The Leader of the Pack? Hands-On Video of the HP 2133 Mini-Note

In the words of Nelly, “It’s getting hot in here!” In the low-cost laptop market that is. We can now welcome HP, the number-one PC manufacturer, to the sub-$500 notebook club. Today the company released its long-rumored low-cost laptop—the Mini-Note.

The HP 2133 Mini-Note is a full-function mini-notebook, starting at less than $500, and according to HP is designed for the education market. However, its different models have us thinking twice about this system being strictly for the kiddies. For instance, our $749 review unit, which is at the top of the Mini-Note line, was souped up with a 1.6-GHz Via processor, 2GB of RAM, a 7,200-rpm 120GB hard drive, a six-cell battery, Bluetooth, and Microsoft Vista Professional.

Sounds far from budget, right? However, HP is offering four different SKUs including ones with a SuSE Linux OS. See the chart below: