A look at mini notebooks

Eee 901 | Acer Aspire One | MSI Wind | HP 2133 Mini-note | Silverstar E-PC

Asus eee

Ultra portable mini laptops, or mini notebooks, have become extremely popular over the last year since Asus introduced the eee 701 mini laptop late in 2007. Since then an array of additional notebooks have come onto the market in a bid by manufactures to compete for this lucrative new market. Undoubtedly the most prominent sub notebook is the eee range from Asus. The original eee 700 sported a 900mhz intel celeron processor, a 7” screen with 800 x 400 pixel resolution, and a choice of 2,4 or 8 gb solid state drive. Asus have since introduced the 900 series and the 1000 series, the main difference being increased screen real estate. The biggest feature benefit the Asus range has over other similar notebooks is battery life.
eee 901 - price around £320.00
Install Ubuntu on to the eee pc 901

Acer Aspire One

The next contender in the sub notebook range comes from Acer in the form of the Aspire One. Launched in June 2008, the Aspire One has a similar spec to the Asus 900 range and comes with a 8.9” screen, the new 1.6ghz intel atom processor, and a little lacking 512mb of ram. The screen supports a 1024x600 resolution which is much more suitable for general web browsing than the lesser 800x400 was on the eee 701. Battery life comes in at about 2.5 to 3 hours with the standard setup, however this can be extended to up to 6-7 hours with the larger six cell battery.
Price around £235.00

 

MSI Wind

Entering the fray is another sub notebook, the MSI Wind. A bit more expensive at around £360.00, the MSI Wind also comes with the 1.6ghz Intel Atom processor, 512mb or 1gb of ram, a 80gb hd and a 10” display. The battery life should be 2.5 hours or 5.5 hours with the higher capacity battery pack. The dimensions of the unit are on par with other units that also use a 9-10” screen. Whats interesting about the MSI Wind is that its also being re-badged and sold through PC World as their 'Advent 4211'. The unit comes with windows XP and is currently available in major stores throughout the UK. The MSI Wind is expected to be sold through the Supermarket chain, Aldi – gain re-badged as something different. With this item being sold under three different brands, it would certainly be worth looking around to see which is the most competitively priced.
Price around £350.00

 

HP Mini-note

HP's offering is the 'HP 2133 Mini Note'. Once again specs are similar, with a 8.9” screen, 1gb of ram, a 1.2ghz Via processor, and a larger 120gb hard drive. The build quality of this sub notebook is higher than some of the other notebooks and has an all aluminium case giving it a bit more of a sturdy feel to it. This is reflected in the price and at £410.00 seems a little high for an ultra portable. Conventional laptops with much higher specs are available at that price. The unit comes with a choice of operating system – either SUSE Linux or Windows Vista.
Price around £410.00
UPDATE: Dabs.com are now selling these at £328.98

 

Silverstar E-PC

At the bottom of the price range is the 'Silverstar E-PC SW-700' and at £150.00 may seem like a good bargain. However this is a far less capable machine when compared the other web-books and is really only suitable for lightweight surfing and emailing. The unit has just 128mb of ram, a 400mhz processor, and a 512mb storage drive, although this can be extended with a USB flash drive or SD card. Not really a serious contender, but worth a mention. Probably quite useful for kids perhaps :)
Price around £150.00