HP Compaq Mini 700 review
in Laptops
1 of 2 
Verdict
It's a pleasure to use and it's gorgeous, but those looks do come at a cost in other important areas
Review Date: 25 Mar 2009
Reviewed By: Sasha Muller
Price when reviewed: £243 (£279 inc VAT)
Overall Rating
Features & Design
Value for Money
Performance
While the Mini 700's skinny frame might be a large part of its appeal, it doesn't leave a great deal of space for ports and connectors.
Peer around the slim edges and there are just two USB ports, an SD/MMC card reader and a single headphone jack, which has to double as a microphone input. There's no monitor output at all and if you want a VGA output you'll have to shell out £35 inc VAT for an external dongle.
The Mini 700 leaves us frustrated. In many ways it's an excellent netbook: the build quality is top-notch, the keyboard superb and the looks would happily grace a far more expensive machine. And at £243 exc VAT it's undoubtedly very good value.
Put it up against the A-Listed Samsung NC10, though, and it's impossible to ignore the smaller hard drive, mediocre battery life and stingy selection of ports.
Buy the Mini 700 and you won't be disappointed, but allow a litle extra for the second battery.
Author: Sasha Muller
From around the web
advertisement
- LinkedIn revenue doubles as membership soars
- Kodak kills off cameras
- UK broadband project spending £1m on legal fees
- Microsoft: Windows on ARM won't be sold separately
- Intel pays five hours of profits to settle antitrust case
- Windows 8 on ARM to run desktop apps... but only Office
- Ofcom dithers over plans to tackle broadband slamming
- Data boost bolsters Vodafone revenue
- Google working on cloud storage system
- Lenovo's profit leaps 54% on market gains
- Chrome's shine getting lost in translation
- BytePac: the cardboard hard disk enclosure
- How tech loosens our grip on reality
- Hokum watch: Safer Internet Day
- Why I'm deleting Adobe from my PC
- Prepare to be patronised: it's Safer Internet Day
- Dear Sony, Samsung and every other tech company in the world: stop trying to be Apple
- Will Apple's Final Cut Pro X update placate the pros?
- Smartr Contacts for iPhone review
- Switching to Office 365's Outlook Web App
- The ultimate guide to passwords
- How Apple lulls Mac owners into a false sense of security
- Privacy - outdated luxury or public necessity?
- Building the bionic man
- The making of open-source software
- Top 10 stupid security stories of 2011
- 10 techs to watch in 2012
- PC Pro's favourite tech products of 2011
- 10 most read articles on PC Pro in 2011
- 50 ways to make your PC better
- Why virtualisation hasn't slowed the growth of data
- How to make Google AdWords work for your business
- The curse of sloppily written software
- Paying for your crimes with Bitcoin
- Behind the scenes: tech support for Formula 1
- The security risk of fat fingers
- Why Windows Phone 7 isn't quite ready for business
- When will Microsoft stop fiddling with Windows 8?
- Flash down the pan?
- Metro Style apps vs desktop applications
advertisement
Printed from www.pcpro.co.uk