HP2133 – First Impressions

My new HP2133 mini laptop was delivered yesterday, and so far I’m a very happy camper.  It came with Windows Vista Basic installed, which I’ve kept on for now.  I’ve also gone and installed a multi-boot system, and added Ubuntu 8.1 as well as Windows 7 beta as boot options.

The “Shrink Volume” and “Grow Volume” features in Vista worked nicely, so I didn’t have to format and re-install.  I’m happy with the performance of Vista with the default HP utils installed, so I chose not to do a fresh install for now.

As far as usability goes, the keyboard is excellent, with the buttons as big, maybe even bigger, than my desktop keyboard’s.  This post is the first that is typed on the keyboard, and so far I’ve had no mistakes, typing at my usual speed (around 60 wpm).

The display is crisp and clear, but with a default resolution of 1280×768 it’s probably not meant for people with bad eyesight.  Luckily I still have 20/20 vision.

The only problem I've had so far is the touchpad.  The buttons are on the sides, not at the bottom as with other laptops.  I'm already used to the buttons on the side, but what I've noticed is that my left index finger has the habit of hovering on teh touchpad after clicking, then when trying to move the pointer with the right hand, you get weird movements until you realise your other finger is on the touchpad. 

I’m still contemplating whether to move my email & some other apps into the cloud, so I have not installed any form of Office yet.  If I do, I think I’ll try something new and go for Open Office.

Keep your eyes open for the longer term review on this little machine, that should be up with a few long term reviews of other devices sometime in Feb.

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