Friday, July 25,2008 @ 8:35am
HP readies cheaper Mini-Note
HP is developing a lower-cost version of its Mini-Note portable, the company has admitted this week. The company's Australian Market Development head Jerel Chong says there will be a "lower cost" device similar to the current model (known as the 2133) but which "won’t be as durable" as the existing system and is primarily meant for retail, where the Mini-Note is generally unavailable and would often compete against lower-priced offering such as ASUS' base Eee PC models or the Acer Aspire one.
Whether or not specifications will change is unclear, though the current $499 Mini-Note is based on as little as a 1GHz VIA C7-M processor, 512MB of memory, a 4GB flash drive, and Linux. The Aspire one at $379 offers a faster 1.6GHz Intel Atom as well as an 8GB drive.
Launch information for the new HP system hasn't been disclosed, although news of such plans puts an update within the next few months.