Call me what you will- Apple-Fan-Boy, Mac-Convert, Lemming- regardless, I have happily been using Apple products pretty much exclusively for a little over a year now. It started with my Gen 1 iPhone in August of 2007 and it has been downhill (uphill??) ever since.

That “gateway drug” led me to a white 2.2 ghz MacBook.  That in turn led me to a 20 inch iMac. When the MacBook died shortly after getting it (yes Apple’s “it just works” is a distance memory) I used Apple’s willingness to replace it as an opportunity to upgrade to a black 2.4ghz MacBook. Thanks to my frequent visits to eBay to sell lightly used gear, there have been an assortment of Mac notebooks ever since. My current Apple arsenal includes an iPhone 3G, Touch (for reviewing apps for www.whatsoniphone.com) a 24 inch iMac and a new 13 inch unibody MacBook. It all works nicely and the sheer enjoyment I get from using devices built with an eye to both form and function is tremendous. The integration between devices is pretty nice, too. Yup, Apple had me at “Hello”.

So how is it that I a started this post last week from seat 24D on Continental flight 1638 to Aruba on… a 10 inch HP MiniNote 1000?

It all started a week ago when I realized that vacation would be a great time for me to catch up on some posting. (Happy hour margaritas, a nice view of the ocean and a bit of blogging… not a bad way to spend a week.)  Thing was, I haven’t had a chance to put an InvisibleShield on my shiny new MacBook and since I have no illusions that it will likely be part of my on-going serial-notebook ownership, keeping it in pristine condition was a must in order to get top dollar when it eventually makes it to eBay. Add to that the fact that I would have to schlepp it everywhere with me since the safe in our timeshare is not large enough to hold the 13 inch notebook and it didn’t make sense to bring it.

Apple may well come out with a netbook at MacWorld this year (Sir Steve is protesting a bit TOO much!) but that is still the stuff of rumor and wishful thinking. Add to that the fact that, as proficient as I am with typing on my iPhone, it is still not nearly in the same league comfort, speed and accuracy-wise as typing on a keyboard or using voice recognition and I was left with only one option… get a netbook. (Editorial note- as I posted over on whatsoniphone, I ended up using my Touch far more than planned.)

I had a brief flirtation with one of the original EEEPCs last year but found that while it was groundbreaking it was ultimately unusable. I hated the trackpad, it was painfully slow and, to be honest, I’m just not a Linux kind of geek. You get what you pay for but, for me, even if it were free, the eeePC wasn’t something I would ever use.

NetBooks have come a long way since then so I figured it was worth another try.

A quick trip to CostCo later and I had my netbook- an Acer Aspire One. It was a pretty impressive device for $350. Having used an assortment of UMPCs when they were first introduced, the Acer felt familiar. The 8.9 inch screen was of similar size to my (short-lived) Samsung Q1P and Q1 Ultra but unlike the Samsung, the Acer had a real 1.6 ghz (compared to a 1ghz processor on the Q1s), a keyboard and trackpad. Moreover, like the Samsung, while it looked and felt a bit like a toy, it actually was rather usable.

Overall I was impressed. I was, however, surprised by its thickness. I had a MacBook Air for six months earlier this year and the Acer reminded me how awesome an engineering feat Apple’s first ultralight was. Then again, for the price of the Air you could get more than 4 Acers!

Unfortunately, it took only a couple of days for me to realize that the Acer just wasn’t going to do it for me. First off, the trackpad is horrid. Maybe the new MacBook’s mutitouch trackpad has spoiled me, but the Acer’s trackpad wasn’t nearly sensitive or accurate for me. Moreover, the trackpad buttons are so poorly designed and positioned as to be unusable for me. It reminded me of using the Asus EEEPC’s trackpad and I HATED that one. The final straw for me was the fact that the built in microphone was not nearly sensitive or accurate enough to work with Dragon Naturally Speaking. As one who relies heavily on voice recognition for writing this was a deal breaker for me. (What good is finally having a decent enough processor to run the software if it won’t actually run the software without schlepping a headset with me everywhere?)

“NetBooks aren’t for me, I’ll have to bring the MacBook anyhow.” I thought. So back the Acer was to go and with it, my netbook experience would be a thing of the past.

Thanks to their generous return policy, I stopped into CostCo to return the Acer NetBook yesterday.  The nice customer service person said, “Wow, third one returned today.” I wasn’t surprised. Even for a mere $350 a device has to be usable to be of value- especially in this economy. When Mr. CostCo was counting out my money he commented that the new HP MiniNote 1000s had just been put on the floor. “What the hell,” I thought, “can’t hurt to look.” (A gadgetholic should NEVER think, let alone say, such things!)

I walked over to the display as was super impressed by what I saw. The MiniNote is $150 more than the Acer and has similar specs (in fact, the HP’s 60GB driver is actually half the size of the Acer) but the HP looked and felt like an entirely different animal. Its sleek black plastic looks gorgeous and its 10 inch screen is exponentially easier to read than the Acer’s 8.9 inch. (10 inch is clearly the sweetspot in miniscreen-age for me. If I go any smaller I might as well use my iPhone!) At just 1 inch thick, it is thin and looks… well, in a world, cool. It really has a large degree of the Apple-esque design-appeal I have grown to love. The speakers sound remarkably good for such a small, inexpensive device. The built in digital microphone and video camera work with Skype and Dragon.

The biggest difference between the MiniNote and the Aspire One however is the keyboard and trackpad. The HP keyboard is probably the nicest keyboard I have ever used. I’m not just talking about a netbook keyboard but I mean ANY keyboard. At about 90% of the size of a full size keyboard, the MiniNote’s keys are large enough to be comfortable and close enough to make typing easy and comfortable. (This is especially the case since one of my wrists is permanently damaged so stretching my hand across a large keyboard is an issue if I want to avoid serious pain.) The keys are responsive and have just enough travel to make typing accurate but less tiring that I normally find then writing anything more than a few sentences.

The trackpad is… sweet. While it looks quite similar to the Acer’s, it is an entirely different animal. It is responsive (sometimes too responsive) and while the buttons look to be placed in similar position to the Acer they are, for some reason, easy to use. While I miss having multi-touch, the MiniNote’s trackpad holds it own with any notebook trackpad other than the ones on my MacBooks.

The HP looks and feels like it is worth every penny of the $150 premium over the Acer. Finally, where the Acer was impressive for its combination of size and price, the HP has a bit of that “Wow, that is a cool looking device.” Yeah, I’m shallow, but if Apple has taught me one thing, it is the fact that design and usability can go hand in hand. I now want and expect both.

Add to this the revelation that with a simple driver download the thing has BUILT IN 3G (haven’t tried it yet) and… this is one great netbook.

Finally, even with an anemic 3 cell battery, my initial sense (hey I only got the thing yesterday) is that battery life isn’t all that bad. With WiFi off, the screen brightness down and the power management on “Max Battery” I have written a piece for whatsoniphone and this and am only down to 70% of battery life. While I don’t expect to be dazzled by battery life, I suspect it will be more than acceptable for my purposes.

I picked up the HP figuring I would use it during this vacation and for a few months before tossing it up on eBay at a bit of a loss but a day into using it I have the sense that it might be hanging around for a bit longer than planned.

The only thing that would make it better… running OS X Leopard. (Yeah, I may be using a netbook running Windows XP right now but I’m still an Apple Fan-Boy at heart!)

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