Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"There are netbooks and then there's the HP Mini 5102. Or at least that's always been our impression of the 10-inch business and education targeted laptop, since it isn't every day that you see what's supposed to be a secondary system with a 7,200rpm hard drive, durable aluminum chassis, spill resistant keyboard and capactive touchscreen options. Or you know, a $415 starting price. The Mini 5102 doesn't fall into the same class as those $299 netbooks -- considering our review unit rings up at $668 and all -- but does the extra dough really pay off in a noticeably better shrunken computing experience? We've been on a mission to find out just that over the last few days, so hit the break for our full review."

Engadget has a fairly in depth review of HP's Mini 5102 netbook. It is certainly top of the line for a netbook, but I can't imagine the market for people willing to pay $600-700 for a netbook is too large. During a recent sale I was able to get 2 Dell Mini 10s for less than the price of one of these. The touch screen display seems a little gimicky to me, and Engadget seems to agree stating "we'd be lying if we told you we put our fingers to the screen more than a total of ten times in our week of reviewing the netbook". Overall, a very nice computer, but probably a little too expensive for the netbook market.

"The HP Mini 5102 is the latest business and education-focused netbook from Hewlett Packard. It has a higher starting price than most netbooks, at $399 and up. But it also comes with a number of features that you won't find on most netbooks"

The HP Mini 5102 is definitely a top of the line netbook, but if the one you really want is going to cost $600-800, I can't imagine there is going to be a huge market for it. Given that you can get a decent 13" laptop for that price I don't really see this as worth the cost. I guess if portability is your ultimate concern it may be worth it, but personally I would just buy a small laptop.