The HP Mini-Note 2133 has arrived, exciting the UMPC world with its healthy mix of features and style. What the HP Mini manages to pull off is impressive, but not entirely surprising. With new UMPC’s entering the market at such a steady pace, it’s only a matter of time before manufacturers cover more price points, performance levels, and feature sets to better satisfy consumer needs. But how long will it take for UMPC’s to go mainstream? HP thinks that time is now. With their first UMPC attempt, HP has boldly gone all in, and judging by first reports, their gamble just might be the smartest thing they’ve done in ages.

If you’ve paid any attention to UMPC’s, you’ll know that choosing one is all about compromise. To get high portability like the Asus Eee, you’ll need to give up screen and keyboard real estate; to get many features like the Sony VAIO TZ, you’ll need to pay a lot higher price; and if you can’t live without OS X, there’s only the Macbook Air to choose from (although its large footprint makes its inclusion in the UMPC category debatable).

Most consumers are looking for a reasonable compromise. They want a device that takes the middle road, offering the greatest amount of acceptable features without any one spec being glaring deficient or missing. As such, the footprint versus screen size dilemma is an important tradeoff to examine.

It’s a given that every UMPC user is looking for a highly portable device, but at some point, shrinking the unit’s footprint, and thus, its potential screen size, can result in a product that is simply a pain to use. For me, the Asus Eee’s 7-inch display lies dangerously close to this threshold. I’ve tried the Eee, and as much as I love the sturdy pint-sized wonder, I could never see myself using it for more than just instant messaging and simple web browsing. In fact, even web browsing is difficult as the Eee’s 800 x 480 resolution is inadequate for many sites.

Fortunately, HP has found a slick 8.9-inch screen to put into its Mini-Note. Although smaller than the Macbook Air’s 13.3-inch display, it at least comes close in pixels (1280 x 768), providing plenty of resolution to surf the web and view standard documents without nasty horizontal scrolling or zooming. 

Furthermore, when you consider that the HP Mini comes with a spacious keyboard, aluminum chassis, and optional high performance parts - like room for a standard 2.5-inch HDD and up to 2GB of RAM - you have a UMPC that finally meets the needs of the mainstream. Wisely, HP has priced the Mini-Note specifically for this market.

Retailing between $500 and $749, the HP Mini is positioned slightly above the toy-like Eee, but well below the full-featured, but much more pricey Levono X300 and Sony Vaio TZ.

The Mini definitely has competition, but most of what’s out there has been pushed onto the market to quickly profit from the exploding UMPC gold rush. Every manufacturer wants to tap this new niche, but most have yet to deliver something truly practical and affordable like the HP Mini. However, with all the compliments that the Mini has been getting, one should still be cautious of lending it too much praise, as it’s unlikely that the device - or any other ultra portable released this year for that matter - will solve all the engineering issues currently faced by UMPC’s in general.

For instance, early reports suggest that the HP Mini suffers from loud fan noise. Having a virtual hairdryer sitting on your desk during a quiet lecture is a definite faux pas and could hurt the Mini’s chance of winning over students. Related to this, noisy fans would seem to indicate an issue with heat regulation. Also, HP’s choice to use side-mounted vertical mouse buttons could prove to be a serious design flaw if people find them too awkward to use.

Regardless of whatever issues the HP Mini might have - and I think it will inevitably show a few flaws - the HP Mini is already well ahead of the competition. But even so, potential buyers should keep in mind that HP’s rivals are hardly letting up on their aggressive roadmaps. Indeed, Asus’s ever expanding notebook line is set to launch an 8.9-inch version of their Eee, and Dell has already announced plans to release a UMPC this summer that may use Intel’s superior Atom CPU and Menlow platform.

The future of ultra-portables is certain: they will become commonplace in our lives, and perhaps even replace many full-sized laptops. Seen from this perspective, the HP Mini-Note is more than just an exciting new product, it is the fulfillment of the promise of powerful and affordable UMPC’s for the mainstream.