HP Mini 5101

Photo gallery: HP Mini 5101

When we heard that HP was making some big changes to its small business netbook, we were worried. After all, the current version — the Mini 2140 — is probably our all-time favourite netbook, thanks to an innovative keyboard (since adopted by HP's consumer netbooks), full ExpressCard slot, and solid metal construction.

This new version, the Mini 5101, is indeed a stylistic departure from the 2140, trading the gently rounded silvery metal look for a sharp-edged black brushed-metal chassis. It's a little bigger than its predecessor, but launching at the same price the 2140 did, at AU$799. The Mini 2140 has since gone up in price, to a thumping AU$999 — and at that stage, you'd be thinking full-sized laptop, not netbook.

There are four SKUs available in the Australian market, all with a higher than usual resolution of 1366x768. The base model gets you a slightly faster than usual Atom N280 1.66GHz processor, 1GB RAM, 802.11n wireless and interestingly, a 7200rpm 160GB hard drive. You'll need to splash for the AU$1099 model for Bluetooth, a 320GB hard drive and 2GB RAM, while AU$1299 will fetch you built-in Gobi-powered WWAN, and AU$1399 will grant you an 80GB solid state drive. It's all a bit mad when a netbook doesn't see much change out of AU$1500. This new model also loses the ExpressCard slot found in the older Mini 2140.

With a black brushed-metal lid and matte black keyboard and keyboard tray (the screen bezel is glossy black), the Mini 5101 looks every bit the business system, as opposed to the subtle patterns and more mod designs of HP's consumer netbooks. The inset panel of the screen is not as nice-looking as the edge-to-edge glass on the Mini 2140, but it does allow for a matte screen, which we generally prefer. It's not the thinnest or lightest netbook ever, but it feels solid and durable, without being a brick.

The biggest selling point for HP's netbooks has always been the fantastic keyboard, and the Mini 5101 somewhat shockingly ditches the large, edge-to-edge look of the Mini 2140 and Mini 1000/110 models. This new design adds some space between the keys, which are still flat and wide; the end result reminds us of Sony's Vaio keyboards. We were wary at first, having been big fans of the original HP netbook keyboard design, but the new version works well without forcing too many compromises; the Shift keys, for example, are large and easy to hit. While we're not quite ready to say we like the new keyboard better than the 2140's, it's certainly just as good.

One smart move was taking the alternate uses for the Function keys (F1-F12), and swapping them with the original F-key duties. For example, hitting the volume mute button just requires hitting F8, rather the Fn+F8 combination. The only headache: using ALT+F4 to close a window now requires ALT+Fn+F4.

The Mini 5101's touch pad is a more traditional type, with the mouse buttons located under it, rather than the side mouse buttons and elongated touch pad found on previous HP netbooks. We prefer this new style, and the slick, resistance-free touch-pad surface made mousing a breeze.

The end result of all this keyboard/touch-pad/chassis engineering is as good a user experience as can be found on a 10-inch laptop, and propels the Mini 5101 to the upper end of the netbook usability chart.

Intel's single-core 1.66GHz Atom N280 CPU is found in a handful of higher-end netbooks, including Asus' 1005HA. The performance difference between that and netbooks with the older N270 Atom CPU is minimal, but with netbook performance generally pokey under the best of circumstances, we'll take whatever extra horsepower we can get. Our standard netbook admonitions apply: they're great, as long as one keeps expectations modest, and sticks mostly to web surfing, email and working on office docs.

The HP Mini 5101 ran for five hours and 56 minutes on our video playback battery drain test. While not the longest-lasting netbook ever, that's a well above-average score, and doesn't require a huge, ugly battery pack sticking out from the back. A smaller four-cell battery is also available.