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HP mini 311: viable macbook air alternative?

clyde2801

clyde2801

macrumors 601
Original poster
Mar 6, 2008
4,365
54
In the land of no hills and red dirt.
Was checking out the specs on the first ion netbook to hit the market, the hp mini 311. Base configuration is the standard n270 atom chip, 1 gig of ram, windows xp and 160 gig hard drive, but it can take up to 3 gigs of ddr3 ram, run windows 7 adequately, and has nvidia 9400 graphics.

Comes standard with a 6 cell battery for extended battery life, hd screen, hdmi output and usable keyboard. Pictures of it don't look too bad.

Folks in the osx86 community have reported that they've gotten it to run os x.

At a starting price of $399, I'm tempted. I'm also wondering how close this is to the 12" ibook/powerbook form factor that I've always loved.

I'd like to seek the consensus of the collective on this one. Thanks.
 
But haven't you heard that Apple might disable support for Intel's Atom processor when 10.6.2 comes out to prevent people from creating a Hackintosh? I think you should wait and see to be sure but even if they don't disable support for Intel's Atom, they still might some time in the future.
 
Now TSE's habit of repeatedly starting new threads on this topic when no one responds to the old one is not the act to follow. :p

I still think the biggest issue is that the Ion won't help much with Flash. Flash performance of all things is probably the most in need of improvement on netbooks. Unless you play games, I guess. Full screen non-flash video (e.g. in VLC) is actually not half bad even on the Celeron/GMA netbooks.

Out of curiosity, do you not consider the 13" MBP to be close enough to the good old 12" form factor? It actually weighs less than either of the 12" notebooks did.
 
The 6cell will annoy you.
Its a good alternative and much cheaper considering it does use the ION chipset.

I say go on with your bad-self and get one. If Aero runs decent on it using the 9400 chipset (ION; which MacBook Air uses) then it'll run Flash sites, Spaces, and OpenCL decently. Don't expect support though for when it doesn't work.

Also consider the MacBook in place of the "MB-Air". A lot cheaper, supported by Apple and will retain its resale value 1yr from now when you decide to upgrade.
 
mkrishnan said:
Now TSE's habit of repeatedly starting new threads on this topic when no one responds to the old one is not the act to follow. :p

I still think the biggest issue is that the Ion won't help much with Flash. Flash performance of all things is probably the most in need of improvement on netbooks. Unless you play games, I guess. Full screen non-flash video (e.g. in VLC) is actually not half bad even on the Celeron/GMA netbooks.

Out of curiosity, do you not consider the 13" MBP to be close enough to the good old 12" form factor? It actually weighs less than either of the 12" notebooks did.
Click to expand...

1. Lack of atom support previously reported is now reported as erroneous.

2. New version of flash is supposed to support atom chipset.

3. Typing on aluminum macbook now. Close, but not quite same as 12".
 
clyde2801 said:
1. Lack of atom support previously reported is now reported as erroneous.

2. New version of flash is supposed to support atom chipset.

3. Typing on aluminum macbook now. Close, but not quite same as 12".
Click to expand...

1) I never said anything about Atom support for OS X. :p

2) I'm not sure I understand this... Flash doesn't really benefit from acceleration by any GPU on any platform, as far as I know. I know that Adobe and GPU makers like Nvidia are working on it, but have they promised it will be retroactive? If they create a new Flash technology that can be hardware accelerated, will it actually work for all the stuff on Hulu, etc?

3) Fair enough. :p

I still want a new netbook after the dust clears and they've been running Win7 for a while. Don't get me wrong.
 
Ah, good, there's a Mini 311 thread about this. I was considering getting one for my girlfriend, but I'm in Japan, and they don't seem to be available. All I can find is the dm-1 (http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/aa/en/ho/WF06b/321957-321957-3329744-64354-64354-4011355-4043625.html) which seems to have the same body but different specs: Celeron DualCore SU2300 (1.2 GHz) and Intel GMA 4500MHD. Not only that, but it's more expensive. I can't figure this out at all. Should that computer really be more expensive than the Ion-based netbook with an Atom N270 (1.60GHz)?

The Mini 110 series is available in Japan, but not the 311. Any insights? :confused:
 
I am actually typing this on my HP 311.

I bought it mainly because I was tired of waiting for apple to release a computer at this size. It is actually smaller than the 12 PB back in the days.

So far I am really happy with it, I installed another GB of ram so I now have 2, will upgrade to 3 when I have money for a new 2GB stick But had a 1GB lying around. I have installed Windows 7 on it and it runs very smooth. The only thing you have to be aware of is that a few programs like IE8 is way to demanding without me knowing why.

I quickly installed Opera for webbrowsing and the thing flies. I can also play youtube videos at normal and hq the only thing that doesnt work satisfactory is the flash hd-movies. But as someone said this will be resolved with the introduktion of flash 10.1. They also said it will make the player able to play the HD content already availybal when it is released.

It also play 1080P content whitout a hitch as long as the player support use of hardware acceleration. at least it worked wonders out of rattatoui 1080p on hdmi to my projector in windows mediaplayer. Vlc and quicktime 7 however were another story.

I will install OS X on it eventually, just want to wait for them to fix the wireless card first.

When it comes to batterylife I am really realy impressed. I have had over 5 hours wireless surfing watching yourtubemovies and stuff and talking on msn/aim. this is while the brightness have been turned all the way up. I also played 2.5 hours of world of warcraft. I dont remember how much battery there was befor I started to play but it was not full and after that 2.5 hours it was not empty, this was however not with full brightness.

It is not a computer fit for raiding in wow but it performs more than well enough for 5 man dungeons.

I could not be more satisfied than I am
 
He means he's waiting for the hp mini/osx86 enthusiasts to work out the wi-fi driver problem.

Someone's reported that they've solved the problem, but haven't clearly explained how they did it. So far, no one's posted a comprehensive, easy to follow noob guide on the process for the 311.

OTOH, my sam's club has started selling the dell mini 10v with 6 cell battery for three and a quarter. There is a good guide posted recently on engadget or gizmodo, but this netbook still has the gma 950 graphics.

I think I'm going to wait until Black Friday to see if there's a sale and if someone's posted a noob guide by then.
 
While my intention is not to hijack the thread, I'm still wondering if someone can tell me if I can expect similar things out of the Mini 311 and the dm1. I found this description of the differences (the actual price is lower than cited there, so it's not that big of an issue), but I'm not really well versed in the better-processor vs. integrated-graphics area. Is there any chance this would run OSX well?
 
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