Our HP Mini 311 (311-1000NR) features the following specifications:

• Operating System: Genuine Windows XP (32-bit)
• Processor: Intel Atom N270 Processor 1.60GHz (533MHz FSB)
• Memory: 1GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Storage: 160GB 5400 rpm SATA HDD
• Display: 11.6-inch diagonal WSVGA+ (1366×768)
• Graphics: Nvidia Ion LE
• Wireless: 802.11a/b/g
• Expansion: 4-in-1 media card slot
• Dimensions (H x W x D): 0.78-1.20 x 11.4 x 8.0 inches (including feet)
• Weight: 3.34 lb (not including weight of AC adapter).
• Power: 6-cell Lithium-Polymer battery
• Warranty: One-year standard warranty
• MSRP: $399.99

Build and Design
The HP Mini 311 looks like an obvious evolution of the HP Mini design. In fact, if it weren’t for the larger size of the 311 you could easily mistake this netbook for the old Mini 1000. In short, nothing substantial has changed in terms of the build or design of the latest generation of Mini netbooks. That said, this isn’t a bad thing. HP engineers did a lot of things right with the earlier Minis, and the Mini 311 likewise offers a nearly fullsize keyboard, large touchpad, and acceptable build quality at a low price. The clamshell-like design gives the Mini 311 a very clean look and the “Black Swirl” Imprint finish features a nice spiral pattern design that looks like either a bunch of black/silver galaxies bumping into each other or a bed of black roses. This Imprint design not only gives the lid a distinct appearance, but also helps protect the lid from scratches.

When open, the glossy black plastic extends around the glossy 11-inch screen. The entire exterior of the chassis is a combination of glossy black plastic, glossy silver plastic, and matte black plastic. Obviously, whenever we look at a laptop with this much plastic we’re concerned about build quality … and the Mini 311 was a bit of a mixed blessing. On one hand, the keyboard feels nice and firm with no flex. Likewise, the screen and rear of the netbook feel quite solid even under significant pressure. On the other hand, the front of the netbook suffers from some annoying “creaking” in the plastics of the palmrests. if you pick up the Mini 311 from either palmrest you will hear some unpleasant creaking sounds and feel some uncomfortable flex in the plastic. That said, we suspect the Mini 311 will hold up about as well as any plastic netbook priced below $400. The various parts of the chassis come together with tight seams and good attention to detail. The Mini 311 is also available in white just in case black isn’t your color of choice.

Screen and Speakers
The new 11.6-inch screen on the Mini 311 is a nice LED-backlit display panel with a 1366×768 native resolution. The glossy screen surface helps to improve color and contrast, but we noticed the colors look a bit “washed out” or “pastel” compared to what our test desktop background looks like on other laptops. Although the 1366×768 resolution is a nice step up from the 1024×600 resolution seen on most netbooks the washed out colors made the viewing experience less than perfect. Vertical viewing angles are average with some color distortion when viewing from below and some over-exposed colors when viewed from above. Horizontal viewing angles are better with colors remaining unchanged at extremely wide viewing angles; you won’t have trouble sharing a YouTube video with friends using this display.

The built-in speaker performance on the Mini 311 is extremely good for an 11-inch netbook. I’m not a fan of the location of the built-in speakers since they’re located on the bottom front edge of the netbook, but the audio quality is quite good. The speakers produce excellent volume (enough to fill a small room) and there is minimal distortion even at higher volume levels. The speakers lack much bass, but the range of highs and midtones are perfectly enjoyable.

Granted, most audiophiles will want to use external speakers or headphones for a better listening experience … but the built-in speakers work well in a pinch. The audio output from the dual-function headphone jack/microphone jack produced some high frequency background noise/distortion with some of the headphones we used during testing, but other headphones worked fine with no distortion.

Keyboard and Touchpad
As previously mentioned, the HP Mini 311 features a nice and large keybaord that is 92% of full size. Most of the primary keys are the same size as the keys you’ll find on a typical notebook and the spacing is likewise normal, but the space bar and some of the keys that are used less frequently are smaller than normal. If you prefer the shape and feel of traditional keys then you’ll probably like this keyboard. That said, I personally prefer the “Chiclet” style keyboard used on many netbooks and ultraportables since there is more space between the keys to prevent me from accidentally hitting the wrong key when working in tight quarters. Still, the keyboard on this netbook is quite usable and should be perfectly fine for typing quick emails or editing documents while traveling.

