Quick thoughts on the Mini 1030

I just wanted to say that I am totally jealous of my mother right now.

She just bought an HP Mini 1030 from Best Buy (Atom/1gb/16gb ssd/10.1") and she's given me the privelage of setting it up for her.

And i have to say that I love this little thing. Sure it's not 'fast' but it definately gets the job done as far as surfing the net/doing hw/word processing.

The 10" screen I think is a PERFECT size for a netbook. I use a wxga+ 15.4" dell and I thought using a 10" 1024x600 screen would be abysmal. To my surprise everything is easy to read and most web pages render just fine.

I also have to say the keyboard on this thing is fantastic. It's obviously a little bit smaller than a normal keyboard, but the keys are big enough (and flat enough) to be able to hit the key you want. Honestly I think i have an easier time typing on this thing than I do on my Vostro 1510!

I even loaded up Heroes of Might and Magic III (oldie, but DEFINATELY a goodie) and it obviously plays wonhderfully (2d-game). But nonetheless its a great time waster in class .

My only complaint is that the SSD is rather slow, but I really don't know how much faster a 120gb 4200rpm drive would be anyway. But for my mom who is going to moving this laptop around quite a bit, the SSD option is nice.

I think i'll convince her to upgrade to 2gb of ram to put less use on the SSD for page file.

I have to say that, while I have no NEED for a netbook, i REALLY, REALLY, REALLY want my own!

Kudos to HP