HP Fansite

HP Mini 2140: Where are the speakers?!!

When I first saw the HP Mini 2140 with the bigger screen, and naturally, reduced bezel around it, I wondered to myself “Just where did the speakers go?”. From the initial press pictures and “virtual demo” on Hewlett Packard’s website, I couldn’t see the speakers in ANY of the press photos at all. And apparently, many of our readers’ enquiring minds wanted to know as well…

Thankfully, a HP Mini 2140 dropped into my hands about an hour after the official announcement and as soon as it did, I inspected the entire netbook for the speakers… just about everything, down to the arrangement of the various connectivity ports, was the same as on the Mini 2133. I lifted the Mini 2140 up (making it activate the 3D Drive Guard HDD protection system) but no speakers underneath either.

Within minutes of posting my hands on with the HP Mini 2140, my Outlook account became swamped with emails from people asking (and demanding to know) “where are the Mini 2140′s speakers?”.

Alright, enough with the suspense, the HP Mini 2140′s speakers are located just below its 10 inch screen – in the gap between the screen and battery so it’s not really visible (See the blue arrow in the picture above). Rest assured, there are TWO speakers (for those who cannot live without stereo sound).

Sound quality of the HP Mini 2140′s speakers were very good – I’ve played some movies and several albums of music on this netbook already. The speakers here are louder than most other netbooks; louder than its predecessor Mini 2133 even! The secret behind this is probably the speaker placement which I just mentioned – which allows the sound to be “bounced” off the battery to the screen to you (this also seems to give the sound more ‘depth’)… or maybe HP just put in better speakers in the Mini 2140.

Something worthy of note is that the HP Mini 2133 and HP Mini 2140 have speakers which are sensibly and strategically place; which aren’t blocked by anything. Most netbooks have their speakers in odd places, like on the underside of the netbook, which tends to muffle sound… yuck.

However, left-right stereo separation on the Mini 2140 is less noticeable compared to the HP Mini 2133 (Whose speakers were placed on the extreme edges of the screen). This shouldn’t be an issue for most people… if you want good and very noticeable stereo separation, you probably should be using headphones anyway, instead of your netbook’s built-in speakers.

Hey look, HP Mini 2140 hands on!

My hands on the HP Mini 2140 that is! For those who are thinking “huh? you mean Mini 2133″, HP just announced the successor to the 2133 last night, and it’s called the HP Mini 2140. From far, it looks just like the Mini 2133, but look closely and you’ll spot a couple of design differences in some areas as well as a larger, higher-resolution (yes!!) 10 inch LCD. Under the hood, the Mini 2140 packs Intel’s 1.6 GHz Atom processor like other netbooks (versus a VIA processor in the 2133).

Of course THIS IS THE (unofficial) HP FANSITE and I’ve got some hands on photos of the Mini 2140! I’m also glad to report that the HP Mini 2140 runs a LOT cooler than its VIA-processor sibling, the 2133.

I know these aren’t the best photos in the world, but hey, I’ve barely spent a few hours with the Mini 2140.

Look, it’s the HP Mini 2140! (Left: HP Mini 2133, right: HP Mini 2140) Note the screen size difference.

Probably one of the factors that contributes to the HP Mini 2140 being “cooler” than the Mini 2133, besides the obvious processor difference, is the new air vent design. The Mini 2140 (bottom) lacks the additional grills, which probably reduce air flow, found on the Mini 2133 (top).

There’s also some differences on the underside of the netbook – a whole lot more vents (apparently, the white sticker on the upper right side is covering another big airvent). Mini 2133 on the left, Mini 2140 on the right. Oh, and for those who are curious, the new HP Mini 2140 uses the exact same 3-cell and 6-cell battery units as the Mini 2133 (great news for those existing owners planning for an upgrade).

You can see over here how there’s less bezel and more screen on the HP Mini 2140 (Mini 2133 on left, Mini 2140 on right).

16 hours with the iPAQ Data Messenger

I got my hands on a HP iPAQ Data Messenger with pre-production firmware last night and so far I’ve spent 16 hours, including an entire day out this morning with HP’s latest (business?) Pocket PC phone. I’ve stuck my SIM card from the HP iPAQ 612c and it worked straight away. Let me just make a short list of the main things that struck me right away (Do note that this is with a pre-production unit with pre-prod firmware, so things may change when I get my hands on a final, retail unit):

• This thing is glossy! Kinda like 612c-keypad type of glossy. It doesn’t show fingerprints visibly unless in very bright light
• There are two sensors to the left of the HP logo on the front, visible only under bright sunlight. One is a light sensor and the other is apparently a proximity sensor.
• The completely flush touchscreen is a welcome move by HP. Now I can finally reach the buttons on the edges of the screen easily with my finger
• The back design of the Data Messenger looks very classy, in my opinion. The camera and a single LED flash are placed at the very edge and are discrete. Compared to the HP iPAQ 612c, the 612c looks more “fancy camera phone” like while the Data Messenger’s back clearly says “I mean business”. There’s no “megapixel logo” or words anywhere, and I hope it STAYS this way in the final unit (I hate people telling me “only 3 megapixels?”).
• Because the camera lens is on the very side of the phone, you would want to keep your fingers away from the edge when holding the Data Messenger.
• The loudspeaker is VERY loud. I didn’t need any fancy meters or machinery to measure that – just using my ears, I could hear the speaker on the Data Messenger was noticeably louder than the iPAQ 612c. The speaker also didn’t crackle when I cranked the volume up to the max and has very good dynamic range (Again, noticeably better than the 612c)
• I’m not trying to say the iPAQ 612c is a lousy jukebox… it’s a good Pocket PC phone, except the Data Messenger raises the bar by a notch. I like the Data Messenger’s loudspeaker. In fact I like it a LOT
• The front “Start” and “OK” buttons at the bottom are NOT “clicky” hardware buttons. They seem to be capacitive touch (you know like those buttons on HP’s notebooks). I’m having mixed feelings about these two buttons – I like the ability to just “touch” them to close an application, but at the same time, your thumb will naturally rest on the “OK” button in camera mode (thus accidentally closing the camera app)
• The camera takes good photos. The Data Messenger and 612c both have 3 megapixel cameras. The Data Messenger seems to take better exposed photos and more accurate colors though. On the negative side, zoom and exposure are operated ONLY via the touchscreen (Eventhough there’s a navigation pad) and the camera seems to be continuously focusing all the time (and half-pressing the shutter button doesn’t do anything to autofocus)

Right, that’s about it for now. I’m off again; gonna spend the evening out and about, with the Data Messenger, and will post more about the phone once I’ve spent more time with it. Toodles!