Poor display, glossy bezel causes reflections
The HP Mini comes in several colour options and we tested the pink iteration (surprisingly doen’t look too feminine). The notebook isn’t tapered in any way and the body is pretty plain. The battery protrudes downwards rather intrusively giving the notebook a very forward sloping feel when it’s placed on a table. The lid mechanism is pretty sturdy and the HP Mini 110 gives the impression of being a solid product. The screen bezel is a glossy black that causes reflections; thankfully the screen itself is matte finished. The power button is actually a rocker switch and the same mechanism is used for the Wi-Fi switch. The LED indicators are embedded into the buttons themselves, and the lighting is pretty cool looking.
The first thing you notice about the HP Mini is the large buttons on either side of the trackpad that are vertically stacked. The right side of the trackpad has the vertical scroll bar. The second thing one cannot help notice is the really large keys. And no, the keypad is not any larger than similar sized models, it’s just the keys are flat with a very gradual and tiny dip towards the centre. The keys have very good feedback – they’re not too firm and not too soft. Thanks to the large surface area atop each key using the keypad is very intuitive. The trackpad is accurate and the material on the trackpad provides good feedback for your finger.
On the performance front, the display is strictly mediocre and follows the norm of 10.1-inch netbooks with a tiny resolution of 1024 x 600 pixels. The performance tests reveal it is a bit slower than the ASUS 1005HA but the margin is pretty small. Priced at Rs. 22,000, the HP Mini 110 is slightly pricier than what we’d expect, but no more so than other netbooks. However, it’s not the best deal around, and there are options that we have tested here, which will make you skip it.