HP Mini 311 — Design
Moving on to our pictorial overview, here's our gallery of the HP Mini 311 along with the included accessories.
The HP Mini 311 is available in either a black or white swirl pattern. We received the black version, and the white casing is an extra $20. If we were purchasing this for ourselves, we'd be inclined to go with the white model, simply because it's not as likely to show fingerprints as the black casing — and the black model definitely picks up fingerprints, with the typical glossy plastic finish found on many laptops these days. Thankfully, the palm rest and keyboard are silver instead of black and they don't have a glossy finish, so they don't show smudges very much at all by comparison. The LCD is also glossy (reflective), but we really didn't expect anything else considering the last time we saw a matte LCD in a laptop was several years back. (Yes, I know, a few companies like Apple still offer it as an option on higher end notebooks.) The LCD also has a low contrast ratio, similar to most other budget laptops/netbooks.
While the overall appearance is good, the design and construction warrant a few criticisms. For one, the placement of the touchpad with the buttons on the edge of the chassis is not something we like. Others may disagree, but the button placement in particular just wasn't something that we got used to during the course of testing. It's not a horrible touchpad by any means, but we've seen better. The touchpad also lacks gestures/multi-touch support, though it does include a vertical scrollbar along the right.
Like the touchpad, we also had concerns with the keyboard. The feel of the keys just isn't very good, with several wobbly keys on our test unit. (And this is actually the second test unit; the first one had a space bar that didn't work properly to the point where I asked NVIDIA to send a different unit!) The buttons on the keyboard and touchpad just don't have a precise fit in the casing. Over time, we expect that the keys would become even looser. I ran through some typing tests and definitely couldn't reach my normal ~60 WPM on the Mini 311; I managed 53 WPM and accuracy dropped from nearly 100% to around 95%. That's not a huge decrease, but comfort also comes into play; simply put, if you care about keyboard quality you should definitely think twice before purchasing the HP Mini 311 — or at least try it out in person.
Our overall impression of the HP Mini 311 is that it has a very good set of features, but the design and construction are lacking. If it were priced lower, we would be more forgiving, but the base model is priced about $100 higher than competing netbooks that don't use the NVIDIA ION chipset. The improved performance in certain tasks is good, but for this price we would like to see a better LCD (higher contrast ratio if nothing else), and the keyboard definitely needs some reworking. With a few minor upgrades, the price is very close to laptops like the Acer Timeline series with CULV processors and GMA 4500MHD graphics. Unlike the GMA 950 in most netbooks, the 4500MHD has video decoding support and the CPUs are generally more than twice as fast as the Atom offerings.
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ninjackn - Monday, November 23, 2009 - link
I think a more fair comparison would be to mention all 3 tiers: netbooks, netbooks with video acceleration and CULV laptop. Netbooks have tempted me for a long while but the lack of ability to watch practically any video have long been a turn off from them.The ION netbooks are something like $100 more over a netbook without video acceleration. That $100 gets me the ability to watch youtube, hulu, 1080p H264 content and play games like plants vs zombies, WoW or Quake Live. Then for another $100 more I can get a laptop that can possibly do the same but have better battery life, build quality and start office faster? The $100 more is seeming less appearing, especially since it is a non-primary system.
It seems like an interesting trade off, a weaker GPU and more powerful CPU (CULV + 4500MHD) or a strong GPU and weaker CPU (Atom + ION). The ION is defiantly a stronger GPU than the 4500MHD but I’m interested as to how the balance of CPU/GPU will play out in benchmarks for reasonable games.
Also, if you buy a mini 311 with Windows 7 then it comes equipped with the full ION. Granted that ION LE really IS a full ION with the DX10 disabled through drivers but it can be enabled either through a BIOS hack or forcing full ION drivers. The Windows Experience Index score for gaming jumps from 3.9 to 5.4 I'm curious how that plays out (311+full ion vs timeline for "light" gaming).
