The HP Mini 311 lets in a criterion set of associations for a $399 Netbook (entry-level models under $300 perhaps tempted to drop one of the USB ports or HDMI output). Still, extras such as 802.11n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth will price extra. Although not as customizable as Dell’s Netbook line, there are alternatives for the CPU, networking, and mobile broadband.

At tasks which are not graphics-intensive, the Intel Atom N280 CPU executed as anticipated, approximately matching other Netbooks. As all of the time, we conceive Atom-powered systems to be fine for basic tasks such as Web surfing, email, and office tasks, and even basic Photoshop work–as long as your expectations are kept modest.

Putting the Nvidia Ion to the test, we did the unthinkable, loading a handful of fully fledged PC games on a Netbook. Most Netbooks can hardly deal with occasional games such as Plants vs. Zombies, to say nothing of full 3D graphics. In spite of the hype, this is definitely not gonna be your main PC gaming rig, however Unreal Tournament still managed to get 23.2 frames per second at 800×600, which is borderline acceptable. Tweaking the settings could likely squeeze a bit more out of that game. We also installed Call of Duty 4, and during a particularly intensive firefight sequence, we ran into some stuttering at the same 800×600 resolution, but overall found it to be fairly playable (though your definition of playable may alter).

The main triumph for Netbooks is still to be useful all-round devices, and as the Nvidia Ion parcels much of its DNA with the GeForce 9400 graphics found in the 13-inch MacBook (which is fabulous for a merged graphics solution), the real bottleneck to accomplishing this aim is the 1GB of RAM and the single-core Atom CPU. We would be very concerned in seeing how the same gaming tests run under Windows 7 with double the RAM.

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