Cyber Monday Booty: My HP Mini Netbook

My laptop is experiencing technical difficulties and needs a good going over. It is an aged Dell Inspiron that has served me well. But now I decided to go for an HP Mini Netbook because it fit my pitiful budget and writing needs.

I will have the laptop for a long time, but needed something smaller and more portable. This would get me out of my little working area and into the local coffee shops to have something called a life.

The Kindle Fire and Nook Color are affordable tablets, but they do not have the keyboard that I am looking for. So I decided to take advantage of Cyber Monday and to get a netbook as a happy medium between my tiny Android and my honking large laptop.

I decided on either the Toshiba or the HP Mini 10.

Let's see how I did.

After secretively skulking through the lands of Frys, Target, Best Buy and Wal Mart, I espied my prey: an HP Mini 110.

I determined that the opponent was in the weakest position at Best Buy.

To my surprise, the opposing general appeared immediately, pushing a Toshiba. But I refused to capitulate, demanding the Hp Mini 110 that was being held prisoner in some dark Best Buy dungeon. "Bring the HP Mini from your warehouse!" I demanded.

My support for an American company and workers helped me to make my decision.

It took some time to release the prisoner, but there he was, dressed in his finest black uniform and adorned with the characteristic HP insignia.

But there was a twist...a devious and pernicious twist that changed the field of battle...

Just as I had retrieved, after fierce battlefield parlay, an HP Mini 110, I was confronted with the battle of the data service provider!

This battle went on for a lengthy time and almost sent me fleeing.

It turns out that Sprint, a fierce broadband combatant with a desperate need to restructure its service plans and crumbling 4G infrastructure, was offering $100 dollars off of the ransom for the HP Mini 110!

After negotiating the most minimalist plan possible, and rescuing a wi-fi hotspot for fifty bucks plus a promise to put my first born into indentured servitude, I had the required internet access.

But there were more twists to this battle, and there were nefarious temptations that I could not resist.

It turns out that my wi-fi hotspot will power my ailing laptop with web access, freeing me from dependency on the AT$T land line that saps my bank account on a variable basis every month!

What followed were hours of such slowly executed and high level security transactions and negotiations that we lost our minds. The conversation turned to Subway sandwiches and how the manager's refusal to put more than six olive chips on the sandwich has led to brawls. Then there was a lively discussion of such youthful terminology as "recyclopath" and "Thanksgiving Hangover".

The service contract required many oaths, pledges, briefings, promises, and a phone conversation with a shady voiced girl who asked personal security questions.

Those questions revealed that Sprint has access to information about me that I had forgotten about myself! I was asked about estranged sisters-in-law, old grammar schools, and my branch of the Armed Forces.

Sprint is a truly powerful kingdom to negotiate with. But with 4G on the immediate horizon, I was able to hold up to the interrogation.

Who had the nerve to appear, swaggering and seducing me with promises of full technical support for all of my computers? A $200 tech support plan that featured Geek Squad and was deeply discounted to $99.

Purists will snort in derisive laughter at my willingness to let a chain store someone do the repairs and virus banishment that my laptop requires.

But purists do not have to crank out about 3,000 words a day, support other writer's blogs and tweets, or do the massive amounts of research that this General does.

I do not have to crack open even one "Laptops For Dummies" book!

Thus, I save time and money on the technical support needed to restore that loyal and dependable machine to its former glory!

All in all, Cyber Monday was a successful day, with a wi-fi hotspot, a netbook, a year of Geek Squad, and 4G service, all within the budget that I had set out with for buying just the netbook!

After spending several hours with the HP Mini 10, I found it to be a delightful new tool for writing, checking mail and working with my various websites.

Best of all, the keyboard is only 10% smaller than a normal computer or laptop keyboard. Typing is a dream. There is also a USB hub for a mouse, but I will take some time and get more proficient with the track pad for now.

But later, the device turned into a stubborn little monster. After several long bouts with tech support, the device spent three days in the Geek Squad Medical Center, where a software issue was resolved.

Now, the little helper does what it is suposed to do. The HP Mini and the much better Toshiba equivalent are now off the market at Best Buy, but the fact is that those models were never to be expected to work as a full blown laptop. They have their limitations, but they do the job when we need to get out on the road, wire up the wi-fi hotspot and go to work.