Last night I decided to see for myself how well the HP Mini-Note runs under Windows XP. I did a clean install of Windows XP Pro and got my core applications installed. Today I’m going to give it a test spin and see how much faster (if any) the Mini runs under XP. Note that I didn’t find it ran particularly slow most of the time under Vista Business but I suspect overall it should be snappier under XP. It was relatively easy to install XP as I found good instructions on the web from those who have found all the HP drivers needed for XP even though HP hasn’t released any officially yet. I had to snap this photo from the install as it seemed eerily prophetic, those XP developers no doubt predicted what was yet to come in Vista:
I’m looking forward to hearing what XP is like on it. It’s due for release in the UK at the end of May and UK distributors RM will include a xp downgrade option.
It’d be great if you could try out two applications with XP:
1) Skype. Do video calls work better than under Vista?
2) itunes. What do videos look like? (particularly when in full-screen mode) As the mini-note looks like an excellent travel companion, it’d be nice to use it for in-flight movies.
I’d be interested in learning if Dragon Naturally Speaking 9 works on the hp mini-note!
I would guess that it install, but, given the challenges with the Skype video, I’m curious if it has the processor power to handle voice recognition well.
Thanks, in advance, for any insight!
Andy Wolber
@John: I haven’t been real pleased with the video quality of video that I’ve ripped for the iPod and how it plays on the Mini. It’s just sort of OK. Haven’t tried purchased videos yet. This weekend I tried an experiement and ripped video at high quality MPEG-4 and WMV at the same settings. The MPEG-4 played very badly, but the WMV played flawlessly.
Now, if I could only get a Bluetooth PAN working on it…
Why is this post tagged “You gotta be kidding me”?
@Pam:
Need more info. Saying “wmv worked better than mp4″ doesn’t tell enough.
You can install a free software called ffmpeg and type, in a terminal:
ffmpeg -i babysbirthday.mp4
This tells ffmpeg the name of an input file to process without telling it an output file or what to do with the input file.
As a result, ffmpeg will spit out (after a paragraph of information about itself) a paragraph of information about the file. If you do this for both your .wmv and your .mp4, you may be able to compare them and understand the differences.
Often I find enormous differences in default bitrate.
I *heart* the folks at notebookreview forums because I’ve gotten more practical info there than from HP’s own folks.
>>>Why is this post tagged “You gotta be kidding me”?
ROTFLMAO because I noticed that too and was going to ask your question!
John,
How can I install WIN XP in addition to the Vista Home already pre-installed? I would like to have a dual boot as well. Thanks.