Verizon's new Mini Laptop

We just got our mitts on the Verizon HP Mini 1151 (generally known as the HP Mini 1000) and gotta be honest, we genuinely like what we see in the tiny package. Lovin it's built-in 3G card (no more cards or dongles sticking out from the laptop to get snagged on everything).

This is the first rollout of these new "mini" laptops, know in the industry as "Mini Notebooks".

The Mini itself has an acceptable enough specification sheet: a 1.6GHz Intel Atom N270, 1GB of RAM, an 80GB HDD, two USB 2.0 ports, 802.11b/g, SD slot, and Windows XP.

Very surprisingly, there's no special Verizon branding to be found anywhere, looks like a standard HP Mini 1000 with the big exception of Verison's built-in, internal hardwired 3G
.
The HP Mini 1000 is a well accepted mini notebook with strong reviews and performance.

Out of the box set up was a snap - once we got through the obligatory ten minutes of Windows updates and configuration.

The Mini ships with VZ Access Manager software pre-installed and on the desktop, and after a quick run through of the activation wizard (less than a minute), you are connected.

The Access Manager itself has been around forever it seems, and in general we found that after full start , it didn't take long at all to achieve a connection.

A full re-boot to active wireless connection took just about 3 minutes the first time and barely over 2 minutes on subsiquent boots.

Once we were linked up, we felt browsing was speedy and nearly blip free.

As a whole we found our common, everyday tasks like browsing, checking our email, and viewing videos on YouTube to be lag-free. We likewise had no trouble streaming Sirius in the background while viewing a (muted) trailer for Star Trek. The trailer took a couple of seconds to load, producing a little latency, but once it got rolling it played
without any snags.

We saw speeds of up to 866kbps down and 521kbps up but still pretty decent as far as we were concerned. This is probably not the machine or internet connection for heavy duty downloading, but for most things it's relatively snappy.

We also didn't detect any significant battery drain as a result of our heavy-duty internet usage -- we still got around two hours plus minutes off a full charge.

PRICING

Verizon's subsidized pricing of $199.99 (after the $50 mail-in rebate) with a two year activation on one of Verizon's Mobile Broadband plans calculates to -- at a minimum -- $680 a year (Verizon offers a $39.99, 250MB per month plan, in addition to a $59.99, 5GB per month plan).

It's a bit costly, but you nonetheless end up paying less than if you're buying the laptop straight-out and acquiring service on an individual basis. In the end, this machine and its accompanying 3G card -- are likely going to be completely acceptable for on-the-go, day-after-day tasks. People who are already used to to the netbook experience will without doubt see this to be a big convenience over a USB dongle,

Although we'd personally favor the flexibility of aforementioned stick. All the same, even if it does not exactly blow you away, you can't actually find too much to grouse about here, and to be perfectly honest, we find ourselves growing more impressed with this little guy by the hour.

For more info on the Verizon Mini Notebook and other Mini Notebooks, check out this cool blog. http://www.VerizonMiniNotebook.com