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(More customer reviews)I am lucky enough to work in an IT department that has a few netbooks floating around, so I have had a little time to mess with several netbooks offered by Asus, HP, Dell, and Acer. The majority of netbooks offered by these companies come similarly configured, although with a smaller 10" screen and without the Nvidia ion video. This netbook performs op par with others that I've tested, with several notable exceptions.
First off, it's video and 3D performance are way ahead of other netbooks I've used, as well as some standard laptops that I've used which have integrated Intel graphics chips. To test its video capabilities, I grabbed a couple of video files I had stored including a SD, 720p, and 1080p video. All three played without any stuttering or dropped frames, both on the laptop and when connected to my 1080p TV over HDMI. The 1080p video took several seconds to start (probably 15-20), but once it fired up, no problems at all. I also tested both SD and HD videos streaming from Netflix and had the same results, no dropped frames or stuttering. On a standard netbook (non-ion), HD video is unplayable, and SD fullscreen videos have quite a few dropped frames. However, the HP 311 still struggles with HD flash video, but I've heard there is a new version of flash in the works which will make use of discrete video processors which should be out in the next month or two, and should address this issue.
To test the 3D video performance, I tried a couple of games that I've played on and off over the years. I'm sure there are a few WOW players out there who are wondering if WOW is actually playable on this machine. The answer is yes. I am not a player myself but have dabbled with WOW in the past, and am familiar enough with the game to know what frame rates would be playable or not. I installed the WOW free trial and messed around in starting areas and entered a major city. The frame rate did dip a bit once I entered the city, but never dropped below playable levels. Might not be the ideal choice for major raiding, but good enough for getting your WOW fix on the go. You will notice that session changes take a bit longer due to the low voltage Atom processor, but this also occurs at speeds that I would consider acceptable.
I also tested a game which I do play frequently, Eve Online. Again session changes took a bit longer than what I'm used to, but the frame rate in busy systems stayed pretty steady and always what I would consider quite playable.
I'm not going to go super deep into features like the keyboard and screen, they're about what you would expect on a netbook, I can type well on the keyboard but find myself slowing down slightly due to it's smaller size. The 11.6" screen is clear (although it is reflective, keep this in mind if you plan to be using it in sunlight), and quite a bit more usable than the 10" screens of slightly smaller netbooks in my opinion. The touchpad is definitely not the best I've used, sometimes taking several tries for it to recognize taps. I will mess with the sensitivity settings and see if I can iron this issue out.
My one true gripe about this netbook is it's lack of RAM. I reviewed it as it came, running 1 GB. I took me about an hour of use to go back on Amazon and order another 2GB. It's usable, but there are quite a few pauses when running several programs at once. Increasing the RAM should help this out quite a bit, and the session changes in games that I mentioned earlier should take place quite a bit quicker once you add RAM.
All in all, I like this netbook a lot, it meets my requirements and I am happy with the purchase. It is the best netbook I have used thus far, and look forward to when my RAM arrives, which should make the machine about perfect.
Note about upgrading the RAM: this machine will take a 1 or 2 GB chip, PC3-8500 DDR3-1066. It uses the 204 pin DDR3 rather than the 200 pin DDR2 RAM that most netbooks use. The 1 GB that this netbook comes with is not removable, and it has 1 free upgrade slot.
Click Here to see more reviews about: HP Mini 311-1000NR 11.6-Inch Black Netbook - Up to 6.25 Hours of Battery Life
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