Laptops Arena

A digital media player is rare, like a rare coin, and in laptops' industry these rare items are mini-laptops. Good things come in small packages and it's a great idea to squeeze the best out of a laptop and put it into a smaller package, with a smaller price. There was a period when the smallest and lightest laptops had a bigger price than normal laptops has, and the best example is Lenovo's ThinkPad X300 or Apple's MacBook Air, which both weigh 3 pouns and are sold between $2,500 and $3,000. This is changing now.

The new generation of tiny laptops, which have various names, like mini-laptops, subnotebooks, ultrasmall laptops, netbooks, and maybe tomorrow there will appear more names for them, weigh less than 3 pounds and they cost less than $500. By 2012 the forecast about sold mini laptops is somewhere around 9 million, and today the circumstances are like this: 500,000 mini notebooks sold in 2008. The market should grow up to $3 billion.

The latest minis available are the HP 2133 Mini Note Pc, the Acer Aspire, the Asus Eee PC 1000 and the Sylvanica G Notebook. They all have webcams, WiFi and they can work with most of the files, but they are with one step behind of today's systems. None has CD or DVD, and a the screens are quite small. They keyboards might be challenging for adults, and the systems prove that the storage capacity is quite small since they have small hard drives or small amounts of flash memory. The real lack, notified by everyone is that they miss familiar operating systems, like Windows or MAc OS X. While Windows is an option on many models, others just choose Linux because of its low price and common hardware requirements.

Aspire is in the middle of this mini notebooks group, because it is bigger and heavier than Sylvania G product and smaller than the Eee PC 1000. It has a standard battery and it weighs 2.2 pounds and its dimensions say that it is a medium mini laptop. It has a small PC adaptor, which weighs 5 ounces, and it gives the Aspire a travel weight of 2.8 pounds, which is half a pound less than HP or Eee's products. The three-prong power plug will prove that it is a nuisance in older buildings which don't have yet grounded outlets. HP's mini laptop also has a three prong plug. This is a sleek mini laptop model, and Acer sells it in black, blue and pick. Whatever your favorite color is, the Aspire One looks like a computer which costs much more, but it comes with a vinyl slip case.

Asus entered the mini laptop market with Eee PC 701, and the company upsized the system in a while, and then Eee PC 900 was released. The first version had a $400 price tag and the second model came on the market for $550. Here came also Eee PC 1000, which is too big and to expensive. It is the largest and the heaviest of our examples, and this laptops is 1.2'' thick in the front and 1.5'' in the back. It comes with an AC adapter, and both they weigh 3.3 pounds which fit perfectly in their padded case. Eee PC 1000' speciffications look like this: 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor and 1 GB of system memory. The flash memory can store up to 40 GB of files, and the company also offers 20 free GB of online storage.


HP 2133 Mini-Note is an style and performance good combination example. The rounded aluminium case gives style to this mini laptop, but the computer has low points in the working or playing areas. It costs $550, and it is a nice mini laptop with excellent audio. This mini weighs 2.6 pounds and it is on the second place in our analysis group. With the AC adapter they have a 3.3 pounds travel weight and this is the same as Eee's. This laptop, just like the Aspire One requires also a three prong AC plug, which becomes frustrating at a moment. This mini laptop's system is a 1.2 GHz Via C7-M processor, which makes this laptop the slowest in the analyzed group. It comes with 512 Mb of memory and 104 GB hard drive. This mini has the largest storage capacity in the group we analyze and it comes on the market for $500, and the systems which have pre-installed Vista are sold for $600. It has, like Aspire One an 8.9'' screen, which works on 1024x600 resolution, and the display has a scratch resistant layer which protects it from damage. The speakers are on each side of the screen, and this means great audio capabilities. Usually the music is loud and clear, and the spoken word is also well rendered.


Sylvania's mini notebook is a real computer packed in a smaller box. The $350 price tag is quite good, and it has great performances for this price. It weighs only 2 pounds and it is the smallest possible notebook. Even the weigh of the AC added, the sum is 2.5 pounds, 10 ounces lighter than Eee and HP's product. The case measures 1.1''x6.8''x9'' which is slightly smaller than the other laptops'. This laptop has a 1.2-GHz Via C7-M processor, 1GB of system memory and it also offers a 30GB hard drive. The screen is 7'' on diagonal, and it can be slipped under a monitor stand. This mini has a bright wide screen, but the resolution is disappointing: 800x480. This notebook's basic connections are also a big minus: it has an SD slot for flash cards, but two USB jacks, as well as microphone, headphone and Ethernet.