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Win an HP Mini 311 for the Holidays from LAPTOP Mag is a post by Xavier Lanier from Notebooks.com.

The Mini 311 has an Intel Atom processor, earning it a ‘netbook’ moniker. This product is one example of how the line between netbooks and notebooks are continuing to blur. You can use the Mini 311 for a lot more than just web browsing, but it still isn’t speedy enough to keep up with systems equipped with more robust processors.

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.

NVIDIA ION graphics also speeds up video transcoding. In this demo we moved a video file from each of the netbooks onto a Sony Walkman device. The NVIDIA ION equipped netbook performed the task over five times faster than the netbook with integrated graphics.

The Mini 311 comes with a video player from Arcsoft that upscales standard-def content. In this demo you can see more detail in the actor’s face and color is improved.

As you can see in the above video, HP Mini 311 excels compared to netbooks without dedicated graphics. However, if you push around a lot of video clips or are a gaming enthusiast this won’t suffice as your primary notebook. The Intel Atom processor is fine for basic tasks, but it’s not speedy enough to play Flash videos from Hulu full screen.

The Mini 311 does address a lot of the common complaints about smaller netbooks and is definitely worth a look.

HP Mini 311: NVIDIA ION Makes Gaming Possible on a Netbook is a post by Xavier Lanier from Notebooks.com.

The Mini 311 stretches the definition of “netbook.”Its 11.6″ display has a resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels, giving users more real estate to enjoy digital content compared to the 1024 x 576 resolution that is standard on the Mini 110 and many other netbooks. It comes standard with 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive and 1.6Ghz Intel Atom processor.

I got to take a look at the Mini 311 a couple of weeks ago and shot the following video.

The Mini 311 will start at $399, which is pretty reasonable considering it comes with NVIDIA ION Graphics. While I haven’t had a chance to play high-def video or video games on the Mini 311, NVIDIA ION reference designs do allow users to play popular games at low settings. The Mini 311 has an HDMI port, which can be used for displaying content on an external monitor or HDTV.

The Mini 311 has a six-cell battery that fits neatly within the computer’s silhouette. This is a much better design than the six-cell battery that extends beneath the Mini 110.

The Mini 311 is the first HP netbook with mouse buttons that are in the right place. The Mini 110′s mouse buttons are placed to the side of the trackpad, which takes some time to get used to.

The HP Mini 311 is significantly larger than the Mini 110. As you can see, the Mini 311 has a silver keyboard, trackpad and palmrest area. The Mini 110′s keyboard is color-matched to the rest of the netbook. You can see the difference in the mouse button layout in this photo.

Here are some photos of the Mini 311 that HP sent over:

HP Mini 311 Introduced (Video, Specs and Pricing) is a post by Xavier Lanier from Notebooks.com.