HP Mini 2140 (HD Update) Review

by Jerry Jackson and Kevin O'Brien

With more companies entering the netbook market the one thing that is starting to set different models apart is the quality of the keyboards. The HP Mini 2140 offers an expansive keyboard that is comfortable to type on and is the closest you can get to a full-size keyboard on a 10” netbook right now. In this review we take a look at the Mini 2140 again, this time with the higher resolution screen option.

Editor's Note: Since the HP Mini 2140 with high-resolution screen is virtually identical to the Mini 2140 with the lower resolution screen, much of the text in this review is borrowed from our last review of the Mini 2140. If you just want to see what's new, skip ahead to the sections on the Screen and Battery.

Our HP Mini 2140 HD features the following specifications:

• Operating System: Genuine Windows XP (Vista or SuSE Linux also available)
• Processor: Intel Atom N270 Processor 1.60GHz (512 KB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB)
• Memory: 1GB DDR2 SDRAM, 800MHz, one SODIMM memory slot, supports up to 2GB
• Internal Storage: 160GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD with HP 3D DriveGuard (also available with 160GB 7200 rpm SATA with HP 3D DriveGuard or 80GB Solid State Drive)
• Display: 10.1-inch diagonal 16:9 HP Illumi-Lite LED HD display (1366 x 768 resolution)
• Graphics: Intel GMA 950
• Wireless: Broadcom 802.11a/b/g/n, Bluetooth 2.0, HP Wireless Assistant
• Expansion slots: (1) ExpressCard/54 slot, Secure Digital (SD/SDHC) slot
• Ports and connectors: (2) USB 2.0 ports, VGA, power connector, RJ-45/Ethernet (Gigabit), stereo headphone/line out, stereo microphone in, VGA webcam
• Input device: 92% full-sized keyboard, touchpad with scroll zone
• Dimensions (H x W x D): 1.05 (at front) x 10.3 x 6.5 inches
• Weight: 2.96 lb with 6-cell battery (not including weight of AC adapter).
• Power: 6-cell (55 WHr) or 3-cell (28 WHr) Lithium-Ion battery, 65W HP Smart AC Adapter with HP Fast Charge
• Warranty: One-year standard parts and labor warranty, pick-up or carry-in, and toll-free 7 x 24 hardware technical phone support.

Pricing for the HP Mini 2140 with higher resolution screen starts at $479.

Build and Design
The HP Mini 2140, like last year's Mini-note 2133, has a great design. Everyone in our office agrees that this ultra-mobile laptop has a solid chassis and attractive look. The brushed aluminum and plastic casing is durable and hides fingerprints well. It also keeps the Mini 2140 lightweight; only weighing in around 2.4 lbs as configured. The sleek business appeal feels at home in the corporate world, but the Mini 2140 is targeted toward students as well. One look at this machine and you can see why. Who wouldn't want an inexpensive mini notebook to toss in a backpack between classes, especially one that pretty much has a full-size keyboard?

HP was smart to keep the design of the 2140 mostly unchanged from the 2133. Nothing about the Mini 2140 feels cheap. The chassis is solid thanks to a combination of aluminum, plastic, and a magnesium alloy support structure inside. The larger 10.1" display is beautiful and easy to read indoors despite putting off some significant glare outdoors because of the protective coating. The Mini 2140 also comes with enough ports and storage capacity (thanks to the 160GB hard drive) that you might even consider using this business-grade netbook as your primary computer.

As I mentioned above, the keyboard is almost full size. It is 92% of a full sized keyboard, which is quite impressive for such a small form factor. It is much more comfortable to type on compared to the keyboards found on most 10-inch netbooks. However, the touchpad can be awkward since the placement of the right and left touchpad buttons are on the right and left sides rather than beneath the touchpad. As you can see from the pictures in this review the Mini 2140 also has neat power and Wi-Fi switches that light up and change from blue when on to orange when off.

