It has definitely been an interesting testing experience with the Mini 1000 MIE [Portal page]. The netbook, as you have probably read, runs a custom Ubuntu interface designed by HP. They call it the Mobile Internet Edition of the Mini 1000. I am anything but a Linux pro, so I approached this as a newcomer to Linux. Luckily, HP is marketing the Mini 1000 MIE to less experienced computer users and not Linux pros. I gave you my initial software impressions not too long ago, but I’m ready to give you some more detailed information.

Home Screen

Where to start…. The home screen, as we’ve showed you before, does a good job of simplifying the computer experience down to some of the most commonly used activities on a computer. There is easy access to email, web, and photos/music. I have some issues with the home screen though; it seems like it could be set up to make people a bit more productive. My biggest issue is the photos/music section on the right side of the home screen. For some reason this is really unappealing to me. It shows the album art of the last three songs you have played, or the last three photos in your photo library. All it functions as is a shortcut to my photo or music library. Do I really need to have that 1/3 of my home screen experience taken up by the last three photos I put into the library? For some reason it just doesn’t sit right with me, I have no need to say “Hey look, those are the last three photos I took”. If I want to look at my images, I will actually go look at them, looking at thumbnails of the last three that I happened to take really doesn’t do anything productive for me.

I want dynamic information displayed in this extra space that is actually useful. You can squeeze shortcut button to my photos or music somewhere else on the home screen, but it seems like something else in this 1/3 space would be much more beneficial. One of the things I have considered would be weather. It would be really cool to see the current weather, temperature and, the forecast for the next few days. How about severe weather alerts too? Another idea, which could even be in addition to a weather section, would be some stocks. It would be nice to see some graphs of different stocks which could be customized by the user. Of course you could always p00  pull down some recent news from a major news website. This is the kind of dynamic information that I feel would be much more useful in this space rather than simply showing me the last three pictures I took, or the last three songs I’ve listened to.

The Web section of the home screen gives you a URL bar to reach any page, a drop down list of bookmarks, which aren’t easy to navigate if you have a lot of them, and four customizable squares that act as shortcuts to your favorite sites. It would be nice if each of the four site shortcuts had titles so you could see exactly what you were looking at. You can see small thumbnail previews, but all four of my boxes were filled with Google services, and every thumbnail was the Google login screen, I basically had no idea which site I was going to.

The Mail section of the home screen seems good in theory. There is a list of messages from your inbox right on the home screen. Mozilla’s Thunderbird is the application that makes all of this happen, and clicking on one of your messages in the inbox list will launch the application. I tried setting up Thunderbird using the automatic configuration of a Gmail address but it hasn’t worked correctly for me. It wanted to set up a POP connection to my Gmail account and it downloaded some very old emails for some reason. To be honest, I didn’t dig down and properly set up my email with Thunderbird for two reasons. The first of which is that I didn’t want to accidentally download a bunch of emails to the Mini 1000 and mess up the organization of my Gmail inbox. The second reason is that a target Mini 1000 MIE user should not have to dig through configuration options to make their email work, especially if they already specified that they have a Gmail account (it should know how to set it up correctly for them, given the proper credentials). I trust Thunderbird as a reputable email client to be able to be configured correctly for any email account that supports POP or IMAP, but the point remains that it shouldn’t be up to a target Mini 1000 MIE user to have to figure out how all of those ‘behind the scenes’ preferences work.

(Continue Reading on page 2…)

I’ve been testing the HP Mini 1000 MIE [Portal page] netbook for a few weeks now and I’m ready to give some performance information. As you’ll recall, the ‘MIE’ in Mini MIE stands for Mobile Internet Edition. This is HPs way of denoting their custom Ubuntu operating system which runs in place of a typical Windows OS. Unfortunately, because of the OS on the unit I can’t bring you the typical benchmarks. Luckily some benchmarks are already available out on the web from the XP versions which should give you a rough idea of what you will see, and I’ll point you in their direction toward the end of the post. What I can bring you however are some good old fashioned numbers (and maybe a chart or two)!

Video Playback

Video playback within a web browser usually isn’t considered a big deal on a desktop computer, but when working with the relatively small resources of a netbook, it can become a bit more serious of a task. In the screenshot above (click to enlarge) I showed the CPU usage graph while playing back a flash video from Gametrailers.com. This is SD footage. Flash HD video playback is too choppy for realistic viewing on the Mini 1000 MIE. I wouldn’t expect to be multi-tasking while listening to music through YouTube in the background. The CPU was around 80% usage during playback.

