Verizon to Sell Subsidized HP Mini Netbook

Posted 05/21/2010 at 5:20am | by Paul Lilly

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How does a netbook built around Intel's Atom N450 processor for $150 sound? That's how much you'll pay for the HP Mini 210-1076NR through Verizon Wireless, but there are a couple of important caveats.

First is the $100 mail-in-rebate, so you're actually paying $250 up front. But more importantly, you have to lock yourself down to a 2-year service agreement on a Mobile Broadband plan to qualify for that price. Options include:

• $40/month for 250MB monthly allowance and $0.10/MB overage
• $60/month for 5GB monthly allowance and $0.05/MB overage
• Prepaid: $15 for 75MB (one day of use)
• Prepaid: $30 for 250MB (one week of use)
• Prepaid: $50 for 500MB (one month of use)

Two years on the 250MB/month plan works out to $960, while the 5GB plan will set you back $1,440 over the long run, and that's in addition to the subsidized netbook. So what does $1,210 or $1,690 (total cost) get you?

In addition to the above mentioned processor, the HP Mini also sports 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, 5-in-1 media card reader, 802.11b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, webcam, Windows 7 Starter, and what we're guessing is a 6-cell battery based on the 8.75-hour claimed run time.

Image Credit: HP via Newscom