The ALPS touchpad used on the Mini 311 is a multitouch gesture-enabled model that allows you to use multi-figure gestures such as “pinching” your fingers together or “pulling” your fingers apart to zoom in or out. The ALPS control panel in Windows also allows you to customize these gestures as well. Sensitivity and tracking seemed accurate even when you move your fingers quickly over the touchpad surface. Speaking of which, the touchpad is covered in a glossy smooth surface that sometimes makes it east to slide your finger across the surface and other times causes your finger to “skip across the surface because of the lack of texture/traction. The left and right touchpad buttons are located beneath the touchpad and each button has shallow feedback with loud clicks when pressed.

Input and Output Ports
In terms of port selection the HP Mini 311 offers a few more bells and whistles than your average netbook. You get three USB 2.0 ports, a 4-in-1 media card reader, dual-function headphone/microphone jack, Ethernet port, and two video out ports in the form of VGA and HDMI.

Performance and Benchmarks
The performance section of a netbook review is generally the most boring part because all netbooks have virtually identical performance. That said, HP hopes the Mini 311 will change that thanks to the use of Nvidia’s Ion graphics. In this case, our test configuration comes with Nvidia Ion LE … basically standard Ion with some of the features crippled via software. Despite this, our performance benchmarks indicate Ion indeed gives the Mini 311 a nice boost over netbooks that use Intel GMA 950 graphics.

Unfortunately, Nvidia’a Ion graphics can’t do anything to overcome the performance bottleneck of the Intel Atom processor. Although the latest version of Flash Player supports GPU acceleration, we didn’t see much (if any) improvement in HD Flash playback because of the weak processor. When we tried to watch Hulu HD on this netbook there was significant lag and the video and audio playback was out of sync. In fact, if you watched a Hulu HD clip with a man and woman having a conversation the audio was so out of sync that it looked like the woman’s voice was coming from the man and the man’s voice was coming from the woman.

Overall performance with the Intel Atom platform is very reasonable for daily activities like web browsing, email, using Microsoft Office, listening to music, and even watching standard definition movies. If you’re in a bind you can even use photo editing software like Photoshop or GIMP for basic image editing. Unfortunately, the Intel Atom N270 processor still feels painfully weak for general computing … which means multitasking. Typical multitasking (such as switching back and forth between a full-screen web browser and Microsoft Office) was sluggish at best and frustratingly slow at worst.

All of the synthetic benchmarks we use to rate the performance of a laptop show the HP Mini 311 offers slight improvements over typical netbooks, but “real world” use is still limited by the weak processor. For example, games like World of Warcraft play flawlessly, but games like Counter-Strike: Source dropped to an unplayable 12-15 frames per second at the lowest detail settings whenever the CPU had to handle a large level map.

Heat and Noise
Temperatures on the new HP Mini 311 are quite comfortable and typical of most current-generation netbooks. Temperature readings taken from the outside of the plastic chassis remained “lap friendly” during normal use. The only time that temperature readings spiked was when I stressed the GPU and CPU when playing games.

The cooling fan often kicks on, particularly when the netbook is plugged in, but the noise wasn’t particularly loud. If you are very sensitive to noise then the fan might bother you in a quiet room, but chances are you’ll never notice it.

Battery
Battery life with the integrated 6-cell lithium-ion battery . In our test with the screen brightness set to 70%, and wireless active, the Mini 311 stayed on for 6 hours and 18 minutes of constant use. Although some netbooks offer closer to 10 hours of battery life, the battery also has to feed the power-hungry Nvidia Ion graphics and larger 11-inch screen. All things said and done I think it’s safe to say 6 hours of battery life will be fine for most people.

Conclusion
At the end of the day HP created a very nice netbook with an 11-inch screen, reasonably powerful graphics, and a nice keyboard … and then crippled it with Intel’s Atom processor. If all you want to do is very basic web browsing, email, social networking (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and play World of Warcraft then the HP Mini 311 is a great ultraportable laptop.

Unfortunately, the Intel Atom N270 processor is still painfully weak for general computing. Although the latest version of Flash Player supports GPU acceleration, we didn’t see much (if any) improvement in Flash playback because of the weak processor. Translation: don’t try to watch Hulu HD on this netbook. Typical multitasking (such as switching between the web browser and Microsoft Office) was sluggish at best and frustratingly slow at worst.

In short, the HP Mini 311 gives you a netbook that’s better than a typical netbook (one that uses Intel GMA 950 graphics) but still suffers from one of the same problems as other netbooks: a weak processor. Although the Mini 311 is a nice netbook we have a hard time recommending this netbook at this time considering that there are a number of Intel CULV-based ultraportables and soon a variety of AMD-based ultraportables for the only $50 to $100 more.

