Review: Hewlett-Packard Mini 5102

PCWorld: Review – Hewlett-Packard Mini 5102

The great features, including ruggedized body and touchscreen, make it a good netbook for business, but for the price, you could buy a pretty decent laptop.

The Mini 5102 is the latest in HP’s line of business-optimized netbooks, featuring a ruggedized metal chassis and design elements tailored for the office road warrior. It does a great job of offering features that business users care about, but they come at a considerable price; the configuration we tested, with a touchscreen, 2GB of RAM, an Atom N450 CPU, and an extended six-cell battery, clocks in at around $729–easily the cost of a larger, more full-featured laptop.

The fit and finish are excellent, if a bit angular. The brushed metal finish on the lid is handsome and doesn’t attract fingerprints or smudges. If you don’t like basic black, you can pay $28 more for a red or blue finish. Open the lid and you’ll find a keyboard that is quite easy to type on, with extra-wide , , and keys. It has a good clicky feel with plenty of travel, but no backlight or keyboard light for working in the dark. The touchpad looks a little small (a common problem with netbooks), but in practice it isn’t much of a problem. It tracks well, and the buttons are separate, distinct, and easy to use accurately without looking at them.”