Boot Times

All tests are done with no apps open. Open apps will theoretically add a small amount of time to hibernate and standby.

	In (shutdown)	Out (startup)
startup/shutdown	16 seconds	45 seconds
hibernate	48 seconds	42 seconds
standby	5 seconds	6 seconds

 

It is clear to see that standby is going to be your best option in most cases, offering a pretty quick 5-seconds into standby, and bringing you right back to your home screen in 6 seconds. Startup and shutdown times seem fairly normal, but something is a bit odd with the hibernation times on the Mini 1000 MIE. In general, going into hibernate should take about half as long as shutdown, or at least be equal in its speed. In the case of the Mini 1000 MIE, going into hibernation takes the longest of any of the boot options.

A few things could be causing this. Let’s quickly define the difference between hibernation and standby. As the computer enters standby, it keeps all of the important OS files, and any running applications in the RAM, and powers down to a very low-power state, using only enough power to keep the data on the RAM alive. This means that it consumes a little bit of power while it is in standby. Hibernation consumes no power because the RAM data is backed up to the HDD (in this case, an SSD), and the computer shuts down completely. When turning back on, the data is rewritten to the RAM from the HDD, and the unit returns to the same exact state that was saved when it went into hibernation. Now that we know a bit about standby vs. hibernate, let’s theorize. One potential cause of poor hibernation times is a bottleneck in communication between the RAM and the SSD. Another reason could be due to the way that Ubuntu handles hibernation.

Either way, it is clear that a full shutdown or standby are your best options. In my testing I’ve seen that the Mini 1000 MIE should provide 70 hours of standby time which is pretty good. Put your computer into standby and come back 7 hours later, and you’ll only be missing 10% of your battery life. Considering you are only 6 seconds away from a full computing experience, I’d say that is a pretty good deal.

Battery Life

 

The battery on the Mini 1000 MIE is pretty darn slim. Take a look at the photos above. The computer itself says that the 3-cell battery will power it for 2 hours and 35 minutes from a full charge. The netbook is good at delivering this amount of time while you are using the computer for web browsing. While not available just yet, a 6-cell battery should be available from HP in the near future. Keep an eye on their accessories page for availability.

Benchmarks

As I mentioned, the non-standard OS doesn’t allow us to run our usual benchmarking programs, but the XP flavored Mini 1000 has been benchmarked by others, I’ll drop the SSD benchmark below, but also swing by this page to see some additional ones.

Check out the HP Mini 1000 MIE coverage roadmap for more coverage on this netbook.

You’ve probably seen my initial software impressions of the HP Mini 1000 MIE [Portal page]. Now it’s time to take a look at the hardware that makes the Mini 1000 so attractive.

The Mini 1000 is actually quite small. Have a look at a size comparison picture.

Opening up the Mini 1000’s lid reveals an impressively large keyboard. Not only are the keys nearly the size of a full blown laptop, but they also have good feedback and look very nice as well. The letting is a perfect snow white, opposite the majority color of the Mini 1000. The graphic letters on the letter keys themselves are printed very large and are easy to see, great for people who can’t quite type without looking down at the keyboard. For some reason the font on all of the other keys is very small and minimalist (example: the shift key); not too small, but certainly not making use of the space on the key. The board stretches from one end of the netbook to the other, utilizing all the space available to it, which is why they managed to fit such a large keyboard on a small netbook. The keyboard as a unit is not reinforced well from the bottom and will bend if you push down on the center of the board. If you aren’t trying however, you won’t notice this, that is just a build quality note.

Visually the Mini 1000’s keyboard might be very pleasing, and it also manages to have a lot of real estate, so you’d think it would be a great keyboard right? Well… not quite. Before I get started here let me say that the keyboard is very good, the best of any I’ve tested on a netbook so far. But, it might be a little bit different then what you are used to. I am used to a full sized desktop keyboard which has keys that stick up pretty high. The Mini 1000’s keys actually appear to be larger than those on my desktop keyboard. However, they are very flat and there is very little space between them. Imagine the seams on a concrete sidewalk. You know how each square of sidewalk runs right into the next one? That is very similar to the way that the keys on this keyboard are set up. I am a pretty fast touch-typer, I don’t need to look at my keyboard to type. One of the strategies that makes this possible is being able to feel the space between keys, and the edges of keys to determine where the next key lies. You can’t do that on the Mini 1000’s keyboard because keys are so flat and close together. This isn’t a huge problem though; it is easy to adjust to it after a short period of time, but you might notice it if you are very productive with a normal desktop keyboard. For the target audience of the Mini 1000 MIE it probably isn’t an issue at all, as they will be coming to the unit with little touch-typing experience.

