Despite being a bit on the expensive side and a bit slow when compared to its contemporaries, the HP Mini Note has garnered a following of its own thanks to its exquisite design. Now, HP’s improving on what they’ve gotten correct with their first netbook and is offering up something a bit more at par with rest of the pack the second time around.

The HP Mini 1000 will come in two variants: one with the same small 8.9-inch display, and a new one with a bigger and more adequately sized 10.2-inch screen. They’ve replaced the aluminum finish look for a sleek black plastic chasis. The new Mini will now also finally have an Intel Atom 1.6GHz processor under the hood like the rest of the netbook pack, support up to 2GB of RAM, and have up to 16GB of SSD storage. Other options are yet to be disclosed, but the usual features such as Bluetooth, WiFi and VGA camera are still there. The Vista OS has been bumped off the specs sheet with Windows XP taking over the OS chores, but something to look forward to in 2009 is their new Mobile Internet Experience interfacebuilt on top of Ubuntu.

The UI shares similarities with their Touchsmart PC and aims at providing the user with an all-in-one interface for quick access to most commonly used features. This early on, we’re pretty psyched about it as it looks really polished. This is one added feature that might make users opt for the Linux version as opposed to the more popular Windows variant.

The HP Mini 1000 that sports an 8.9-inch screen, 512MB RAM, and 8GB SSD on Windows XP will cost $400 while the 10.2-inch version with the same specs is priced at $450. The price of the version that will feature an 8.9-inch screen and the Mobile Internet Experience OS on Ubuntu will start at $380 when it’s made available in January next year. There’s also a red Vivienne Tam Edition that will retail for $700 and 3G-enabled versions set to be announced in December as well. For more pics of the HP Mini 1000, you can check out Gizmodo’s photo gallery.

Sadly though, no international release dates were mentioned but we’re pretty optimistic it’ll become available before the first half of 2009 comes to an end. This is just another reason for you regret buying that insanely cheap-looking netbook just because you couldn’t wait for something better to come out. But then again, if there’s one thing you can count on in the world of technology, there will always be something new coming out in the not-so-distant future that’s sure to replace the latest and coolest gadgets of present time.