HP Mini 311 reviewed with earnest, ION-enhanced affection
By Ross Miller 
posted Oct 6th 2009 10:04PM
posted Oct 6th 2009 10:04PM
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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh aaaaatom
Another idiotic GLOSSY SCREEN.
Don't vote for this garbage with your dollars.
Glossy>matte
if i wasnt a apple fan, i would buy this one , with linux obviasly.
fanboyism __________________ -800pts
apple mention _______________ -300pts
admitting you will not buy it_____ -100pts
linux mention ________________ -100pts
failure to spellcheck __________ -150pts
= complete fail
I have to say, glensky, your math doesn't take into account the Euro / US exchange rate. He's hitting in at .68 Euros to the Dollar (hailing from Portugal, as his name suggests), meaning his points ... wait, 68% of total fail still spells "FAIL", even in Portuguese. Nevermind.
The correct phrasing is, "If I WEREN'T an Apple fan."
Not to mention the pathetic spelling.
Get lost.
i really cant stand what Engadget has become..so what he's an apple fan..its all about personal preferences and opinions if you don't agree with his post why would you replay to his comment.....
I want one. But it doesn't look like HP is selling then in Canada yet. Sigh. The past couple years have not been good for gadget lovers up north.
Keep your eyes peeled you should start to see them in retailers towards the end of october.
I kind of AM shopping for a small, efficient laptop. I could buy this and put Windows 7 on it! I'll wait a few more weeks til more note/netbooks ship with 7.
The Samsung N310 is still the best choice ,
Go for the mint blue (sic.) or the orange one and you're gonna be the coolest geek on the block.
Can
I
get
a
NIPPLE?!?!
I see why the Samsung N310 is the best choice, because for roughly the same price you can buy a much less capable netbook.
It's always been crappy graphics keeping down decent processors in laptops ... but thanks to Atom + ION we are seeing the opposite. Are there any plans to release something with the graphics power of ION and some decent CPU power in a nice smaller factor?
why do you need grafics power in a netbook?
A Macbook Air is pretty much that - dual-core 1.8Ghz with a 9400M, same as in Ion. Of course, it's expensive, more thin than outright small and of course, a Mac. There's also a CULV Acer Travelmate with a 4330 in a thin 13" form factor at a lower price. Other than that, Atom itself will get faster eventually, with dual-core variants eventually.
The ION platform is compatible with nvidia CUDA technology, which means some process can be offloaded to the gfx card for a boost in performance.
Also this netbook is capapble of 1080p play back with 7.1 sound as well because of the ION card.
As with many netbooks i wonder if this is Hackintoshable. 14 frames on Far Cry 2 is amazing, granted not enough to play the game, but still enough to play some older games. I would definitely buy this if i needed a netbook.
Ypoknons, your comment is BS. First, the 9400M is not an Ion. You can't just make up crap and post it to a blog comment. People might think your stupid. Second, the rest of your comment is only acceptable in for you and your sexually confused friends at starbucks (Yes, I went there, get over it), I hereby banish you from any form of public communication.
@spirit
like this?
http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=024006&cid=DPC.405
Take note: they measured it with Fraps. Every time I've tried running Fraps, even on my high spec'd gaming rig, there's been a pretty noticeable performance hit (unless there's been changes to Fraps that improve that). I'd expect to see games running a couple frames higher than their estimates.
@richard you really are a dick.
@galactor, agreed, ive seen it drop something like 4 or 5 frames.
im really thinking about putting my s10 on ebay or craigslist and getting this.
How about some benchmarks showing whether Windows 7 makes use of that GPU for common tasks.
this netbook uses Nvidia Ion LE and since it is not dx10 compatible ,it doesn't benefit much from windows7.
For this price and the ION+XP+DDR3 performance, VERY interesting proposition from HP!
Are Samsung and Acer watching this?
Is anyone going to do the same, but with an SSD option??
(even a small SSD would do....)
I've already seen exernal HDD and SSD USB3.0 drives on engadget. Does anyone know when USB3.0 ports will start to show up on netbooks and notebooks?
Cmon. Atom + integrated intel chipset = intel monopoly. Its not even able to play full screen youtube videos. nVidia=accelerated graphics that means faster videos. if that's not enough for you than stick you your old atom netbook and u're fine. ION is the first platform that is able to play fluent videos with the same power consume.its a step forward from the mass market. i own an hp business 5101 netbook, i chose it after breaking the displays of an compaq mini 700. although the 5101 has a faster cpu and a bigger fsb, overall its only 4-8% faster and the battery not up to the job. nvidia is good at what i does, intel also, so put them together and u have the best of both technologies for the moment.
Here's a question, I travel, and i like to game once in a while... You got any insight into wether I should buy this when and if it ever gets released, or should I go ahead and get a maxed out HP Mini 311? The whole ION thing's the main draw, but for a little gaming and some HD playback, would the 330 dual processor and 3gb of DDR2 of the Eee suffice, or would the 280 single core with 3gb of DDR3 on the HP do a better job..Or should I just sack both and go for somthing completely different but in the same price range?
