On Tuesday, Hewlett-Packard announced its new Mini-Note PC, due to begin shipping next week. You might recognize it as the HP Compaq 2133, which was the internal HP name back when early images were leaked online.
The Mini-Note is nice-looking and boasts some appealing features: it weighs in at 2.6 pounds, has an 8.9-inch screen with 1280x768 resolution, and comes with an optional Webcam. But the difference here is it could, if need be, actually function as a primary computer: the option of SUSE Linux with a 64GB solid-state drive or Windows XP or Vista with up to 160GB of hard drive space.
The key difference for a lot of users, however, will be the Mini-Note's keyboard. It has essentially a full QWERTY keyboard, shrunk just 8 percent smaller than the traditional typing surface we're used to.
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