HP Mini 311 with Windows 7 and ION now in Canada
Although available for some time beyond Canadian borders, the HP Mini 311 line of netbooks have finally appeared in Canada. Although still using the single core Atom N270 processor, the Windows 7 Home Premium Mini 311-1033 sports 2GB of RAM and Nvidia’s ION graphics processor along with an 11.6 inch LED backlit display for $499.
The 1033’s little brother, the 311-1000 at $429 has the lower powered ION LE GPU, which has less addressable memory, and is wearing last years fashions in the OS department, with XP Home. Both, luckily, have Altec Lansing speakers, which from all reports are considerably better than the generic speakers bundled with netbooks whose names start with “A”.
It’s the Nvidia ION that really makes these interesting, at least for me. I’ve been happy using Acer and Asus machines in the past, but the one real drawback to the compact computers has been the graphics performance on the rare occasion I try to push the machine. The ION should make the point moot, although I’ll be checking the big box retailers to see how much of a difference it makes.
UPDATED: Laptop Mag has some benchmarks that show how much of a difference a good graphics processor, even the lower end ION LE, can make in a netbook.
