Gadget Hunter

  

HP and its boutique/luxe division Voodoo deserve serious praise for what they’ve accomplished with the Firebird 803. Taking a mix of laptop and desktop guts, juicing it up with high-end components, cooling it with liquid goo instead of noisy fans, and encasing it inside a gorgeous, curvy shell that would make most industrial designers weep with envy, the Firebird is a testament to how the envelope can be pushed in the typically boring PC world.

It’s also a veritable bargain, priced at $2,100, fully loaded.

Despite being one of the first netbooks we had a look at this year, the 2133 still feels more fully cooked than many its bretheren. Price-wise, HP kept it competitive with a $600 for the Vista Business version. A Linux OS is available for $100 less while a Windows XP “upgrade” will cost you $100 more. And unlike many of its compatriots, this is one of the few netbooks that doesn’t feel cheap and flimsy in our hands, due in no small part to its fetching brushed aluminum and plastic outer shell.

Even more impressive is the fact that HP flat-out nailed the QWERTY keyboard on its first try. In fact, we found the (almost) full-size keyboard to be one of the most responsive and comfortable we’ve used on a netbook thus far. The only drawbacks? A decidedly feeble 1.2-GHz Via processor and less than acceptable two hour battery life.