I have talked a few times now about the popular sub notebook or mini notebook market which of course was initially started by the highly successful Asus Eee. More and more of the other hardware vendors are waking up to the fact that there is a whole new market out there. Even Microsoft has had to respond by extending the life of Windows XP as Vista is not usually considered capable of running on these machines and it needed to provide some sort of response to the increasing use of Linux in this domain.

However just to buck the trend one notebook does provide a (more expensive) version with Vista as an alternative to the normal Linux that is usually provided. This is the latest addition to the market, the really nice looking HP Compaq 2133 Mini-Note PC with its sleek aluminum case. The external good looks are further supported by a keyboard that makes full use of the limited space, and a 9″ screen that boast a resolution of 1280×768. The notebook provides an impressive list of specifications that you would expect on a standard laptop including a 120 GB hard drive, 1 GB Memory, WiFi, Bluetooth, a network adapter, USB ports and a webcam.

It is not all good though, the default configuration of the Linux OS that is installed has not been so well designed for the unit and its intended users as was the case with the Asus Eee. In addition the HP 2133 is powered by the VIA C7-M 1.2GHz CPU instead of the 900Hz Intel Celeron CPU favoured by Asus for the Eee. Unfortunately this may not have been the best move as the few reviews I have read do say that notebook does struggle on the performance. Still a really nice looking piece of kit, and if you are want a small neat machine for email and browsing the HP 2133 may be a neat option.