Laptop-Review.eu

HP Mini raises the bar for a compact design coupled with a long battery life. Here HP is really betting on the businessman who requires a mobile device to bring with him on his travels. Exquisite materials of high quality and a solid battery life should be the answers to all our prayers. Granted it does cost a bit more than its competitors, but it is sure to appeal to business users who do not want a fragile netbook.

The product was kindly lent to us by HP.com

Specifications

Category
Netbook - Mini note

Processor
Intel® Atom™ processor N280 1.66 GHz, 512 KB L2 cache, 667 MHz FSB

Chipset
Mobile™ Intel® 945GSE Express-chipset

RAM
1024 MB DDR2

Hard drive
160 GB SATA 7200 rpm

Display
10.1" LED HD (1366 x 768 resolution), integrated 2 MP webcam

Sound card & speakers
High Definition sound, stereo speakers, stereo headphones/line out, stereo microphone, integrated stereo microphones

GPU
Mobile™ Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950

Battery
6-celled  Li-Ion large capacity battery

Optical drive
N/A

I/Os
3 x USB
1 x display/video - VGA
1 x Ethernet LAN - RJ-45
1 x Headphones - output – 3.5 mm stereo mini jack
1 x Stereo microphone - input – 3.5 mm mini jack
1 x HP Webcam
1 x Secure Digital (SD) slot and MultiMediaCard (MMC)

Wireless connectivity
Broadcom 802.11a/b/g/draft-N
Optional Bluetooth® 2.0
HP un2400 EV-DO/HSPA mobile broadband module (requires service from mobile network provider)

Dimensions
26.2 x 1.80 x 2.32 (front) cm
Weight from about 1.20 kg incl. battery

Support
Support is available via HP

Warranty
1 year parts and labour

Operating system
Original Windows XP Home

Software included
HP Recovery Manager (only with Windows Vista)
Roxio Creator 10 (requires the procurement of an optical drive)

Price
From about £375

Package contents

The netbook comes with a bunch of CDs containing manuals, drivers and the OS if you ever need to reinstall. There are also a couple of paper manuals, more specifically a quick start as well as a more comprehensive one. All in all, you should feel pretty safe.

Included
- AC adapter
- Manuals and Drivers

Physical aspects

First impression



The HP Mini 5101 is not the thinnest and may in fact be one of the bulkier netbooks on the market. Nevertheless, it is still highly mobile and easy to carry around. It takes up less space than an A4 sheet of paper and is perhaps as tall as a pack of cigarettes lying down. It is quite easy to handle and it does not add too much weight to your bag at only 1.2kg.

The design is reminiscent of HP’s ProBook series, but unlike previous business-oriented models, this particular device is black rather than silver. The lid is made of brushed aluminium and the shell itself of a magnesium alloy coated with a rubber paint. This is a technique dubbed SoftTouch, and the end result is a very smooth and comfortable surface that feels good to the touch.




The lid itself has a bit of texture etched into the black surface. It actually seems similar to what you might find on a tree. That gives it a very exquisite feel, and the overall impression is of a solid and tasteful netbook. This should appeal to everyone, businessmen in particular.



The keyboard is of full width, giving it the familiar 95% size so the keys are easy to reach and use. They have a comfortable surface which means you can type away for an extended period of time without getting annoyed. They are supposedly coated with a material that makes them more resistant to visible wear and tear.
Typing does not make much noise, so the overall experience of using the keyboard is quite a pleasant one.




The same cannot be said for the touchpad. It is rather small compared to many other netbooks, making it hard to navigate. It also has a glossy, shiny surface that does not go so well with the rest of the design. The touchpad area could also do with a more frictionless surface.
The buttons feel much like the keyboard though, so they are nice and easy to use. They are also of an adequate size.



