Netbooks, those small and ultra-portable notebook clones are all the rage for some technology customers when it comes to hardware mobility.
Cheaper than your average Netbook, but without a drop in specs. Image: Verizon/HP.
Earlier this month, Verizon Wireless launched its own Netbook promotion with the HP Mini 1151NR, which includes the Netbook itself and one of two Mobile Broadband packages. The Tech Herald was offered the chance to test one, including some of the add-on accessories. Here’s what we discovered.
It’s small, that’s the first thing you will notice after opening the box and removing the 1151NR. It weighs about 2.4 pounds (just over a kilo), has a 10.1-inch display and measures an inch in 'thickness' by 10.3 x 6.6 inches. Turn it on, and you will notice it is silent, completely silent. Occasionally, during testing performed late in the evening -- when the wife and kids were sleeping -- there was only the sound of a small click, the tell-tale signs of a hard drive working.
However, all of the slim space-saving design features and benefits of silent operation come with the strangest of drawbacks; the 1151NR gets hot, seriously hot to the touch.
The area just under the trackpad, as shown in the image below, tends to heat up after prolonged usage. Now, there's no need to worry about sustaining injury, it never obtains that high of a temperature. Yet, after constant usage, you will likely notice the heat through your clothing, assuming the 1151NR is positioned on your lap. If you use it on a desk and want to move it by picking it up on the underside, there is a strong heat source present. You could liken it to touching a cup of coffee that, while not scalding hot, was hot enough it let you know keeping it in your hands for too long would not be pleasant.
This side effect will of course subside if the unit is powered off. After about 10 minutes it is cooler to the touch, and 20 minutes leaves it cold. As the test hardware was not the property of The Tech Herald, we did not open the device and investigate the cause of the heat. We have our guesses, but since there is no proof, we will not point fingers.
Despite the odd heat up, the 1151NR is a great little Netbook. We did experience some connection issues however, which was a slight disappointment. Whenever we've tested Verizon handsets, we found Internet usage to be fast and highly available wherever we were. However, as you can see below, in one case of speed and performance testing of the network, there was a hitch.
When connecting from home, the EV-DO Rev.A network was much slower than expected. When outside the home, during testing over the Memorial Day weekend, the Verizon network had no issues, just in this one location. The reason we mention this is that it was the only time it has happened, and we’ve tested several Verizon devices, including Mobile Broadband Connect cards, without any such issues.
The Internet connection on the 1151NR comes courtesy of the Qualcomm Gobi chipset (quad-band GPRS/EDGE/GSM and tri-band HSPA/UMTS). The Gobi is cool, as it will work on just about any network, and for Verizon customers all you need is a SIM card to use it overseas.
The only other complaint is the placement of the buttons to the left and to the right of the trackpad. This makes things a little odd at first when getting used to the system. After a while you simply train yourself to feel for them and move on. The keyboard layout, while typically compact, was far better than a previous Netbook experience on an ASUSTeK Eee PC (ASUS). The keys are wide, easy to reach and, thanks to a button above the trackpad that disables it, you can type for as long as needed without fear of slipping on the trackpad and mucking up the document or e-mail.
It is important to remember that this is a Netbook and not a notebook. The 1151NR is able to tackle almost everything online, and with the advent of some very clever low-impact tools, we were able to perform some other office-related and IT-related tasks as well.
The reason to remember the difference with a Netbook versus a notebook is that the screen size (1024 x 576 on the 1151NR) on a Netbook is smaller, as is the keyboard. The system performance will be lower as well. The 1151NR uses a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270 processor, combined with 1GB of RAM.
This processing power provides a solid showing for a Netbook (although the N280 would have been an improvement), but will never compare to something like a fully loaded IBM T60 (4GB RAM max, Intel's T2500 Core Duo pushing 2.0 GHz). The point being that this is a great ultra-mobile system to use on the go for Web-related functions, but if you want to push it to the sales and marketing team, best go with something more muscular.
The 1151NR is a great system for home use and light office work for those on the go. SaaS usage, Google Docs, Salesforce.com, and other services were all tested; each worked well and would make the 1151NR valuable to a mobile professional.
However, attempting to work on documents using Microsoft Works, which comes pre-installed, was problematic after a while, because the more you work, the greater the load on the system. Also, while Microsoft Works allows you to view, but not edit, XLS and DOC files, opening several will lag the system. With that said, power users will be left cold on the 1151NR because it limits the options they have when compared to notebook systems.
