Review HP Mini 5102
For:
- Superb build quality
- Nice keyboard
- A good set of preinstalled software
- Pleasant trifles in the design
Cons:
- Very, very expensive
- Moderate Atom processor
- Medium quality touchpad (awkward keys and no input multiple fingers)
If you need a reliable stylish netbook, with excellent battery life, the new HP Mini 5102 could be exactly what you are looking for. The second quarter of 2010, you can even buy a configuration with a screen having a touch layer to point a finger (touch screen) to turn it into something like a tablet notebook. Read our article to find out whether this justifies the netbook business-class money, which he asks for HP.
Specification of our HP Mini 5102:
- Processor: Intel Atom N450 1.66GHz (667MHz FSB)
- OS: Genuine Windows 7 Starter Edition (32-bit)
- Graphics: Intel GMA 3150, integrated
- Display: 10.1 “1024 x 600, Matte
- Memory: 1GB 800MHz DDR2
- Data Warehouse: 160GB 7200rpm SATA HDD
- Wireless: Broadcom 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
- Expansion: Card Reader 4-in-1, 3 port USB 2.0, VGA output
- Battery: Standart battery 4-cell (28WHr), extended battery 6-cell (66WHr)
- Warranty: 1 year
- Dimensions (W x D x H): 26,2 x 18 x 2,3 – 3,2 cm (including feet)
- Weight: 1,2 kg (c battery 4-cell)
Model VQ670EA with WSVGA resolution of 1024 x 600, with 1Gb of memory, HDD 160Gb 7200, 802.11b / g, Bluetooth, battery
Model VQ673EA with a resolution of 1366 x 768 HD, 2Gb, HDD 320G 7200, 802.11b / g, Bluetooth, battery 6-cell, and Windows 7
Construction and Design
C mean HP Mini 5102 looks like a slight upgrade of last year’s Mini 5101 … and reduced to a series netbook version of HP ProBook, designed for small and medium businesses. Specifically, it looks as if HP ProBook 4510s shrink to the size of a handbag. Mini 5102 just over two inches thick and weighs just over one kilogram, despite a very strong case that looks as if it were designed for decades of transportation in your bag or backpack. Nearly full-size keyboard makes it easy to type e-mails and edit documents … even if you have to do, putting netbook on the table in the cockpit, on his knees in the car or on a stand waiting in the office.
Now classic, design, in the form of shells, attached Mini 5102 is a sharpened form, and all-metal body emphasizes its business focus. Cover the screen of brushed aluminum is extremely good abrasion and resists even slam on her, only a little bending.
Now classic, design, in the form of shells, attached Mini 5102 is a sharpened form, and all-metal body emphasizes its business focus. Cover the screen of brushed aluminum is extremely good abrasion and resists even slam on her, only a little bending.
Open it, we find 10-inch display and a keyboard, framed by a glossy black surfaces. Thick frame around the screen provides additional protection and allows you to grab with your fingers not the screen when you open netbook. It is also possible to make a full-size keyboard, and even more so (a little bit about this below). In the end, I could not help feeling that either the screen netbook be desirable to do more, or the keyboard a bit smaller.
The hinges of the screen made of metal and provide excellent resistance to opening. You can grab Mini 5102 for one of the edges of the screen, tilt, and lift it above the table, and thus appears not even a hint that something may thus break down. Also, if the business requires the constant tasks of carrying a laptop, for example when making entries in a warehouse or reading data from the technological devices you can order an extra hand to carry the 5102, which is mounted behind the battery and makes the netbook transportation is very convenient. Mini 5102 is also available in red and blue colors, when suddenly black, you do not like.
HP engineers also have provided a few pleasant netbook features, which I like. Firstly, the netbook is equipped with attractive battery LED balance battery. Four lit LEDs indicate the battery is fully charged, the three lit LEDs and one flashing mean that you have left 75% of capacity, etc. Of course, the indicator in the tray of the operating system much more accurate, but this little feature allows you to quickly assess whether you need to bring the charger or not, without opening and including your netbook.
The hinges of the screen made of metal and provide excellent resistance to opening. You can grab Mini 5102 for one of the edges of the screen, tilt, and lift it above the table, and thus appears not even a hint that something may thus break down. Also, if the business requires the constant tasks of carrying a laptop, for example when making entries in a warehouse or reading data from the technological devices you can order an extra hand to carry the 5102, which is mounted behind the battery and makes the netbook transportation is very convenient. Mini 5102 is also available in red and blue colors, when suddenly black, you do not like.
HP engineers also have provided a few pleasant netbook features, which I like. Firstly, the netbook is equipped with attractive battery LED balance battery. Four lit LEDs indicate the battery is fully charged, the three lit LEDs and one flashing mean that you have left 75% of capacity, etc. Of course, the indicator in the tray of the operating system much more accurate, but this little feature allows you to quickly assess whether you need to bring the charger or not, without opening and including your netbook.
