HP Mini 5103: Looking at the Dual-Core Atom N550
by Jarred Walton on December 17, 2010 1:05 PM ESTHP Mini 5103 Subjective Evaluation
You can read our impressions of the HP Mini 5102 for additional input on the build quality and features of the 5103. Nothing has changed much in those areas: this is a great feeling little netbook, and outside of the change in color from black to “espresso” (brown) it’s the same. You get the best 10” keyboard I’ve ever used and solid build quality. Our test system does come with the smaller 4-cell battery, so expect to see a hit in battery life, but unless you need 8+ hours we’re okay with the decreased weight and having a battery that doesn’t jut out on the bottom. (Or you can simply purchase the larger 6-cell battery, which comes standard on the $400 SmartBuy model.)
A few other areas have “changed”—or rather, we received an upgraded unit that includes features we haven’t previously tested. The biggest upgrade is the display, so let’s focus on that for a minute. If you’ve used a recent smartphone, you have some idea what capacitive multi-touch displays can do for the user interface. In theory, adding such a display to a netbook would be a good thing; in practice, it’s not so clear-cut.
Touchscreen Analysis
There are two major issues I have with the touchscreen interface on the 5103. The first is hardly a surprise: speed. While it can be convenient at times to swipe a single finger down/up/sideways in order to scroll, the action is nowhere near as smooth or fast as on a good smartphone. Everything feels just a little laggy, and a large part of that feeling probably stems from the fact that this is Atom running a full copy of Windows 7. If there’s one thing I’d like to see Google get right with Chrome OS, it’s making Atom netbooks feel at least as responsive as smartphones. More on that in a second. And if you want to do something “crazy” like playing Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook? Forget it! There’s so much lag (mostly from the slow IGP) that your performance will be far lower than normal.
The second issue with the touchscreen interface is precision. Tapping on the screen to “click” often misses your intended target, and the same goes for dragging, selecting text, etc. With a UI build around touch, this could be alleviated, but the standard Windows UI isn’t sufficient. A mouse is a highly precise pointer that targets a single pixel; replacing that with your stubby fingertip that covers perhaps hundreds of pixels and then trying to determine where you clicked is difficult at best, and the result left me wanting.
Chromium OS to the Rescue?
With the above experience, I decided to give the Chromium OS a try on the 5103 (using the latest Flow build by Hexxeh). I actually tried the same build on an Atom Z520 + GMA 500 netbook, and that was a complete bust (likely no good drivers for the GMA 500); the experience with the 5103 was a bit better, but the touchscreen wasn’t recognized so I was left with a standard netbook. Chromium did boot up relatively quickly, but performance and optimizations for something like the 5103 aren’t present so the net result was even worse (in my opinion) than running Win7. Maybe the final shipping version will iron out the wrinkles, but we’ll wait and see.
The final aspect of the touchscreen that I need to comment on is the display quality. Subjectively, the contrast is clearly low, but that’s nothing new. The touch coating on the other hand made things look a lot worse than a standard 10.1” LCD. There’s a ton of “sparkle” across the surface of the display, and colors just look muted in comparison to other laptops. The objective testing results simply don’t tell the whole story here; I like the use of a 768p display on a netbook, because 600 pixels is just too short for typical usage, but with all of the above concerns I’m more than happy to ditch the touch interface for the time being. Perhaps that’s why you can no longer get the 768p + touch from HP, leaving it solely as a 600p option.
Broadcom CrystalHD Redux
The other area I want to discuss before hitting the benchmarks is the CrystalHD card. There was some speculation that my poor experience with Flash 10.1 and the CrystalHD stemmed from some other area. Lack of memory, Win7 Starter, and the single-core N450 CPU were all cited as possibilities. Well, the 5103 covers all of those bases and guess what still doesn’t work properly: that’s right, HD Flash videos. I tried a couple of 720p YouTube videos using both Firefox 3.6 and IE8, and the results were both choppy. It was a bit better than the 5102, so the combination of dual-core Atom and 2GB RAM did have some positive impact, but I still dropped over 400 frames (400 to 800 in multiple tests) in a 2:15 HD video clip. This happened with Flash 10.1.85.3 as well as the newer 10.1.102.64, so nothing has changed in regards to Flash support of the CrystalHD.
