I used a HP Mini 210 netbook for around 18 months. It costed just $329 AUD when I bought it, and had Windows XP and a 160GB hard drive.
I was originally interested in dual-booting Windows alongside Linux, but HP support proved to be very stubborn and would not provide recovery disks or the Windows licence key, so I ran it with only Linux instead.
Here are some features to note:
- An SD card can be placed in the slot and stays out of the way.
- The VGA port makes it suitable for doing presentations.
- The battery life is not fantastic. Around 3 hours when new, and reduced to just 20 minutes or so by the first year.
- Not particularly durable. The right-click stopped working on the mousepad after a while. I enabled mac-style gestures in Ubuntu to overcome this.
- The ventilation is poor. It has no vents on the bottom at all, which is great for keeping the inside dry, but it has a very weak fan and does not handle heavy loads gracefully.
Some things you can do to improve it.
- As soon as I found out how to open the case (video), I got an Intel SSD, which was quite expensive, but can be used in whatever netbook you have. It makes it quieter, faster, more power efficient, and removes the shock-sensitivity that plagues notebook hard-drives.
- Consider getting a high-capacity battery. I replaced the dead standard size one with a cheap 3rd-party battery (link), but it could still do with more power.
- The default install is filled with crapware. Either reinstall windows or run something else. GNU/Linux compatibility is great, and it also runs Windows 7 with no worries. It turns out your Windows XP key is inside the case, so open it up and use it.
It was a good laptop for the price, but not exceptionally fast, durable, or long in its battery life. This netbook should be purchased with the understanding that it will have a short life.