Last week, liliputing reviewed the HP Mini 1000 Mi version of the 10.1″ Intel Atom-powered HP Mini 1000 netbook series.
The model reviewed has a glossy 10.1″ display, 60GB HDD, 1GB of RAM, and Bluetooth, and retails for around $435.
While the Mini 1000 Mi is based on the Ubuntu Linux distribution, Hewlett-Packard has customized the interface to fit the resolution as well as the typical uses that people are using netbooks/ultraportable laptops for.
liliputing has included screenshots – you can see the Home Screen that the HP Mini 1000 boots up to is heavily customized – you have a display for your waiting email, links to a few of your favorite websites, as well as music and photos. The interface is nicely designed, for what it does:
In the center you have a search bar and a bookmark toolbar and 4 user customizable thumbnail previews for the web sites you visit most often. For the most part, this section is awesome. For people who treat their computers as a web browser with a keyboard, this is practically like being presented with your web browser upon startup. Just type a URL or a search term in the search box and hit enter, and Firefox will launch within seconds, displaying your web page or search results.
There’s also a customized program launcher and taskbar:
This task switcher gives you large icons with descriptive text explaining which apps are running. It’s a lot easier to decipher than the tiny icons you’ll find in the Windows taskbar or OS X dock, and an HP representative tells me that’s why HP decided to use this task switcher in lieu of a more traditional taskbar.
Read: liliputing