HP Mini by Studio Tord Boontje (Intel Atom N280 Processor 1.66GHz, 1GB RAM)

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First Take

HP was one of the first vendors to partner with a fashion house for its Netbook design. It's first effort, the HP Mini Vivienne Tam Edition, was part minilaptop, part fashion accessory, but cost well over S$1,000 (US$719.06)--which is twice as much as most of its drab-looking competitors. The latest Netbook to join the ranks is the HP Mini by Studio Tord Boontje, which is a collaboration with a Dutch designer.
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First Take

By Darius Chang, CNET Asia
Nov 5, 2009

HP was one of the first vendors to partner with a fashion house for its Netbook design. It's first effort, the HP Mini Vivienne Tam Edition, was part minilaptop, part fashion accessory, but cost well over S$1,000 (US$719.06)--which is twice as much as most of its drab-looking competitors. The latest Netbook to join the ranks is the HP Mini by Studio Tord Boontje, which is a collaboration with a Dutch designer.

Upside: Besides having a striking white chassis and unique theme, it is also the first machine in the Palo Alto company's stable to sport the new HP 3D Imprint technology which give layers the top cover design and provides a three-dimensional perspective. This makes the animal figurines seem to pop out in relation to the floral background. According to the designer, he chose endangered animals to symbolize the fragility of our forest environment.

Based on the HP Mini 110, this machine has the same performance and feature set as the former. The keyboard is still one of the best in the 10.1-inch category, while the matte display lets the Netbook remain usable under bright lights. Best of all, despite designer touchup, the HP Mini by Studio Tord Boontje is much more affordable than the Vivienne Tam model, coming in at around S$899 (US$646.44). This is S$0 (US$0) over the standard HP Mini 110 model.

Downside: It would have been nice if HP had used this opportunity to revamp the trackpad. Unfortunately, this model still does not have multitouch capabilities. Moreover, the mouse buttons are still at the sides of the touchpad, which makes navigation a little harder than normal.

Another issue is the single headphone/microphone jack, which does not allow the use of earphones and external mics to be used at the same time.

Outlook: With exactly the same feature set and performance as the HP Mini 110, the S$300 (US$215.72) premium is solely for the unique Studio Tord Boontje design and HP 3D Imprint technology. Though the price tag is not exactly unaffordable, it may still be a deal-breaker for those on a budget.