![]() ![]() I was, for the most part, wrong about that. I expected it to be easy, at least for me, because I have spent so much time the past couple of weeks loading and configuring my first 2133. If you want more flexibility, if you want or need a more modern Linux installation (SLED 10 is rather long in the tooth.), or if you just don't like the SuSE Enterprise business model, the obvious thing to do is to put one of the other free Linux distributions on the Mini-Note. This is, in my opinion, a very nice "open the box and use it" Linux netbook. As I said last week when looking at SLED 11 on my other HP 2133, it is a good, solid Linux implementation this particular version is well suited to the HP Mini-Note, so it doesn't require a lot of effort to install and configure, and you don't have to do a lot of running around gathering bits and pieces from other places to make it all work. It includes most of the packages that you would expect with a good Linux desktop, such as Firefox (browser), Evolution (email and organizer), OpenOffice, F-Spot Photo Manager, Banshee (media player), and even Real Player 10. The SLED 10 installation looks quite nice. It uses the " wl" wireless driver for the Broadcom 4312 adapter, so it is able to see and connect to both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz wireless networks. The lower screen resolution is noticeable, compared to my original Mini-Note, but it is not a significant disadvantage, and in fact a lot of people might consider this one easier to read. That is not the way I would have done the layout, but it certainly works. While it takes some time to familiarize yourself to the odd trackpad design with the buttons placed on opposite ends, we're pleased to report that the trackpad's sensitivity was excellent and we found that we could comfortably navigate with the trackpad without any problems.On the first boot, the Mini-Note went through a setup procedure for SuSE Linux, which ended up producing a disk layout with a 1 GB swap area on sda1, a 10 GB root partition on sda2, a 97 GB home partition on sda3, and a 1.8 GB recovery partition on sda4. In this multimedia department, the Mini-Note was a clear winner in its category and more so when compared to most other notebook speakers that we've previously tested. When we started testing the Mini-Note and got it to play both music and videos, we had a pleasant surprise with the volume output and clarity of the speakers, which was startlingly loud and clear without any distortion even at maximum volume. ![]() But it's not just the keyboard that's impressive. Squeezing an almost full-sized (92%) keyboard (that is well spaced and with excellent pitch) into the space limited by an 8.9-inch screen is something of an engineering feat, in our opinion. So it's no surprise the Mini-Note comes beautifully designed for its small form factor and quite frankly, we were amazed at both its compact design and size. We like to note (again) that the HP Mini-Note pictured here is not the final retail unit but it will look very similar as we've confirmed with HP that only very minor cosmetic updates would be present on the full retail edition. These days, most notebooks come with different colors and designs while allowing for some customization with skins. Gone are the days where notebooks were bulky and ugly and came in only one standard color, black. If there's one thing that HP is big on, it's definitely designing gorgeous notebooks for the masses. ![]()
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