The display is crisp and beautiful, with a nice 10.1 inch size. It also sports a native resolution of up to 1366 x 768 pixels. It is comfortable to use for surfing, and you can easily enjoy a movie or stream internet content in a decent size. With that in mind it is nice to see this netbook has pretty good sound. Of course it is not a stereo system or anything like that, but the audio is well-balanced and you can sample all the tones from base to treble without feeling cheated.

When it comes to I/Os, this netbook is rather pitiful. It does have the standard VGA and USB ports, a card reader and Ethernet port, but it lacks DVI, HDMI or really anything that would help it stand out. But okay, the focus is elsewhere and it does have the ports you need to function.




The design and surfaces, particularly the smoother ones, are practically magnets for dust and hair fibres. In strong light you will also be able to see fingerprints and those can be hard to get rid of. A lot of this will be visible in the pictures as a camera easily reveals such things. I do not think it is as bad as it looks, but do note that light exposes a grimy machine.

The lid



As mentioned already, the lid is fairly sturdy. It is quite thick and made of durable materials. As always it sports the HP logo in silvery metals right in the centre.
On the inside of the lid, things are fairly glossy. This is also where you will find webcam and microphone.



The hinges for the lid are incredibly strong and seem very durable. I have no doubt they will be as tight as ever for very long.




The front



At the bottom of the front are the speakers, but not much else of interest.

The rear



This is where the lid goes when you open up the computer, so not much of interest here. It is very nice to note that even though they fitted the Mini 5101 with a 6-celled battery, it does not stick out at the back. Instead it takes up a little more space at the bottom, raising the computer a bit. Good solution.

The bottom



The bottom has plenty of ventilation and is where you will find the battery.

The right side



The left side



Overview



You might long for some slightly more modern I/Os, but it has all the necessary ones.

Diodes





The diodes are slightly more modern in a greenish-blue, turquoise colour. There is one for the power button, but there are not really any status diodes. Perhaps to compensate there are diodes/buttons for internet and mail, capslock status and one for battery recharging at the front.

Keyboard and touch




As mentioned already, the keyboard is great and of good size. Everything is located in an easily accessible place, and it is comfortable to write on it. It is resistant to wear and tear and black so dirt is not too visible. The keys are faded black, resting on a glossy foundation.

The touchpad does not work too well, being too small and not as frictionless as it should be, so I would probably invest in a small mouse to bring along. The buttons below the touchpad work very well, though.

Display





10.1” is a great size if you ask me. It is a wide enough to cover most websites, meaning you only have to scroll down. Things only turn sour when you have to scroll both horizontally and vertically, but that is a rare occurrence. It sports a very reasonable resolution that makes it easy to work and surf on.

The display is very crisp and has a suitably wide angle of view. It does not have too many problems with glare, being fairly matte compared to most other computers. That also makes it less sensitive to sunlight, so despair not if you are stuck sitting by a window on the train.

As a new part of our reviews we now test displays for pixel errors and faults in the backlighting, using a program called MonitorTest. It works by, for example, blackening the entire display which will expose pixel errors, i.e. areas that do not change colour. This will also allow you to see if the backlighting is uneven.

This model appears to be well and evenly lit, meaning there are no dark areas on the display. There do not seem to be any dead pixels either...it is always a drag to get a display with errors, but HP seem to have it all covered.

Sound and speakers
The audial aspect is actually quite reasonable for a netbook. It restricts itself to balance the sound instead aiming too high. That is very refreshing. You can easily listen to a bit of music on it, but as always a couple of speakers are recommended or perhaps some good headphones. Still it is nice that they have not given up on the audio completely.

Noise, heat and power consumption

The computer barely makes any noise, staying relatively silent even at full performance. It does buzz a little, but that is acceptable and not annoying in any way.
The heat is a bit over the top though. Here HP should take a page from Acer who makes laptops that draw away heat from the bottom.

Part of the focus on this model is that it should retain enough juice for extended use, so our expectations of the battery life are fairly high. With a 6-celled battery, it should at least reach 3 hours at continuous use, and anything above that is just a bonus. We take a closer look at what it can actually do.