Pros:

• Nvidia Ion graphics boost performance
• Improved port selection
• Good battery life

Cons:

• Still using weak Atom processor
• Good graphics limited by CPU
• Touchpad surface isn’t great

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Toshiba mini NB205 (NB205-N310/BN) Specifications:

• OS: Microsoft Windows XP Home SP3
• 10.1″ WSVGA (1024 x 600) LED-backlit display
• CPU: Intel Atom N280 (1.66GHz, 533MHz FSB)
• Graphics: Intel GMA 950
• LAN onboard 10/100 Mbps Ethernet controller
• Wireless: 802.11b/g and Bluetooth V2.1
• Memory 1GB (DDR2 533MHz)
• Storage: 160GB hard drive (5400rpm) and SD/SDHC media card reader
• Webcam: 0.3 Megapixel
• Dimensions 10.4 x 8.3 x 1.0/1.27 inches (W x D x H)
• Weight 2.93lbs with 6-cell battery
• Battery: 6-cell Lithium-Ion
• Warranty: 1-Year Parts and Labor, 1-Year Battery
• Price as configured: $399.99 USD

Build and Design
The Toshiba mini NB205 is the first netbook (low-price, low-performance, ultraportable laptop) from Toshiba, but the design is certainly one of the most attractive we’ve seen in the netbook category. Toshiba offers the NB205 in multiple colors, but the silver and “Sable Brown” color combination in our review unit looks quite nice. The screen lid is made of thin textured plastic with the Toshiba logo front and center in silver metalic plastic. Toshiba engineers made the interesting choice of placing the power button in the middle of the screen hinge where it is exposed even when the netbook is closed. At first I was concerned this might not be the best position since it means the power button could be accidentally triggered inside a backpack or laptop case, but the button is disabled if the screen lid is closed.

Build quality was less than impressive despite the attractive exterior of the NB205. The thin plastics used in the construction of the chassis are prone to flex and the plastics make annoying “creaking” noises if you squeeze the netbook between your fingers. The full-size keyboard looks fantastic, but as soon as you apply typing pressure with your fingers you begin to feel the keyboard flex and bounce as you type. Unfortunately, the only area of the mini NB205 that feels nice and firm is the tension on the screen hinges.

The bottom of the netbook chassis shows an abundance of air vents to help with cooling (more on that later) and a pair of easy access panels for the RAM and hard drive. We’re happy to see more and more netbooks with easy access to the internals for upgrading the memory or storage, and Toshiba makes it very simple to complete these upgrades after removing three screws.

Screen and Speakers
The Toshiba NB205 uses a nice and bright 10.1-inch widescreen LED-backlit display panel with a 1024 x 600 native resolution. I wish Toshiba offered the mini NB205 with a higher resolution screen such as the ones available from Dell, HP, and Sony, but considering the $400 price point we can’t complain too much. Vertical viewing angles are average, with obvious color inversion when viewing from below and some over-exposed colors when viewed from above. Horizontal viewing angles are very good with colors only starting to shift at extreme wide viewing angles.

The built-in speaker performance on the mini NB205 is acceptable for listening to system sounds or very short online video clips, but overall the speaker quality is sub-par for a netbook. The built-in speaker is located on bottom front edge and can’t produce enough distortion-free volume to push sound up toward the user. If you want to use this netbook as a mobile entertainment portal then you need to invest in some good headphones. On the bright side, the audio output from the headphone jack is good when paired with earphones or a good set of external speakers.

Keyboard and Touchpad
The NB205 uses a new full-size keyboard that is quite massive for a 10-inch netbook. At first glance the NB205 looks to have one of the best keyboards on any of the current-generation netbooks. Unfortunately, that opinion quickly changes once you start typing. Although the keys are nice and large with excellent spacing to prevent typos, the keyboard falls victim to the same thin and flexible plastics used in the construction of the chassis. If you apply anything more than light typing pressure you will feel the keyboard “bouncing” under your fingertips as the plastic keyboard frame bends under the weight of your hands. If Toshiba engineers places a support frame under the keyboard this problem could easily be fixed.

On a much happier note, the mini NB205 features the single best touchpad we’ve used on any netbook to date. The touchpad measures roughly 3.2 inches wide by 1.8 inches tall with standard-sized touchpad buttons that go all the way to the front edge of the netbook. In short, Toshiba made perfect use of the available space and gives users a “real” touchpad rather than the half-sized touchpads used on most netbooks. The touchpad itself is an ALPS model with excellent sensitivity and only minor lag. The scroll zones required a bit of adjustment in our review unit, but once we increased the scroll speed everything seemed fine.