As for video playback I have no idea if the 4500MHD is any good for H264 decoding. All I’ve heard about it is from forums or comments and I would really appreciate if there was a more definitive source (anandtech) discussing the matter. I glossed over the flash 10.1 article and it would seem that either are fine for youtube or hulu but what about videos we acquired through other means?
And talking as a "typical" anandtech-reader/power-user type of guy: The ion is more interesting over the 4500MHD because no apple laptop comes with a 4500MHD but they do come with a 9400M.
JarredWalton - Monday, November 23, 2009 - link
4500MHD provides enough GPU acceleration of x264/H.264/Flash decoding that when combined with a CULV CPU you can easily watch 1080p videos.The real comparison is Acer 1410/Gateway EC1435u (essentially the same thing) vs. the HP Mini 311. All are ~$400 base price, with a slight advantage in specs (i.e. RAM) to the Acer/Gateway CULV laptops.
I can't say for sure how the Celeron SU2300 stacks up to the Pentium SU4100, but half the cache and 100MHz should mean it's about 80-85% of the performance. That should still be enough for video decoding (I'll verify with Flash 10.1 on SU4100 in the next couple days).
For graphics, GMA 4500MHD is about 1/4 the gaming performance of 9400M, but Atom really holds 9400M (ION) back it seems. If the 9400M can only run at ~1/3 it's regular gaming performance because of CPU bottlenecking, we have a real fight. If it's more like 1/2 speed, it's not as close.
I'll be looking at all of this in the next week or so....
AstarothCY - Sunday, November 22, 2009 - link
The HP Mini 311 is multitouch-capable. Yes, the Windows 7 models ship with a driver that inexplicably does not recognize multitouch gestures, but if you install the following driver, they will work:http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareDownloa...">http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/soft...%A9=en&a...
You may experience an issue with the function of the left touchpad button being unset from "Click", causing some issues after you wake up from hibernate, just make sure it is set properly. HP should really release a proper Mini 311 ALPS driver for Windows 7.
BelardA - Sunday, November 22, 2009 - link
Yeah, it sucks that some idiots decided that WE would want glossy LCD screens for our portable computers. *I HATE THEM*.But there are notebooks with WindowsXP & Windows7 with excellent matte screens.
They are called THINKPADS. Some of the cool-looking, lower end SL series has non-glossy screens. And the other series: R / T / X / W come with matte screens by default (Some are/were optional gloss).
So starting at about $550 (SL) or a typical SL / R with core2duo at $600~700 are matte screens.
I love my ThinkPad, and the screen was the #1 reason I bought it for $650. Many of my friends buy them now because of the screens and of course the quality. Something that HP can't touch.
BTW: I also like netbooks... for $250~300, willing to deal with the glossy. But it looks like a ThinkPad Netbook may come out and it has glossy :( (rumored)
cgramer - Monday, November 23, 2009 - link
FWIW, the Asus Eee PC 1000HE has a matte screen, though its case is as glossy as any of them (i.e., a fingerprint magnet).AstroGuardian - Monday, November 23, 2009 - link
ThinkPads are marvelous piece of technology. Definitely untouchable by competition. But costly also!fokka - Sunday, November 22, 2009 - link
dell (and afaik hp) buisnes-lineups also offer matte sceens, though at least in the dell vostros, they arent that great considering viewing angles, contrast, colour.Etern205 - Sunday, November 22, 2009 - link
The HP mini 311 uses DDR3 not DDR2 as you guys have stated in the specifications table.JarredWalton - Sunday, November 22, 2009 - link
Sorry... typical cut/paste typo. :)irev210 - Sunday, November 22, 2009 - link
Lots of talk between comparing the Acer 1810 to the ion platform.You can get the 399 dual core celeron CULV for 399 in the acer timeline 1410.
The HP ion platform vs the Acer celly CULV platform is a no brainer comparison, as they are both 399.
Acer celly CULV is by far the best value in the netbook space atm.