I have the HP mini, it works great for what I use it for---it is my first HP so I can't speak to their other offerings.
Its primary use was to stay connected when traveling. Mini's connectivity is scads better than my Dell laptop when locating unfamiliar connections and I've been known to use it at home when the laptop is engaging in the weirdness that is Dell updating and\or I am having my weekly ignore it session with Vista.
I wouldn't want to do any heavy typing work on it, though you could, the keyboard works OK for me but I have small hands, I imagine it would take getting used to for those with average to large graspers.
It could have more USB ports, mine is the older model---newer one may have addressed this, but I have a hub that allows a variety of add-ons.