It is worth noting that this is purely a Flash issue: using Internet Explorer 8, I was able to grab the MP4 video file out of the cache directory and play that in MPC-HC using the Broadcom video decoder plug-in. CPU usage dropped from an average of nearly 60% to just 12.5%, and there were no issues whatsoever with dropped frames. The Broadcom decoder is capable of doing H.264 decoding at a much faster rate than an Atom CPU; now we just need the driver support/Flash support to make fullscreen YouTube, Hulu, etc. work properly.
Summary
I really don’t have much else to add here that I haven’t said in the 5102 review. This is a nice little netbook, but the price puts it into direct competition with a lot of laptops—including substantially faster CULV, Atom + ION, AMD Nile, and upcoming AMD Brazos offerings. We’ll see in the benchmarks next that performance is still a big issue, and the existence of 12.1” ultraportables like ASUS 1215N makes this a very difficult sell from the performance side of things. You’re basically paying for a “grab and go” netbook with software that will keep it in sync with your desktop, and as a small secondary or tertiary computing device it has something going for it. HP has also added a “DayStarter” feature that shows you a static overlay of your calendar while Windows boots, for those times when you just need a quick look at what’s happening. You can get nearly everything you need with the base $400 model, though, and that’s what we’d recommend as anything over $500 for an Atom-based netbook is simply too much.
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Belard - Saturday, December 18, 2010 - link
The quality of the build and the multi-touch screen doesn't make it worth $688~700, thats the point.An iPad starts at $500 and is more functional and easily better built. A 3G iPad starts at about $600. Hence, Apple's tablet has destroyed the netbook market over night...
The point of netbooks was a cheap and light-weight tool access the internet, they were NEVER designed to be your main-computer, even thou they are easily more powerful than the notebooks/desktops from 2001. And for $250~300, they *DO* make good kid computers (5~8) with their small keyboard.
The iPad make everything a lot easier. Hopefully we'll see even more tablet devices for the $300~500 range that are built well. Check out the enTourage - eDGe Dual Book, its about $500 and has both a B&W "paper" display for ebooks and a color multi-touch. And yes, neither of these devices replace a full size notebook.
JarredWalton - Sunday, December 19, 2010 - link
I have to *strongly* disagree with several of your assertions. First, to just go and state that the "iPad is built better" is completely glossing over many things. It's got a better display, and better touch capabilities, but total storage, memory, expansion options, and other features aren't better at all. I can't even tell you how silly it is to pretend typing on the iPad is a good experience... even with the addition of the keyboard dock, it's not something I would enjoy.In terms of pure performance potential, Atom N550 is WAY ahead of the iPad processor; it's not even close. In fact, even Atom N450 is way ahead of the iPad CPU. ARM processors of any form are a big step down in performance from even Atom, but they also use a lot less power. But there's more to it than raw performance (see below).
Another part of the equation is that the iPad sports a pretty decent GPU, all things considered. GMA 3150 is a joke, but I suspect the next generation Atom will improve that area. But a slow CPU with a moderate GPU can be made to work really well when you combine the final piece of the puzzle, and that piece is the OS.
iPad runs iOS, which is tailor made for the CPU + GPU + RAM combination that iPhone and iPad offer. Windows 7 works on Atom, but it isn't even remotely ideal. This is why I tried running Chrome OS on the 5103 to see what would happen. Even though the build I tried wasn't a great success, when we see the final Chrome laptops I think it could be a greatly improved experience. I'd still rather see something more like Android than basing everything out of the browser. When I boot up Chrome OS and launch into the browser, I'd rather see something like your typical smartphone layout.
synaesthetic - Monday, December 20, 2010 - link
Why isn't anyone trying netbook-oriented Linux distros anymore?I bet a lightweight Linux OS would absolutely fly on this thing!
