"Windows 7 Starter is a basic, more limited edition of Windows, designed for cheaper and/or less powerful computers. It has the following restrictions:
The Aero theme has been disabled. This means you can't get any of that fancy transparency or UI candy. It only comes in 32bit. If a computer has more than 4GB of ram, it will only recognise a maximum of 4GB. For more advantages of 64-bit computing, see this SuperUser question. You cannot change the wallpaper. The wallpaper is locked to the standard 'Windows 7 Wallpaper'
You cannot buy this version of Windows by itself, as it is only available to manufacturers and system builders.
As long as your computer fits the minimum specs of the higher versions of Windows 7, then you should be able to buy, for example, Home Premium and install that.
For more information, refer to the Windows 7 editions article on Wikipedia"
"Mind you, the HP mini is not a laptop but a netbook.
a 10"" screen and a crammed keyboard is not everyone's cup of tea, they're certainly not ideal for heavy work. they are however great companions.
if you want a netbook, they specifications are pretty much identical, the differences are the display (the HP display is a pretty decent one) and the battery life (4 hrs for the HP mini is a rather mediocre value, some ASUS Eee PC models can easily double that)."