Screen
HP uses a LG LP101WH1 LED-backlit panel under the glossy plastic cover. The display actually has a matte finish, which probably helps lessen reflections between the panel and outer cover. HP lists this panel as having a 200 nit brightness rating and a 400:1 contrast ratio. These figures are in line with what we observed in our testing. The screen brightness was in line with most full-size notebooks, but didn’t appear as bright as other netbooks. I think part of this is the Infinity cover and the higher resolution panel. Colors were bright and vibrant, making most images “pop” out at you from the display. Outside of a few high-end workstations I think netbooks offer some of the best color saturation levels. Vertical viewing angles were above average, with minimal color distortion at viewing above or below the optimal viewing angle. Horizontal viewing angles are better with colors staying accurate at wide viewing angles; although as the screen appears darker, reflections off the Infinity cover start to overpower the display. HP’s technical specification lists the official viewing angles at +/- 30 degrees horizontal and +/- 10 degrees vertical.

The higher resolution display is a huge benefit compared to the standard 1024x576 screen option for one reason; menus in Windows are almost all designed for a minimum height 600 pixels. It is a pain having to drag menus above the screen to find a cancel or confirm button. Other added benefits might include viewing a document and a webpage at the same time or editing large photos. Just be aware that if you have a hard time viewing small text on a screen, the HD display might not be the right option for you.

Viewing outside would be very difficult unless it was very late in the day, or it was overcast and you were under the shade of a tree. The added reflections from the additional screen cover make viewing in bright conditions difficult, making you change your position often to find a new sweet spot where a light isn’t bouncing off the screen into your face. Another problem we saw first-hand with the screen cover is its ability to capture dust between the layers. Some specs of dust were big enough to cast shadows on the display where the smaller ones just looked like white dots as they reflected light from overhead. On a normal screen dust is easily removed with a soft cloth, where this design requires full disassembly to carefully remove any dust without introducing more. In the picture below all the white specs of dust are ones trapped beneath the glossy surface. We tried cleaning the dust out ourselves using a cloth and compressed air, which took care of the big pieces, but still left a lot of small specks behind.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The keyboard on the Mini 2140 is simply fantastic. Last year we said the keyboard on the Mini-note 2133 "is the best keyboard we've seen on a notebook this small." That statement holds true for the new Mini 2140 as well. Sure, you can find better keyboards on larger notebooks, but HP currently has the best keyboard we've tested on 10-inch and smaller netbooks. The keys have the silver "HP DuraKeys" finish that makes them resist dirt and makes the letters printed on the keys last longer over time. The surface of the keys are also smooth to the touch.

Regardless, the most important thing to remember about this section of the review is that the Mini 2140 has the biggest and best keyboard you will find on any netbook or notebook with a 10-inch screen. It is literally almost a full-sized keyboard, so writing papers for school or reports for work is a breeze. You won't see spelling errors due to hitting the wrong keys as often as you might with the tiny keys on most netbooks. I didn't notice any signs of keyboard flex and really liked that most of the keys were full sized except a few. The tilde (~) key and the number "1" key are smaller than the rest of the numbers, which was quite odd. The space bar was also a little smaller than normal.

As mentioned previously, most people find using the touchpad on the Mini 2140 a little awkward. The right and left click buttons are what catch you off guard. The buttons are located on the sides of the touchpad and it's easy to forget where they are located if you're used to a regular touchpad. I would have liked the palm rest area to be a little bigger so the buttons could have been relocated below the touchpad like on standard notebooks and most netbooks. The button above the touchpad is a convenient feature that turns the touchpad off and makes it inactive when you are typing or using an external mouse.

Input and Output Ports
Every netbook on the market requires one minor compromise due to the ultra-mobile form factor: limited port selection. You simply cannot accommodate the standard array of ports you'll find on larger notebooks in a computer this small. That said, HP did a remarkable job packing as many ports as possible into the Mini 2140. The complete list of ports includes:

• One ExpressCard/54 slot
• Secure Digital (SD/SDHC) card reader
• Two USB 2.0 ports
• VGA out
• Power connector
• RJ-45/Ethernet
• Stereo headphone/line out
• Stereo microphone/line in

Overall, the port selection is amazing for a notebook this size. However, we would have like to see one of the USB ports replaced with a combo USB/eSATA port. HP uses combo USB/eSATA ports on almost all of their larger notebooks and the combo port allows you to use either USB devices or eSATA devices such as high-speed external storage drives. Considering how easy it would have been to make one of the USB ports a combo port, we're a little surprised HP didn't do that.