The trackpad is decent in size, and it is mostly personal preference when it comes to liking your mouse buttons at the bottom of your trackpad, or on the side. When they are positioned on the side, like they are on the Mini 1000, it seems to imply that you are to navigate the mouse with one hand and click the buttons with another. I personally like to be able to do both with one hand, so mouse-buttons on the side are not the ideal setup for me, but for Mini 1000 MIE target customers, this would probably work well because it allows them to easily use two hands to operate their computer instead of just one. It is also a space-saving design decision to cut down on the size of the palm-rest and the overall footprint of the computer. There is a handy button above the trackpad which disables it. This is a nice feature when you are trying to do some serious typing. It is easy to accidentally move the cursor with your palms if you are typing quickly.

The Mini does a good job at finding a good design theme and sticking to it. No part of the device seems out of place, and the most complex and attention drawing part of the computer (the hinge) is subtle and stylish, which I think is a good description of the computer as a whole. Stay tuned for my extended hardware and software impressions and more coverage of the HP Mini 1000 MIE.

See the HP Mini 1000 MIE coverage roadmap.

I’ve been using the HP Mini for several days now and I wanted to give my initial impressions of the custom Ubuntu interface that HP is calling the Mobile Internet Experience. As I explained in another post HP designed the interface with the idea that less tech savvy consumers want to do three main tasks on their computer: browsing, communication, and entertainment. What I’m going to call the ‘home screen’ of the Mini 1000 MIE is really like the desktop of a machine running XP. You can’t minimize or close this area, it is the base level of the interface.

The interface is split in to three distinct regions. One for email (communication), one for internet (browsing), and one for music and photos (entertainment). Have a look at the home screen below:

The interface is visually appealing, there is good graphic design here. But how does it function? Well I guess you could say it is easy enough to reach these three functions, but if this isn’t how you want your home screen set up, that is too bad. The only customization options you really have is to change the four Favorite Websites which are just shortcuts to, you guessed it, your favorite websites. Right-click on one of these four boxes to adjust them. I wish that there were titles above each website thumbnail. If you enlarge the picture you can probably see that the Google Calendar and Google Reader thumbnails look very similar; it is hard to tell them apart from the thumbnail alone.

There is some good use of the buttons that normally consist of a Windows logo on most keyboards. The left key has an HP logo, and pressing it will take you right back to the home screen. The right logo key has a square of arrows, pressing this key will bring up an alt+tab style app switcher, which you can also use to get to the new app launcher. Both of these are beneficial when it comes to navigating around the computer’s interface, and I use them frequently, unlike the Windows logo key on Windows machines.

Sorry for the low res picture here; screenshot utility on the Mini 1000 MIE wouldn’t let me take a shot while the app switcher was up.

This isn’t all that the computer lets you do though. Hit the Start New Program button toward the bottom center of the screen to open a launcher that will let you peruse the rest of the applications on the computer.

I’m going to list all of the applications for you here because HP only lets you install programs from a list that they approve. So if you aren’t familiar with Linux, this is likely all you’ll be able to get on the Mini 1000 MIE. Not to imply that there isn’t a pretty good selection of applications here however. When I talked to HP they mentioned that they limited apps like this so that the less tech savvy consumer couldn’t accidentally install software that might cause issues on their computer (like crashing, or errors). Which means that they want to keep the quality of the computing experience high. I’m also leaving this here as a reference for people who might be searching online for which applications come with the computer. Note: I installed all the apps available to me by through the Package Manager program. The left column is the main name of the app, and the right is the descriptor underneath. For those that didn’t have a descriptor, I left the space blank. I listed the programs as they appear under sections in the launcher.

