HP Mini 5103: Looking at the Dual-Core Atom N550
by Jarred Walton on December 17, 2010 1:05 PM ESTHP Mini 5103 Performance
The big question we want to answer today is what sort of impact a slower core clock with a dual-core CPU has on performance and battery life. HP says that in general they’re seeing about a 20-25% performance improvement relative to the 5102, though that of course depends on what sort of applications you’re running. Here’s our standard set of general performance benchmarks.
Our test suite tends to overemphasize multi-core processors, which means the dual-core N550 looks a lot better in the above charts than what you’ll experience in general. That’s why we include the single-threaded Cinebench result, because there are still plenty of times where that represents what you’d be doing with a PC, and in particular a netbook. The result is that there are times when the N550 is actually slower than single-core Atom CPUs, and there are other times where it can feel nearly twice as fast. PCMark Vantage ends up 58% faster than the 5102, PCMark05 is 38% faster, and our heavy-threaded testing is even better. Cinebench SMP is 68% faster, first-pass x264 encoding is 71% faster, and the second-pass x264 encode shows an 80% improvement. That’s the good news; the problem is single-threaded Cinebench is nearly 10% slower, and that does show up in general use.
I’ve used enough Atom netbooks to say that this is slightly faster overall, but it’s not a major performance increase. Instead, it’s a slight speed bump in most areas, and when you throw in results like that of an old 1.8GHz Pentium M 745 (i.e. the ThinkPad T42) there are a lot of applications where an old but fast single-core CPU still comes out on top. Windows 7 booted faster and was more responsive on a six-year-old T42 in practice, though like Atom netbooks it really struggles with fullscreen HD H.264 content (which is to say, it’s choppy and generally unwatchable). Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough time with the T42 to run PCMark, as I think the scores there would have shown more of what you see in the 1-CPU Cinebench test (perhaps not quite so dramatic, though).
You can also see a similar state of affairs when you look at performance results from the old CULV laptops like the Acer 1410 and 1810. The dual-core SU7300 completely eclipses the 5103, while the single-core SU3500 in the 1410 still beats the 5103 in every test other than x264 encoding. N550 does include support for SSE3, and that combined with Hyper-Threading gives it enough of a boost to come out on top in that particular test. Overall, however, the N550 can’t keep up. A more telling comparison is the Turion II K625, which boasts much higher overall performance for a lower price; if Brazos can offer a similar level of performance while cutting power requirements to Atom levels, the 2011 netbooks are going to be in for a nice upgrade at last.
Atom on its own is unfit for most games released this side of 2000, so we didn’t bother with even trying to run any games. 3DMark tells the story well enough for our purposes: the HD 4225 in the Toshiba T235D is five to ten times faster than the anemic GMA 3150 IGP. We’ll have to wait for the next update to Atom to see if Intel is ready to put a bit more GPU performance into their inexpensive processor line. We’d expect they’re ready to make that move, considering AMD’s Brazos targets a similar market segment; if not, we may see a lot more netbook design wins from AMD in 2011.
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evident - Friday, December 17, 2010 - link
Who in their right mind would buy a crippled laptop for $384. There are so many better choices of machines out there, such as the ULV C2D laptopstehslax - Sunday, December 19, 2010 - link
Its almost a scam.I have a asus dual core atom netbook(selling on ebay)
The performance is only SLIGHTLY faster than single core atoms
I wanted something portable but the loss in performance is completely frustrating
Ended up buying a thinkpad x201, yes its more expensive but I got protability with power
The netbook platform is a joke...