I just recently put Ubuntu Netbook Edition on an old eee PC 900HD and it is at least twice as fast as it was running Windows XP. And the UBE UI design is somewhere between a smartphone and proper desktop Ubuntu, it really works nicely on these small computers.
My partner will soon be trading Windows 7 Starter for Ubuntu Netbook Edition on her Samsung N150.
I understand why Windows gained dominance on the netbook, but I wish it hadn't. Trying to run Windows on these things is what contributes to most folks' misconceptions about their capabilities. A netbook is perfectly capable of being a primary computer for people without extravagant needs--but only if the OS is tailored to the platform. Windows just isn't designed for these things.
Belard - Saturday, December 18, 2010 - link
In case you don't know...They make barbie-size Justin Bieber dolls. If I had more money to blow, I would get one and destroy and put it on Youtube :)
kilkennycat - Saturday, December 18, 2010 - link
I happen to have bought the Asus1215N-PU17 12-inch netbook in early October 2010.A great product, imho....
$484 on Amazon.
For that price, it comes with:-
D525 1.8GHz dual-core Atom
2GB Ram
Win7 Home Premium
GT218 nVidia GPU with Optimus fully functional.
( Zero problem with Bluray playback from an external BluRay drive either to the netbook screen or to a HDMI-connected 1080p display. WoW is very playable at medium resolution.)
Superb Wi-Fi sensitivity
1366x768 display
6-cell 56Wh battery
Typical 5-6hr battery "life"
Why anybody would pay any extra for a HP laptop or netbook today is totally beyond me....
Compared to other major manufacturers, the HP name means absolutely nothing today in terms of product support and HP's bloatware is probably the worst of any PC supplier.
I have sadly become closely familiar with HP's "wonderful" product support, having purchased a couple of HP laptops for family members, one 4 years ago and one 2 years ago. In the case of the 4-year old machine, there was a systematic motherboard failure in this particular model that results in the Wi-Fi first becoming inoperative, followed by other symptoms such as erratic loss of video. HP did issue a recall for a complete motherboard replacement about 2 years ago , but would only accept machines IN WHICH THE WI-FI ACTUALLY FAILED and BEFORE A SPECIFIC CUT-OFF DATE around mid-2009. Well, the Wi-Fi in our machine became inoperative in early 2010.... and the video started very occasionally but randomly blanking 3 months ago.The machine now bears a close resemblance to a door-stop... it cannot be trusted ever again. "Hard luck" says HP.. "the recall period has expired... only a $400 (or more) repair...." There was a time when a HP warrantly meant 100% lifetime support for ANY manufacturing defects discovered after shipment. That time is long since gone... it went when Carly Fiorino arrived at HP, it went with all the layoffs and the bottom-line focus....
The seconf HP machine I bought 2 years is still working fine, but I am keeping a close eye on product recalls...
Sorry, no more HP machines for me or our family.
JarredWalton - Sunday, December 19, 2010 - link
Personally, this is why I would never buy a consumer desktop offering from most OEMs. It's also one of my major concerns with laptops. Lucky for me I can use any one of a number of laptops, and I'm able to frequently move between models, but if I had to buy my own laptop I'd almost certainly get a business offering. They're usually made to last, come with better support, and don't go with the silly consumer fads. Unfortunately, they also cost a lot more and it's still tough to find a good LCD.Belard - Saturday, December 18, 2010 - link
I'm not a Mac user... but this is why Apple does very well...Apple would NOT come out with a product that is such a POOR user experience (not the same as defective yellow LCD screens on iMacs) - in which things DON'T work the way they should.
Really? $700 for this thing? For $525 or so, a person can pick up a 14" Thinkpad Edige which has about a 4hour battery and a far more powerful dual core CPU. Hitting about $700 - and you start hitting close to a bottom line $850 Thinkpad T410 series.