Internet —

Internet	Firefox
E-mail	Thunderbird
Instant Messenger	Pidgin
Video Calling	Skype

Media —

Photos, Music, & Video	HP MediaStyle (Powered by Elisa)
Webcam	Cheese
Sound Recorder
Photo Viewer	Eye of Gnome
Photo Manager	F-Spot Photo Manager
Disc Burning Application	Brasero Disc Burning
DVD Player	LinDVD
Snap Fish

Utilities —

Calculator
Text Editor	gEdit
File Manager	Nautilus
Info	About Me
Package Manager	Add/Remove
Time Utility	Time and Date
Software Updates	Update Manager
Prince Management	HP Device Manager

Work —

Word Processory	OpenOffice Writer
Spreadsheet	OpenOffice Calc
Presentations	OpenOffice Impress
Drawing	OpenOffice Draw
Calendar	Sunbird
PDF Viewer	Adobe Reader 8
E-Book Reader	FBReader

Play —

AisleRiot Solitar

Blackjack

Chess

Five or More

Four-in-a-Row

FreeCell Solitar

Gnometris

Iagno

Klotski

Mahjongg

Mines

Nibbles

Robots

Sudoku

Luckily HP was smart enough to make sure that the OpenOffice suite was in there which means people can do serious office productivity work without having to use a Windows machine, but at the same time they can ensure compatibility with other operating systems. OpenOffice, for those of you who don’t know, is a free, open source, multi-platform office suite, which can be used to create and edit many common productivity files, like those from Microsoft Office (think Word, Excel, PowerPoint) etc.). Without a powerful suite like this to help boost productivity of some of the most basic computing tasks, the Mini 1000 MIE couldn’t be a serious productivity tool.

While the interface does look good while it is standing still, I’m actually not very impressed with it when things are actually happening on-screen. There are some rendering issues. Very frequently I will click to launch an app, or pull up a dialogue window, and I will see the frame of the window load first, quickly followed by the contents. The opposite will occur while closing some windows. The content will disappear and then the main window space will disappear a moment later. In action, it doesn’t look very clean, and it seems unfinished. It seems like there is lots of popping of windows and borders which does not appeal to the eye. Though this probably isn’t an indicator of performance, it does have the effect of making it look like the computer is running more slowly. There are a few things that could be causing this. It could be a hardware issue or the OS itself.

That’s all I will share with you for my initial impressions, but stay tuned to hear about my hardware impressions, and to eventually see what I think about both after an extended testing period.

See the HP Mini 1000 MIE coverage roadmap.

HP has been kind enough to send us a Mini 1000 MIE (Mobile Internet Edition) [Portal page] which is the HP Mini 1000 netbook running a custom Ubuntu interface that is targeted toward consumers that need a simple computing experience. Have a look at the unboxing photos below and check further down for my first impressions.

Initial Thoughts

There are two things I noticed right away once I got the Mini 1000 MIE out of its packaging. First of all, it is really small. For a device with a 10″ screen this thing feels tiny. Second: This is a very attractive machine. This is one of the nicest looking netbooks currently on the market. If an Eee 900 is a Honda, the Mini 1000 MI is a BMW. There was lots of thought that went into the appearance of this netbook. The design is simple, but elegant, and I think that idea is reflected in the finish on the top of the lid which appears black from far away, but once you inspect it closely you see that there is a subtle graphic design that consists of lots of swirling circles. The hardware might be beautiful, but that doesn’t always necessitate impeccable function. Will the software hold up to your needs? Find the answer to this and many other questions regarding the Mini 1000 MIE as our coverage of the unit continues.

See the HP Mini 1000 MIE coverage roadmap.

HP recently sent us an HP Mini 1000 MIE (Mobile Internet Edition) [Portal page] netbook to take for a test drive. As the device is running a custom Ubuntu interface which I am tackling from a Linux noob’s point of view, I’m going to try to make my review of this device a rolling one. What does that mean you ask? Well, instead of using the unit for a few weeks and hitting you with a large review, I’m going to break the review down into a few sections and post them over the course of my testing. As readers you have the opportunity to ask questions in the comments section which I can read before writing a particular section, and see if I can answer them. Here is a little road map of sections that I will try to stick to:

• Unboxing
• Software Initial Impressions
• Hardware Initial Impressions
• Performance
• Software Long Term Impressions
• Hardware Long Term Impressions
• Summary Post (which will link all the sections together and be placed on our Reviews page)

I will retroactively link these sections in to this post as I write them so that anyone who wants to follow along has easy access to all of the sections that have been written so far from this very page (bookmark!).

