HP Mini 311 Ion-Based Netbook Review
Battery Performance
HP's Mini 311 is a great mix of portability and power, in our opinion. The Atom N270 enables great the battery life, while the Ion GPU enables it to be more powerful than the average netbook. That said, this netbook certainly won't last as long as some (Asus' Eee PC 1000HE comes to mind), but if ~4 hours on a single charge is generally plenty for you, we'd say you'll appreciate having the Ion GPU onboard.
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Even if ~4 hours isn't enough, at least HP lets you buy extra batteries so that you can have a spare around if need be. We found that our test rig could go for just over 4 hours under "real world" testing, with Wi-Fi enabled, the display always on at 70% brightness and a simulated round of basic tasks humming in the background. If you flip the wireless options off and keep the display at 10%, you'll obviously see an even better result.
For a 6-cell battery in an 11.6" machine with a relatively substantial GPU, the 262 minutes of life isn't half bad. In fact, we were generally satisfied with the result, particularly when you consider that over 5 hours is totally within reason if you're careful with your usage patterns and screen brightness.
