HP Mini 311 reviewed – close to 6 hrs battery life

Following on from the HP Mini 311 benchmarks that appeared yesterday, Laptop Mag has released its review of the ION-powered netbook. Overall, it scored highly, earning a coveted ‘Editors Choice’ award. Whilst we’d already seen that performance was way ahead than your traditional netbook, we didn’t know how much of a hit this took on battery life.

Luckily, battery life wasn’t compromised. In their tests, they managed to get a very respectable 5 hours and 46 minutes out of the 6-cell battery. Combine this with a reasonable $399 price point, and sleek chassis, it seems that HP are onto a winner with the Mini 311. Check out the key review points after the break.

Key review points of the HP Mini 311

• The Mini 311 design is attractive, with a flush 6-cell battery. It’s also not much heavier than other 12-inch netbooks.
• The keyboard was comfortable to type on, despite smooth keys.
• The touchpad is a bit disappointing as it has too much friction, the mouse buttons are also slightly stiff.
• The 1366×768 11.6-inch glossy display is a pleasure to use. Horizontal viewing angles are good.
• The Altec Lansing stereo speakers provide better sound than normally found in netbooks.
• The Mini 311 scored 1,917 on the PCMark05 test, 500 points better than the netbook average.
• The Mini 311 scored 1,386 in 3DMark06, more than 1,280 points better than the netbook average.
• Video on Hulu was choppy but the introduction of GPU-accelerated flash (Flash Player 10.1) should lead to smooth video playback.
• Boot time of 1 minute 44 seconds was very slow; the netbook average is 55 seconds.
• Heat wasn’t an issue. The Mini 311 stayed relatively cool.
• 1080p video output fared well, with only few instances of motion blur.
• Video editing also saw a significant improvement over traditional netbooks.
• Playing the latest games (such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare and Far Cry 2) is possible but at very low resolutions.