 

Dynamism very kindly lent us this Asus R50A for review.

Note: The unit is said to be pre-production. As you will read in the review below, the hardware seems final except the speakers aren’t functioning. The software build is where the flaws seem to be. ultra mobile PC Portal reader Arthur, who owns an R50A, says that he doesn’t have some of the software issues (such as multiple radio connection apps) that I experienced with my unit. He also sent over his Vista Index score which I have posted below (my unit’s Vista Index didn’t seem to be calculating correctly).

Overview

Have a look at the R50A [Portal page] slate ultra mobile PC from Asus. A pretty nice piece of hardware that unfortunately lends itself to some poor software integration. I’ve been testing the ultra mobile PC for a few weeks now and regret to say that I am not impressed with it as a consumer device. Lets have a run-down of the specs first, shall we?

• 5.6″ 1024×600 gloss touchscreen
• 1.33GHz Atom Z520 CPU
• 1GB of RAM
• 32GB SSD
• Windows Vista Ultimate
• 3G HSDPA
• Bluetooh/WLAN
• GPS

If you are interested, have a look at my R50A unboxing. Here is a quick excerpt of my unboxing impressions:

The Asus R50A manages to be true to at least half of its “Rock Solid – Heart Touching inch slogan. The R50A feels solid in the hands and it is fairly well made. The 32GB SSD helps reaffirm that this unit is designed to be mobile in and in the user’s hands. The joystick mouse doesn’t move like that of an video game controller, instead it moves like the stick on a PSP, it moves left and right while staying on the same plane, as opposed to actually tilting from one side to another. Even after much practice with the thumb stick on my VAIO UX180, this thing will take some getting used to. This is the first slate ultra mobile PC that I have used, so it is a new experience for me; having to do my regular computing tasks without a keyboard. Going through Vista’s handwriting recognition training makes the recognition pretty darn accurate. The screen isn’t too smooth to write on unfortunately, and the stylus is small… too small for a ultra mobile PC that doesn’t have a keyboard.

Right out of the box, Vista is causing some serious issues. Right now I’m running the unit with the lowest possible graphical settings from Vista, and performance is still pretty bad. Vista is really obviously going to be a major bane to this otherwise good piece of hardware.

 

Hardware Tour

Front (left to right): Left and right mouse buttons, quick launch touchscreen menu button, Windows Media Center launch, user log off page button, sleep button, camera, mouse stick, biometric fingerprint scanner, arrow key d-pad + center enter button.

Left side: Micro SD slot, power slider, proprietary USB accessory connector, wrist-strap anchor.

Bottom: Microphone hole, air vents (intake).

Right side: Wrist-strap anchor, proprietary VGA connector (behind door), battery ejection switch, USB 2.0.

Top: Camera button, air vents (output), A/C adapter, mini-USB port, hold switch, air vents (intake), antenna connector, stylus silo.

Under the battery: SIM card slot for 3G, camera.

Battery: Camera lens hole.

A few size comparison pictures to the VAIO UX:

 

Allow me to introduce you to the recently released Acer Aspire One. The Aspire One is Acer’s first foray into the netbook space. It is nice to see lesser recognized laptop OEMs such as Acer have the ability to jump quickly into the netbook area with a quality product. I have been testing the Aspire One, provided by Dynamism, for the last few weeks and I have had a positive experience with the computer which is the first Atom based device I have used.

The Aspire One that I have been testing has a 1.6GHz Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM, 120GB HDD, and Windows XP ($450 with that configuration). The whole unit can be bought starting at a very reasonable $399.

Hardware Tour

Check out the formal unboxing here.

Front: Nothing on the front but a spring loaded WLAN radio toggle.

Left Side (right to left): AC plug, VGA output, small vent, 10/100 ethernet, USB 2.0 port, SD slot (SD only).

Back: Nothing but battery. Under the battery is a faux SIM card slot, presumably for integrated 3G on later models.

Right Side: Mic input, audio output, USB 2.0 port x2, multi-card reader (MMC, SD, xD, Memory Sick), Kensington lock.

LED Indicators: Battery status, HDD use, Num-Lock, Caps-Lock.

Screen: 0.3 MP camera.

And a quick size comparison shot.