While the 2140 keyboard is 10 inches across, the OmniBook keyboard is 10.25 inches. Not much difference. Keyboard depth is four inches on both. The new system has the flush, aluminum looking modern keys, but the older OmniBook has more traditional keys with some space between the key caps. There's little real difference between the two when typing.

On an airplane, the 2140 netbook fits far better on a coach seat tray. It's only 6.5 inches deep, while the OmniBook is 8.5 inches, as big as most seat trays. Worse, the OmniBook's screen sticks up 8.5 inches, usually banging into the top of the seat in front of me. The 2140's 6.5 inch screen height keeps it out of the way.

While the slightly smaller keyboard doesn't bother me, the smaller screen does. The 2140 uses the new 16:9 screen ratio of 1024x576, like HD TVs. The older OmniBook has a resolution of 800x600 that shows much more of a page at one time . I find myself scrolling up and down inside my browser and word processor constantly on the 2140, but then you can't get both small size and large display.

I take issue with HP calling the 2140 a “mini-notebook” because that perpetuates the idea a netbook does all the things a notebook does. Well, technically, that's true, but the netbook does them much more slowly. My OmniBook runs almost as fast in many areas as the new netbook, which should tell you plenty since the CPU is a Pentium III.

Do not buy a netbook if you do more serious work than e-mail, Web browsing, and light word processing and spreadsheets. The little boxes just don't have the horsepower of even low end notebooks, and if you want to crunch big spreadsheets or process audio or video, you will be frustrated regularly.