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Remember the Mini 5101 that HP released 6 months ago to target high-end customers with business related aspirations? Turns out it’s not alone – as a matter of fact it has a new twin brother that carries the title Mini 5102. The latest, which belongs to the growing Pine Trail family, packs inside an Atom N450 processor along a 10-inch display, offered with a WSVGA or WXGA panels. But as a premium portable device, one can guess it boasts a lot more than usual. What else is new? We’re talking about a Broadcom HD video accelerator, added to the pile, while keyboard is at 95% from the regular one. Besides that you can toss inside any possible operating system available, either it’s FreeDOS, SUSE Linux, Windows XP or Windows 7 Starter/Premium editions. Battery wise, you can choose between 4-cell and 6-cell flavors, but the most attractive alternative, marked as optional, is that super cool capacitive (multitouch) touchscreen which turns that netbook into a tablet (well, not exactly, but you know what I mean). It ain’t going to be cheap, boys and girls, but we still can;t tell how much and when. PR words added after the break.

Update1: Apparently, the Mini 5102 cover is made out of a stunning brushed aluminum plate and the chassis hides an optional handle for ‘A-grades’ students. Checkout the hands-on video the good people at engadget just shared.

Update2: We’ve added another video from the CES show that demos HP’s touchscreen netbook capabilities, this time with a snapdragon and Android platforms running inside. Check it out right after the break.

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Those of you who anxiously look for high-end netbook machine with business exterior flavors, HP might have the right solution, as the company recently announced a new netbook, the Mini 5101, which comes with a slick aluminum and magnesium alloy body, housing Intel’s 1.66GHz N280 Atom processor, together with four-cell or six-cell batteries, 2 MP webcam, Bluetooth 2.0/ WiFi b/g/n connectivity and up to a 320GB HDD or an 80GB SSD. Additionally, you get to choose between a standard 10.1-inch 1024 x 600 WSVGA display or HD-compatible 1366 x 768 LED screen at the same size, paired with optional WWAN module and either Windows XP Home, SUSE Linux Enterprise 11 or FreeDOS systems aboard, offered at a starting price of $449 from July. See how the Mini 5101 netbook really looks, with HP’s official video after the break.

Update1: Looks like the Mini 5101 is finally available to purchase, starting at $399.99 and including a 10.1-inch LED-backlit display, along with a flat chiclet keyboard and all the basic stuff we noted above. However, for extra cash you can get inside the business edition a 128GB SSD drive and 1366 x 768 resolution, but it will cost you a lot more.

[via HP]

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