Another nice feature is the cover of the replacement memory module, equipped with a latch instead of screws. Just otstegnite battery and then to the right of the latch to the left and the lid covering the memory module, toss up. This scheme makes the replacement of the memory task for 10 seconds. I would like. to and from other netbooks it was all arranged as simply and conveniently.
The screen and speakers
10.1-inch screen Mini 5102 LED-backlit display has a resolution of 1024 x 600. Its matte surface prevents glare and reflections on the screen under bright lights in the office and improve visibility in sunlight. Despite the pleasant matt surface of the screen, we would like to see in the Mini 5102 could be exploited by 11.6-inch screen 1366 x 768, which can already be found on many of today’s netbooks. Resolution 1024 x 600 certainly enough for most common tasks, but many websites simply do not fit in the resolution of less than 768 pixels vertically. With this in mind, HP, at least, included with some software, designed to work with low resolution. On laptop preinstalled Corel Office (compatible with Microsoft Office), as Corel looks much better when working with such a small screen than Microsoft Office.
For those who are not suitable for such a license and who are willing to break one’s eyes resolution 1366 x 768 10-inch screen, will be able to buy and with such a configuration screen (though no harm will buy him and a magnifying glass). And here we once again recall the broad frame of the screen, which would squeeze here 11.6-inch screen. 11.6 inches with a resolution of 1366 x 768, ehhh …. Well, all right.
The vertical viewing angles of the screen average, with some color distortion when viewed from above, and the inversion of colors when viewed from below. Horizontal angles better, colors are not distorted even at very high angles. You will have no problems with showing clips from YouTube colleagues and friends at this screen.
Built-in speakers Mini 5102 is good for 10-inch netbook, but they are obviously weaker than the average 14 – or 15-inch laptop. I’m not particularly a fan of the location of the speakers on the front bottom edge of the netbook, as in this case, but their sound quality does not suffer from any distortion, up to almost maximum volume level. Dynamics do not have enough bass, but the spectrum of high and middle frequencies is almost ideal. The only problem, as I have noticed is the location of the speakers, sound which is distorted, if you place your netbook to its knees.
Of course, most audiophiles will want to use headphones or external speakers for better sound, but built-in speakers are good enough. In the audio output for headphones appeared small high-frequency distortion when using a pair of headphones during our tests, but with the second pair of everything was in order.
The keyboard and touchpad
As already mentioned, HP Mini 5102 features a large, protected from moisture, keyboard, only 5% less than the full-size. If you prefer a form and tactility of conventional keys, you may not like this keyboard. I would add, though I personally it is more like an island-type keyboard (like Chiclet), as on this laptop, because they have more distance between the keys to prevent accidental presses, particularly when printing in uncomfortable places, but this feature is that the keyboard I am not very for the soul, as I have the impression that this distance too much. Although the keys excellent feedback and it is a sufficient level of clicks and Clack for sound indication of pressing. I have not noticed any deflection of the keyboard when you print, even if it hit from the soul. In general, the keyboard in 5102 very nice print and this is similar to the keyboard HP ProBook 5310m.
Touchpad Synaptics, used at the Mini – is a normal touchpad, with the introduction of a single finger. This is of course somewhat old-fashioned against the background of modern touchpad with an option to enter multiple fingers, which allow you to quickly zoom in, rotate and scroll the image at several fingers. Of course, himself a touchpad on the 10-inch netbook a bit too small to enter a few fingers, but still strange to see a standard touchpad in a netbook with a price.
The sensitivity and response to input touch pad is accurate, even if quickly move your finger on it in different directions. Incidentally, the touchpad has a glossy surface on which one side is very easy to slide your finger on the other hand, because of this ease, as if the finger flew over her because of the lack of cohesion and skipped part of the sequence of input coordinates for the cursor. Right and left keys are located below the touchpad, have a mild impact on the press with a nice click. And also quite deep, typical of HP, speed keys, which we do not like. Although in this case, the width of the chassis from the edge of the keys to the edge of the notebook is less than, for example, in HP ProBook 5310m, and push them to be easier.
The sensitivity and response to input touch pad is accurate, even if quickly move your finger on it in different directions. Incidentally, the touchpad has a glossy surface on which one side is very easy to slide your finger on the other hand, because of this ease, as if the finger flew over her because of the lack of cohesion and skipped part of the sequence of input coordinates for the cursor. Right and left keys are located below the touchpad, have a mild impact on the press with a nice click. And also quite deep, typical of HP, speed keys, which we do not like. Although in this case, the width of the chassis from the edge of the keys to the edge of the notebook is less than, for example, in HP ProBook 5310m, and push them to be easier.
Ports of input and output
In terms of a set of ports, HP Mini 5102 is equipped with a set of middle pribamasov, which can be expected from the netbook. You get three port USB 2.0, cardreader 4-in-1, separate headphone and microphone port Ethernet, VGA-port and a separate key off wireless. Given that some configurations Mini 5102 can be equipped with an HD video decoder Broadcomm Crystal HD, we would like to see on this netbook, HDMI or DisplayPort, but they, unfortunately, not here.
A brief digression on HP Mini 5102:
A brief digression on HP Mini 5102:
Front: No ports, a separate power key switch off the wireless and speakers.
