HP Mini 1000 Review

The HP Mini 1000 is the first consumer focused netbook from HP and enters a market that is becoming more and more crowded by the day. I recently reviewed the Acer Aspire One netbook to take a look at the feasibility of using it as a student notebook and here we are today taking a look at the 10.2″ screen HP Mini 1000 to see how it stacks up for such usage.

The Mini 1000 is a follow-up to the successful HP Mini 2133, the major difference is that the Mini 1000 is sold through the HP Home Store while the Mini-Note 2133 is sold via the HP Small Business and Education channel.

The specs for the HP Mini 1000 being reviewed are as follows:

Processor: Intel Atom Processor N270 (1.60GHz)
Graphics: Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
OS: Genuine Windows XP Home with Service Pack 3
Screen: 10.2″ diagonal WSVGA HP LED Brightview Infinity Display (1024 x 600)
Memory: 1GB DDR2 System Memory
60GB 4200RPM PATA Hard Drive
Wireless-G Card
3 Cell Lithium Polymer HP MINI 1000 Battery

HP Mini 1000 Battery

Battery life is a key factor with portable notebooks. Unfortunately, what we’ve seen with most netbooks to date is middling battery life simply due to the fact you can only fit a small size lithium-ion hp laptop battery into this small form factor. Some netbooks have only been getting 2 hours of battery life per charge. I was able to achieve 2 hours 45 minutes of battery life under light usage, screen at medium brightness and wireless on with the Mini 1000. This is not bad at all, though not quite at the 3 hour battery life mark I’d like to see. When using the Mini 1000 to play back music and video with the screen brightness at full the battery life dropped to 2 hours and 5 minutes. The only option for the Mini 1000 at present is the included 3-cell battery, eventually a 6-cell battery should be offered by HP. If you have a class that goes for longer than 3 hours, you should look either find a power outlet to plug into during the class or take necessary measures to preserve battery. Unfortunately with the power manager settings HP includes there is no way to down clock the processor to a slower more battery friendly speed, so you’ll need to rely on dimming screen brightness and turning off wireless to conserve battery.

HP Mini 1000 Battery
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