Here is a quick tour around the HP Mini 2140:

Front view: Power switch, drive status light, Wi-Fi on/off switch.

Rear view: No ports here, just the hinges and battery.

Left side view: VGA out, heat vent, USB 2.0 port, microphone in, headphone out.

Right side view: ExpressCard/54 slot, SD card reader, USB 2.0 port, Ethernet, power connector, and security lock slot.

One additional thing worth mentioning regarding ports is that HP doesn't offer built-in 3G WWAN (mobile broadband from a provider such as AT&T or Verizon) with the Mini 2140. If you want to stay connected to the internet via WWAN you have to use an adapter card in the ExpressCard slot or one of the USB ports. It's sad to see that HP doesn't offer the option considering that smaller netbooks like the Dell Inspiron Mini 9 offer built-in WWAN.

Performance and Benchmarks
If you've read our reviews of other netbooks that use the Intel Atom processors then you know that overall performance with the Intel Atom platform is very reasonable for most daily activities like web browsing, email, using Microsoft Office, listening to music, and even watching movies. You can even use photo editing software like Photoshop Elements or GIMP. That said, the Mini 2140 doesn't make the ideal photo editing tool because of the low-resolution screen and the fact that the Atom processor is slower than a faster notebook or desktop when editing large image files. You can play some basic games on the Mini 2140, but don't expect to play Crysis or Left 4 Dead at 60 frames per second ... or at all.

wPrime processor comparison results (lower scores mean better performance):

Notebook / CPU	wPrime 32M time
Lenovo ThinkPad X200 (Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 @ 2.40GHz)	32.119 seconds
Sony VAIO TZ (Core 2 Duo U7600 @ 1.20GHz)	76.240 seconds
HP Pavilion dv2 (AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 @ 1.60GHz)	103.521 seconds
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (Intel Atom N280 @ 1.66GHz)	114.749 seconds
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (Intel Atom N270 @ 1.60GHz)	123.281 seconds
Acer Aspire One (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	125.812 seconds
Lenovo IdeaPad S10 (2009) (Intel Atom @ 1.60GHz)	126.406 seconds
Samsung NC20 (VIA Nano ULV U2250 @ 1.30GHz)	173.968 seconds

PCMark05 measures overall system performance (higher scores mean better performance):

Notebook	PCMark05 Score
Lenovo ThinkPad X200 (2.40GHz Intel Core 2 Duo P8600, Intel X4500)	4,298 PCmarks
Sony VAIO TZ (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	2,446 PCMarks
HP Pavilion dv2 (1.60GHz AMD Athlon Neo, ATI Radeon HD 3410 512MB)	2,191 PCMarks
ASUS N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,851 PCMarks
Toshiba Portege R500 (1.20GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7600, Intel GMA 950)	1,839 PCMarks
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	1,555 PCMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	1,535 PCMarks
Samsung NC20 (1.30GHz VIA Nano ULV U2250, VIA Chrome9 HC3)	1,441 PCMarks
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GM1 950)	1,437 PCMarks

3DMark06 comparison results against netbooks @ 1024 x 768 resolution:

Notebook	3DMark06 Score
HP Pavilion dv2 (1.60GHz AMD Athlon Neo, ATI Radeon HD 3410 512MB)	1,520 3DMarks
ASUS N10 (1.60GHz Intel Atom, NVIDIA 9300M 256MB)	1,417 3DMarks
Samsung NC20 (1.30GHz VIA Nano ULV U2250, VIA Chrome9 HC3)	151 3DMarks
Acer Aspire One (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 950)	122 3DMarks
HP Mini 2140 with HD screen (1.60GHz Intel Atom, Intel GM1 950)	112 3DMarks
ASUS Eee PC 1000HE (1.66GHz Intel Atom N280, Intel GMA 950)	92 3DMarks
Sony VAIO P (1.33GHz Intel Atom, Intel GMA 500, Windows Vista)	88 3DMarks

HDTune for the built-in hard drive:

Audio
The built-in speaker performance on the Mini 2140 was nice, but not as impressive as the superior speakers on last year's HP Mini-note 2133. In order to accommodate the larger screen in the 2140, HP removed the large speakers next to the screen and used a pair of smaller speakers integrated into the chassis of the netbook. The end result is the speakers produce weak sound that's good enough for basic web browsing and online chats but doesn't provide a satisfying entertainment experience.

