP Mini 2140 and I'm glad to say that I am very pleased with its aesthetics and performance. It coped well with it intended purpose, which is web surfing, light office work, presentations and some multimedia playback. Setting your expectation right on Netbooks is crucial as "it is not a notebook" and people are going to get disappointed if you expect it to perform like one.
A little bit more details on the user experience; the system itself comes with Windows XP Home OS, on which I've installed Norton Internet Security and re-installed the MS Office 2007 (got enterprise license). In terms of protection and office work, everything performed well. Responsiveness of loading and editing large office files was nippy.
Web surfing on the other hand, Google Chrome is the fastest browser but IE7 which came second is my default browser. I choose IE7 as it is surprisingly fast to load, supports full screen browsing and it can be integrated with the Norton Internet Security password management. Both browsers loads and streamed multimmedia content well. Firefox on the other hand; crashed and loads very slowly, I've uninstalled it shortly.
Lastly in terms of multimedia; it played 16:9 DivX videos smoothly with perfect full screen display (without the letter box due to its resolution 1024x576). It also can play High Definition 720p and 1080 movies provided it is encoded in *.avi format. Matroska or *.mkv video simply a no no.. it jitters a lot and not watchable. I think the high compression level of Matroska is too much for the Atom processor.
Additionally apart from what I've described above; it is light at 1.2kg, well constructed and the battery lasts over 3 hours between charging. A good combo for any people who are constantly on the move. Nowadays, I carry it evrywhere in my trustee Crumpler :D Oh ya, bought the HP Mini at Singapore IT Show for approximately RM 1,850 (after tax rebate) which comes with free 2GB RAM upgrade and HP Slipcase.
Interested? Check out the upcoming PC fair in KL, should be here by then.
You might think, why to this extend this bloke would go and get this Netbook? Well.. I really needed something small and light for work; namely to check e-mails, simple document editing and do presentations. I've been hauling the office's 14 inch notebook and it is killing my back, to add insult.. the wireless didn't even work!
I chose this Netbook as it has an aluminum chassis, 92% full sized QWERTY keyboard, VGA out, large HDD (160 GB) and its minimalist design. But my other main deciding factor was the HP brand, which I fully trust on their excellent support (based on past experience). The only letdown for me is the power brick; which if the wires are all wound-up, its half the size of the Netbook itself :D It would be nice if they could do it like Dell's Mini 12 power brick, which is similar to a hand phone charger.
Anyhow, tt has been a week using the HP Mini 2140 and I'm glad to say that I am very pleased with its aesthetics and performance. It coped well with it intended purpose, which is web surfing, light office work, presentations and some multimedia playback. Setting your expectation right on Netbooks is crucial as "it is not a notebook" and people are going to get disappointed if you expect it to perform like one.
A little bit more details on the user experience; the system itself comes with Windows XP Home OS, on which I've installed Norton Internet Security and re-installed the MS Office 2007 (got enterprise license). In terms of protection and office work, everything performed well. Responsiveness of loading and editing large office files was nippy.
Web surfing on the other hand, Google Chrome is the fastest browser but IE7 which came second is my default browser. I choose IE7 as it is surprisingly fast to load, supports full screen browsing and it can be integrated with the Norton Internet Security password management. Both browsers loads and streamed multimmedia content well. Firefox on the other hand; crashed and loads very slowly, I've uninstalled it shortly.
Lastly in terms of multimedia; it played 16:9 DivX videos smoothly with perfect full screen display (without the letter box due to its resolution 1024x576). It also can play High Definition 720p and 1080 movies provided it is encoded in *.avi format. Matroska or *.mkv video simply a no no.. it jitters a lot and not watchable. I think the high compression level of Matroska is too much for the Atom processor.
Additionally apart from what I've described above; it is light at 1.2kg, well constructed and the battery lasts over 3 hours between charging. A good combo for any people who are constantly on the move. Nowadays, I carry it evrywhere in my trustee Crumpler :D Oh ya, bought the HP Mini at Singapore IT Show for approximately RM 1,850 (after tax rebate) which comes with free 2GB RAM upgrade and HP Slipcase.
Interested? Check out the upcoming PC fair in KL, should be here by then.