the Onda

GigaOm had a good review of HP's recent entry into the mini laptop category created by the Eee PC, the HP 2133. I was most intrigued by the premise of the post which was that this new category of laptop should be more than just a shrinky-dink version of a regular laptop, and instead be geared towards "cloud computer" activities.

Since I recently got one of these computers to use as a travel PC (to show I can fly the appropriate flag when in customer territory), my interest in this line of thinking was particularly piqued. Here are my thoughts on this notion of the 2133 as a cloud computer:

From a hardware perspective, the HP 2133 miniNote is a wonderful machine, especially given its low price point. It's built like a tank and feels like it could take much more of a beating than my relatively sturdy Macbook Air. Of the 3 HP laptops I've had since having joined the company, it is by far the most "designed" one, and despite whatever anyone says about the Via C7-M chip being JV, it is plenty fast. The screen is really teeny, but it is bright enough and sharp enough. And it's got plenty of ports.

But then there is software. The machine I got runs Windows XP which is snappy enough and stable enough to do real work. However it suffers from two major flaws: 1. it takes too long to boot, sleep, and resume, which in 2008 is sort of like a car without ABS, and 2. it provides zero support for bumping the type size up on applications and the OS at a global level.

Given the tiny screen, this last concern is what may kill the 2133 for you. Even if you have relatively fresh eyes, some of the more text rich applications are almost completely unusable over more than 10-15 minutes at a time (at least without enduring a headache). Outlook 2007 for instance, is just too small to read comfortably. The machine ships with an HP utility that lets you bump up some of the font sizes; however, in my experience it seems to affect only window titles and random dialogs. Maybe the Linux version is better, though I doubt it.

However this is one place where being a "cloud computer" really does help. Because all of the best web apps tend to respect font resizing in the browser correctly, and because Firefox 3 seems to remember when you change the default size the next time you visit the site, Gmail, Google Reader, and an handful of other Web 2.0 apps are really able look great on the machine's diminutive screen— quite usable in fact when paired with the machine's awesome keyboard. It was surprising to see web apps beating the native client— at least until you stop to think that the machine is running an 8 year old OS!

I don't know that I'm quite ready to give up the Air for the 2133, but I could definitely see using it for a subset of limited "cloud like" tasks.

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