I just want a little netbook I can use to surf the internets and occasional skype on, but then also be able to hook it up to my 50" screen and watch a .mkv file without it dying. Is that too much to ask for?
thats what this is
even has hdmi out my friend.
I'm completely torn between this and the ever-approaching Acer 1810tz. Almost 6 hours of battery life surfing on wi-fi is pretty good for this HP, pretty close to what I'd expect for the Acer. Less processing power, but probably more graphics power. Argh.
Nothing like PC apologists saying its OK the trackpad doesn't work. Like on that HP Envy hunk of junk.
the HP dm1 with a CULV processor & windows 7 or an Atom with the ancient XP???
I'LL WAIT.
This machine is great... now we only need a competing model from DELL, a SSD option (32GB or 64GB) and a 2GB DDR3 upgrade option. The base price is cool but i guess people would like to have more options with a "performance netbook"(*) like this one.
(*) means regular netbook in the future when, microsoft and intel, stop making slow devices on purpose.
you forgot to mention the blu-ray drive
im growing tired of you people asking for top end performance in a 10" form factor at a $400 price point. it will not happen
@kojo87
Hey, he wasn't asking for those to be standard, just options. Not to mention they are already available on many other netbooks.
I did mention that they should be options that as a matter of fact are standard on several netbooks (some eeepc's had up to 40gb ssd and every netbook offers a 2GB upgrade option, this one should or could handle 3GB since its DDR3).
@kinger
the blu-ray drive is already an option (+ $125) smart-ass next time check before trolling.
@INTEL
stop the charade your igp's suck and let the atom be dual core and stop boycotting yourself with those CULV crap atom has a lot more potential if you develop it. At least finally your integrating the memory controller but it was about time anyways.
I Hate the monopoly that intels has...
Windows only works on x86 cpu's... And you need a license from intel to make one... ITs horrible... Ms needs to bring windows 8 on arm chips to. By next year we will have dual core 1ghz + that can run in phones! by mid 2011 we will have phones that are more powerful then 2 of the current netbook atom cpus...
I can't wait for the google chrome os. It will run on arm cpus to. So Not only will it be free, but the cpus will use less power. Run faster (byt 2011), and be smaller.. So Google will not only be free, but have better cpu's on it's side. So then either ms suports them, or intel makes there cpus cheaper. But the google os will prob work on intel cpus to.
Once we see games, and apps like crysis, and adobe photoshop made for google os, the industry will once again have competition!
Yeah, I'm sure Crytek is going to waste their time porting Crysis to ARM and OpenGL (or whatever Chrome OS will support).
I just want to know when a netbook is no longer a netbook.
I mean M$ gives it a crippling definition, but I don't agree.
This little HP is light, cheap, has a long battery life and is almost perfect. But at 11.6", I think the screen size is pushing what I consider a netbook, and I'm starting to think that might be a little to big to drag around all day.
Then again it's just a term....
Is it really the case that you can't watch youtube clips full screen on this thing? I know that when flash 10.1 hits next year, it wont be an issue, but in the mean time... I'm planning on getting one of these to replace my hp dv6000, since all I use it for is web surfing and watching videos, but if I can't watch megavideo / youtube clips full screen untill flash 10.1, I might have second thoughts :(
Is it REALLY so much for them to put a REAL ION in this thing? This is an ION "LE" and is crap IMO. How about the dual core 330 please? The screen size is a good step forward, I have one of the earlier HP Mini's and some apps are a real hassle when the "ok" button is off the screen due to the resolution and size being so small. It's great to be so portable but not at the expense of being able to use it. Please someone give us a dual core ION with a 12inch screen and i'll buy it....
Honestly, what could you possibly need DX10 for on a netbook? You aren't playing games with details set high enough to notice any difference. Windows 7 doesn't require a DX10 GPU. Why not get a DX9 card that is cheaper and more power efficient? I honestly don't how DX10 provides any benefit for netbook use.
Who said anything about DX10?! I said I was interested in the dual core Atom 330. And what makes a DX9 card any more effecient than a DX10 card? Fewer features and an older piece of hardware do not mean greater efficiency. Honestly, I have no idea what you're talking about - did you respond to the wrong post or something?
You asked about a real ION, calling the ION LE crap. The main difference between those two is DirectX 10 vs DirectX 9, respectively.
No 330 Atom, me no buy....
Awesome design, the keyboard seems really good and user friendly, the DDR3 RAM makes the GPU work even faster since it doesn't have any dedicated (i'd still prefer 256MB of dedicated GDDR5 but that's asking too much :P), nice screen and side frame size...
Hope this becomes the new standard!
The only bad point on this laptop is that it doesn't bring the Atom N280 as a standard.
They could also release this with 12.1' monitor, SU3500 (5.5W single-core) and SU9600 (10W dual-core) CPU's tho, to fill every user demand gap.
If this comes to Europe at $400 (€271) or slightly higher (up to €325) I'll get it without second thought, even tho I already have a laptop around this small.
Also the test for the boot time on that website was weird, they should install a clean OS, antivirus and Office 2007. (that's what ppl usually ALWAYS have) then boot it again to give a more accurate result.