Benchmark

All benchmarks are run at high performance settings on the laptop. No other settings have been tinkered with.

Windows Vista Experience Index

This computer runs Windows XP so it does not get a rating WVEI rating.

I have decided to compare it with the Acer Aspire One 751. They are roughly in the same price range and sport similar connectivity. Both also have a 6-celled battery, so it will be interesting to see how much HP has spent on quality rather than performance as this HP is made of more expensive materials than the Acer.
Read the review here
The Acer Aspire One 751 model had the following specifications:

Specifications

Category
Netbook

Processor
Intel Atom Z520 / 1.33 GHz

Chipset
Mobile Intel US15W Express Chipset

RAM
1 GB DDR2 SODIMM

Storage
160 GB HDD

Display
11.6" HD 1366 x 768 (WXGA) high-brightness, Acer CrystalBrite LED-backlit TFT LCD, 16:9 Format

Sound card & speakers
High-definition audio support
Two built-in stereo speakers
MS-Sound compatible

GPU
Intel GMA 500  

Battery
48.8 W 4400 mAh 6-celled lithium-ion battery (Li-Ion)   

I/Os
3x USB 2.0 ports
1x VGA port
1x RJ45 Ethernet port
1x microphone-in
1x headphone-out
1x Card reader: 3-in-1 card reader, supports SD, MMC, MS
1x 0.3MP Webcam

Wireless connectivity
Built-in 10/100 LAN
Built-in 802.11 Wireless b/g

Dimensions
28.4 cm x 19.8 cm x 2.5 cm
About 1.35 kg including battery
Operating system
Windows XP Home

Price
About £330.00 including VAT.

Boot times and out of standby:





Boot and out of standby times are measured from when the power button is pressed and the Windows desktop appears.

As can be seen, the HP boots up quicker whereas the Acer is faster to get out of standby. The boot time of the HP is very impressive.

Battery life:



Idle times are measured at the lowest power profile on the tested models while Classic times are tested at the highest performance profile. Both are tested with BatteryEater 2005 to find the maximum battery life at the given settings.

Acer is pretty intent on reaching very long battery lives on its computers. It demonstrates this clearly here by beating the HP, which still has a very satisfying battery life. Both are very good with their 6-celled batteries, but if there is anything Acer can do, it is making their batteries last. From what I have gathered through reading on the subject, Acer has chosen a lower-performing chipset that uses less power. Let us see if that will come back to haunt it in the other benchmarks.

The processor:

SuperPi



Super Pi calculates the number Pi with 1 million decimals. The result is a time in seconds, meaning that the lower the number, the better. This can be used for direct comparison with other laptops that have run the same test.

You definitely get more processing power with HP. The results fall out to HP’s advantage as expected, and the following benchmarks will likely show the same.

SiSoft Sandra CPU Arithmetic





SiSoft Sandra’s Whetstone and Drystone benchmark tests the processor’s ability to do pure number crunching, which occurs during gaming or different forms of picture editing. The measure is in Mflops (Millions Floating Point Operations Per Second) – the higher, the better.

The prophecy is being fulfilled. The HP has a more powerful processor.

SiSoft Sandra CPU Multimedia





The multimedia test in SiSoft Sandra is calculated on a 2D figure. The output (it/s) is Mandelbrot iterations per second, i.e. the bigger the better.

Once again HP comes out on top. It is nice to see both laptops do as well on battery as they do on AC. It is very annoying with a laptop that hardly performs when it runs on battery, especially when it is supposed to be a highly mobile device.

RAM - SiSoft Sandra Memory Bandwidth:





Sisoft Sandra’s Memory Bandwidth benchmark is used to measure the speed of the RAM – the higher the value, the better.

With a better performing all-round system, HP gets the best scores here as well.

