HP Mini 210 Review

Netbooks for all! We're convinced that's the motivational saying plastered to the wall from the HP lab in which the set births Minis for everyone but your puppy fish. But of each of the company's Pine Trail offerings, we're most excited concerning the $425 Mini 210, which consists of a 10.1-inch HD display as well as a Broadcom Crystal Accelerator chip that promises decent HD film playback, even with Flash. With an desirable new slim design, enhanced chiclet keyboard and that assure to manage high-def content, the Mini 210 has the possible to kick one other people to the curb. offered the issues we experienced using the Broadcom-powered Dell Mini 10 and HP's newer touchpads, though, we experienced to game concerning the eyeglasses and consider a closer look. subscribe to us previous the break to the whole review, will you?
HP Mini 210 review






Look and feel


Of each of the netbooks we've reviewed from the last amount of weeks we may nicely just be probably the most impressed using the HP Mini 210's look. We know that's a bold statement, but we such as the understated pattern and how the best and bottom belonging to the plan are covered from exactly the identical smooth, however not-too-glossy plastic. HP's also designed it effortless to swap the RAM and difficult drive: two latches at the rear of the back again belonging to the battery allow you detach the whole back again lid to acquire to the goods. The subtle imprinted X pattern on our unit's "silver crystal" lid wasn't precisely our thing, but we're huge fans belonging to the safe red, blue and dark coloring options. possibly way the reality how the lids don't collect fingerprints produces us desire to throw a celebration with spiked punch. 

The three-pound plan not just feels solid, but its inch-thin plan is pretty slender. The three-cell battery choice fits flush using the system, however the six-cell battery adds an additional half an inch from the back. as opposed to earlier HP Minis, the Mini 210 has each of the required netbook ports, which consists of three USBs, VGA, Ethernet, SD card as well as a headphone jack. 

Keyboard, touchpad and display


Since the earlier times belonging to the Mini 2133 HP has utilized a flush matte keyboard on its netbooks, however the Mini 210 modifications factors up owning a chiclet keyboard. Our fingers didn't desire to element using the gentle touch belonging to the dark matte keys, along using the make belonging to the whole panel feels firmer than that concerning the ASUS Eee PCs and even the Toshiba Mini NB305. 

Unfortunately we don't have exactly the identical positivity with regards to the Mini 210's touchpad. We're pleased that HP eventually obtained rid belonging to the vertical mouse button buttons, we just wish they hadn't integrated them in to the whole pad itself. The ClickPad, as HP calls it, is comparable to the one we saw concerning the HP Envys, and although the app may be updated it's nevertheless hair-pulling frustrating at times. because of the reality the pad has integrated buttons and facilitates multitouch gestures, the ClickPad consists of a difficult time distinguishing among the finger placement concerning the buttons and concerning the pad itself. The carry out result may nicely be loads of mistaken zooming when you just desire to drag a little something throughout the screen. We get that HP may be wanting to attempting to emulate Apple's touchpads, however the app and two key combo just hasn't been operating for them. This isn't to say it isn't usable – we ended up just tapping to create selections -- but that doesn't signify we think this really is forgivable. along using the reality that HP bundled a $24 matching mouse button with our evaluation product tells us it's most likely conscious belonging to the problem. 

The Mini 210's 10.1-inch screen's flush bezel produces the 1366 x 768 resolution show research higher course than most other netbooks, but even although colours research brilliant along using the additional pixels make 720p content articles research crisp, the glossy coating is really reflective. Vertical viewing angles decent enough once the display was tilted back, but horizontal viewing angles experienced been pretty horrendous. Sharing this display owning a good friend even although laying in bed required a reasonable amount of transferring on our part. 

Performance, HD playback and battery life


The Mini 210 relies concerning the now standard 1.66GHz Intel Atom N450 CPU and 1GB of RAM combo for its power, also it handled our standard netbook responsibilities – producing this evaluation in term 2007, surfing in Chrome and hearing to Pandora – with out a hitch. We do notice, however, how the left hand sizing belonging to the plan heated up through our standard utilization belonging to the netbook. It wasn't enough to create us game the netbook down, but our jeans totally stayed toasty. Our product arrived owning a more compact 5,400rpm 160GB difficult generate than most netbooks, although you can upgrade it to some speedier 250GB 7,200rpm generate for 30 bucks on HP's site. 


The HP Mini 210, such as the Dell Mini 10 (here's an idea: everyone brand their netbooks exactly the identical thing!) may nicely be configured owning a $35 Broadcom's BCM70012 Crystal HD accelerator -- it's a slightly more mature design compared to Dell's BCM70015. released just yesterday, Flash 10.1 Beta three was optimized to support the Broadcom card, along using the Mini 210 totally reaps some belonging to the benefits of it, but that's only shortly after you obtain it from Adobe's website after which update the Broadcom drivers. When that was all stated and done, the Mini 210 didn't have any issues actively playing back again a 720p Avatar trailer on YouTube, but as opposed to the Dell Mini 10 it experienced issues on the way up to the 1080p setting. The film proof is below, but in accordance with Broadcom the issues need to make an make an effort to do with Flash 10.1 Beta 3's compatibility using the more mature edition belonging to the card. although that's a bummer, we presume most can be content articles using the 720p playback thinking about the display resolution along using the Pineview chipset's insufficient HDMI support. We need to also be aware that Flash films done an amazing offer much better in search engines like google Chrome -- we obtained many different "Not Responding" mistakes in Firefox. 


As we come to understand using the Dell Mini 10, actively playing neighborhood HD content articles is extremely dependent on software. A downloaded 1080p metal person a few of trailer done back again with out pauses from the preloaded ArcSoft TotalMedia Theatre software, but playback of that identical film was choppier in house windows mass media participant 11 and VLC Player. There's no doubt within our minds how the HD playback find concerning the Mini 210 is miles forward of that of the Pine Trail netbook with out Broadcom within and that counts for something. However, we need to say that it isn't as seamless since it necessitie for getting to the carry out person along using the alternative persists to possess an amazing offer more restrictions than NVIDIA Ion-based netbooks. 

The decent information can be the reality that in circumstance you do control to acquire some HD films to play, the HP Mini 210's six-cell battery will allow you check about two films with out owning to dig near to for an outlet. When looping exactly the identical HD film the Mini 210 lasted for 4 several hours and 45 minutes, as well as a extended 5 several hours and 15 mins when examined owning a standard-def video. That's not as prolonged as other netbooks we've tested, but when we utilized the netbook to compose this masterful evaluation and listen to some tunes we obtained near to 7 several hours of runtime. offered how the three-cell battery obtained a disappointing a few of and 15 mins of juice on our film loop test, on the way using the six-cell appears like a no brainer. 

Despite our hesitations about instant-on OSes, HP has executed an amazing placement with its HP QuickWeb -- we such as the three panels one of which could pull in e-mail. HP's also preloaded the netbook with its MediaStream app that streams mass media from one PC to the netbook, and its CloudDrive that provides 2GB of storage space to permit for very easily transferring data to the mini-laptop. concerning one other hand, the HP support Assistant app couldn't be any an amazing offer more annoying with ongoing pop-ups. No, we do not need your help! 

Additional articles about HP Mini 210 Review

About the author

HP Mini 210 Review

Please Rate This Article

Select Rating Excellent Very Good Interesting Fair Could Use Improvement

Number of ratings: 0
Rating: 0