Input and Output Ports
The port selection on the Toshiba mini NB205 is pretty basic for a netbook. The NB205 includes three USB 2.0 ports, VGA out, Ethernet, microphone and headphone jacks, and a SD/SDHC media card slot. One extra little feature is that one of the three USB ports is a “Sleep and Charge” port. This allows you to charge a cell phone or MP3 player using the USB port even if the netbook is turned off. The only potential problem with this feature is that if you’re running on battery power and forget to unplug an iPod you might end up with a dead netbook battery … if you change the default settings.

Performance and Benchmarks
The Toshiba mini NB205 offers similar performance to most netbooks, but that shouldn’t be a surprise to most of our readers. The performance section of a netbook review is generally very boring compared to a full-featured notebook because most netbook have virtually identical specs. All Intel Atom-based netbooks have nearly identical performance in terms of actual real-world use. Overall performance with the Intel Atom platform is very reasonable for daily activities like Web browsing, email, using Microsoft Office, listening to music, and watching DVD-quality movies. If you’re in a bind you can even use Photo Editing Software like Photoshop or GIMP for basic image editing.

The one and only performance-related issue that we encountered during our testing of the NB205 was related to bloatware. Toshiba decided to include some “helpful” applications for the webcam, battery monitoring, wireless controls and Norton antivirus … all of which strain the netbook’s limited resources and make the NB205 slower than it should be. While most netbooks finish booting into Windows XP (including launching all startup applications) in less than 45 seconds, the NB205 takes more than 70 seconds to finish loading all the bloatware during Windows startup.

The use of Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics is probably the only major limitation for netbooks. This integrated graphics processor (IGP) is powerful enough to handle displaying a PowerPoint presentation on a projector or watching DVD quality movies, but if 1080p video playback or video editing is your primary concern then you’ll want to look elsewhere. We selected a family-friendly movie trailer and downloaded three different versions in 480p, 720p, and 1080p resolutions. We used the CCCP Codec Pack for decoding and Media Player Classic Homecinema (version 1.1.796.0) for playing all of the video files.

Heat and Noise
External temperatures on the NB205 are what I consider to be “lap friendly” over most of the netbook’s surface. The areas near the GPU, RAM, hard drive, and Wi-Fi card showed up as obvious heat spikes, but nothing that was too hot to handle. Temperature readings taken from the outside of the plastic chassis remained mostly in the 80s and 90s.

Below are images indicating the temperature readings (listed in degrees Fahrenheit) taken inside our office where the ambient temperature was 74 degrees Fahrenheit.

The cooling fan inside the mini NB205 is louder than we like to hear from a netbook. Whenever the CPU is under stress (such as when watching a YouTube video) the cooling fan kicks on and sounds like a weak hair dryer. It’s loud enough to be moderately annoying in a quiet classroom or office. Considering the abundant air vents built into the NB205, I’m a little surprised the cooling fan has to work so hard.

Battery
The 6-cell lithium-ion battery included with the NB205 has a 5800 mAh rating and delivers excellent battery life for a netbook. Toshiba promises 9 hours of battery life, but we never managed to get quite that much out of a fully charged battery. In our test with the screen brightness set to 70%, wireless active, and XP set to the laptop/portable power profile the system stayed on for 7 hours and 38 minutes of constant use. This isn’t as high as some of the latest Asus Eee PC netbooks, but the Toshiba NB205 should have more than enough juice to get you through a full day of web browsing and email.

Conclusion
The new Toshiba mini NB205 is an attractive netbook that offers a fantastic touchpad, large keyboard, and easy access for upgrades. The battery life of the NB205 is among the best in class and should get you through a full day at school or the office. At a price of just $400 this might be a popular netbook for the back-to-school season.

Still, despite these nice features, it’s hard to overlook the flex and sound of weak plastics, the extremely flexible keyboard, and the weak speakers. Most netbooks have surprisingly firm keyboards, so we’re more than a little disappointed that the keyboard on the NB205 practically “bounces” while you type on it. Most netbooks don’t have particularly great speakers, but listening to music or online videos wasn’t fun on the NB205. If you’re looking for a good netbook for $400 or less the Toshiba mini NB205 deserves a close look, but there are many alternatives to consider in this price range.

Pros:

• Easy access for upgrades
• Large touchpad
• Good battery life

Cons:

• Weak plastic construction
• Severe keyboard flex
• Unimpressive speakers