HP 2133 Mini Note Reviews
The HP 2133 Mini Note is one of the most powerful and feature packed netbooks available at the moment, with a whopping 2GB of RAM on some models, and a HDD on all models.
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Do you own this netbook? Leave a user review below and help other buyers!
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3 Positive Reviews |
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0 Negative Reviews |
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I think this is a great computer, its ligth beautifull and wondefully designed.
It has a great keyboard, almost as easy to use as a regular one, bright screen (with 1280X1768 resolution) and superb speakers, the hdd is easy to upgrade, wich is an adittional advantage.
On the downside the procesor is eusually the biggest set back, and its trully not a speed demon, but i have found it sufficient for all my needs (office work, music and video playback, internet, classic games and other programs) it all depends on what you need, this is not a machine for modern gaming, but i think is perfectly suited for work needs. Specially if you forget about vista and install XP, i think vista is the worst downside on this machine.
Overall i love my mini note, its beautifull and does all i need it to do, i know and accept its limitations, if you plan to get one look carefully at the specifications, wich are very variable, thre processor goes from 1.2 to 1.6mhz, the max resolution can be 1024X600 or 1280×768, the hard disk can be 4 GB SSD or 120 GB regular,3 or 6 cell battery, as well as the OS and other details, so you should check all those out when deciding on the model according to your needs.
I have a 1.2Ghz 2Mb ram, and upgraded 250 GB hard disk, and 3 cell battery, and im very happy with it, just think what you requiere from your machine and chosse the model that suits you better (i think preocesor and screen resolution and hard disk are particullary critical).
I purchased the HP 2133 Vista Business edition with 2 GB RAM, 120 GB hard drive and a 6 cell battery at a sale price of $499, with a $100 rebate from HP for a final cost of $400. I was not happy with Vista, which drags this machine down and won’t work with some of my applications, but HP provided the XP Pro downgrade. The keyboard (92% full size), Bluetooth capability, Expresscard slot and screen resolution (1280×768) are big plusses, and the computer feels like it is well built. (It’s hard to read the text on an 8.9″ screen at the highest resolution, so I have it set to 1024×768, but I set it higher when I connect to an external monitor via a KVM apparatus). The speakers and sound system are also very high quality. Some reviews claim that the case is made from brushed aluminum, although it is really aluminum colored plastic, but it looks and feels very nice nonetheless. The VIA processor is reportedly a dog, but for my purposes, light word processing, spreadsheets, movies and web surfing, it is perfectly sufficient, especially with 2 GB of RAM. My biggest complaint is first with Microsoft for forcing the use of Vista, followed by HP for wasting hours of my time repeating information to overseas tech support who sent the wrong software on two occasions. (I now have two duplicate sets of XP Pro disks and a set of Vista Home Basic CDs I’ll never use). One important note: When downgrading to XP Pro, be sure to delete the partitions or you’ll get a “Setup cannot load cmnicfg.xml” error, and the setup will fail. No problem if you delete the partitions and install a fresh copy of XP. I purchased a very nice leather case customized for this unit from Carrymobile.com, and a low price small tool bag from Target to store and carry the netbook and accessories. My wife recently bought a Dell Inspiron 9 that she’s happy with (she only uses it to surf the net), and carries it around in a low cost DVD player bag from Walmart or somewhere. She thinks the chicklet sized keys are too small, though. The HP Mini is far superior in my humble opinion.
As other reviewers have said, the HP Mini-note 2133 is a bit different to the endless swathes of Eee copies (they know who they are!). For a start, it’s a little big bigger, packing in a superb adult-sized keyboard and flanking that fantastically clear 1280×768 8.9″ LCD panel with quality speakers. As soon as you pick it up, you know you have a quality piece of kit in your hand, and out of the box the cold aluminium of the lid makes a refreshing change from the identikit plastic competition. The HP2133 also has a good range of connections, offering Wifi, 2 USB ports, a 100M/bit ethernet port, a VGA DSUB out, a SD card slot, and uniquely in a netbook an Explesscard slot. Bluetooth and a webcam are standard in all but the most basic model.
In terms of performance, its a netbook at the end of the day. If you dont expect dual-core type performance, you will be fine. To be fair, no netbook of the current crop is going to trouble a full-blown, well specified laptop or desktop in the performance stakes, but they are far more practical and portable than the lightest of 15.4″ screen machines in many scenarios, such as for students, etc.
To increase the performance, the best tip I can give anyone thinking of getting one of these machines is lose the operating system pre-installed by HP and install your own. HP send these out with either Vista Business or SuSE 10 Enterprise Linux. Vista is a step too far (note how many other netbooks run Vista as standard…. have you got to one yet? No?) and SuSE is not the best Linux to get to grips with for the Linux newbie. The good news is that both Windows XP and Ubuntu 8.10 work really well (I’ve put both on my mini-note), and really bring the little HP to life. Bad, bad choice of OS, HP!
You can get the HP2133 with good discounts at present, thanks in part to the recent release of the HP 1000 mini-note, and of the two machines I’d choose the 2133 every time.