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.
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.
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.
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.
Another impressive lappie from hp, those guys always outperform their previous gadget offering in the market! I agree with u yuga, with the ext drive included its a good deal indeed!
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it looks good. I should change my Compac then..lols
Can it run Photoshop and other development softwares decently?
Interesting note you made about the OS Yuga. The official HP site does allow for customers to choose Windows 7 pre-installed. I guess those who want to snag this and plan to install Windows 7 for later is out of luck. Will a Windows 7 – equipped version reach our shores (sans hack)?
eto ba un dala natin nung sat?
yup, yan nga yun.
i want this for my yugatech xmas wish list
nice, maganda nga to. :)
Sir Yuga, san ba natin to mabibili??
is it possible to upgrade to 3GB DDR3 and 320GB hard drive?magkano kaya guys aabutin,.
any idea bout sa hp 311 na may windows 7 na?kelan lalabas satin?
@anthony – most PC shops in the Malls carry this model. Try Complink.
@maki – I think it’s possible but you have to shell out at least Php5k for that.
yuga- thanks. hindi na siguro ako maga-upgrade.haha
complink southmall(las pinas) galing ako dun kanina sabi phase out na sila hp 311,..
bought 1 unit yesterday.
hp 311-1002tu
2gb ddr3 sdram,
250 gb,
window 7 starter. for P29,990
hd video streamning on youtube lags,.pano ayusin un?sa pinsan ko hp 110 naglalag din hd streaming vid
I have a question, Why does it have a simcard slot behind the battery pack? Does this mean it also has a 3G modem with it?
the point to having the dedicated 512mb video ram is for movies and games, no?
but it lags on streaming video daw. any idea what games it maxes out on? can it play left4dead 2? cuz i’ve seen the left4dead playing on it.
just wondering on forward compatibility.
might be better to wait for the ion netbooks to start showing the 2ghz chip na?
Nice review!
@Blue Lucero some netbooks lags on streaming also, like Acer Aspire A0751, maybe because of the low powered cpu.
mura dito sa UAE…2100dhs…this is my choice since I gonna buy one for me na kasi kinuha nung utol ko yung netbook ko e…
maki:: sir yung video chip po ba nya ay ION na or still ION LE?
which s better, hp mini 311 or toshiba nb200?
maglalag talaga cia sa flash videos like youtube kasi CPU-intensive yun at hindi graphics intensive (this has a weak intel atom like most netbooks). Pagdating pa ng bagong flash update mamamaximize yung graphics card para sa online/flash videos/games. Kelangan nga lang yung hack para mapakinabangan yun, kasi ION “LE – Lite Edition” lang to, iba pa sa full na ION.
tiningnan ko sa HP Philippines, HP Mini 311-1001TU PC pa lang meron sa pinas, ION LE yun with win XP sp3 pre-installed.
BPI Madness in glorietta has HP Mini 311 (1002 sku) with the following specs:
Windows 7 Starter
250GB HDD
2GB RAM
ION graphics chip (according to dxdiag).
You may want to check those out, it’s priced at P29,990. Villman and Electroworld are some of the stores I saw that carry it.
THE ODERWAYAROUND . ..its not good for me, that kind of laptop… atom spec.. high video card… for me i have NEC laptop bought three years ago.. …one thing i learn most of the laptop has high specification but u cant use it daily. It should depend on the end-users need… you dont need this specification. Der r better price outder for specific needs dont by it becoz of d design.. be smart customer ask about technical support, stability issue, temperature and battery lyfe – ” wear and tear” .. just a tip for those want some laptop…dis xmas
@jeffrey: i agree, you also have to consider the applications you need to run on your machine when you’re on the hunt for a laptop/netbook. from there, you can decide if you’re going for a higher/mid spec laptop/netbook
personally, i would go for a full specs laptop priced at 35K and up over a 30K netbook. :)
[...] HP Mini 311 [...]
bought one for my gf from hp trinoma at 29,500 cash price.
windows 7 starter, 250gb hard drive, 2gb ram.
im pretty sure its already full ION since they released it with windows 7 already and wala naman nakasulat dun sa details ng Nvidia graphics card na LE, ION lang.
great laptop, great graphics we’ve tried playing games on lan already. graphics are even better than my PC. even tried the HDMI cable on our samsung full HD. (may konting lag lang pero bearable) may photoshop narin ako, but dont expect too much from the processor.
downside lang ung windows 7 na starter, hindi customizable ung wallpaper, so unless you’re willing to pay 7000++ just to customize your desktop stick with it nalng. medyo mabagal lang din ung external cd drive via usb lang kasi.
Pero over-all after all the research I did before buying it, bought it the day after windows 7/full ion came here in the Philippines I think so far its the best netbook around. high specs, great graphics. even better than a same priced heavy ‘note’book.