The best possible audio performance with this netbook comes via the use of external speakers or headphones. The audio output from the headphone jack is quite good and provides excellent, distortion-free sound for headphones or external speakers.

Heat and Noise
The ultra low voltage VIA processor in last year's HP Mini-note 2133 generated far more heat than we typically expect from ultra low voltage processors. Temperatures on the new Mini 2140 are thankfully much, much more comfortable thanks to the use of the Intel Atom processor. Temperature readings taken from the outside of the aluminum and plastic chassis rarely spiked above 95 degrees Fahrenheit ... compared to well above 110 degrees Fahrenheit in the previous generation.

The cooling fan was usually running at low speed during our tests and rarely increased to full speed. Most of the time the fan can't be heard even in a perfectly quiet office environment ... unless you put your ear next to the fan exhaust.

Below are images indicating the temperature readings (listed in degrees Fahrenheit) taken inside our office where the ambient temperature was 74 degrees Fahrenheit:

Battery
Battery life with the 6-cell battery option was great for the average road warrior who needs to work on the go without wondering why they might plug in. In our test with the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and XP set to the laptop/portable power profile the system stayed on for 5 hours and 26 minutes. If battery life is all that you are concerned about the ASUS Eee PC 1000HE got 7 hours and 36 minutes on its extended battery, but doesn’t include a higher resolution screen option.

Conclusion
The HP Mini 2140 is a very solid netbook that offers an amazing keyboard instead of something condensed that might be difficult to type on for extended periods of time. It wooed us last time we reviewed it, and it gets the same response again now that it offers a higher resolution screen. The other alternatives at this time for a comparable resolution screen is turning to the Sony VAIO P, at the starting cost of $899, or the Dell Mini 10 for $484 for similar configuration. Our big complaint with this model is the glossy plastic layer over the display, which adds glare and created a trap for dust. This is one cosmetic change that might look great on paper and in pictures, but in real life becomes more trouble than it's worth. Overall we were impressed with the excellent battery life, great build quality (except of the dust), and the starting price of $479 for the configuration we reviewed. If HP offered the Mini 2140 with a plain matte or glossy LCD, sans cover, this would be hands-down the best netbook money could buy. With the cover it is still an excellent netbook, but it loses some of its attractiveness.

Pros:

• Excellent keyboard
• Very good extended battery life
• Higher resolution

Cons:

• Glossy screen cover adds a lot of reflection
• Second screen layer can trap a ton of dust

 

Um, the Dell Mini also offers the "HD screen" (1366x768) as a $35 option.

 

Good catch.

This is easily my favorite netbook out on the market today.

 

I'd be interested to see how the display of the HP Mini 2140 compares to the 1366x768 display offered on the Dell Inspiron Mini 10. Then again, the Dell with the display upgrade ends up costing more than the better-looking HP.

For $479, you can get the HP Mini 2140 with the 1366x768 display, XP Home, N-wireless capability and 6-cell battery. Both come with 1GB of RAM, but only the HP is user-upgradeable to 2GB. I'd love to see the 1366x768 display option offered on the HP Mini 1000!

I'm thinking the HP would be the best performer, but the Dell would have longer battery life (since it uses the Z-series Atom processors and Intel US15W chipset)...

I've resisted the netbook "craze" so far, but the HP Mini 2140 is now very tempting! I wonder if they'll upgrade from the N270 to N280 any time soon...and should I even care about that???

 

Well the HP Mini 2140 isn't the only netbook that provides the closes thing to a full size keyboard, what about the newly released Samsung N120. Having typed on both, I'd put the Sumsung against that HP any day of the week. In fact I actually like the N120 better though that is a personal opinion. The N120 while it also has a glossy display it isn't nearly as glossy as the HP. The case is probably tougher on the HP and of course the higher resolution screen is nice.

