The HP Mini series of netbooks are those tiny little laptops that are meant for home users who use the netbook for day to day works that are quite simple. The netbooks in general are not advisable for office users who put their machine’s brain to the maximum possible extent. This HP Mini 210 is a small 10 inch netbook with wide range of choices for the users to pick their best features. Hewlett Packard has seriously found its way into the people’s lives by creating products that are standard and well qualified. This Company’s products are known for their quality and also reasonable price. The netbook has great positives as well as downfalls. To know more about this little piece, do not rest your eyes, but instead, continue reading this article.

Design:

The 210 series netbook is packed neatly in a rectangular box along with few other accessories. The HP Mini 210 10-inch Netbook is available in different colours, charcoal, luminous rose, ocean drive, lavender forest and ice berry. All these colours are really good looking and appealing. The colours of the netbooks are neither too bright nor very dull. This color makes the netbook visibly clear to the eyes of the onlookers and also attractive. The edge at the back side is truly curved. These curved edges give the netbook a modern design and the netbook easily bends to a very large angle, almost flat. Though the screen is glossy, the edge is matte and so the screen is quite clearly visible without much trouble. The outer cover of the netbook is matte type and so there is no need for panicking about the finger print attraction.

The HP Mini 210 Series netbook has a 10.1 inch WSVGA HP BrightView Infinity LED Display screen with a native resolution of 1024 x 600p. The netbook basically does not support HD. However, there is the HP Mini 210 HD 10.1″ diagonal High Definition HP BrightView Infinity LED Display with a 1366 x 768p resolution available that the users can purchase if they prefer a HD netbook. However, the 10 inch screen can do very little for the High Definition scale. The netbook weighs nearly 3.1lbs and is not pretty heavy to carry in the backpacks. Moreover, the dimensions, namely, the width, depth and height are 10.55, 7.51 and 0.9-1.26 inches. The netbook has the thinnest dimension of 0.9 inch which is really good. The HP Mini 210 not holds a good design that appeals to most of the people who consider buying one.

Keyboard:

The island style keyboard is getting so much of attraction of these days. You ask anyone what kind of keyboard they prefer and the answer would be mostly the chiclet style. They are not only cute to look, but are comfortable too. This is a 93% full size keyboard and this means that the keys would be quite small because a 10 inch netbook would have comparatively smaller base size. However it is quite easy to type on.

Touch Pad:

The touch pad of the netbook is where the HP has failed to work properly. There is only small space left over for the touchpad and hence the size is not really enough. The two buttons are positioned at the bottom most place and resting the palm becomes difficult at times giving pain to the wrist. The touchpad supports the multitouch gestures and you would have fun swiping through the photos and you can also perform the pinching and flipping action. You will find a small LED glowing at the left corner of the touch pad to indicate whether the touch pad is on/off.

Microphone, Camera and Speaker:

The microphone and the camera have taken up their positions very similar to any netbook in the market. Both of them are present in the top bezel of the screen. The speakers are integrated on the front side of the netbook. With the speaker, microphone and camera working pretty well, the netbook can be used to connect to anyone and at anytime you need.

Processor, Memory and OS:

The HP mini 210 netbook comes with the Intel Processor. The Intel processors always bring smiles on the users’ faces because it is a processor that gives very minimum number of trouble to the users. The users can pick their choice from two, either the Intel Atom N455 or the dual core Intel Atom N450 processor. The advantage of the dual core is that the netbook performs the tasks really well at a very fast speed that multi-tasking would no longer be a problem. The netbook basically comes with about 1GB of DDR3 RAM memory. This can be extended however to about 2GB. The hard drive capacity is 250GB and at few extra pennies the 250 can be extended to a generous 320GB and even 500GB. This memory is quite sufficient for all the home users since they would never be in use of memory higher than this. Windows is the operating system that HP has preferred for its Mini 210 netbook. The users can either choose the Windows 7 Starter or the Windows 7 Premium.

