Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"When is a netbook not a netbook? PC makers have been looking to expand the definition of these systems by outfitting them with larger screens and bigger batteries, but one constant has remained: a low-powered processor that limits their use to surfing the Web, checking e-mail, editing documents, and watching standard-def video."

Laptop Magazine is one of the first publications to get a review of the eagerly anticipated HP Mini 311 out of the gate. The HP Mini represents one of the first NVidia ION powered netbooks to come to market. The review covers all the details you need to know about the sweet little device, and yes, it plays games faster than in slide show mode, and yes, it is capable of 1080p video, provided you are playing back something that is GPU accelerated (Flash 10.1 cannot come early enough!) and yes, it can even do video editing at a reasonable speed. Unfortunately, I see two things that could potentially make the Mini 311 less attractive. First, with a 11.6" screen, the Mini 311 comes dangerously close to entering the notebook market. This is probably on purpose though, since people are finding lilliputian screens hard to watch for an extended period of time. Second, why, oh why does it have a single core CPU? Still, at a launch price of $399, it is really hard to knock this beauty and it will probably find its way into many homes soon.

"I don’t spend a whole lot of time playing games, but I do enjoy playing them. You can’t even get graphics-intensive games to load on most netbooks, but they’re playable on the Mini 311. In this video you can see that Call of Duty 4 plays smoothly on low settings."

The HP Mini 311, though not available yet, is one of the first netbooks that will be released using the Nvidia ION chipset. One of the big draws about ION, aside from potentially offering 1080p video playback, is the 9400M class GPU. While it will not be able to run games with the highest quality settings, it is way faster than the antiquated GMA950 that comes with most netbooks. Way faster. I mean, 3D games no longer look like someone using a slide projector. Notebooks.com even has a video demonstrating Call of Duty 4 to give you a real world example of what you can expect. I doubt that any hardcore gamer would settle for what the HP Mini 311 provides as their primary rig, but being able to start up the occasional game without having to cart around a behemoth is very attractive. At an estimated starting price of $399, there is little reason to pick from the older generation netbooks.