mini 1000

Apple COO Tim Cook's recent comments about Netbooks may reflect an incipient movement to look beyond this category of laptops--now more than a year old. The comments also echo lingering disaffection with the Netbook business model. Sentiment that may not be that far removed from Intel's internal thinking.

This New York Times blog does a good job of dispelling any ambiguity about Cook's comments when it says that "contempt may be too kindly a term" to describe his attitude toward Netbooks.

Cook joins a small chorus of less blunt but equally disdainful companies. Toshiba initially resisted Netbooks and in conversations I had with Toshiba at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January (where its Netbook offering had been relegated, quite intentionally, to an easy-to-miss corner of its sprawling booth) they clearly were not enthusiastic about (if not disdainful of) the category.

Toshiba, caving to pressure in its home market (Japan) from Acer and Asus, has since come out with a redesigned Netbook but has yet to offer anything officially in the U.S. market--more than a year after the Atom processor was launched.

And in case anyone misses the irony. Toshiba practically invented the laptop category and, to state the obvious, is one of the largest laptop vendors in the world.

And Sony has gone out of its way to say that its Netbook-like notebook is not a Netbook--and priced it accordingly.

Advanced Micro Devices has been more outspoken than most. Their contempt, to a large extent, is a given since they are Intel's chief rival. And, unlike Toshiba and Sony, they're not a customer of Intel's and don't have to couch their disdain in diplomatic language. (Skeptics will cite a host of other reasons too: AMD's lack of R&D funds to develop an Atom equivalent, for one.).

That said, in conversations I have had with AMD (including CEO Dirk Meyer), they seem to genuinely believe that Netbooks--as defined by Atom--are not going to be around for the long haul. In short, like Apple's Cook, they think they're too dinky. (See Cook's comments linked above for a variation on this theme, including the words "junky," "terrible," and "cramped.")

There is also some anecdotal evidence that demand for Intel's Atom Netbook processors is slowing a bit. (It should be noted that the source for this information is Digitimes, which is not always the most reliable font of information.) … Read more

There are a lot of Netbooks on the market that are more or less the same, save for some cosmetic details. One of the Netbooks that manages to stand out from the pack is the HP Mini 1000 MIE, which sports a custom interface that sits on top of the Ubuntu Linux operating system.

HP now plans to make that interface available to the public, according to Download Squad. Netbook prices can be cut way down when they don't have Windows installed, which is why HP offers a Linux option. The MIE interface is intended to shield users from … Read more

2009 may be the year of the Netbook. But there's a big if.

Here's the choice: Will consumers buy a thin, light, relatively fast $1,800 MacBook Air or a thin, light, ultrasmall, not-as-fast $450 Hewlett-Packard Mini 1000 Netbook? (Correction: the HP Mini 1000 configuration cited here was originally stated incorrectly as $700.)

If many people, fully aware of this choice, opt for a Netbook then we have the foundation of, at the very least, a rethinking of the pricey ultraportable.

At most, we have many more consumers buying into the Netbook concept--particularly if 3G broadband wireless comes … Read more

After looking at countless laptops during 2008, a small handful have jumped out as personal favorites. I'm not saying these are the very best laptops of the year, nor the highest-rated--they're just the ones that struck me as particularly interesting, useful, or well-designed.

Chances are high that you'll disagree with some or all of this list--which is what makes the comment section below so handy. Share your personal favorites, and see how they stack up against mine.

Gateway P-7811FX For a brief time in 2008, PC gamers had a single bright spot in their otherwise drab world (… Read more

Though a DIY route was recently discovered to bring mobile broadband to the Mini 1000, HP now saves you the effort by offering 3G connectivity out of the box on its Netbook. You can select the HP un2400 mobile broadband module ($199) for service on either AT&T's or Verizon's network. The price seems a bit steep, considering you can find the un2400 module for $149 elsewhere. Also, choosing mobile broadband forces you to opt out of either SSD offered in favor of the 60GB 4200rpm drive, which adds $55 from the default 8GB SSD option. Why … Read more

The HP Mini 1000 Netbook has a 3G modem--who knew? Well, HP presumably and now the rest of us do, thanks to an enterprising Mini 1000 owner and forum poster at Pocketables.net. He or she (impossible to say with a name like dplxy) discovered a SIM card slot hiding out in the Netbook's battery compartment. After speaking with HP and AT&T, user dplxy was able to find a WWAN driver from HP that did the trick--no hardware required. All that was needed was downloading the driver and then popping a SIM card in the mystery slot, … Read more

A day after rolling out a new line of Netbooks, Hewlett-Packard says it's looking at selling them in conjunction with wireless service providers.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Kevin Frost, who heads up HP's consumer notebook division, said the company is considering selling Netbooks at a deep discount to customers who sign a wireless service contract.

On Wednesday, HP introduced a new line of Netbooks called the HP Mini 1000.

Frost said, "The big picture for these Netbooks is that kind of model," but described it as a "longer-term" plan. He … Read more

Update: This blog has been corrected to reflect that the Mini 1000 will be available Wednesday on HP.com, and in retail stores later.

After a brief experiment in the education market, Hewlett-Packard on Wednesday is set to introduce a whole line of Netbooks for mainstream consumers.

The HP Mini 1000 comes in three versions, with starting prices ranging from $379 to $699, and will be available on HP.com starting Wednesday, with worldwide retailers to be announced later.

HP first dipped its toe into the mini-notebook market back in April with the Mini-Note 2133, which it claimed was strictly for K through 12 students and some business travelers. At the time, HP was adamant that this was not meant to play in the same arena as the consumer-oriented Netbook from Asus, the Eee PC. Though it won't break out the numbers, HP now says the sales of the 2133 "exceeded all expectations."

But the new HP Mini 1000, Mini 1000 MIE, and the Mini 1000 Vivienne Tam Edition are very much intended for consumers. So what's changed in just six months? The look and feel of the Mini 1000 line isn't drastically different from the 2133, but the Netbook market has had a dramatic makeover, though it's more noticeable abroad than here in the U.S. … Read more

We'd like to say we were pleasantly surprised to see HP announce its new Mini 1000 Netbook Tuesday. Of course we can't, since HP accidentally put a big picture of the new system up on its Web site over the weekend for several hours. Blown surprise aside, the Mini 1000 is now available for online ordering, and we've got a full review and video.

The system wisely cribs from HP's previous Netbook, the business-oriented Mini-Note 2133, using the same wide format to fit in a nearly full-size keyboard that dwarfs every other similar system. It trades … Read more