Offloading some things to smaller, less resource-intensive applications will help. We tested several things in the PortableApps.com repository and had no problems performing various tasks at the same time, but again the use of tools from PortableApps.com is a decision most businesses will not make.
Similarly, OpenOffice was loaded to mitigate the shortcomings of Works, this helped with some of the lag, but not all of it. Again, the system performance duly dropped when several documents were open and being worked on. This reinforces the idea that the 1151NR is, at best, a casual business system, and better suited for general home use.
During testing, Dominic (13) used the 1151NR to visit online social networking communities. The site used most, Meez.com, is Flash and Java driven. Likewise, his brother Ray (8) used the 1151NR for the same site. In addition, Ray could be found watching Hulu shows, YouTube videos, playing Shockwave games, and using MS Paint to draw images of his older brother and titling them with the word "dork". At no time were there issues with anything online, but both young test associates did use full-screen mode while on Internet Explorer.
In truth, when it came to Web testing, aside from the connection speeds while at home, there was nothing online that the 1151NR couldn’t do. It helps that the OS is Windows XP Home with SP3, so most of the things one comes to expect from a computer in any format are present.
Since we mentioned the operating system, and this is a Netbook, security should be noted. Verizon offers Symantec’s Norton Internet Security 2009. On a notebook, Norton Internet Security 2009 is lightweight and fast. It is a serious improvement from previous Symantec offerings where the top complaint was that it slowed the system to a crawl.
On a Netbook however, Norton Internet Security 2009, while running a system scan during a viewing of Family Guy on Hulu, bogged the system down to the point that we were tempted to uninstall it and replace it with something else. The version of Norton included with the 1151NR is a trial, if you keep it and register it, make sure the system scans happen only when you are able to tolerate sluggish performance.
(If you remove Norton from the 1151NR, please do yourself a favor and replace it with another security application.)
In terms of hardware, there are two USB ports, the speakers offer up decent sound (much louder than expected), and there is a built-in camera and microphone. Video calls on Skype were average and, as the image below shows, the camera (640 x 480 for 30fps) is a little grainy. Even so, video conversations on Skype and AOL worked well. If you want to use the 1151NR to edit images from a camera, the SD slot offers up ease of access, but the more intensive the image editing, the more the system will lag. We used the SD slot to load images into Photoscape (photoscape.org), which worked great.
There are some other items pre-loaded onto the system, bloatware if you will, that just takes up room on the 80GB drive. One application that might be worth keeping, Roxio's BackOnTrack, does offer a measure of crash protection.
When it comes to battery life, you can expect a return of around three hours of solid life from a full charge, depending on usage. Most times the 1151NR shut down after about two hours of usage, but lasted just over three hours when only being used to surf online. The longer battery performance came on the home Wi-Fi signal. When using the Mobile Broadband connection simply to browse the Web, the battery lasted just over two hours.
Accessory-wise, Verizon sent us a selection of things that can be added to the purchase of an 1151NR. The standout item was the HP wireless mouse. It has a compact design with a small connector that uses one of the system's open USB ports; it was rather comfortable and worked on a solid surface, as well as the cushion of a couch. It retails for about $50.00 USD.
Another accessory, a protective sleeve, would come in handy while waiting to move through security at the airport as it’s sleek and rather comfortable to grip. The sleeve will sell for about $25.00 USD. There was also a privacy protector, which worked as expected from several viewing angles; it sells for about $30.00 USD. Finally, Verizon included a 16GB memory card, which retails for about $80.00 USD.
The kids loved the Netbook, and it was hard to pull it from their hands. Considering the cost, $199 USD after a mail-in rebate, plus a $39.99 USD or $59.99 USD per month Mobile Broadband contract (two years), it might fit into the budgets of those households that have teens on the cell phone and high data access charges. Plus, as my wife and I discussed, those long car trips could be a little less hectic as long as there is power to the system and a Net connection (if you’re curious, there is also a car adaptor available for the 1151NR).
Bottom line, for simple Internet usage and basic business tasks, the HP Mini 1151NR is a great Netbook. The Mobile Broadband service plans are decently priced, but they are an added cost to the system and required if you purchase from Verizon. Business users might not like the limitations posed by the Netbook itself, something that comes from design more than anything else. However, simple business usage was a breeze, just don’t expect too much out of it, and understand its limitations.
The HP Mini 1151NR from Verizon is available now. If you want to play around with one yourself, they are available for demo at Verizon Wireless stores.
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