HP released my favorite netbook the Mini-Note 2133 in April but my one problem with it was its price. For $499 you get a 1GHz VIA C7-M processor, 512MB of memory, a 4GB flash drive, and Linux and although the build quality almost makes up for it, I wouldn’t purchase it because it’s a little too expensive. To put it in perspective the Aspire one costs $379 and has a faster 1.6GHz Intel Atom processor and a 8GB flash drive.
But, the company’s Australian Market Development head Jerel Chong admitted there will be a “lower cost” device similar to the current model but “won’t be as durable” as the existing system. This lower cost offering would be focused more towards retail channels but I’m very disappointed by this, the best thing about the HP Mini-Note was its great build quality and I guess that that was what you were paying for, it would be nice if they could get the cost of the current model down to say $400 but I guess to do that they will have to sacrifice some of the quality of the machine itself.