HP Mini 311 Netbook Has Great Graphics, Nearly 6 Hour Runtime
HP’s Mini 311 with Nvidia ION caught my eye earlier today thanks to the benchmarks that LAPTOP Magazine reported. I was so impressed with the numbers that it got me thinking about how GPUs could shake up the netbook market in a big way. Of course, better graphics performance could come at the expense of price and battery life, so maybe my thoughts are premature. Or perhaps not.
LAPTOP awarded the Mini 311 an Editor’s Choice badge in their full review. Much of the review is a recap of how much performance the Nvidia Ion adds, but all of the other bases are covered as well. The base Mini 311 with ION is $399 — the same as my Toshiba NB205 netbook. But the battery life on the Mini 311 isn’t abysmal, even with the graphics boost. LAPTOP was able to surf the web over Wi-Fi for nearly 5.75 hours on the 26 Whr, six cell battery. HP also has a special deal for 50% off a spare six cell power pack. While my NB205 can get me a good eight hours of web surfing, there’s something to be said for true high-def capability — the Mini 311 offers HDMI out — and an 11.6-inch display with native 1366×768 resolution at the same weight and price as my current netbook.
I suppose we could debate if a device with this screen size is truly a “netbook” or not, but I’m past the point of caring. Ultimately, I’m looking for the best device(s) that meet my needs at a price point I can afford, regardless of what you call them.
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Yeah, these machines are situated somewhere on the fence (or is it wall). They can be seen as Traitors of the netbook community and Imposters of the notebook community at the same time. The RED LINE that signals the entry into the NoteBook Domain is clearly the Thirteenth Inch barrier (or is it 13.3″). So what what should these black sheep be called ? How ’bout :-P AWESOME :-P That video HW is the ticket for me. My CC just begged me to purchase so what’s a good techie to do but obey (resistence is futile).
My laptop just died last week and this seems like the perfect replacement, but I can’t decide whether to pull the trigger now or wait until the end of the month to see what options they offer when Windows 7 and the other Ion netbooks come out.
That web-based battery test leaves the GPU mostly idle though so there shouldn’t be much difference until you use an application that uses the GPU’s 3D features.
For certain video playback it should save battery life (hardware decoding) and for gaming it will kill battery life, but only if you want to.
Choice is good and as long as ION doesnt impact costs or sizes, it’s a good thing.
Excellent point, Steve! Only certain types of video activities and codecs will take advantage of the GPU for offloading, but as you said: choice is good. If I hadn’t just bought the NB205, I might have ordered a Mini 311 and two batteries today.
It makes you wonder why Intel haven’t moved faster on a better chipset for netbooks teamed with the Atom processor. A pretty safe bet that Intel are not Nvidia fans!
Nvidia chipsets compete directly with Intel’s own graphics chips. No love lost there.
Intel may be good at CPU design but they suck it hard on graphics. Remember that GPU is light years ahead on complexity, speed and size. They run faster and nVidia,ATI and other offerings are 256-bit processors with many times the transistors found in simple intel CPU chips. intel is still “learning” how to make graphics chips and it shows. BTW, i also believe intel is STEALING other vendors ideas like crazy. They have already lost many legal court cases over the many CPU design tricks they have stolen from others (think Fairchild) that cost them billions. As long as they can afford to keep paying the fines they will not change their spots (err i mean ways).
Agreed. Intel really seems asleep at the switch on all of this.
You’d think that Intel would offer their own speedy graphics chip for the netbook market.
Very strange !
bought mine two days ago from the hp website, I added the slightly faster processor, bluetooth + wi-fi n, it came out to be 555$ after taxes and 2-day shipping. I CAN’T WAIT UNTIL IT GETS HERE!
Answering someone’s statement above, I personally chose not to wait until Windows 7. Given that this is a netbook, I don’t want a lot of the performance to be taken away by the new operating system, when I will be using this laptop only for general schoolwork/e-mail/web surfing/videos on youtube and hulu. I am thinking of getting a desktop though, and I definitely want Windows 7 on that :)
When you compare, I think you’ll find that Windows 7 is going to improve both performance and battery life on the netbook vs. earlier versions of Windows. That’s certainly the case here !
How does this compare to the new Toshiba Satellite coming out at the end of October?
How will this perform for video calling?
I have an acer 10 inch netbook and I have found it does not work well enough for real video calling while on the road.
I posted a comment on the initial blogged review on how it fared against the Gateway LT3103U, and I am glad they actually included a little more info between them. I find that when I bought my LT3103U my main concern in the NetBook market was price and value. On that scale I could find nothing else beating the Gateway in terms of those criteria. I have Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit RTM running beautifully on the LT3103U, and it actually runs about 15% faster than Windows Vista Home Basic (what it was loaded with when I bought it). In fact the HP Mini 311 CANNOT run a 64 bit OS – ouch. What I noticed in the Laptop mag final review was that it did not compare the 311 against its larger sibling the HP DV2 with the Dual Neo and ATI HD 3410 graphics chipset. The DV2 has dual processors, a dedicated 512 MB graphics chipset, 4 GB of RAM, 320 GB hard drive, wireless WiFi N, Bluetooth, and comes with Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit preloaded for about a little over $100 more than a (not so) similarly configured 311. All in all, looking at value, I find that the Mini 311 does not look as value busting as the AMD L110 and Neo offerings. And that said, AMD owns ATI, so there is no processor and GPU rivalry/envy in that equation.
The DV2 also gets about half of the battery life of the Mini 311. Between 2 and 2.5 hours. Mini 311 as tested was more than double that.
I agree the DV2 has lower battery life, but I am betting Windows 7 on the DV2 should give a little more battery life. I am not really concerned with battery life as much, as I am used to carrying an extra netbook/laptop, a universal AC adpater, and/or an extra battery. I am sure if I set the DV2 to balanced or power saving mode, that I can get at least another hour or more from it. I know my Gateway LT3103u can eek out almost 4 hours in power save and below average use. If I need 5 hours or more of battery life then I switch to my Fujitsu U810, my trusty back up. Yes I am one of those people who, unfortunately as a Network and Systems Admin, can’t be caught dead with only one laptop in my bag.
Honestly AMD has become a joke. Windows 7 will not change much with battery life on the DV2. The inherent problem is the processor. It sucks. I went to an HP/AMD training event and AMD was dancing around taking pot shots at Intel claiming that all processors get 2 hour battery life despite claims. AMD is completely out of it. I’m a tech guy and I have tested Intel against AMD on Netbooks and Laptops. Intel’s processors usually average on Netbooks 5-6 hours. On laptops, 3 to 4 hours. AMD about 2 to 2.5 hours on laptops and 3-4 on netbooks. I have lost all faith in AMD and it’s pretty hard to take them seriously after what I saw in that training event. EVERYONE was either laughing at them, or walked out. It was pretty sad.