HP Mini 110 user reviews

5.0 stars

"Portable, lightweight and very reliable!" on March 30, 2010 by wds21921

Pros: Portable, lightweight and very reliable. Keyboard is 92% the size of a standard keyboard and keys are smooth and parallel for fast typing. Battery life is much better than a full size laptop and the cost is very cheap for the quality!

Cons: The 1Gb of RAM is just too slow. An average to advanced user will definitely want to upgrade the RAM imediately to 2 Gb which is easy and takes less than one minute. I would also like to see 6 cell batteries come standard with all netbooks.

Summary: To say I love this netbook is one thing but I even bought 2 more for my kids. 1 was purchased brand new for my son and my daughter and I each have a refurbished model. All are performing excellently and I've even tried 3 different Microsoft OS's on mine and each worked very well. If you're looking for a full size screen you may want a laptop rather than a netbook but for my money this was better than I even expected.
I also looked at and tested a Toshiba model but I didn't like the standup keys which proved to be very difficult (despite the fact I think Toshiba makes the best laptops by far) to type with much speed. The HP Mini's have parallel keys which are smooth and very close for fast typing.
The charge time is average to a little fast for the batteries and the architecture on the motherboards are excellent. The Intel Atom N270 1.6 Ghz processor runs in HT (HyperThread) mode and appears as a dual core processor when in fact it's only a single core processor. Given that factor, it still runs faster than a standard type single core 1.6Ghz processor with the HT feature added in and does VERY well handling graphics with the onboard video chip.

My sons HP Mini is a 110-1030, mine is a 110-1025DX and my daughters is a 110-1020. All perform almost identically and other than looking at the bottom of the case for the model number they all appear exactly the same in every respect as far as speed, look and overall performance.

The wired and wireless performance on all 3 was also excellent. I've had no signal drops at all which I can't even say about many full size laptops.

The BIOS on all of the netbooks is very sparse and minute. You don't have very much flexibility because of the design and application and size limitations so don't expect to do much in the way of overclocking. Stock out of the box they're a little sluggish buit no more than any other manufacturers models. Add the 2Gb upgrade though and you're running as fast or in some cases faster than a regular 15" - 17" laptop.

I also looked at an Acer model but I am not sold on the SSD storage yet. I've already repaired one eeepc twice for a friend and it was because of multiple failures from the Solid State Drive as well as his wireless card, which literally burned up. Another customer has an Acer eeepc with a regular hard drive and she's had not one problem with hers yet. Also I think that $250 for a mini with only 8Gb of storage space (SSD) is ridiculous and almost useless.

Most of the current netbooks come with at least a 160Gb HDD and you can upgrade them to the larger 640 Gb and 1 Tb drives if necessary (2.5"). So far the 160Gb drive has been more than enough for my purposes but at least I know I can expand if the situation calls for it.

I would have no hesitations at all in putting my personal repuation on the line and recommending this brand and these models to friends and customers. With the memory ugrade they are fast, small and very reliable. I use mine everyday working in a computer shop and I've already had several customers ask to try it out. Almost everyone of them have wound up buying one except for those who needed a full size laptop.

I also would recommend with the RAM upgrade that you use a laptop type cooler with built-in fan. With the added memory, they do tend to run a little warmer and it will help to prolong the life of your laptop/netbook anyway. Anyone who doesn't have one is playing Russian roulette with the lifespan of any portable computer.

My next upgrade will be a long-life 6 cell battery in lieu of the current 3 cell battery I am using now. My son's 1030 came with the 6 cell upgrade stock and it lasts at least 2 hours longer than the 3 cell and you'll also notice a small reduction in user time after upgrading the RAM on both the 3 cell and 6 cell batteries.

For my money the HP Mini is buy far the best investment I've ever made. I wouldn't hesitate to buy another one again.