Shadowmaster625 - Friday, December 17, 2010 - link
...And the ship of sanity sails yet further away into the horizon. At what point does this absurdity become apparent to everyone? $1200? $2500? Hell HP should market a $10,000 crappy atom netbook just to see how many true suckers there are out there. I for one would like to know once and for all. Never mind that a K125 netbook costs $300 and can outdo this thing in every measurable category.So why dont we have more AMD design wins? I hope everyone understands why by now. It is because the guys who make the decisions on what chips to use.... well you know they all own 50 times as much Intel stock as they do AMD (if they own any AMD at all). That's because Intel is a DOW component. So if they have any money then chances are part of it is invested in Intel. So of course they're going to use Intel parts for the majority of designs, regardless of how craptastic they are. A $45 crystal HD decoder? Can I get a WTF? What kind of idiotic hare brained pipe dream hackjob solution is that? I bet broadcom execs bribed intel execs to make NM10 especially crappy just so Broadcom could sell a bunch of junk chips that dont even work right. Does an AMD chipset even cost that much?
Who decided that it somehow makes sense to waste $45 on a crackheaded patchjob HD video solution when they could just use an AMD chipset, which is cheaper anyway, and then dump that $45 into a larger battery?
erwos - Friday, December 17, 2010 - link
The pricing is absurd. The Asus 1210N and 1015PN come in way below that, even upgraded to match specs.Hell, my refurb Alienware M11x cost less.
lgpOnTheMove - Friday, December 17, 2010 - link
HP has the 11.6" dm1z Nile netbook. It's without a doubt the best netbook as far as performance is concerned, and not much bigger or heavier than a 10" Mini 210.I'm actually surprised why HP hasn't made an enterprise 11.6" netbook. I would love to see the Nile platform inside a chassis like the 5103.
seanleeforever - Friday, December 17, 2010 - link
okay. Jarred, do you really think this keyboard is "the best 10” keyboard I’ve ever used". I had a HP Mini 210, not 5103, but something that has the exact same keyboard. it is easily the WORST keyboard i have used (i give it to my cousin the second day because of it). and it has nothing to do with the keyboard built. it has to do with stupid keys themselves. and i simply cannot understand why this review doesn't even mention this gigantic flaw (unless they changed it in 5103, which i doubt)the smart HP engineers thought no one use F keys, as a result, the secondary function of "F" keys are swapped with the primary function. confusing? let me give you an example.
say you want to close a program by ctrl + F4, perform a search by pressing F3, refresh website using F5, or go to address bar using F6, or full screen using F11. you cannot do it. you have to press fn + F keys to do. i mean, unless you are totally newb who doesn't use any shortcut keys, this laptop is simply unusable. to close an application i now have to press fn+ctrl+f4. some more complicated actions such as print word doc ("Ctrl + Shift + F12") now is unachievable thanks to this stupid keyboard.
NOW. as i learned later on there is a way to solve it, and that is going to BIOS. but why doesn't HP make it default? and not every computer you use will give you the access to BIOS. and how many end user actually know this trick?
all in all, giant flaw, i repeat. GIANT FLAW.
JarredWalton - Friday, December 17, 2010 - link
I don't know about the 210, but I did try the Mini 311 and it's definitely not the same keyboard. Also, as you mention you can switch the functionality of the F keys in the BIOS, which is something I did almost immediately. Dell and a few others have tried the same thing for some reason... blame silly UI consultants. That said, the "best 10" keyboard" is still a far cry from a good 13.3" keyboard. :-)Belard - Saturday, December 18, 2010 - link
Its a reason I don't like Microsoft keyboards as the default settings for F-function are swapped for something else "Launch Word" "Launch Browser" etc. So after every time you boot up, you have to press the F-Lock key to turn on Normal F-Keys.I think the big-boys have done market research and found that most of todays users, especially younger generation, don't really make much use of F-Keys. Look at the ChromeOS netbooks for example... even doing away with the CAPS-Lock (which is understandable, if they simply make Holding the SHIFT key for a second turned it into a lock).
Jackattak - Friday, December 17, 2010 - link
$688 for a netbook is obscene. I don't care what freakin' market you're in for a portable PC or what "selection of features" you're looking for. Anyone stupid enough to spend that kind of money on a freakin' netbook deserves to be a victim of a Justin Bieber concert teenage girl stampede.Malih - Friday, December 17, 2010 - link
I think that price is only when you have opted for multi touch screen, and multi touch NOTEbook is priced higher than $688, cmiiw