the mini note will be mine...

If I remember right, you can also get this with Linux (SuSe, I think?) if you have some Vista hate bubbling below your surface.

I'm pretty stoked for one of these.

Also known as: The Noisy Cricket

"K! Come on, K! I feel like I'm gonna break the damn thing!"

This thing is pretty powerbook-esque.

How much does it weight actually?

I thought the Hp site said this could be bought with linux also so your not stuck trying to get the windows refund.
BTW its an HP not an IBM so its a touchpad not a trackpad, trackpad is an IBM specific term for touchpad.
This might just be the upgrade to my Latitude C400 I've been waiting on. The PATA interface in it (C400) is the limitation I'm hitting now.

this thing is pretty cool coming from hp...let see sum real world usage first see how long till the battery blows

I wish they can just add a dvd drive in it and i would get this. Otherwise im waiting for a similar system comparable to the Sony TZ series

I ordered mine with Vista Business on April 15th, looks like delivery won't be until May 15th.

how is using the trackpad with the buttons on the side? seems a little akward.

So with Vista loaded it weighs 6 lbs and with XP only 3? Makes sense to me. (As I hug my 13" MacBook and suckle my thumb)

it would be nice to get osx leopard running on this puppy. i doubt it will work since it's running on a via.

proceed with caution

The battery jutting out the bottom nix's it for me...

If I'm on an expense account, I'd choose that HP for sure. That keyboard makes my fingers (already aching from using the Eee) flex with anticipation. But spending my own money, Eee is the better value, even after $100 for a RAM upgrade and a 16GB SD card.

Just in time for some stimulus check spending.

Mark - You said that in your config, the HP felt heavy like two eees. Do you happen to have a scale on which to weigh it? I am curious what the actual weight of the 6-cell HDD model is, and I can't find a clear answer anywhere.

Thinkgeek is selling a different version of the same notebook with SuSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10, for $549.00

"Like you, I'm also interested to see how the Eee PC 900 (with its 8.9" screen) sizes up-I'll keep you posted."

i sense a battlemodo

if it ran ubuntu...........

@sfokevin: That's just the extended battery. the regular one won't jut out. But i've read that the extended battery is nice since it props it up a bit and allows for airflow underneath it to help keep it a bit cooler.

@takemetoyourtoaster: ummm, buy the SuSe version and put ubuntu on it yourself....

@schwnj: I don't have a scale and don't know of a clear metric either. But it's substantially heavier than an Eee. Maybe not twice as heavy, but getting there.

My dad has been planning on getting one of these things, glad to see I didn't miss the review.

oh shoot forgot to add...i've heard that by around the end of may you'll be able to buy this thing preloaded with xp on it.

wow, i was kind of expecting a little bit more in depth of a review here... Did you spend a whole 10 minutes writing this?

@sfokevin: I'd think so too, but it actually tilts the computer well for working.

No matter what, i seriously doubt that Hp, via and vista can be a kickass combo compared to the Eee 900. Hp just plain sucks, Via just stinks.... and well.. you gizmodo guys said it before Vista is shite. I would never kick the Asus spirit over an Hp moment.

I don't know about HP, but the keyboard area of EEEPC is very cheaply made.

I was really gunning for one of these until I found the HP tx2000z tablet PC. It weighs more, but it's got a touch screen and beefier innards. The minimal configuration at 899 isn't that much more than the top end 2133 and you get a whole lot more at that price.

"It's a remarkable little laptop if you can stand the extra weight and price over the Eee PC 4G."

Nahh, I can't really: I'm sure that it's a nice and desirable machine. Mind you I'm sure that an Atom dual-core will beat the Via in terms of performance -- and possibly battery consumption. But once the price starts edging up into the twice-as-much-as-an-Eee category, it begins to make less economic sense:

You know that apocryphal $400 laptop that everyone posts about as soon as there is any mention of the Eee? You know, the one with the 15" mid-resolution screen, 120GB+ hard drive and built-in optical drive that you can get for the same price as an Eee? Well when you can have the best of both worlds and get both that AND an Eee for the same price as the HP, why bother with the HP?

