Hewlett-Packard (News - Alert), which lays claim to being the world’s largest manufacturer of PCs, recently introduced an ultraportable laptop for the educational market, the HP Compaq 2133 Mini-Note. What’s so fascinating about this small, otherwise nondescript device is that it doesn’t use a CPU from Intel (News - Alert). Instead, its compute engine is the C7-M microprocessor from Via Technologies of Taiwan.

 

Via’s C7-M is a direct competitor to Intel’s inexpensive Centrino Atom processor which first appeared in handheld computers but will soon be incorporated into laptops in the 3Q 2008. Until recently, the mini-notebook market was dominated by the highly popular ASUS Eee PC, which offers an 800 MHz Intel Celeron processor, 512 MB of RAM and a 4 GB drive for about $500 (or about $370 on Amazon).

 

“Education shouldn’t end at the bell. HP believes providing each student with an affordable, creative multimedia tool like the HP Mini will better prepare them to live, learn and work in an information-rich society,” says Jeri Callaway, HP’s Vice President and General Manager of the Personal Systems Group of the Americas.

 

The little 2133 Mini-Note has quite a bit of bang for the buck: The most advanced HP Compaq 2133 for $899 comes with a C7-M 1.6 GHz processor, 2 GB of 667 MHz DDR2 SDRAM in 1 DIMM slot, a 120 GB 7200 rpm SATA hard drive, an 8.9-inch diagonal (1280x720 resolution) WXGA display that’s scratchproof, VIA (News - Alert) Chrome 9 graphics core, 2 USB ports, and an integrated VGA camera. The computer is housed in a substantial anodized aluminum shell, has HP DuraKeys with a clear coating on the keyboard that protects the keys, and HP 3D DriveGuard, which can shut down the hard drive when a 3-axis digital accelerometer chip detects a sudden movement or shock.

 

If the 2133 Mini-Note sounds too expensive, keep in mind that HP’s 1.19-kilogram 2133 ranges in price from $499 to $899, depending on the configuration (1 GHz, 1.2 GHz or 1.6 GHz models). The most inexpensive sub-notebooks begin at $499 for the model with a Via C7-M 1 GHz processor, 512MB of DDR2 memory, 4 GB flash memory drive for local storage and the SUSE Linux 10 operating system. (The 2133 can run either Linux or Vista). Expect a battery life of around two hours when using a standard three-cell battery and four hours with a six-cell battery.