HP Mini 311 vs. ASUS EEE PC 1201N

lamettrie

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I know the ASUS's processor is dual core, but is it better than the N280 (1.66ghz, 667mhz FSB)?

Do the 1201N's ION graphics versus the 311's ION LE graphics make a difference (especially in terms of gaming)?

What about a 311 with 3gb of RAM versus a 1201N with 2gb of RAM?
 
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How about if the purpose is for Multi-tasking different windows, HD video stream (hulu), transfering data, and ocassionally playing games?

Games; Half-Life Orange Box, Counter-Strike Source, Call of Duty 4

BTW, the hp mini 311 has 3 gb DDR3 ram not DDR2, would the dual-core make a better option for this instance. (Gaming will be minimal)
 
Unfortunately, there is no way you could play those games on any ion platform. COD4 is just playable on my laptop with a radeon HD3200 and AMD Athlon 64x2 1.9GHz (QL-60). And this is on lowest settings.
If you want to use it as a general purpose computer and to play occasional games like that, A "Netbook" is not for you. You're looking at minimum in the range of a laptop between $700-800 if you want to keep costs low and don't mind low settings.
You didn't mention portability at all so my best recommendation would be a low-cost desktop. Radeon 4670, AMD dual core, 2-4 GB of ram.
 
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I have seen a handful of reviews and user experiences for the Asus 1201n, and it is able to play games like Portal, Half Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Call of Duty 4, Assassin's Creed, Burnout Paradise, Street Fighter 4, Left 4 Dead, Torchlight, WOW, etc with very reasonable frame rates (20-30 in some cases, 15-20 in others) at lowest settings. So, saying that there is no way you could play those games is far from true. One user just found out how to overclock the Atom 330 (in the 1201n) up to 1.85GHz as well, which should smooth out the gameplay even further. Is it going to run games at full speed all of the time? No. But these games should all be reasonably playable at lowest settings, especially with the overclock.

People shouldn't buy either of these netbooks with the sole purpose of playing games, but it is a nice surprise to be able to run some decently new games at playable framerates. The 1201n will perform better than the 311 though in most cases for gaming, especially if the game can handle 2 cores.
 
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I have a similar Asus N10J 10" netbook with Atom 270 (single core 1.6Ghz) and NVidia GS 9300m and O/Ced to 1.8Ghz I can play COD4 at low-medium settings and NHL 09 at highest settings no problems. I've heard that MW2 plays fine on the N10J as well. The dual core will probably help things even more for the games, the graphics card is ok but the CPU has always been the bottleneck for this computer. There are a few games that won't run but I have an XBox 360 at home anyway, being able to game on my Netbook is merely a bonus.

My N10J scored 1515 at stock 1.6Ghz and 1691 with CPU O/Ced to 1.8Ghz. I've seen scores in the 2000s with CPU O/Ced to 2.0Ghz and memory and video card O/Ced as well. My N10J can only O/C to 1.9Ghz, above that my system gets unstable. :(

MW2 on Asus N10J:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XstimSRYvOM

List of games that can play N10J, some of the games that are listed in red may be able to run on the 1201n:
http://www.n10user.com/viewtopic.php?id=1280
 
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I must disagree with you. I bought my 1201N about 2 weeks ago; and, after a little tweaking, it is a very capable little system. I am able to play games at native res on medium settings and get a steady 35 FPS, certainly not enough to make anyone want to give up their gaming rig, but it is enough to game on the go. I compared this to my dad's desktop (Athlon 3200+ / Radeon HD3200) and the 1201N easily gets twice the FPS.

The two setting changes that made the biggest impact were:
- AsRock OC Tuner - Without adjusting any voltages or memory timings, I was able to obtain a stable 1.88GHz OC. This went a long way to helping alleviate the CPU bottleneck present in all Atom systems.
- Threaded Optimization - Found in the nVidia Control Panel under Manage 3D Settings, I changed this from "Auto" to "On" and noticed a significant performance boost in games. Prior to changing this, most games were only making use of one thread on the CPU; but, setting this forces the system to spread out the workload whenever possible, as opposed to only when it thinks it needs to, and really allows the Atom 330 to shine.

As compared to the HP Mini 311, the 1201N seems to get similar max FPS; but, there are fewer, and less noticeable, drops in FPS. As far as web browsing, word processing, email, and other normal daily used apps, I have not noticed much difference in speed from my desktop, while I have read several complaints from 311 users on forums. Even with the tweaks, I still get over 4 hours of normal use out of a full charge or about 2.5 hours of gaming. That is the one area that the 311 really out shines the 1201N, the 311 gets about 6 hours normal use and 4 hours gaming.

The Atom/ION combination might not be the strongest option out there right now, some CULV's are combining a GeForce G210M with a low power CPU and are showing some impressive numbers; but, these systems are a few hundred dollars more than the 1201N. For under $500, I certainly can't complain. The 311 with N270 can be purchased cheaper, but can't compete with the 1201N; and, the 311 with N280 costs more with the only true claim to glory being extra battery life over the 1201N. In my opinion, Asus has produced another winner, the 1201N has an excellent balance between performance, battery life, and cost.
 

Pro Llama

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I have a MSI Wind that I have played games on as a test. I had an old hard drive with postal 2 and never winter knights on it so I connected it through a usb port. Postal 2 had no problems running just took a little longer to load (external hard drive). Never winter knights also ran pretty smooth but I did notice it start to glitch when I zoomed out and there was a lot going on. Yes these are both old game, but a netbook can run them.
 

wiz

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Yeah, I'm afraid this guy is just plain wrong. For starters the ATi HD3200 is a VERY low end processor, the Ion is almost three times as fast (see notebookcheck.net for full specs on both cards). The Asus is the fastest 12" notebook currently available, only beaten (and well beaten) by the new Alienware M11x which is much heavier and twice the price. You only have to seach youtube for "Asus 1201n" and you'll find plenty of video demonstrations of it running lots of recent games very well. Nothing like as well as the M11x but well enough. In fact there are only a couple of games that it won't run if you reduce the graphics options a bit.

 
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Yeah enzo is completely wrong, I ordered this netbook to pretty much replace my desktop for a few reasons.

The first reason is that I have a older pc and this has better specs then it does (I play wow and I raid 25man with 1-3FPS on boss fights while doing the top 2 most dmg so this will help my performance - I have seen this computer do 25man raiding and it does a lot better then mine does)

Second is the price of it and I purchased one for $400 instead of $500. I simply don't have the money for anything more then that.

Third reason being it has a nice size to it, not too small (like the 8-10" ones) and not too large. It will be nice to bring my computer other places if I like.

Forth because I have always wanted a netbook and this one fits the bill for what I want to do with one from the nice size to the decent gaming specs!

Anyone saying its not made for gaming (obviously not hard core gaming) is a little off because this thing has a decent GPU and CPU and they are also advertised as being able to handle games.

Point is that if you want a netbook that's not too small and want to game on it - you wont find a better one around at the moment.
 

RogueTrader

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Don't expect to play any recent titles on it. Games like Quake, Half life, Serious Sam, the older NFS series play very well and are still a lot of fun. But the recent titles are very choppy. I get an average of 15 fps in Far Cry 2, everything set on low and 1280 x 720. I have 4GB of ram (only 3 visible with 32bit OS)

I overclocked it for a while and I did get slightly better performance, but the laptop got very hot. Way too hot to put it on my lap. And the performance increase was maybe 16 fps average instead of 15 fps.

So, yes, you 'can' play games on it. But don't expect too much from it...