The Eee is 1/2 the weight? That makes it more likely that you have it with you more often, when you can just throw it into a bag and forget about it (fugeddaboudit -- a translation for American readers). The really useful computer is the one that you have when you need one. On the other hand, the larger computer would give you the non-cramped screen, keyboard and storage; for more stationary and limited mobile computing. For when you actually need to type for more than an occasional 20 minutes here or there.

You would actually have to compromise less if you gave yourself those two highly divergent choices at once, rather than starting with the already compromised HP -- bigger and heavier than the Eee so not as portable, but more cramped and less capable than a cheap 15" "standard" laptop. And expensive enough that you can get both of them for pretty much the same price, as the HP. As an alternative choice, I'd have to say that getting two discrete devices for the same price would be the better choice, delivering more flexibility.

When they can make a really powerful computer in that form factor that IS powerful enough to be your main computer -- and it will cost much more than this, and may not be that long in coming -- then it will be worth considering the single and expensive over the multiple and cheap.

@Mandatory_Field: Exactly.

But I still see somewhat of a niche use for the Mini-Note; it seems that it compromises too much to be a laptop and not enough to compete with other subnotebooks.

In a way, I can also understand the PSP/DS comparison. The PSP is a better console; the DS is a better portable. The Mini-Note is a better computer (although with a VIA chip, I'm not too sure), but the Eee is a better subnotebook.

The Macbook Air in my opinion faces the same issue as the Mini-Note in a more pronounced way; too expensive to justify as a secondary computer, but not featured enough to be your main computer.

I have been waiting for a perfect second laptop and looks like HP got my attention. I am in the 12 or 14.1" range dont know how much I will miss the view in a 8.9 screen.

It's nice and only about 3lb... but it's the price that puts me off. mind you, the $549 model looks like being the Eee 900's closest competitor and it's well priced.

Decisions, decisions...

I will stick with the Eee PC or at least wait to see what Dell comes out with.

Like the design, but the battery doesn't look right at all.

@Mandatory_Field:

The number of people who want to decide every morning which of two laptops to carry is pretty small.

to be honest the i have tried some UMPC, the OQO, Q1 and and yes some are flashy but a) on the go you are not likely to multitask, ( you only have so much time) obviously you are not going to do heavy duty work like rendering a video, or working 3d graphics (again time limit and now work space) so personally i need one pc thst gets the job done fast and doesn't limit me seriously, portability, long battery life my choice is the samsung Q1, its got all i need for fast basic internet, and last minute job, like 2 cams, a keyboard ( takes a while to get used to but once u realize that is just like texting on a blackberry, its all good, i can type as fast as in a full size keyboard) runs aero ( im a mac guy but if it gets the job done, i welcome anything, and that is why my multitasker has to be a mac) now the screen is just the right size ( not to small like the OQO) and in landscape is perfect to read books, and men i carry a lot of things and having even something like the z series is hard so i think that 7 inches is just good not heavy at all and sometimes i forget its with me, so i say something like or the Q1 ultra, is the perfect UMPC

C'mon Dell. Make the EEE PC and this HP Mini-Nope your friggin bitchez.

Shame about the touchpad, texture can make a huge difference. All of my laptops, including my current, HP/Compaq have had a matte finish (like the Macbook). My brother's HP laptop has a glossy touchpad and it's just impossible to use if your fingers get the least bit greasy. It needs a little finger-chalk thing or something.

I think the best thing about the Mini-Note coming out is that it's demonstrated that cheap ultraportables can have a solid build and not just plastic. It's almost like Apple made it. So it should raise the bar on that front.

If i had to stray from the Eee, i would do the Msi Wind. Looks nifty. (Hp never made good computer, never gonna).

Mark Wilson: Man, whatever. The EEE is as much of a "real laptop" as the Mini-Note, even if it's missing some of that system's bells and whistles. You put Windows XP on the EEE, and it runs everything you could possibly need on the go, often MORE quickly than a higher priced laptop.

My point is this... the EEE is a real laptop. Prior to its release, I purchased all manner of Pocket PCs and handheld PCs, hoping to hit that sweet spot of high performance and Windows compatibility. None of these gadgets ever came CLOSE to the EEE in those two categories. It was incredibly difficult to find compatible software for my past ultraportables... now, it's nearly as hard finding software that WON'T work on my EEE.

