Prices for the device start at US$499 for a basic configuration including a 3-cell battery, and go up to about $700, the HP representative said.

One other consideration to take note of on the Mini 2140 is weight. The device I tested was heavy.

Although it is listed at 2.6 pounds (1.18 kilograms) for the basic system, the one I tested was far heavier than that. The 6-cell battery made a difference, and the HP representative said the one I was using probably weighed 3 pounds, but it seemed even heavier than that. The difference may be the aluminum casing, which offers durability and style but also more weight than the plastic normally used with netbooks.

The other main parts inside the Mini 2140 are the 1.6GHz Intel Atom microprocessor, and the device can hold as much as 2GB of DRAM. The configuration I tested did have 2GB of DRAM, as well as a 160GB HDD.