 

Ain't the Samsung N120 a lot larger than the 2140? I remember they made the chassis a bit bigger to accomodate a large keyboard.

And the 2140 has a *gasps* LED Backlit MATTE 1366 by 768 res. screen! Matte, btw, means non-reflective.

 

Was it stated specifically on the option sheet? Because for some reason i fail to spot the matte thing ( maybe because it is late).

 

That glossy plastic cover is a heck of a lot more reflective than the Samsung N120's glossy I can tell you that. Now unless they have changed something between the previous release and this one as I've tested them side by side.

It is true that the HP Mini is smaller and the N120 did got a bit wider to accommodate a bigger keyboard, but if you compare the two the HP's keys are flat and because of that seem on top of each other, whereas the Samsung has keys that have indention's around them giving a bit of space. Again my own personal opinion by having typed on both, I perfer the Sammy (totally a personal choice). This does not mean I don't like the HP, I like it a great deal and being PRO HP for a long time it was my netbook of choice (initially). I was just saying that it isn't just the HP that has a killer almost full size keyboard anymore as this write up may lead one to think.

The other thing is the 6 cell battery still an OPTION, which means you end up having to pay another $100 bucks to get up to 7 hours of battery life. No doubt that HP is quality with super duty case and I'd love to have that resolution on my Sammy.

 

I don't think it's worthwhile. Laptopmag and Notebookjournal have reviewed a couple of netbooks with N280, it shows very small performance improvement over N270.

Samsung still uses the N270 in the N110 and as far as I know they get the best batterylife relative to battery capacity.

HP2140 with 6 cell is a lot ligher than Mini 10 with 6 cell, as far as I know.

 

Yikes those viewing angles and super reflective screen are terrible. The screen is already small and inconvenient enough to have to deal with that. No thanks.

Bring back matte screens please.

 

Don't forget our review of the Asus Eee PC 1000HE

 

Initial reviews of the GN40 chipset for the N280 aren't anything to rave about either.

http://www.fudzilla.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=13268&Itemid=1

 

haha off roadmap, I like that. Has a strategic tone to it.

About the chipset, I know many people who will deliberately buy a netbook if one with an Ion is released.

 

Now you know many +1.

Hopefully Lenovo or Acer will show Ion netbooks at Computex next month. Rumors are MSI and ASUS will not be putting out Ions.

 

Yeah but the Dell doesn't have gigE

 

Very nice review, I always did like HP.

 

The few reviews I've seen of models with the N280 said that any performance difference is negligible. I wasn't sure if the N280 had an impact on battery life and/or any differences in operating temps (heat). The fact that I new netbook models are rolling out every day still with the N270 answers the questions, I suppose.

How much does the HP 2140 weigh with 6-cell battery, it shows 2.6lbs for the 3-cell model. Dell also shows the Mini 10 with 3-cell as 2.6lbs.

The Mini 12 is only 2.72lbs in base form and 3.2lbs with the 6-cell battery. I didn't realize that the Mini 10 and Mini 12 are basically the same weight!?

I'm fond of the HP Mini 2140 because it can be upgraded to 2GB of RAM, too. The Dell Mini 10/12 are both limited to 1GB. I've also noticed that the retail versions of the Mini 10 have the 1.33GHz Z520 processor instead of the 1.6GHz Z530 (optional on CTO models). It hardly seems like a recipe for sales success...

 

I don't think the 1GB limit is real. 2GB is no problem.

The real life weight of both I don't know.

In case you did not know, Z530 (Dell 10) is slightly slower than N270.

 

The Dell mini 10 and mini 12 disasters use intel GMA 500 graphics. Just when you thought GMA 950 was the worst graphical solution possible...

Do the mentioned Asus battery run-downs also occur with 70% brightness? I get about 7 hours on my 6-cell battery with the screen at low and just surfing internet.

 

I was ready to pull the trigger and purchase a Samsung N120 when I saw this review. What is really alluring about the HP 2140 is the high res screen. To the reviewer, and others, who have used the high res screen on the 2140 and the standard displays on other 10.1 netbooks, how much does it really add to usability and enjoyment?