Of course, anyone can pick up any 15" wal-mart class bottom end notebook for about $400~500 with a more powerful CPU... yes yes, its not 2-3lbs with a decent battery....
netbooks work at the market with a $250~350 price range, anything more - a person should just get a normal notebook or a high end thin-notebook.
damianrobertjones - Saturday, December 18, 2010 - link
"The second issue with the touchscreen interface is precision. Tapping on the screen to “click” often misses your intended target, and the same goes for dragging, selecting text, etc. With a UI build around touch, this could be alleviated, but the standard Windows UI isn’t sufficient. A mouse is a highly precise pointer that targets a single pixel; replacing that with your stubby fingertip that covers perhaps hundreds of pixels and then trying to determine where you clicked is difficult at best, and the result left me wanting"Ok, I've owned a Latitude XT and XT2, Acer 1820ptz and 'even', an Archos 9. They all had one thing in common... an SSD drive fitted by me and a re-install of windows 7. I obviously did a small amount of tweaking, Windows search turned off etc.
I then CALIBRATED the touch option. I then changed the Display DPI to 125%.
Why can't reviewers MENTION these things instead of bashing something that, in all honesty, if perfectly fine, acceptable, easy to use as Windows touch? Baffles me
JarredWalton - Saturday, December 18, 2010 - link
Right. It would be great if Windows' calibrate option actually made things better. It works *okay*, but running the calibration tool (where you click on the crosshairs in the corners of the display) made things worse when I tried it. Maybe it's just this particular display/netbook, with a 1/8" ridge around the panel that makes targeting the edges difficult? As someone who uses an iPod Touch regularly I can say for certain that it's nowhere near as pleasant an experience. I've gone into the Windows Pen options, and there's nothing in there that I've tried that made the precision better.To better explain my complaint, if you're trying to "click" on a large button, the interface works well. Clicking on small targets is where you run into difficulties -- like say I misspell a word like "caibrate" and I want to go back and click in between the "a" and the "i" to insert the missing "l". Yes, you can do it, but it will often require several tries to get the cursor right where I want it. (And for the record, the iOS "magnifier" tool that helps you position the cursor feels equally clunky.)
But that's just one example; tapping on a hyperlink on a webpage when there are two close together is imprecise and you might get the top link when you were aiming for the bottom, or vice versa. There are radio buttons and check boxes where you'll "miss" because you didn't click right where the program wanted to.
Changing the DPI can help in some instances, and do nothing in others. An SSD will help speed up some things as well, but it certainly won't make Flash suddenly run smooth as butter. To pretend that such things are a panacea is disingenuous. To imply that "I'm doing it wrong" just because I don't like the way it works is just as good as Steve Jobs' comments on antenna-gate.
I've used a pen-based device before and that was better than using my finger on this netbook, but it still wasn't perfect. So far, every touch interface I've tried with Windows has worked fine for some things but not as well for others. It's a lot like the TrackPoint and Touchpad compared to a mouse; some people love the experience and others don't. But trust me when I say that I've done plenty of optimizations to make this netbook run about as well as it possibly can (i.e. disabling nearly all of the HP utilities and software, turning off Windows services that aren't necessary, defragging the hard drive, etc.) It's still sluggish and could benefit from an OS and UI optimized for netbooks and touch rather than a full copy of Win7.
NCM - Sunday, December 19, 2010 - link
damianrobertjones writes:"Why can't reviewers MENTION these things [SSD, Win7 reinstall, OS tweaks, recalibrate touch, search turned off] instead of bashing something that, in all honesty, if perfectly fine, acceptable, easy to use as Windows touch? Baffles me"
You may as well ask why some Chevy econobox isn't higher rated considering how fast it would go with suspension and engine work.
Why ever should a buyer be expected to do those things, and why should AT evaluate a product on that basis? Baffles me...