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Even though the new, less expensive, HP Compaq Mini 110 does not stray far from the Mini 1000 mold, there are some slight changes–not always for the best.

As the thin, beautiful HP Mini 1000 is one of the bestNetbooks, and we were excited to seea less expensive alternation. Even though the new $329 Mini 110 doesn’t stray far from the Mini 1000 mold, there are some subtle changes that are not always for the best.

At first look, the two systems seem identical, but when we pulled out a Mini 1000 for a comparison, we saw the Mini 110 was slightly thicker and heavier. Not by much–but in a tiny Netbook form factor, a slight change can make a huge difference, especially when compared with something like the new Asus Eee PC 1008HA, which is slimmer than its predecessor is, not the other way around.

Other than that, we found a standard set of Netbook components, including an Intel Atom N270 CPU, 1GB of RAM, Windows XP, and a 160GB 5,400rpm hard drive. The biggest advantage is that at $329, this new model is very competitively priced, especially when only a few months ago, the $350 Acer Aspire One seemed like the drop-dead entry point for XP Netbooks. You’re essentially trading size and weight for price, as a comparably equipped Mini 1000 would value about $110 more.

While the general look and feel are very similar to the Mini 1000, when compared side by side, the Mini 110 looks a little bloated. Still, the Mini 1000 has always occupied the higher end of the Netbook price spectrum, and the Mini 110’s thicker look is more in line for what you’d find in the sub-$399 segment.

The same excellent keyboard, with wide, flat keys, is still one of our minilaptop favorites, but the touch pad remains a weakness in the Mini’s design. The wide-but-short surface makes scrolling a pain, and the mouse buttons are pushed to the far left and right sides, instead of sitting below the touch pad. We’re also not fans of the Mini’s power switch, which is a small slider on the front edge that’s hard to hit (although it does make it unlikely that you’ll accidentally turn the system off or on when you don’t mean to).

One new feature that we noticed was the inclusion of a third-party software application called Syncables, which promises to connect different machines on your local network, allowing you to easily share music, documents, video, and photos, and sync e-mail accounts, even across Windows, Mac, and Linux systems.

In theory, it seems like a brilliant (we often use Gmail and Google docs for this kind of thing). In practice, we found the Syncables software difficult to use. The screens are obviously not designed with the Mini’s 1,024×576-pixel resolution in mind, the layout and navigation were confusing, even when installed on our desktop pc, and the entire process seemed fairly unintuitive.

The 10.1-inch wide-screen display has a 1,024×576-pixel native resolution, which is slightly lower than the 1,024×600-pixel resolution standard for a screen this size. That’s generally fine for most Web surfing, but long, vertical pages and Word documents can require a lot of scrolling to read. The edge-to-edge glass of previous models has been replaced by a standard inset panel. It isnot as slick a look, but the display itself was matte, instead of glossy, which is a very hard-to-find feature in a Netbook, and particularly good if you are disturbedby screen glare.

The HP Mini 110 has more ports and connections than the Mini 1000 line, with a third USB port and a standard VGA output for video. Take care for the split single headphone/mic jack, which can cause problems if you need to monitor and recordaudio at the same time.

Intel’s single-core 1.6GHz Atom N270 CPU offers enough computing power for the basic tasks that Netbooks are designed–namely Web surfing, working on documents, and some basic multimedia playback. While the Asus Eee PC 1008HA offers a slightly faster N280 version of the Atom, this system performed on par with previous HP Mini Netbooks.

Netbook shoppers must usually choose between three-cell and six-cell battery options. The smaller batteries commonly run from 2 to 3 hours, while a six-cell battery can be good for 5 hours or longer–but at the cost of added size and weight. In our video playback battery drain test, the Mini 110 ran for 2 hours and 22 minutes using the included three-cell battery. That’s slightly less than we’d expect, as the original Mini 1000 ran 20 minutes longer on the same test. In casual use, for Web surfing and office work, you should get closer to 3 hours (or longer) of battery life.