Hard drive performance - SiSoft Sandra Harddisk Read:



Sisoft Sandra’s hard drive test module is used to measure the performance of the hard drive. Sisoft Sandra runs a number of tests on the surface of the hard drive and calculates the average reading speed. .

The Acer has a fairly standard hard drive, but that was clearly not good enough for HP. It is actually quite fast and reaches some pretty good numbers. It is nice to see a company prioritizing reading speed on their hard drives, something that is often neglected to cut costs. The Acer performs well, too.

GPU performance - 3Dmark





The 3Dmark tests show the performance in DirectX 9, and paint a picture of the performance in newer games and applications. No tests have been run in DirectX 10.1 (which both cards support).

Netbooks usually do badly in this category and are easily taken over by standard computers. If you want to increase your graphical performance (however much), the HP is your best bet. Remember the two netbooks are in the same price range.

Overall performance



The PCMark 05 results can be compared directly with other laptops that have run the same PCMark version. The program produces a score from a test that includes the performance of the processor, RAM, hard drive, GPU, etc.

Neither of the two was able to run this test. However, I would expect the HP to outperform the Acer easily after seeing the other benchmarks – except for battery life, HP won them all.

OpenOffice – mostly for students

Since we have tested several laptops which are so well-suited for student use, I have decided to run some tests in OpenOffice (freeware which has the same functions as Microsoft’s Office bundle).

Here are some load times to give you a bit of insight into how quickly the computer loads a standard application like OpenOffice. Most can compare it with the PCs they normally work on.

Time to start up: 4 seconds
Load of browser (IE): 2 seconds

Conclusion

HP manages to do a lot of good things with this product. The price is a bit high for the netbook market, so expectations are naturally a bit higher. All our fears are put to rest though, for HP gives us what we want.
In a most business-appropriate design, HP gives us a professional computer made of good materials that feels good, is well-made and all in all very elegant. The materials are a mixture of hard, solid components and softer ones at the points you use the most as a consumer. This indicates that experienced designers had a hand in this product.

It seems remarkably sturdy and you will not be afraid of putting it in your bag and taking it with you as a companion. It is very mobile with a perfect size and weight, so most business users will undoubtedly be very happy with it.

The display is nice and crisp – great to work with. The touchpad is a small minus but is easily dealt with by investing in a cheap mouse. It has the webcam and microphone it should, and the same goes for the connectivity. No surprises, no lacks. Fair deal.

When it comes to software, it is refreshingly free of all those free trials that run out after a short time – it is nice that the computer does not feel ”used” the very first time you turn it on.
Combined with a hard drive that spins at 7200RPM and a good processor, the system runs very smoothly for a netbook. It definitely delivers – well above average – when it comes to processor, audio and graphics. Delightful.

One of the negative aspects is its tendency to collect dust. It is easily handled with a cloth, but it should be mentioned nonetheless. Also fingerprints are really noticeable in sunlight.
The battery life is not the best out there, but still quite impressive and very good. However, HP has a lot to learn from e.g. Acer. They are much better at drawing away heat from the bottom of their computers. It would be nice if it was a bit cooler at the bottom, because it can get somewhat uncomfortable to sit with.
There are some minor issues, but they only serve to point out how close this product is to being perfect. I cannot stress enough how impressive it is. The price may not be cheap, but when you consider value for money, you get way more than with most other netbooks. It truly is a great product and a solid buy that gives you quality all the way.

Pros
- Display brightness
- Quality of materials
- Hardware
- Keyboard
- Design and durability
- Keyboard size
- Battery life
- Audio

Cons
- Warm at the bottom
- Dust and fingerprints
- Touchpad

Battery:	4.5 / 5
Graphics:	4 / 5
Construction:	5 / 5
Mobility:	5 / 5
Software:	4 / 5
CPU Performance:	4 / 5
Innovation:	2.5 / 5
Price:	3 / 5
Design:	4 / 5
Weight:	4.5 / 5
Performance:	4 / 5
Overall:	4.5 / 5