Battle of the Net books. HP 5102 takes the cake.

I recently laughed at a colleague of mine who was using a net book. It was nothing special but it was a lot easier to do what we needed to do on location from the net book then from my Windows Mobile Device. Don’t get me wrong I can do pretty much anything from my Touch Pro2 by remote desktoping into my desktop computer.

From the netbooks we are able to do everything natively running all my apps right from my memory stick. So I went looking for a netbook. And I did not want to spend $1000 on a netbook when I could buy a small laptop for a little more. I decided this would be a sub $400 purchase (the same price as my phone). I would be using Windows 7 Starter edition which all the models have and I will only be looking at 10.1 inch screens.

HP was kind enough to let me review their new Mini 5102. I have previously seen their 5101 last year. You can find that review here. I really liked the look and feel of it. It is a metal case, a water resistant keyboard (and little ones have a hard time prying off the keys!) PCWorld saw one with an awesome blue metal casing here.

  It has a built in web camera and mic for Skype as well as Bluetooth and wifi. The screen is 10.1 inches which takes some getting used to. It is using a Intel Atom N450 processor, 1GB of DDR2 memory, a 160GB 7200RPM hard drive. The pre-loaded HP tools are awesome. And I think I will be getting my netbook with a handle which by the way is ingenious!

The device weights a little more than 2.5 pounds. I was able to get about 4 1/2 hours out of the 6 cell battery which is more than enough for me but I would keep a spare battery with me just in case. The options that I have on 5102 run about $399 putting it right around where I wanted it to be. To check out this model on Amazon click here.

But I decided to check out two other options first; Dell and Asus.

The Dell model is their mini 1011 it also comes with a 10.1 inch screen and most of the other specs are the same. Yet the keyboard felt flimsy compared to the HP and the 1 gig of memory seemed to get sucked up instantly by the operating system. The battery was rated at 8 hours but I saw the same 4 1/2 that I got from the 5102. The Dell does have the built in web cam and microphone.

The screen also seemed darker to me. To top it off I learned that the memory is not upgradeable and the machine gets unbelievably hot! If you don’t believe me check out the reviews on Amazon. The Dell Mini 1011 goes for $344.96 available from Amazon here. It is $60 less but will give you headaches in the long run. The device weights 2.85 pounds.

And last I checked out the EEE PC with the same processor, memory and screen size the Asus seemed to fair the best in battery life but It had a lot to do with it’s automatic smart profile changing which was not so smart. It will dim my screen when it feels it should which as a writer I hate.

I don’t like machines making choices for me! It weighed in at 2.65 pounds. Check it out on Amazon here.

So I will be getting myself a HP 5102 in the near future! I absolutely love it. I think the touch screen, carrying handle and SSD would make it awesome but a little too rich for my blood at around $900. I might be a little biased seeming 90% of my equipment is HP but they sure do make awesome devices!