Battle of the Netbooks : HP Compaq Mini 700
6. HP Compaq Mini 700
The display
The display of the mini 700 is a glossy. Most of the time mini laptops thankfully offer matte displays. This one offers the normal definition of 1024x600.
The other components are the same as on the other mini-PCs. The quality of the TN panel technology is decent for netbooks, but at the lower end when taking into account LCD displays at large.
Horizontal viewing angles are good, but you really have to be in front of the screen and even then sometimes images can be altered. The vertical viewing angles are poor.
The elongated shape of HP’s Compaq Mini 700 reminds us of Sony’s Vaio P series; thankfully this one carries a seriously lighter price tag!
Handling and Design
No doubt here, HP definitely delivers a product with a good design and strong build. The keyboard is large and typing is comfortable, unlike 7 or 9 inch netbooks. There is a convenient button between the touchpad and keyboard that disables the pad when an external mouse is being used. The touchpad is elongated, and the click buttons are on the sides in order to gain some depth. Unfortunately, the matte surface of the touchpad makes it difficult for the finger to slide. The pad is 3.5 cm long, smaller than that of the 1002HA.
Be careful when charging the computer: the plug can be very loose.
The noise bothered us a bit. When heavily used, the internal fan kicks in. Not horribly loud but enough to be disturbing.
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| Not a tight fit | Expansion port, mini-Jack |
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| Touchpad with side buttons | Memory card slot and USB |
The webcam is disappointing. Indoors, the picture is very dark and its hard to make out the person’s features. In order to make it better all you can do is go brighter, but even then the result is not very satisfying. The Mini 700 has a microphone, but we never managed to make it work.
On the sides of the PC, there are 2 USB ports, an Ethernet jack, 2-in-1 card reader for SD/MMC support, a combination jack for audio/mic and an expansion port. HP is selling an adapter to hook the laptop up to an external monitor (VGA only) as an optional accessory.
The speaker (a long metal bar) is beneath the keyboard. The sound is rather weak, good enough to watch a movie on your own, sitting in front of the screen. As always, headphones are recommended.
The only element you can access, again beneath the keyboard, apart from the battery, is the memory slot.
Processor Power
There are few components inside of a mini-PC. The most common equation for a 10 inch is an Intel Atom N270, an Intel GMA 950 for video and a hard drive. Such is the case with the Mini 700.
A netbook can stand apart only by its RAM and/or the hard drive The latter is not very satisfying here - only 60 GB (some netbooks go up to 160 GB). The hard drive manages read speeds of up 30 MB/s, (in comparison others can reach 70 MB/s) and boot time is 1 minute 5 seconds, which is relatively slow compared to some netbooks booting in 30 seconds. The processor can do everything a traditional laptop can do, it will just take two or three times longer than a mid/high-end laptop.
With video, SD and DVD quality is watchable, but make sure to avoid HD.
Battery Life & Portability
At only 2.25 pounds, the mini 700 is the lightest 10 inch PC we have tested. In terms of battery life, it falls short, lasting just 2 hours and 13 minutes, while the EeePC 901 can go on for 5 hours.
| HP Compaq Mini 700 | |
|---|---|
| Pros | Cons |
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Elegant and stylish, the mini 700 gets its stars mainly for its design and sizable keyboard. Sadly, the glossy screen, poor battery life (2 hours is really too short) and small hard drive capacity are disappointing.
- Mini 2140 Netbook...
why is it that tom's always leave out the acer aspire one?
Hmmm, this just reinforces my decision to buy an eepc 901a.
Some of the articles pages are cut off.
the article is linked from DigitalVersus so goin there you can read the pages that were cut off
Shouldn't the last page have a CHART that shows Score, battery life, HD size, etc. Obviously, they all have 3 USBs, Audio and video ports.
Many of the reviews are cut off. Please fix this.
You need a chart at the end of the article, and you need to fix, as mentionned by ddelrio, some of the reviews that have been cut off
A chart with all the netbooks side by side would be nice.
It would then, for example, be easier to compare weight with batterly life.
Yeah I'm clicking around trying to find the conclusion, where's the end of the article?
Acer Aspire One... how could you leave this out?
As others have mentioned, some kind of chart or summary is needed. I've noticed that recent multiple-product reviews have been lacking in that area. Being able to jump to the summary, then backtrack to individual reviews would be much better.
Jeez, has it only been 18 months?
gateway LT31XX series at about 399US leave all these in the dust,1366*768 hi-def led display,athlon64 1.26ghz,sturdy noiseless keyboard,Hd dolby surround sound,250gb hd,ati mr1270 gpu,2Gb ram,Atheros wifi,multicard reader,home vista(yuck :-P )but is still snappy and runs great,flyes with linux(tested with pclinuxos,ubuntu and mandriva 2009 kde 4,....still to try win xp though....70sec to boot to desktop on vista....esxp index on vista...proc=2.7,mem=4.5,graph=2.7,games=3.0,disk transfer rate=5.6
just my 0.02.....
Why, why does Intel tie the hands of manufacturers?!?!?!
I'll wait till AMD comes up with some sort of ATOM alla style product, but Dual Core. When that will happened only then I'll consider a NetBook.