Ports:

The ports of the HP Mini 210 netbook are placed on both the left and right sides. The left side holds the AC adaptor port, the 15 pin VGA, fan vent, USB 2.0 port and the headphone jack. You would find a small LED glowing beside the USB port that indicates that the hard drive connected is indeed working. This helps you ensure proper connection of the hard drive and its working. The ports on the right side of the machine are 4-in-1 multi-card reader, power on/off button, two USB 2.0 ports, the kensington lock port and the RJ45 LAN port. The RJ45 port is hidden beneath a cover and though it can be a nuisance every time to remove the latch and then plug in the wire, it can be really useful in maintaining the port from getting dusty.

The Mini 210 does not include a HDMI port which means that connecting to a TV, be it 3D, HD or a 40 inch LCD TV, is utterly impossible. However, we are still in the times where netbooks can not be expected to come with the HDMI ports. If you have many data in other laptop or desktop PC, you can easily connect to them with the help of the VGA port thus accessing the contents of the external monitor. There are three USB ports which help us to plug in any kind of drive into the netbook. Another sad point to note here is that the optical drive is not included internally within the netbook. There is an alternative for that, the users can buy an external optical drive if they wish to. But this is not usually a good choice since going for external optical drive would not be convenient since it adds up to extra cost. While the netbooks definitely can not overcome the notebooks in their ports, the netbooks are equally good and they encompass most of the common and essential ports.

Connectivity:

The HP Mini 210 netbook includes both the wired and the wireless connections. The port at the curved edge of the netbook is the RJ45 LAN port. Wired access to the internet is possible by connecting to this port. For wireless connection there is the WLAN 802.11 b/g/n. Bluetooth is optional, so those who need it have to get it separately. So the connectivity is good and with the Intel processor the speed of browsing would not be troublesome.

Battery:

This mini netbook comes with a 6 cell Lithium ion battery and it is packed in the box. The problem is that this battery protrudes too much at the back that it serves a dual purpose, as a stand for your machine! The promised battery life is nearly 10.5 hours but it is well known that this lifetime is practically impossible. For students and home users who use this tiny little netbook only for checking mail, updating their status in facebook or for working on their projects and assignments, the battery life is quite decent but then it even reduces to less than two hours when the tasks are pretty intense.

Performance:

The Mini 210 netbook comes with the integrated Intel GMA 3150 for the graphics. So for the netbook that does not hold High Definition scale, this graphics would not be of much use and for gamers this book is not really good. The fan vent keeps the netbook warm mostly but once the netbook is in use for a long time it gets noticeably hot and might be irritating too. The speakers sport good quality audio. Thus the performance is not really up to the mark.

Warranty:

The warranty of this HP Mini 210 netbook is for 1 full year.

Verdict:

The HP Mini 210 netbook is a small sized netbook with mediocre performance and okay features. This netbook would be a delight for students since it is available in attractive colours. But beyond the looks, the netbook has very few features to its credits. While this is a typical HP netbook, the netbook could have fared better. That said, the netbook could be a good choice for those HP favorites who like the curved edge finish and the metallic touch on the lid and put their netbook to light use, then you can definitely mark this one.

HP Mini 210 Netbook PC – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer HP
Model Name HP Mini 210
Dimensions: (W x H x D) 259 x 24 x 185 mm
Weight 1.25 Kg
Type Netbook
Display
Screen Size 10.1 inch
Screen Type WSVGA HP BrightView LED Display
Screen Resolution 1024 x 600p
Internal Components
RAM 1GB DDR3(upto 2GB)
Hard drive 250GB(Extendable up to 500GB)
Keypad Very small but good response
Touchpad Yes
Multimedia
Speakers Built-in stereo speakers
Communication Setup
Wireless support WLAN 802.11 BGN
Connectivity 3 USB 2.0 ports, Audio line in, Audio line out, 

1 VGA video output
Warranty 1 Year complete warranty

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