James W. Martin General Practice Law Blog on Lawyers.com

Bought an HP Mini 1116NR netbook yesterday. Charged it up. Downloaded Windows updates. Then went online and listened to a West Legal Ed Center audio CLE on mortgage foreclosure alternatives. Picked out some West CLE pod casts to download. Downloaded them…while listening to the streaming audio CLE. Audio stream never slowed. This netbook has some power. One gig of RAM. Wireless networking. Windows XP. Microsoft Works. And it’s small. Two pounds. One inch thick. Dimensions less than a sheet of paper. Screen is small but high resolution. Battery lasts well over an hour (have not tested beyond that). Keyboard is not full size, but workable. No flexing keys; can type on lap. I’m listening to pod cast as I type (non-credit CLE). No CD drive. No hard drive. Has built-in 16GB memory chips as a solid state drive instead of a spinning platter hard disk drive (8GB in use on arrival). Two USB ports allow use of external USB drive, if needed. Expansion port. I’m sold. $299 (Best Buy) makes this a very practical and prudent purchase.