Aluminum chassis with structural reinforcements made of magnesium offer sense of the safety. Additional reliability feature are display hinges made also of magnesium. Keyboard was and remains one of the best parts of HP netbooks. Its size is almost the same as regular keyboard so typing should be comfortable and pleasant experience. Keys have HP DuraKeys protection that protects surface of keys from wear and tear due to intensive typing.

Touchpad is very good and allows precise control over the cursor but it has smooth surface which can be tricky to use in some situations. Above it is placed button that is used to disable or to enable touchpad. Touchpad buttons are placed on the sides of touchpad which is the price that has to be paid for large keyboard. Notebook users will have to adjust to that position although it is not big issue. On front side are placed Power button, HDD activity LED, and wireless switch. On the right side can be found Express Card slot, SD/MMC card reader, USB and LAN ports along side with power connector. On the left side are located VGA connector, USB port and audio IN/OUT connectors.

Display is glare type with 1024x576 resolution and 10.1 inch in size. Since more and more netbooks recently came with this resolution it is obvious that 1024x576 becomes today standard which doesn’t make us happy because vertical resolution is the biggest problem in everyday exploitation and specially when surfing the Internet. Luckily, HP has in its offer model with bigger resolution (1366x768) but, of course, also higher price. Display is covered with acrylic layer for additional protection against sharp objects and accidental scratches. Unfortunately we were not allowed to test how much protection this layer actually provides. Viewing angles seems to be better than on HP 2133, and thanks to that display deserves better marks. HP 2140 cannot be fully opened as almost all netbook can’t, so this is not serious problem.

Most significant difference between HP 2133 and new HP 2140 model is platform on which those models are based on. Although we salute HP for its brave experiment with VIA platform, it is proved that this platform is not mature enough compared to Intel solution. Biggest problem that we found on HP 2133 model was intense heat up of the bottom area. With HP 2140, thanks to Atom platform used, there is no significant heating up of bottom side and what’s more, fans cannot be heard in any moment.

For HDD data protection is responsible HP 3D Drive Guard. Sound card is supported by speakers of average quality. Sound that comes from those speakers is distorted additionally because speakers are placed below display on the cover and that area gets obstructed by chassis when netbook is opened. Webcam is average with picture that could be better especially when we take the price of the whole netbook into account.