Left Side: Power Connector, Output VGA, vent and two port USB 2.0.
Right Side: cardreader 4-in-1, headphone and microphone port USB 2.0, Ethernet port and security lock slot.
Productivity and performance
The new Mini 5102 with an Intel Atom N450 did not show any obvious advantages in performance over the netbooks with the old processor Atom N280. Both processors have the same specifications, including frequency of 1.66 GHz, bus 667 MHz FSB and cache memory 512 KB. the main advantage of N450 is the new graphics processor Intel GMA 3150, while the N280 still uses the GMA 950. In our synthetic benchmarks Mini 5102 showed nearly comparable results with the ASUS Eee PC 1005PE … netbooks with similar characteristics, but at a much lower price.
The new integrated graphics GMA 3150 provided a small increase in 3Dmark06, compared with the previous generation of netbooks and better holds the load when playing high-definition video. In our VideoTesT Mini 5102 easily lost trailer cartoon “Up” in the resolution of 720p, but playing the video in 1080p resolution passed with a pass frames, stuttering and sound desync. From playing Flash initially caused some hesitation, but after installing the latest Flash 10 beta, we have no more problems with the clips in low resolution. YouTube Clips in the resolution of 720p suffered from stuttering and appearing in IE, and FireFox, but it was not so bad as to update the plugin Flash. Although the Mini 5102 and faster than the old netbooks, it has more to do with operating system Windows 7 instead of Windows XP.
The comparison test CPU wPrime: (smaller values correspond to better performance):
PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher values mean better performance):
Compares 3DMark06 graphics performance at 1024 x 768 (higher values mean better performance):
HDTune assess the performance of hard disk:
Heat and Noise
The external case temperature of the new HP Mini 5102 were quite comfortable and typical of the latest generation of netbooks. Indications, measured outside the body, during normal operation, remained quite tolerant to the wrists. Only when the temperature jumped – this during the loading tests the processor and graphics card when running games.
Cooling fan runs constantly, but the noise is not too loud, unless you’re sitting in an absolutely silent room. Most likely, you simply do not notice it under normal office or the audience.
Below are the temperatures taken at our office, with an average room temperature of 23 degrees Celsius:
Battery life
Hours of the increased battery life was very good. During our tests, with screen brightness set at 70%, wireless enabled, with periodic updating of pages of websites and constant use, Mini 5102 remain active for 8 hours and 43 minutes. This means that you can easily spend a day in a coffee shop, sipping coffee and gliding on the Internet for free WiFi. If you purchase a Mini 5102 with the battery 6-cell, reduce the brightness of the screen and allow netbook, switch off unused internal device, you completely vyzhmete of the battery over 10 hours of continuous operation.
Conclusion
In the end HP Mini 5102 – is a great netbook for business with only one big problem – it is indecent roads. If this netbook would be released five years ago we would have prayed for his availability, but we simply can not understand the initial price Mini 5102, comparing it with the price of the other netbooks.
Yes, of course, the Mini 5102 fantastic build quality, excellent battery life, and a good set of preinstalled software. But the screen at the same average, the size and resolution of the Precambrian period, does not stand touchpad and the average productivity … for netbooks worth a half times cheaper. We could understand the price, if 5102 would be equipped with a larger screen, faster processor and better graphics, but excellent build quality, perhaps all is not enough to justify such a price for most buyers and owners of small businesses.
If you find a sale on HP Mini 5102 at a price of 14-16 rubles, it would be a good price for the netbook business class. But if you’re willing to pay almost 20 thousand rubles for a laptop, you can consider some other interesting options, such as Lenovo ThinkPad X100e, not to mention consumer netbooks HP Mini 311 and ASUS Eee PC 1201N. Or even a laptop on the processor on the processor CULV, such as Acer Timeline 3810T / 8371. In the end, waiting for the start of sales of HP and let them happen as soon as possible!
Yes, of course, the Mini 5102 fantastic build quality, excellent battery life, and a good set of preinstalled software. But the screen at the same average, the size and resolution of the Precambrian period, does not stand touchpad and the average productivity … for netbooks worth a half times cheaper. We could understand the price, if 5102 would be equipped with a larger screen, faster processor and better graphics, but excellent build quality, perhaps all is not enough to justify such a price for most buyers and owners of small businesses.
If you find a sale on HP Mini 5102 at a price of 14-16 rubles, it would be a good price for the netbook business class. But if you’re willing to pay almost 20 thousand rubles for a laptop, you can consider some other interesting options, such as Lenovo ThinkPad X100e, not to mention consumer netbooks HP Mini 311 and ASUS Eee PC 1201N. Or even a laptop on the processor on the processor CULV, such as Acer Timeline 3810T / 8371. In the end, waiting for the start of sales of HP and let them happen as soon as possible!
For:
- Superb build quality
- Nice keyboard
- A good set of preinstalled software
- Pleasant trifles in the design
Cons:
- Very, very expensive
- Moderate Atom processor
- Medium quality touchpad (awkward keys and no input multiple fingers)