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HP Mini 311 Review

The HP Mini 311 is Hewlett-Packards’ latest and largest iteration of the Atom-powered netbook. At the same time, this is the only netbook in the local market today that sports an NVidia ION LE chipset. See our full review below.

hp mini 311
The HP Mini 311 went out with a design that crosses between the HP Mini 2140 and the Mini 110 — a glossy, black swirl lid and matte silver keyboard finish. It has a thicker base though that tapers into a bit thinner at the front end giving an impression that it’s slimmer than its predecessor.

hp mini 311

In most respects, the Mini 311 has almost the same internal specs as the other previous mini-notes with the single exception of a souped up platform — an NVidia Ion LE, which includes the nVidia GeForce 9400M graphics with 512 dedicated memory. That, plus the DDR3 memory (the default 1GB is embedded and an extra DIMM slot can take an additional 1GB or 2GB stick).

The rest are pretty standard — an Intel Atom N280 1.66GHz, 160GB HDD, 1.3MP webcam, Bluetooth 2.1, WiFi b/g, card reader, USB ports with an added HDMI port for HD output. There’s a dedicated physical button for WiFi on the upper right side of the keyboard.

The system is pre-installed with Windows XP SP3 and while it’s very responsive and snappy, I have yet to check the system running Windows 7 (nVidia ION LE is made to be only compatible with XP but a hack is possible to make it run Windows 7 smoothly).

If there’s one thing I appreciate the most, it’s the screen real estate of the HP Mini 311 — the glossy screen is bright and crisp with a pretty nice resolution of 1366×768 pixels. You don’t have that nagging feeling you always get with most netbooks — small, cramp screen with incessant scrolling. The only drawback is that the glossy finish is prone to glaze in the outdoors.

mini 311

With size comes comfort and the bigger form factor of the Mini 311 allows for a much more comfortable keyboard layout. It’s the same as the one in the Mini 2140 but you get a more spacious palm rest and a much bigger (like 50% more area than the Mini 2140) trackpad with separated left and right clickers. The trackpad’s got multi-touch features too.

The unit has a built-in 6-cell battery that’s fitted into the body so you don’t see any protrusion of any kind at the back which is nice. A single full charge gives me an average of 5 hours of normal use with WiFi on.

The Altec Lansing speakers are situated at the bottom part up front and span the entire width of the unit. The speakers have enough volume even for open movie playback. The black paint tends to get chipped off easily though. The 1.3MP webcam is decent and comes with a small pin light.

From experience with normal usage, I feel that the graphics outperforms the CPU so some of the noticeable lags could be attributed to the Atom rather than the GeForce 9400M (This is from experience with playing Flash games and running YouTube HD on a number of netbooks of varying configurations). Will do a separate entry on graphics benchmark, gaming and over-all system performance at the PCLabs.

For a suggested retail price of Php28,990, the HP Mini 311 seemed a bit on the expensive side but considering you also get an external DVD+RW out of the box (worth Php3-4k), I think it’s a worthy buy.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

81 Responses

  1. Avatar for Beautiful latin Brides Beautiful latin Brides says:

    For a Newbie, My business is always searching online for articles which will help me. Thanks a ton

  2. Avatar for Kaye Kaye says:

    I’m selling my HP Mini 311 for sum of 21K since I rarely used it because I have one more laptop which is for school-work related. I got the HP Mini 311 for 27K but still good as a brand new, I installed MS Office 2007 incase you need it asap right. I still have the box and complete set pa rin. No scratches and defects! The sticky cover protector ang screen yung sa logo pag naka-close siya. Gets niyo naman ibig ko sabihin. It’s Window 7 Starter too. Email me: iamsu****@****.***

  3. Avatar for ariel ariel says:

    my hpmini 311 encountered noisy fan motor but now it’s not working any more which make my unit heated up for few mimutes of use. can you give me an idea how much will it cost for the repair and replacement of part? I bought this last nov. 25, 2009. advice also where to bring this, I’m from bacoor cavite area.

  4. Avatar for rey rey says:

    mahal 28,990. 21,000 pesos lang yan converted d2 sa saudi. Grabe nmn ang mahal

  5. Avatar for Alvin Alvin says:

    Sir Yuga, ano po suggestion nyo na mas ok?
    Hp 311 o Acer Aspire One 721 ?
    im planning to buy early next month.

  6. Avatar for Kyla Frymier Kyla Frymier says:

    Do I have your permission to reference a couple of sentences from your post? I’m researching for a paper for college. Thanks very much!

  7. Avatar for CHARISSE CHIBHON SISON CHARISSE CHIBHON SISON says:

    sir/mam how much this hp mini laptop i am living in philippines davao city i was a 10 years old and i am wanted to have hp mini laptop thank you

  8. Avatar for Adrian Rodriguez Adrian Rodriguez says:

    I’ve beeen using my HP 311 Mini for almost a year now since last November. I’ve managed to do the Windows 7 install and hack the processor to run at 1.9GHz and ION LE uprated to the faster ION spec thanks to the LE upgrade hack (needs BIOS hacking in order to work). The only gripe will be that once the hacks are made, expect the battery life to take a massive nosedive.

    The baby can handle Photoshop (retouch) processing of small images. As well as RAW conversion from my camera.

    If I didn’t see this one available last year, I might’ve bought a Macbook instead :P (at double the price)

    To those looking: I got mine at Villman Trinoma since they weren’t showing the model on the display back then. You’d have to inquire from the folks there if they have in stock.

  9. Avatar for chelC chelC says:

    hi missD! yup still available po.. may nag-express na din ng interest, depends kung sino una mag seal ng deal sa inyo. =) im sure u wont regret this, if i didnt receive a new laptop i wont even give this up, really! comparing it to other netbooks, this has the most promising design without compromising quality, HP pa! Add me up and send me a pm in facebook (enchanted.re****@****.***). thanks dear!

  10. Avatar for MissD MissD says:

    nice review! i’m looking for a netbook, and i think no.1 choice ko na ‘to.

    @chelC: available pa ba yung unit mo? im interested.

  11. Avatar for chelC chelC says:

    guys, im now selling my hp mini 311! see my previous post couple of months ago? i bought one and it’s really really a great buy! the resolution is so crisp and in high-definition, you wont even think it’s a mini note… got good compliments bout it! =)

    but just recently, my sister sent me a new hp laptop so i wont be able to use this anymore..
    so i’m selling it for only 24k, already preinstalled with ms office 2007, some movies and games! 99% scratch free! pm me if interested! =)

  12. Avatar for liaquion liaquion says:

    @Undaunted, where are you from? if you’re here in manila, have you gone to sm north? there are hp mini 311 there, in the cyberzone. my last post: this unit is P2,000 off from it’s launching price, as of june 14, 2010. from P29, 990 down to P27, 990. there are units with this price in trinoma and sm north edsa. hope you still fond one. :)

  13. Avatar for Protege Protege says:

    i would suggest sa mga nawalan na ng stocks,mag asus 1201PN nlng kayo,d paq sure kung meron na sa market ne2 pero cguro before matapos e2ng yr. meron na yan.
    same processor intel atom pero ung difference nea lng nka nvidia ION2 xa, i think mas better yun.tapos mas lower pa price nea :)

  14. Avatar for Undaunted Undaunted says:

    or can you please suggest a good netbook that I can use? I’m not a gamer. It’s basically for surfing, watching videos, and ms office stuff.

  15. Avatar for Undaunted Undaunted says:

    Guys help me out… I wanna buy this hp 311 however I went to the hp ph website, it’s no longer available. Is it still advisable to get this one?

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