It's easy to criticize the system for its small screen, keyboard, and hard drive, but the EEE utterly buries anything that had come before it. I suspect that the gap in performance between the EEE and Mini-Note is not nearly as wide.

@pyleg: "The number of people who want to decide every morning which of two laptops to carry is pretty small."

Small, perhaps, but not nonexistent: Every weekday morning I head off to work with two laptops in my knapsack; a 15" Tecra (belongs to work) which runs Vista as the base OS and a bunch more as virtual machines (as required). I also always carry the Eee, as I can throw it in there as an afterthought. A self-contained afterthought (8GB SD, 2GB RAM - support not re-compiled into kernel yet -- thinking of trying XP on it, and full desktop enabled), that's not too badly appointed, for what it is.

That means that I also have a personal machine everywhere I go. That's where I can have things available that I can't/won't put on a work machine, like personal music, and movies (*cough*bittorrent*cough), and photos. In another use entirely, it's also small enough to fit in my camera bag, and be used to dump pictures from full SD cards to a portable HD wherever I happen to be; and also to preview pictures on a slightly larger screen (than the camera's).

So anyway, I don't need to decide which of two to carry, I just bring both, and with a real minimal weight/size penalty for the Eee. It's only when I have a special requirement, or am going away for the weekend or something, that I have to decide whether to bring something else as well.

Ever since I bought my Eee in November, I have scarcely touched my desktop, except for downloading video, image processing, and the like.

So, it has replaced my desktop for 90% of my computing tasks. I'd call that a "real" laptop.

Once you install XP on it, you're all set.

To refute the reviewer's comment about $400 being "too good to be true", he's right. I had to spend $15 on a gig of ram, and $30 for a 4GB SDHC card. I already had XP. So, yes, I actually had to pay $444.99. I got swindled!

@Mandatory_Field:

You are truly an exception to the rule.

It's like kitchen knives. You can buy dozens of types, each supposedly "best" for a purpose. But people get by with one or two their moms gave them from the drawer.

@ManekiNeko: "It's easy to criticize the system for its small screen, keyboard, and hard drive, but the EEE utterly buries anything that had come before it."

I'm glad Asus started the trend. It was good for the industry. But that doesn't mean the Eee is the end all be all product. With competition coming from major companies like HP and Lenovo, we should all HOPE that better systems than the Eee are on the horizon. Because the Eee 4G is a good system that took a lot of important steps. But it's simply not what the mass public should settle for.

Got mine this past Wednesday. Took it out of the box... and almost put it right back. I think Giz is pulling some punches. I have one of the first Eee 4GBs as well, and this thing just ain't in the same class, I don't care who says what. It is HUGE, compared to what I was expecting (an Eee sized machine). I don't know about the 3 cell battery, maybe that makes a difference in weight but the overall footprint and feel is more Fujitsu P7230 than Asus Eee.

Ok, Yes the keyboard is great, but the touchpad SUCKS. Too small, in the wrong place, and a pain to use. At that, you're going to be hard pressed to use it while you wait for the thing to even boot. The Eee runs rings around it. Mind you I'm comparing XP to Vista but you'd think with a 7200 RPM drive and 2gb ram it'd be somewhat sprightly. NOT IN THE LEAST. Running Vista it chugs, it wheezes, and everything just has this lag to it that screams 'underpowered'. The Eee, even running Compiz or XP never felt this sluggish. The screen IS much much much better though, but Asus is about to fix that, aren't they!

My verdict? I'd rather deal with the keyboard on the Eee than tote this thing around. It's just too far over the size/weight line to fit the Libretto-sized utility-book segment. Bring on the Eee 900! As for the HP? RMAing it on Monday.

@Buford T. Justice: Did you actually READ our review?

I haven't read any of the comments, but why aren't there any stock computers that use Ubuntu?

Maybe I'll pass. After running eeectl on my 4G, and boosting the CPU to 900MHz, I'm happy sticking with it for portable office work, internet audio and video.

My Seagate FreeAgent Go 160GB hard drive solves my storage problems without being a cumbersome brick in my backpack.