I'm typing this review on the a new HP Mini 110 netbook, which I bought for the missus for Christmas. As is typically the case when it comes to electronics given as gifts, I end up playing with the new toys way more than the intended recipient. I look at it like a case of getting the kinks worked out and the proper software and settings installed. So, I'm not "hogging" the new toy, I'm "setting it up"!
Real quick, so what the heck is a netbook? Well, simply put, it's a small laptop. They have plenty of small laptops out there, and they've been around for a while. One of my favorites being the Sony Vaio Picturebook. That was the grand daddy of the netbooks, having a small screen and built in webcam. Unfortunately it was also $2000.00, 10 years ago. That's why only people who really needed a portable extra small laptop could afford it. It was a premium price for a so-so product that happened to fill a niche.
Fast forward to today and many manufacturers make a version of a mini laptop. Why do we call them "Netbooks". Because in order to make them cheap and small, some corners were cut. Most noticeably the optical drive. They don't have a DVD, CD or even a floppy drive. You're going to be using this primarily to connect to the internet (hence "netbook"). You can also use accessories and devices thru the usb ports. It's as simple and striped down as can be.
Now we're getting to the nitty-gritty, the HP Mini netbook is HP's version of the popular netbook, and I happen to have the 6 cell model, with a quoted 6 hour run time. The processor is a 1 Ghz Atom intel, with a hard drive of 160 GBs. Not too bad. This machine is perfectly adequate for online, email, basic word processing, and such. Basically it can be used for anything a regular computer would be used for. No intense gaming, or even heavy photo and video editing would be taxing, but for average everyday use, this this is great. I've used it for 2 full days now and the battery is incredible. A note though, the 6 cell battery protrudes from the bottom acting as a bit of a stand. I don't care for the look, and I think I'll pick up a 3 cell battery for everyday use and save the 6 cell for when I travel. I will leave the Macbook home from now on. I'm using safari and chrome as my browsers, as IE seems slow and bloated. I'm going to test out firefox as well. As far as computers go, for under $300 (sale from $400) from PC Richards. I'm very happy with the computer so far.
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