The Samsung N120 has a few things over the HP 2140, namely battery life, speakers, less glossy screen, slightly larger keyboard, and in my opinion, aesthetics (I like black much more than metallic). But the high res screen on the 2140 just seems like too much of an advantage in my mind, but I'm wondering if that is really the case.

I think for my uses, I would be doing a lot of word processing, and it would be nice to have two word documents open side by side, or a browser window and a word document both open side by side. High res display would really help in this regard, but then again, it would also mean smaller font size. I still have perfect eyesight (thank God) so I think small font size shouldn't be too much of an issue.

Can anyone offer more insight on the advantage of the high res screen?

 

The HP should have a better keyboard. I tried the older model at Best Buy once. First reaction was WOW. Feels like a business notebook keyboard, much less a netbook. Also the extra resolution will be very helpful. When I had my MSI wind it just felt too small. 768 vertical should be a good improvement. My old Dell X1 had that vertical resolution and I felt it was easier to use than my Wind.

 

GMA 500 supports some HD decoding for MPEG-2, H.264, VC-1, whereas the GMA 950 does not. With the appropriate software to enable hardware acceleration, the GMA 500 allows the Dell Minis to play 1080p HD video rather efficiently - apparently CPU usage never exceeds 30%.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=3494&p=7

So...you're wrong in that respect. Of course, the fact that Dell has limited their Minis to 1GB RAM makes a Vista set-up pretty unreasonable, which seems to be a requirement for taking advantage of the HD video acceleration.

 

The Dell Mini 12 was handicapped from the start by only offering Vista Home Basic rather than XP Home. After a month or so, they quickly changed their minds and XP Home became the default Windows O/S. Vista isn't even available on it any more. For initial buyers who chose the standard 1.33GHz Z520 processor coupled with Vista, the experience was definitely underwhelming.

My best friend bought a Mini 12 (1.6GHz Z530 and XP Home) about six weeks ago as a travel companion. After using it for a few weeks, he decided to sell it. I managed to sell it for him at the same price he paid for it (from the Dell Outlet). During the time I had it, I used it several times and it wasn't that bad. The deal-breaker for him wasn't the performance, it was the keyboard...

 

Well in reviewing it all, it appears to me that the HP Mini is just too handicapped in other areas to get stars in my eyes over the display. Unless you just need one of these now, I'd wait a while because you can bet one of these other manufacturers maybe even Samsung will come out with a machine that won't have all the handicaps.

The keyboard on the HP is nice, but again I don't find it any nicer than the one that comes on the Samsung N120 and I've typed extensively on both, not just checking out a demo in a store.

There is no doubt though that screen resolution would be very nice!

 

What are the handicaps? The only handicap I notice is the overly glossy screen on the HP. The Samsung N120 is indeed a fine machine, I'm torn

 

All the ones mentioned in this thread. You did read the thread right? LOL

 

Actually, GMA 950 does have an MPEG-2 decoder. I'd rather be able to have full support for my favorite OS than the ability to play HD content smoothly on a computer without a blu-ray drive (downloading is tedious).

 

Nice review, nice laptop.

Isn't it possible to somehow protect the screen to avoid the dust inside? I mean DIY method. This flaw is currently a deal-breaker.

 

I have an Eee PC 1000HA with the chicklet style keyboard that I upgraded to 2gb of RAM - also bought an extended battery for it that gives me up to 13 hours of battery life (3rd party vendor). For me battery life IS a big issue....

I have put my hands on one of these models the other day and although it is a very nice keyboard indeed I have found that the chicklet style keyboard is easier for me to type on, and I am a "stickler" for keyboards.

I must admit that the better screen res is a NICE feature that is beginning to emerge among the netbooks offered! Still I would stick with the Eee PC again if I had to choose between this HP mini and my current model.... The total price for both side by side is also about the same when you add the upgraded RAM and extended battery.

 

Anyone has the experience how the 2140 HD handle 720P movies or even 1080P movies?
I may sell my 2133 to buy this HD 2140.
Thanks

 

While the screen is nice i think i would have liked to see a picture of the desktop or internet browser with the screen, good review though