New HP Netbook Offers High Performance For Less

Think you can't afford a laptop this Christmas for that overachieving son or daughter headed to university next year? Think again. The mini-notebook market continues to expand, after news that Hewlett-Packard will release their own version soon.

Mini-notebooks, or Netbooks, are slightly smaller than the average 15.4" or 14" laptops. They're also much cheaper, sometimes half as expensive as the average big-box store fare. HP's new netbook, the Mini 1000, actually sells for a whole lot less than its name might lead you to believe -- interested consumers can pick one up for just $400, about the same price as a PlayStation 3. (Source: thestreet.com)

HP's sexy new item uses an Intel Atom processor and boasts quick performance. Most of these Atom-powered netbooks chug along at the same speed as the average, standard laptop from, say, mid-2007. Thus, although they won't be able to run visually impressive games like Crysis or Spore, they certainly can help university students research online (and they can run tamer video games, too).

Although the netbook market is still fairly small, it's expanding rapidly. Acer made up significant ground on general laptop leaders HP and Dell with its own netbook this year. Some estimate that Acer's total shipments jumped about 50 per cent and its share of the PC laptop market increased about 3 per cent to 12.5 per cent of the total share.

With Acer making serious ground on its 18.8 per cent of the market, it's clear why HP has finally decided to unveil its own netbook. With the market for these little laptops growing (and the economy making cheap hardware more attractive all the time), a $399 Mini 1000 sounds awful enticing.

In addition to the $400 model, HP will also offer upgraded versions of the Mini 1000. The highest-end version, running the Via chip and the Vista operating system, will retail for about $749. (Source: reuters.com)

Although the Mini 1000 is very light (3 pounds, approximately) and smaller, its keyboard is a reported 92 per cent of the average keyboard's size.

It seems budget computing just got a whole lot more interesting.