HP Mini 311 Netbook

The main reason I love home theater PCs is that they are multi-purpose and flexible. A HTPC can do what your set-top box can do and more. Likewise, laptops and netbooks are made to connect to external computer monitors, so why not make them even more useful by connecting them to the biggest monitor you own: your HDTV.

I come from modest beginnings to say the least. My first stab at a HTPC was an old IBM ThinkPad T20 laptop I picked up off eBay. MediaPortal, 19″ CRT TV, S-Video and line-in audio were sufficient to me at the time. Later I upgraded to a HP Pavilion dv6119us laptop which came with a cool (at the time) mini remote. Fast forward a bit past several other non-laptop iterations and now my setup is a bit more sophisticated: Antec Fusion Remote case, HDMI to 47″ 1080p HDTV, 5.1 surround sound, Logitech Harmony 720 remote, etc. I use a regular HTPC and laptop separately.

In some ways I miss my old laptop setup though. It had it’s advantages.

Reasons to Use a Laptop or Netbook

1. Cost – It is much cheaper to only have a laptop if you already are a laptop user, rather than owning a laptop and upkeeping an HTPC. A good netbook or laptop can cost you around $400 all the way up to $1700. The same goes with a HTPC depending on how fancy you want it. If you have a sufficient laptop or are in the market to upgrade you can have a HTPC essentially for “free.”

2. Small footprint — Laptops and especially netbooks are small in comparison to most HTPCs. This allows them to easily sit on top of furniture in an unobtrusive way. Also, the sleek finishes on these devices will look a lot better than your plain set-top box.

3. Built-in wireless — There is no need to try to add network cables near your TV. You also don’t have to worry about adding a wireless card to a HTPC since laptops have built-in WiFi.

4. Portable — Now your HTPC is not isolated to one TV or room. You can easily move your laptop or netbook to different rooms in your house as needed. If you’re having a gathering at a friend’s or family’s house it doesn’t take much to pack your laptop and cables in a bag and get moving. I do this every once in a while and it’s great to show off.

5. Flexible — You can enjoy pretty much any type of content you want on (again) any TV you want due to the portability a laptop provides. Once you’re done using your HTPC, you can always disconnect from the TV and use it as a traditional laptop for browsing the web, watching videos, or other tasks.

6. Battery — While the typical person can’t power their TV when the power is out, your laptop’s battery can provide you a few hours to enjoy your media and help time pass in the dark. Also, according to Energy Star “energy consumption is high for a notebook, but still at least 50% of a comparable desktop PC system.”

Items You Will Need

• HDMI cable (6ft) or VGA cable if you have an older laptop
• USB TV tuner if you want to watch regular TV instead of streaming.
• Media player or media center software – If you’re new and have laptop running Windows 7 or Vista, just stick with Windows Media Center.
• Obviously a laptop or netbook — ASUS Eee PC 1201N and HP Mini 311 are great for HD content

There are a lot of benefits to using a laptop on your TV. For those of you that have used laptops in this capacity before, what are your experiences? What kinds of laptops work and definitely have not worked for you?