Explosive performer it is not, but the price is right and this little laptop makes a sweet, portable web browsing rig.

At Maximum PC, our main concern is speed—we like to call it pure PC power. But, as much as we love the massive power available in a desktop replacement notebooks today, our shoulders just won’t let us tote those über-powerful, über-heavy rigs any further than from the sofa to the fridge and back. Even worse, high-powered, ultra-portable rigs are just too damn expensive. And it’s tough to pay more than $2000 for a machine with integrated graphics, even if it weighs only 3 pounds.

Lucky for mobile nerds, there’s a new breed of ultra-cheap ultra-portables on the rise. Thanks in large part to the success of the aggressively priced Asus Eee PC, these new rigs pair lightweight designs and extremely aggressive pricing with a natural performance compromise. The latest entrant is the HP Mini-Note 2133, which costs between $500 and $750, depending on the trim. All four models share the same 1280x720 screen, full-size keyboard, and slick aluminum shell. We’ve spent the last few days testing the high-end, $750 model, which sports a 1.6GHz VIA CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a higher capacity battery.

So, exactly how much do you sacrifice under the hood with a $750 subcompact?

Also: HP Mini-Note 2133 officially official, reviewed

And: HP launches Linux-loaded Eee PC rival